HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT 3

The Secret of Time

Andrew Thomas studied physics in the James Clerk Maxwell Building in
Edinburgh University, and received his doctorate from Swansea University
in 1992.
His Hidden In Plain Sight series of books are science bestsellers.
ALSO BY ANDREW THOMAS
Hidden In Plain Sight
The simple link between relativity and quantum mechanics

Hidden In Plain Sight 2

The equation of the universe
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT 3
The Secret of Time
Copyright © 2014 Andrew D.H. Thomas
All rights reserved.
CONTENTS

PREFACE

1) INTRODUCTION
A brief history of time
The world's most accurate clock

2) THE SPEED OF LIGHT

The Galilean transformation
Measuring the speed of light
Maxwell's equations

3) SYNCHRONICITY

4) SPACETIME
The emergence of spacetime
The block universe
The block universe in literature
How to live in a block universe
5) THE ARROW OF TIME
The feeling of "now"
The moving "now"
Why can't we remember the future?
The thermodynamic arrow of time
Loschmidt's paradox
Entropy and biology

6) TIME DILATION
Time travel

7) INERTIA
Perpetual motion
Inertial mass and gravitational mass
Inertial forces

8) THE UNIVERSAL SPEED

Euclidean relativity
Sliding through time

9) ENERGY AND MOMENTUM

Why does E=mc2?

10) THE SECRET OF TIME

PREFACE
In its 25th anniversary edition in 2013, Physics World magazine published
its choice of the five biggest unanswered questions in physics. Its choices
were:

Can we unify quantum mechanics and gravity?

What is the nature of the dark universe?
What is time?
Is life on Earth unique?
Can we exploit the weirdness of quantum mechanics?

In my first book, Hidden In Plain Sight, the first question was

considered: how might we find a link between quantum mechanics and
relativity? In my second book, imaginatively titled Hidden In Plain Sight 2,
the second question was considered: what is the nature of dark energy? In
this latest book, we will consider the third of these mysterious questions:
what is time?
Many books about the nature of time tend to be rather philosophical, and
tend to dissolve into endless wordy pages which get us no further along the
path of understanding. The problem seems to be that we are too close to the
subject: whenever we try to analyse time we inevitably fall back on our own
human intuition and feeling about the passage of time. It is very hard to be
objective. This book takes a different approach. Physics will be the only
guide. We will gain understanding only by analysing the data in an
objective manner. The close connection between time and space will prove
to be especially useful in our analysis.
 In many ways, the book reads like a murder mystery whodunnit. There
are plenty of clues as to the secret of time sprinkled throughout the book.
But don't be fooled — there's a twist in the final chapter!

Andrew Thomas
([email protected])
Swansea, UK
2014

I now have a Twitter account on which I will post updates:

