Time, time, time…

Last night, “Morgan Freeman’s Through the Wormhole”, on the Science Channel really got me thinking. It’s an excellent show for science nerds like me. I am fascinated by physics and quantum math and all that stuff. I can’t actually do any of those complex calculations. Hell, I don’t even know how to use a slide rule and calculus; you might as well be speaking Greek in French to a deaf mute in space. At least the way they present it all on the show makes sense to me.  

This particular episode of the show was about time. What is time specifically? Is time a perception of the human mind or a real force in the universe? Is time like Newton thought, that it’s always there, beating in the background of space or is it like Einstein thought and time is actually a fourth dimension? Big sciency questions that even the best minds are still trying to piece together. There’s so much about it we don’t know.

What I know about time on a personal level is that it’s short. And it’s getting shorter. Time for humans is finite. In fact, we seem to be programmed to be acutely aware of the passage of time and the rapidity it tends to achieve.

When I was a small boy in church, I felt like it was the longest hour in the world. It just went on and on and it really felt like a four hour ordeal. As I got older, I came to realize that it was only an hour and not very long at all, now (if I go to church) it feels like 15 minutes had passed instead of an hour. In fact, in the mornings before work my time seems to zoom by like a rocket. Eight minutes will vanish as I try to brush my teeth and comb my hair and get out the door to make it to the train on time. If I’m just getting ready for a casual night out, that same eight minutes is an eternity.  Time, then, is relative, it would seem. Relative to how important it is to us, personally.

There are a lot of moments in my life that I wished were longer and certainly some that I wish were a lot shorter. But I don’t think time, real time, actually cares. It’s not something that could care.  As one scientist said, Time is just the universe’s way of keeping everything from happening all at once.

All in all, I suppose all we can do is try to make the best of the time we do have, be it a pulse emanating from the center of the galaxy or a construct of our own minds.

Wow, that was one strong cup of coffee this morning. Zooooom.