Time is full of surprises. The deeper you dig, the stranger it seems.
Take the classical image of time as a mighty flowing river, bearing us
inexorably along. It may come as a surprise to discover that time doesn鈥檛
actually flow at all. It does point in a definite direction, though, and the
origin of time鈥檚 arrow can be traced back to the big bang itself
(鈥淭ime鈥檚 arrow鈥�, p 34).
Another popular notion is that time is just one dimension, which when added
to the three dimensions of space produces the world we see around us. But some
physicists are wondering if there鈥檚 another time dimension out there, just
waiting to be unleashed and play havoc with notions of past and future
(鈥淗ere comes hypertime鈥�, p 40).
Then again, we all know that a second is just a useful way of dividing up an
Earth day. Wrong. The length of a second nowadays has nothing at all to do with
the rotation of the Earth, and everything to do with the strange vibrations of
atoms
(鈥淚n the blink of an atom鈥�, p 46).
The extraordinary techniques
that have just won their practitioners the Nobel Prize for Physics have helped
to measure time down to the million billionth of these new seconds.
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And did you know that super-accurate time pulses emanating from labs around
the world are used to synchronise everything from telephone networks to the flow
of electricity? If a group of daring terrorists managed to hijack the pulses,
it鈥檚 not just clocks that would stop
(鈥淐ountdown to chaos鈥�, p 42).
Amid all this strangeness, though, there is one popular notion about time
that seems to stand up to investigation. Time really does go faster when you鈥檙e
having fun鈥攁nd vice versa
(鈥淲hen a second lasts forever鈥�, p 52).
But you may be surprised to discover how exactly the brain pulls off this
feat.
It鈥檚 about time someone got to grips with the true strangeness of time. If
you want to know more, spare a few moments, and read on . . .