twitter.com/andrewthomas101
1
INTRODUCTION
The date: October 1971.
Pan Am flight 106 from Washington's Dulles International Airport is
taking off on its scheduled flight to London. To all outward appearances,
this was just like any other flight. Passengers were fastening their seatbelts
and preparing for the eight-hour trip as the flight stewardesses gave their
safety drill. However, we can only imagine the puzzled looks on the faces
of some of the travellers as they observed the extraordinary hand luggage of
two of their fellow passengers.
For assistant professor of physics Joe Hafele and his colleague, the
astronomer Richard Keating, this flight was to form a unique experiment.
On the two seats in the middle aisle next to Joe Hafele, no passengers were
seated. Instead, the seats were occupied by large cases of electronic
equipment, approximately one metre high. These cases contained four
highly-accurate caesium atomic clocks.
As part of an experiment, these clocks were being flown around the
world. This was to be the first time that the effect of Einstein's theory of
special relativity was to be measured using actual clocks. This experiment
was going to reveal the true nature of time.
The following photograph shows Hafele and Keating with their clocks
onboard the Boeing 747:
 Hafele and Keating were attempting to test one of the great insights into
the nature of time. For many centuries, philosophers had wondered about
the nature of time, without making much progress. The main problem is
that the nature of time is tied so closely to our own feelings of the passage
of time that it is hard to move away from an intuitive, subjective notion of
time to a more objective analysis. We all have our own internal notions of
what constitutes time, but it is almost impossible to explain it. Saint
Augustine described this dilemma when he said: "What then is time? If no
one asks me, I know. If I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not."
In his Critique of Pure Reason, published in 1781, Immanuel Kant
continued Augustine's theme by suggesting that space and time did not exist
independently but were constructed by the human mind in order to make
sense of the world around us. After all, if time is just a feeling — as
Augustine suggested — then maybe it was all in the mind? The French
philosopher, Henri Bergson, even believed that this model of time in the
human mind would not be present at birth and would have to be constructed
via experience. So Bergson believed a newborn baby would not experience
time at all! The baby would have to learn to create its own model of time in
its head as it grew up.
These philosophical arguments — which seemed to suggest that time
purely existed as a subjective notion in our heads — were swept away by
Albert Einstein at the start of the 20th century. Einstein was greatly
influenced by the philosopher-physicist Ernst Mach who was an advocate of
logical positivism. According to logical positivism, physics should only
make statements about phenomena which could be directly observed and
measured. Using logical positivism as his guide, Einstein simply stated:
"Time is what we measure with a clock". According to Einstein, there was
no place in physics for philosophical musings about the nature of time —
all that was important was what could be measured.
This statement of Einstein is particularly important because the theory of
special relativity states that a clock which is moving will appear to run at a
slower rate than a clock which is stationary. And, as Einstein stated that
"Time is what we measure with a clock", this would appear to indicate that
time itself runs slower for an observer who is moving relative to a
secondary observer.
So this effect of time dilation is what Joe Hafele and Richard Keating
were trying to measure on their round-the-world aeroplane journey. As
Richard Keating said in an earlier interview: "I don't trust these professors
who get up and scribble in front of blackboards claiming they understand it
all because I've made too many measurements where they don't come up
with the numbers they say. It always seemed to me that the best proof is to
measure it."
Joe Hafele had been preparing notes for a physics lecture when he
performed a brief calculation which showed that an atomic clock on board a
commercial airliner should have sufficient accuracy to reveal the effect of
time dilation. In order to perform this experiment, Hafele and Keating flew
their four clocks around the world: once in the eastward direction, and then
in the westward direction. The values on the clocks at the end of the journey
were compared with the reference atomic time scale at the U.S. Naval
Observatory.
It was found that the flying clocks lost time (aged slower) during the
eastward trip, and gained time (aged faster) during the westward trip. The
difference between east and west was due to the rotation of the Earth
underneath the aeroplane. The variation in time was exactly as predicted by
special relativity. [1]
As Joe Hafele explained: "Suppose you lived for 100 years, and you
spent your entire life on one of these aircraft flying around the world. You
could expect to be younger than a person who did not do that by about one
ten-thousandth of a second."
We will be considering special relativity and the extraordinary effect of
time dilation in detail later in this book.

A brief history of time

The very first clocks which were used by early humans were provided by
Nature herself. It was clear that the rising and setting of the Sun occurred at
regular intervals of one day (we now know this is due to the Earth's rotation
on its axis). This regular marking of time provided an easy way to measure
periods of time of significant length. The early Egyptians, for example,
used the shadows of obelisks as clocks. The passage of the Sun across the
sky during the day can also be subdivided into smaller time periods using
sundials.
Another celestial clock was provided by the phases of the Moon. The
proportion of the Moon illuminated by the Sun varies as the Moon orbits
the Earth. The proportion of the Moon which appears to be illuminated
when viewed from the Earth varies from 0% (new moon) to 100% (full
moon). In between these two extremes we observe the characteristic
crescent shapes of the Moon. As the Moon orbits the Earth once every 29.5
days, this regular cycle of lunar phases gave birth to another form of
measurement of time: the month.
Finally, the orbiting of the Earth around the Sun — which provides us
with the seasons — gave early humans the largest period by which time
could be measured: the year. Most famously, the prehistoric standing stones
at Stonehenge identify the exact time of the summer and winter solstices. It
is easy to forget that one of the functions of Stonehenge was to be one of
the earliest clocks.
Observe the similarity of the structure of Stonehenge to a clock face:

