After alot of begging, I pushed a friend of mine to take the time to write his theory on how time flows backward.
Time is too slow for those who wait,
too swift for those who fear,
too long for those who grieve,
too short for those who rejoice,
but for those who love time is eternity.
-- Henry Van Dyke, Poet 1852-1933
While for the poet, time is closely related and connected to emotions and judgements, for the physicist time is closely related to existence, and
interestingly non-existence. Albert Einstein, one of the seminal thinkers at the time of the “origin” (in an article about time I will put all my
lingual assumptions about time in quotes) of “modern”, quantum physics said, “Space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into
mere shadows…”
In a search for universal (and even species) “origins”, scientists have studied and modeled the “beginnings” and have worked very close to
“fractions of a second” “after” the singularity referred to as The Big Bang.
This orientation makes sense only because of a trick of our consciousness. As the mathematics of “modern” physics suggests we are able to
remember the “past” even if imperfectly. We certainly seem to have access to the “past” in a way we do not have access to the “future.”
It’s much more rare for people to have even generally incomplete glimpses into the “future” (this would be cases of precognition, reflecting
back via déjà vu, or even simple forcasting).
Despite this experiential difference, there is no mathematical reason to have time prediction/access limited. In the probability equations, even in
the non-Quantum, Newtonian equations, there was no limitation to having time be a positive number or the flow of time be unidirectional.
I propose a potential reason that is bold and shocking and is based on an equally bold proposition.
1) Time does not flow forward it in fact flows “backward” or in all directions.
2) Our perception of time and the “reason” humans exist and the universe does is because it must as a result of the experiments scientists have
done in our future.
When I was getting my degree in “modern” physics, I was (by the way was is really a time referencing word) drawn to the inner search of the atom
and it’s component parts. When we broke though the proton, neutron, and even into the electron we found that these objects were not so much
comprised of specific things as of possible things based on the rules of conservation. It’s not always the same composition each time, but it
always follows the rules.
So scientists would collide subatomic particles and take “snap shots” of what’s going on. By exposing things to fields, they were able to make
determinations about charge and mass.
So take one of these particles, the Boson. The Boson would be discovered and experiments run. Like all good experiments they started with a
hypothesis and the hypothesis was supported or not by the results.
One guess made is what the mass of the Boson would be. Indeed, the experiment was a success and the measurement of the mass of the Boson was found,
fit the model within error, and supported the way the world worked based on tried and seemingly true principles of physics.
Now, upon further investigation, something came up. “Hmm, what about this other law of physics,” thought a physicist. “That result sets the
universe in a tail spin. It really has to be different, in fact, the mass should be this much less and I suspect there’s an entirely different
particle with the difference and with opposite spin angular momentum.”
Naturally I’m oversimplifying; however, this is exactly what happened. “Time and time again”, the mass of the Boson changed. “Time and time
again” new particles (the first time it was the pion) appeared.
What is truly beautiful, these refinements and alterations happened in what I call the gap. The gap is the central limit of uncertainity. In other
words, the precision of the instruaments used to measure in the case of most of the experiments and ultimately based on the Heisenberg uncertainty
limit.
The interesting question to ask is…did the mass of the Boson change? Or was it methodological and/or uncertainly error? Are the “laws” of
physics violable but only until recognized? I propose that everything did indeed change and that the change was caused, even backward, because of
the experiment. But our perception of the event is linear forward.
I further suggest, that we are here on this planet and the universe itself I is here because of experiments being conducted by scientists in our
“future.”
Most recently, I’ve come to believe that those scientists have done experiments to prevent us from seeing forward in our “memories” as we do
back into our “memories.”
I suspect, the limitation is necessary for us to conduct the right experiments along the way. Much like, we can reflect on our past to select
different choices for the “future” bringing about a specific and unique reality.
Some ask how can time be running “backwards” or then what “stated” the future… However, those questions again ignore that the wave
functions of quantum physics don’t need to reference a before or after. It needs only reference a change.
Further, it confuses something which is infinite but bounded and something which is infinite, bounded and expanding.
Time is doing that.
In fact, our early example of getting close and closer to the proposed singularity called the Big Bang is an example of bounded infinity. Since
there’s no meaningful “before” the big bang, there can be no meaningful message about the “moment” of it. Why? Because again, the
equations speak more to a change as time flows. Since there’s no way to get “before” it message about it is limited.
Furthermore, we can keep getting closer, closer, closer, but we’re always still outside. Sort of the same way we really can’t touch another
object. We can get closer and closer and eventually force fields will prevent us from getting any closer without exerting more work (which the fields
will then exert more and so on).
To close my post which opens this discussion, I’d like to again quote Einstein, “Time and space are modes by which we think not conditions in
which we live.”
So let’s get some valuable thinking going about the nature of time. The real advantage is, we may just do the experiments which will allow us to
have had perfect recollection of the future and make some of the best choices.
So you can tell me what you think. Im not so sure what I think, we have gone around and around with this.