Time is one of those most primeval, complex, relative, abstract, subjective concepts and in some strange way known by all of us in some form. It is present before us, pardon the redundancy, all the time and it is complicated even to begin to talk about it.
At the origin of everything is the origin of time and I cannot stop asking: if before time, would there be time? In the ontological discussion of time, in the beginning, was everything empty? As if a stopwatch at zero were ready to begin running, waiting for that spark of energy that gave origin to the original movement of the universe. The link seems almost natural, time and energy go together or are they the same thing?
For our earthly scope we think of time in seconds, minutes and hours. The International System of Measures uses the ephemeris second as the basis of the measurement of time in the world and it is equivalent to one in 86,400 seconds that make up a solar day.
Regardless of the society, time has been measured —perhaps with less precision— in the seasons, position of the sun, lunar phases and other mechanisms.
But returning to our analysis, now in more cosmological terms, time and energy are intimately related —it even makes one want to say that they can be the same thing. Some years ago, scientists realized that the universe does not expand at a constant speed, but rather accelerates. For a body to accelerate it requires additional energy to the initial energy. What gives energy to the universe?
One of the most revolutionary discoveries of Galileo Galilei, between 1589 and 1592, was that, regardless of their mass and without resistance, objects fall with the same acceleration product of the force of gravity that gives speed to bodies. That is, that gravity acts as the source of acceleration over bodies.
One hypothesis is that what accelerates the expansion of the universe is something called dark energy, of which we will speak next week, and which is very related to time. Following the postulates of the second Law of Thermodynamics, while time advances the amount of disorder in the universe will increase; given that disorder will increase after something happens, that means, then, that time travels in only one direction.
This is known as the arrow of time and is the basis of the theory that explains that time travel is possible as a jump forward, but never backward. Considering these restrictions, and without entering the field of quantum physics or wormholes, the invention of a time machine would not mean that we could travel to the past, as in “Back to the Future”; but it would be possible to jump in time forward as in “Planet of the Apes.”
Space, and time, run out; however, we will continue next week with these reflections on the nexus of energy and time, exploring the concept of dark energy, and also that of dark matter, which makes up close to 70% of the total energy of the observable universe.
Undoubtedly, we know only the tip of the iceberg of energy in the universe.
This article was originally published by Business Insider México.
Date: January 26, 2021
Original Link: https://businessinsider.mx/tiempo-energia-opinion-energia-circular-paul-alejandro-sanchez/ [offline]
Archived Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20240714005655/https://businessinsider.mx/tiempo-energia-opinion-energia-circular-paul-alejandro-sanchez/ [Archived]