Ancient Greek astronomers observed the movement of the celestial

bodies and tried to model the orbits of the planets using geometry. The
Greek image of geometric perfection was the circle, so it was believed the
planets should orbit in perfect circles. The Greeks, therefore, modelled the
orbits of the planets by a series of concentric rotating transparent spheres,
each planet being attached to one transparent sphere. As the spheres rotated,
so the planets were observed to move. At the centre of the series of spheres
lay the Earth, which was considered to be the centre of the universe. This
was, therefore, a geocentric model.
However, detailed astronomical observations, such as those obtained by
Hipparchus, showed that this geocentric model could not be accurate. The
orbits of the planets were more complicated than the motions of concentric
spheres. While the Moon, Sun, and stars moved in predictable trajectories,
sometimes the planets would appear to reverse their direction in the night
sky (so-called retrograde motion). In fact, the word "planet" is derived from
the Greek word for "wandering star". In order to account for retrograde
motion, the astronomer Ptolemy introduced the idea of epicycles.
 For a planet, an epicycle was a smaller orbit contained within its usual
orbit around the Earth. This allowed the planets to sometimes move
backwards when viewed from Earth. An example of a planet moving on a
epicycle is shown on the following diagram:

This all might appear unnecessarily complicated to our eyes now, but the
geocentric model of the universe was generally accepted until the 16th
century when the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus realised that the
model could be greatly simplified by placing the Sun at the centre of the
Solar System and having the planets (including the Earth) orbit the Sun.
This formed the heliocentric model.
Copernicus's model was more elegant than the Ptolemaic model. It not
only explained the retrograde motions of the planets but it also explained
why the Earth experienced the seasons as it orbited the Sun once a year.
In the more general sense, the more recent development of the so-called
Copernican principle states that no particular point in the universe (not just
the Earth) can hold a privileged position in the universe. This heralds a
move away from an absolute system of science and cosmology to a science
which realises that no observer holds a privileged position, and that the
universe is built on relative measures. The repercussions of the Copernican
principle are rippling through science to this day, perhaps having its greatest
impact in the theory of relativity: if no observer holds a privileged position,
then all motion must be described relatively.
If you have read my previous two books you will know I have a firm
conviction that the universe is built on fundamental principles — principles
which are "obviously correct" and would have to be true in any conceivable
universe. The Copernican principle is surely another of these fundamental
principles: surely no point — and therefore no observer — holds a
privileged position in any conceivable universe. In many ways, as you will
see, this is a book which is based on the importance of the Copernican
principle and all that it entails. We will encounter the Copernican principle
again several times in the later chapters of this book, when it will be shown
that it might possibly hold an important key to explaining the nature of
time.

