The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics

I think most important was my prevailing feeling of a stronger connection between moments perceived as being separated by time than between moments believed to be connected by time. What I am unclear about, however, is what causes this feeling of connection. Can there be a relationship between these moments? Not in the sense of a linear connection, but rather a feeling of empathy between them. To a certain extent, I think there is a subconscious awareness that there are these other moments occurring simultaneously and that there can be an acknowledgement between moments that are connected by subject matter.

If all moments are simultaneous, I am concurrently hearing the Christopher Robin poem being read, watching the Prince and Princess of Wales on the balcony, and standing in front of the Palace myself. My conscious mind feeds them to me in a linear sequence strung out with a bunch of other moments in an illusion of a continuous flow of action. While I am being read to, however, my subconscious is aware that I really am in front of Buckingham Palace and so a sense of really being there is brought to the Christopher Robin reading or to the Royal Wedding viewing.

This awareness that this other moment is occurring out there right now has struck me at many times. Sometimes it’s when I’m reading a book, other times I’m walking down the street listening to music. Always, however, there is the feeling that I am somewhat connected to that other moment and I can almost feel there is the chance of stepping out of this moment and into another. It is the knowledge that there is another possibility to this moment.

To a certain extent, I often feel as if we are moving towards a timeless existence. The increasing usage of the computer by people on an everyday basis is one factor heading us in this direction. At any moment, without any thought to time, we can shop on our computers, chat, read newspapers, research, do our banking, etc. Also, more and more we are creating environments in which timelessness is the objectivity. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the twentieth-century environments of the department store, the amusement park and the casino. The goal is one dream-like moment, where there is no beginning and no end—no time.

Reading these comments again three months after they came, they strike me as often very close to my position. Incidentally, I address the original Gretchen’s questions (Glaubst du an Gott? Wie halt’s du es mit der Religion?) in the Epilogue.

Note for physicists (p. 18): Space plays two roles in Newtonian physics: it binds its contents together to form the plurality within the unity mentioned in this section (the separations between N objects in Euclidean space are constrained by both inequalities and algebraic relations, which give expression to this unity) and if defines positions at non-coincident times. In the type of physics I am advocating, only the first property is used, as will become clear in Part 3.

In relativity theory, the construction of ‘three-dimensional’ snapshots from two-dimensional photographs is greatly (but not insuperably) complicated by the fact that light travels at finite speed, so that objects are no longer where they seem to be. Readers familiar with relativity theory and concerned that my concept of a Now seems very non-relativistic are asked to defer judgment until Part 3. Einstein did not abolish Nows, he simply made them relative.

Laws and Initial Conditions (p. 22) Although Newton’s and Einstein’s laws work equally well in both time directions, there is one known phenomenon in quantum physics that seems to determine a direction of time at a truly fundamental level. It is observed in the decay of particles called kaons. Paul Davies discusses this phenomenon in some detail in his About Time. Most authors are agreed that this phenomenon does not seem capable of explaining the pronounced directionality of temporal processes, which is one of my main concerns in this book, but it is probably very important in other respects and may provide evidence that time really does exist as an autonomous governing factor in the universe. However, the evidence that it defines a direction in time is indirect, being based on something called the TCP theorem. Although this is most important in modern physics, what form if any it will take in the as yet non-existent theory of quantum gravity is not at all clear.

CHAPTER 2: TIME CAPSULES

The Physical World and Consciousness (1) (p. 26) There is a clear and detailed account of Boltzmann’s ideas in Huw Price’s book listed in Further Reading.