Ostensible Amorist

Credits to the artist

Credits to the Artist

Image link: https://pin.it/1Jl6QwV

Spacetime is artfully simple. If I ask you to tell me where you are now? you would simply say the name, of any particular city or place or share your location with me(hypothetically), now what information does that location have? Coordinates of yours or that particular place you mentioned: latitude, longitude, and altitude obviously. But the question included "now" and "now" represents time, so your location that you shared with me won't be much of use if it doesn't have information regarding time so to find you I need four components or co-ordinates latitude, longitude, altitude, and time namely x, y, z & t.To show the cause of our reality we need spacetime. So till now, we know Spacetime is a mathematical model which melds three dimensions with time into a single flexible four-dimensional manifold. As the name itself suggests it is a concept of space and time taken together into a single string.

Hermann Minkowski, one of Albert Einstein's teachers. In 1907 as an explanation of the Theory of Relativity and gave the concept of spacetime and it is also considered Minkowski's spacetime. It is often pictured as a two-dimensional Light-cone diagram, which shows a relationship between x, y, z, and t. All of the physical reality is contained in the cone. Minkowski made an interesting statement which says ''Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality". and that is Spacetime. Lightcone diagram is contained with the concept of worldline which is the path an object traces in spacetime.

Credits to the artist.

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Arrow of Time : Directionality of Time

Time is defined as a progression of events from past to present to future. Time is something that we cannot touch but only can measure its passage. Emphasizing more on it, Relativity of time says time is just as it is, we can feel the flow of time due to our consciousness. Time is used to describe any object in a 3D space and is an essential entity for the existence of the object which suggests its reality due to the same reason it is considered as 4th dimension.

As we are well aware that Time is a sequence of events and change in motion which are irreversible we can visit past only through memories and documents which implies that time is unidirectional i.e. it flows in a forward direction uniformly and uniquely and due to this property terminology of past, present and future exists. This change of time in a forward direction is called Arrow of Time.

Yet you may find the concept of Arrow of Time contradictory when it comes to changes that take place at microscopic level. A physical change at microscopic level can be reversible, if you record a video of the whole reaction and play it backward and forward it will be difficult to determine flow of time. This is called symmetry of time.

This can be well explained by the Second law of Thermodynamics. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the state of entropy of the entire universe, as an isolated system, will always increase over time. The second law also states that the changes in the entropy in the universe can never be negative. But what is entropy? Entropy is measurement of disorder in the orientation of a system.

Entropy of a system explains the unidirectionality of time even when time is symmetric. Let us take an example of water, there is a cube of ice which melts into liquid and then it evaporates. Here entropy of water at all three states will be ice < water(liquid) < vapor. It is a physical reaction so if we condense the vapor and turn it into liquid and freeze it to ice then the entropy will vapor < liquid < ice. This little example clarifies that entropy increases over time no matter the symmetry of time, once a disorder occurs in a system there is no going back.

Credits to the artist

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The Unreality of Time: A Metaphysical Approach to Understand Time.

Have you ever looked at the sky and wondered, right now here I'm watching the sky and after a mere hour this all will be a random event of my past, so basically you are thinking of a present event that will be past in near future. Interesting right? So is the nature of time, an idea that will leave you puzzled.

Time is read by a clock and is divided into hours, minutes and seconds to make the reading a bit precise and easy to read, currently the international unit of time, the second is defined by measuring the electronic transition of cesium atoms. Scientifically speaking Time is a sequence of irreversible events, occurrence of a specific cycle in repetition. It is used to measure change in our surroundings. That's it this is what most of us know about time, but I feel there is more, as the old saying goes "Time is the Mightiest of all" and with this might come some mystery as well.

As Albert Einstein said "People like us who believe in Physics know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." This implies time is linear and past and future are mere memories and predictions. In order to get a gist of it let us take an account of a theory from Metaphysics called The Unreality of Time by J.M.E. McTaggart. The Theory argues that every event has a characteristic of being present and not present i.e. future or past, which directs attention to time being a self contradictory idea. McTaggart argued that things that exist in time are false. McTaggart's arguments were segmented into three series namely A series, B series and C series. A series has the properties which are temporary i.e. past, present and future, how come they are temporary? Consider the example given in the very beginning of this article you were gazing at the sky that was your present but after an hour that very present of yours will become your past which clearly implies that time is temporary whereas B series have permanent properties and do not include terminology of past, present and future instead uses terms which depicts a sequence of events i.e. you were looking at the stars after that you thought of them as your memories. A series shows a change in time whereas B series doesn't.