These astronomical measurements of time, such as the period of rotation

of the Earth, remain extremely accurate measurements of time to this day.
In fact, until 1967 the length of the second was defined in terms of the
orbital period of the Earth (to be precise, it was defined as a fraction of the
time taken for the Earth to orbit the Sun in 1900). However, as society
became more complex, more accurate subdivisions of time were required.
In the Middle Ages, slow-burning candles with colour-coded wicks were
used to mark time in monasteries. Elaborate water clocks (dripping taps,
basically) could be found in wealthy households. However, it was the
invention of the mechanical clock which really brought time to the masses.
As great cities emerged throughout Europe, together with the rise of
commerce and trading, there was a need to find some way to synchronise
commercial activities throughout the city. Mechanical clocks were installed
in the bell towers at the heart of cities, with the daily activity of the city
being based around the various chimes. The first public clock was installed
in Orvieto in Italy in 1307, and this innovation spread rapidly throughout
the rest of Europe.
But while it was possible to synchronise the activities of a single city by
using a bell tower, this was no way to synchronise the activities of multiple
cities. Each city could operate to its own local time standard, which might
be a completely different standard from that of another city (generally, noon
in each city was set to the time when the Sun was at its highest point in that
city). This meant even simple activities — such as organising a meeting
between citizens of different cities — were fraught with difficulties. This
failing became more pronounced with the coming of the industrial
revolution.
The industrial revolution brought steam-powered railways, which
connected many cities in a single network. The emergence of the railways
made the introduction of a network-wide time standard essential in order for
services to run efficiently (we will see in Chapter Three how this
requirement for train synchronisation became a particular interest for a
patent clerk working in Zurich).
As an example of the problems which were occurring, in 1841 in
England, the Great Western Railway was extended to Bristol. However,
passengers arriving at Bristol Temple Meads station were annoyed to find
the trains were leaving eleven minutes early. The problem was because the
trains were coming from London and were using London time. Bristol is
200 miles west of London so the Bristol sunrise is eleven minutes later than
the London sunrise. Hence, Bristol time was eleven minutes behind London
time. Some form of national time synchronisation was clearly necessary,
requiring the most accurate clocks.
The necessary advance in accuracy had been provided many years earlier
by Galileo. Supposedly, Galileo was in Pisa Cathedral when he observed
the swinging motion of a large bronze lamp. The ever-inquisitive Galileo
timed the swings using his pulse and found that the period of the swings
was always the same — no matter how big was the length of the swing. So
as the lamp lost energy, and the amplitude of the swing decreased, each
swing still took the same amount of time. Galileo showed that the time
taken for a complete swing of a weight on a pendulum was independent of
both the size of the weight and the length of the swing, and was only
dependent on the length of the pendulum (a pendulum one metre long
swings once every second — the usual length of the pendulum in a
grandfather clock).[2] This allowed for great accuracy if the length of the
pendulum was measured correctly. Previous mechanical clocks were only
accurate to about 15 minutes a day. Pendulum clocks were accurate to about
15 seconds a day.
 Pendulum clocks remained the most accurate standard for timekeeping
for 270 years until the invention of the quartz clock in 1927. The most
accurate pendulum clock, used as the US standard time until 1929, utilised
a pendulum in a partial vacuum and had an error of only 10 milliseconds
per day.
The great innovation of mechanical clocks was the escapement: a device
which rocked backwards and forwards over a toothed wheel. The
escapement allowed for the controlled release of energy at a regular rate. It
consists of a toothed wheel with a rocking lever above it. As the lever rocks
backwards and forwards, the toothed wheel advances by just one notch.
This is responsible for the characteristic clockwork "ticking" sound:

This principle of the "tick" of a clock — the regular marking of small

periods of time — is worth examining in detail. In this chapter we have
considered a wide range of different types of clocks, from the Sun passing
across the sky, to a swinging pendulum, and in the next section we will be
considering the world's most accurate clock: the atomic clock. But there is
one thing which all these different types of clock have in common, and that
is that they all have a "tick". A tick is an oscillation — a recurring event —
which must happen at a regular time interval. It is easy to see that a
pendulum swings at a regular time interval, but even the Sun passing across
the sky represents a "tick" which occurs at a regular time interval: once a
day.
Ticks can be counted, and the result displayed on the output of the clock
in order to produce a measurement of time.
But why is the regularity of the tick so important? You might feel this is a
trivial and obvious question, but it is actually an important question whose
answer leads us to an important insight into the nature of space and time.
Firstly, let us consider the implications for the nature of space.
If we perform an experiment, and make a note of the result, and then we
move the experimental apparatus six feet to the left and perform the
identical experiment again, we find we will get the same result. Likewise, if
we measure the width of an object using a ruler, and then move the object
twenty feet to the right and measure it again using the same ruler, we find
we will get the same measurement for the width of the object. This
principle that the laws of Nature work in exactly the same way no matter
where the experiment is performed is called space translation invariance.
Now consider we perform the same experiment again, but instead of
performing the experiment at a different location, we perform the
experiment at a different time. As long as the experiment is identical, we
find we will get the same result. Likewise, if we measure the duration of an
event using a clock, and then we perform the identical experiment again at a
later date we will find the duration of the event will be exactly the same.
This principle that the laws of Nature work exactly the same no matter
when an experiment is performed is called time translation invariance.
Because of space translation invariance, we must ensure that any
measuring equipment we use to measure distances (e.g., a ruler) must also
possess space translation invariance, i.e., it does not matter if we shift our
ruler left or right — it will still give the same measurement. This means that
the marks — the "ticks" — on our ruler must all be equally spaced.
And because of time translation invariance, we must ensure that any
measuring equipment we use to measure time (e.g., a clock) must also
possess time translation invariance, i.e., it does not matter if we perform the
experiment sooner or later — the clock will give the same time
measurement. So it is vital that the "ticks" of our clock are equally spaced
and occur at regular time intervals because of time translation invariance.
If we now consider the regular arrangement of "ticks" on a 12-inch ruler:
 and we bend that ruler around in a circle:

