QUANTIME

Time The flow of time apparently goes in one direction only, namely 'forward' as in 'away from the origin of time - the Big Bang - into the future. At the same time (pun) it is the direction of causality. Light speed is not about light; it is in fact the speed of causality [1]. As Earthlings, we perceive time as flowing from one second to the next, but a range of seconds tied to one specific event may be perceived as one 'moment' in the present. But our seconds derive from clocks, which are an arrangement of matter and thus of particles. 'The flow of time depends fundamentally on motion', says Matt O'Dowd in an episode of Space Time [2]. Speed When some object moves faster relative to you as an observer, the slower its clock appears to tick, but the other way around: for the observer on board the object, it appears as though you are moving away from that observer end therefore your clock appears to tock slower according to him. At the speed of ligh...

Nothing Before something was there, there was absolutely nothing. Is it possible to imagine that? An emptiness, so vast, that even our universe would be hardly imperceptible in such a huge void? The blackness is impenetrable, there is no light, nothing to observe, nothing to look at, so why even bother looking at all? Our language is short of concepts to convey this extreme nothingness, so very nothing that one couldn’t even imagine that no observer could be there, to determine there’s nothing he could look at and that there is no purpose whatsoever to even watch. This void is so empty, that no object could exist there, for even the most dense object would have to have been evaporated due to the infinite vacuum. There’s just nothing there. But then, weirdly enough, something pops into existence. Why? How? How can I imagine how that works, what it looks like? From where and from what? I try to visualize this, by looking at boiling water. As the external pressure on the water decrea...

Prince Pioneer Once upon a time long, long ago on a world far from ours, only just within the next universe, there was a bunch of habitable planets known as Dhoop, where a handsome young prince by the name of Pioneer held his beautiful fiancee in his five upper tentacles. Everything in their solar system was quite alright, all planets governed by their individual rules but united for all general goals. Prince Pioneer said goodbye to his beloved princess Anima, for he had to go on a minor space patrol mission. The prince was a prince because he could tell very clearly how things were, and he knew very well, how to direct other folks to do the right things in the proper manner. So he had hardly anything difficult to do. Besides, his father, the revered king of Dhoop, still ran the Union. That’s how he became interested and fascinated by space, time, relativity and all kinds of subjects related. Of course, this tale is written down in a language from Earth and that is why many of...