The Grand Illusion | Jim Holt
Putting it another way: There is a quantity, usually written as t, which appears in our fundamental description of how change takes place in the physical world. It is also what people are talking about when they ask, “What time is it?” That is what time is. Time is what clocks measure, and everything that changes is a clock.
Frank Wilczek • Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality
Quantum physics tells us that no matter how thorough our observation of the present, the (unobserved) past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities. The universe, according to quantum physics, has no single past, or history. The fact that the past takes no definite form means that observations you make on a sys
... See moreLeonard Mlodinow • The Grand Design
- "“How do you pass the time?” suggests the basic model of existence, in which living a life is seen on the one hand as traversing an unspecified span of time—marked out in years—and on the other, as moving through the natural cycle of hours, from dawn to dusk. Time, then, is understood to be a medium one negotiates. And in this respect: how do I p... See more
Lapham's Quarterly • Strange Days | Sven Birkerts
One witty but unserious answer often has been misattributed to Einstein, though it originates from the science-fiction writer Ray Cummings: “Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.” Another pithy response, which at first may sound no more serious, is that “time is what clocks measure.” Yet that, I believe, is the germ of the correc
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