It becomes a clock face!

Space translation invariance results in equal ticks along a ruler, and time
translation invariance results in equal ticks around the face of a clock.
This is not a trivial result. This similarity gives us the first hint of a deep
connection between space and time, a connection which we will be
exploring throughout this book.

The world's most accurate clock

Atomic clocks are the most accurate clocks ever built. As we have just
discussed, any clock requires some regular oscillation ("ticks") which form
its time standard. In an atomic clock, the time standard which is used is the
time it takes for an electron to jump between orbits (energy levels) inside an
atom. When electrons jump to a lower energy level, they produce
electromagnetic radiation. This radiation might be in the microwave,
optical, or ultraviolet region. The pattern of frequencies at which energy is
emitted is called the spectrum. Each chemical element has a characteristic
spectrum. For example, we can deduce the component elements of a star
merely by looking at its light spectrum.
For a particular element, one of the frequencies in its spectrum can be
selected as the "tick" of an atomic clock. As an example, one of the
frequencies of the element caesium is frequently used in atomic clocks
(remember, the atomic clock used in the Hafele-Keating aeroplane
experiment was based on caesium). This "ticking" forms a particularly
reliable time standard. Since 1967, the International System of Units (SI)
has defined the second to be 9,192,631,770 ticks of a caesium atom
(superseding the previous definition based on the orbit of the Earth around
the Sun).
The most accurate atomic clocks in existence could have been used to
measure the age of the universe to an accuracy of one second.
An interesting thought now might occur to us: we measure the accuracy
of a clock by comparing its measurement with a more accurate clock. But
atomic clocks are the most accurate clocks in existence. How can we
possibly measure the accuracy of the world's most accurate clock? After all,
we cannot determine its accuracy by comparing it with any other clock
which is more accurate — no such clock exists!
Dr. Stefan Droste of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics is part
of a team which is developing a highly-accurate atomic clock in the optical
range of frequencies (most atomic clocks use lower microwave
frequencies). As Dr. Droste explains: "Time, as we know it, is based on
caesium atomic clocks. These kinds of clocks have accuracies to the order
of 1 × 1015. The confidence in the time that clocks show is increased by
comparing hundreds of clocks around the world with one another, and this
is important since with only one single clock, you cannot know whether
your clock is showing the correct time or not." [3]
So the answer as to how you measure the accuracy of the world's most
accurate clock is that you build another clock — or a series of clocks —
exactly like the first clock. You then run all of these clocks for a period of
time and, at the end of that period, you see if the time measured by the
clocks has varied from clock to clock. Though the variation will be small, it
will not be zero — it can be measured. And that variation gives you a value
for the accuracy of that particular type of clock over time.
This is essentially what Hafele and Keating did when then flew four
atomic clocks around the world rather than just a single clock. By using
multiple clocks it is possible to obtain a value for variation of accuracy in
the experiment.
No atomic clock will ever be 100% accurate: there will always be some
drift. The only truly accurate measure of time can be produced by a clock
whose "tick" is based on the speed of light. Such a clock is called a light
clock, and Einstein considered such a clock as the basis for his
groundbreaking 1905 paper on special relativity.
The light clock is simply composed of two perfect mirrors which face
each other, with a pulse of light bouncing between the two mirrors:

