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Time, Time, There is no Time.

I often wonder about time and what it really means. Some people think you can travel through time, as if it has some corporeal properties. I don't think this is so.

First off, all of our time measurements are based upon physical phenomena. A second of time is an arc second of planet movement. This is the equivalent of the Earth moving 1 arc second through it revolution about its axis. A year, keeping with the physical analogies, is just one revolution about the Sun. The Earth also moves about 139 miles per second through Space. Its movement in the galaxy is rotational, so those 139 miles are along a curved path. So really the Earth follows a curly path through Space as it travels through time.

Why is this important, you ask? Well, imagine that you can travel through time, like HG Wells would like you to think. Say you go back in time 1 second. In 1 second, the Earth has moved 139 miles from its original location, and it has moved 1 arc second about its axis. Where would you be?

If you are to travel backwards, or forwards, through time, then you have to also travel through space. Otherwise, if you keep your physical location constant and you change your time location, then you are lost in space. Lost 139 miles away from the Earth, in space, that is.

What if there is no time. If the Earth didn't move, would we still have time? Would humans have devised time keeping if the heavens were static and the Sun shone always? How would we measure time in such an environment? It would be likely that we'd measure time in terms of how long it took the King to walk a meter, or something like that. Yet, still, we're creating time to describe physical movement. What if there simply is no such thing as time.

When you lay in bed tonight, try to deprogram yourself from considering time as something real. Try to imagine yourself living in a timeless reality. You can do it. You did it for the first couple of years of your life. Nobody is born with the notion of time as we know it. We are programmed with the notion of schedule and when to sleep, but not time.

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