Each time the pulse bounces between the two mirrors represents one
"tick" of the light clock. Unfortunately, no practical light clock has ever
been built. If such a clock could ever be perfectly manufactured, it would
instantly be recognised as the most accurate clock in existence. This is
because the accuracy of that clock would be entirely based on the speed of
light, and the speed of light is a fundamental physical constant the value of
which is known not to vary with time.
 However, the question then arises: how do we measure the accuracy of
the light clock? How can we be absolutely certain that its accuracy does not
drift over time? There would be no point using any other type of clock — a
caesium atomic clock, for example — to measure its accuracy as no other
clock could be as accurate as the light clock. The light clock, therefore,
represents a time standard which can be unmatched by any other type of
clock. The light clock is the clock by which all other clocks are judged.
Effectively, this means that all other clocks — every atomic clock, the
clock by the side of your bed, your wristwatch — are subservient to the
light clock. It is the light clock which decides if your wristwatch is running
slow — there is no better standard than the light clock.
So instead of time defining the behaviour of a clock, the light clock
essentially defines time!
This raises an interesting point because, as we shall see later in this book,
the behaviour of a light clock is subtly different for a moving observer. So if
a light clock effectively defines time, then time itself must be modified for
a moving observer! This is precisely what Hafele and Keating confirmed
in their round-the-world experiment. We will be returning to consider this
point in detail later in the book.
But what is so special about the speed of light?
2
THE SPEED OF LIGHT
The next two chapters are going to describe a single, long journey. It is a
journey which will commence at the very start of science. It is a journey
which will take four hundred years and involve several of the greatest
physicists in history. It is a journey which will end with an experiment
which, if correctly analysed, will change everything you ever believed
about reality.
However, every journey begins with a first step …

The Galilean transformation

Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa in 1564. His father was a famous
musician, and this highly-cultured family environment provided Galileo
with the perfect opportunity to explore his talents. He was taught at the
University of Pisa where he became fascinated by physics and mathematics.
In 1609, Galileo was in Venice when he heard of a new invention which
allowed distant objects to appear as though they were close. Galileo
managed to improve on the design of the invention and invited a group of
merchants to climb St. Mark's bell tower for a demonstration. When Galileo
unveiled his telescope, the merchants were delighted as it allowed them to
spot trading ships arriving over the horizon forty miles away. As Venice
was such a commercial hub at the time, this gave them a considerable
advantage over their rivals.
The scene is shown below in a fresco by Bertini:
 Galileo made a significant amount of money from the telescope, and
continued to invent throughout his life. But Galileo's greatest contribution
to the world of science was his scientific method. Before the scientific
method was introduced, the proclamations of ancient philosophers such as
Aristotle were accepted without question as representing the absolute truth
about Nature. Galileo was one of the first scientists to challenge the wisdom
of the ancients. Galileo's introduction of the scientific method allowed
Nature to speak for itself.
Aristotle was no experimenter, and he relied too much on his
preconceptions. Famously, Aristotle once proclaimed that women have
fewer teeth than men. Because no one thought to check this proclamation of
Aristotle, for a thousand years everyone believed that women have fewer
teeth (women and men, of course, actually have the same number of teeth).
Aristotle's poor method of investigation was described by Bertrand
Russell: "Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men.
Although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this
statement by examining his wives' mouths."
Galileo's scientific method replaced these dubious proclamations. Firstly,
according to the scientific method, a hypothesis is proposed about some
testable aspect of the natural world. Secondly, that hypothesis is checked
through observation and experiment. Based on the result of the experiment,
the hypothesis is either supported or rejected. Galileo performed many such
experiments using apparatus such as wooden wedges and balls for testing
his theories of motion. For introducing the world to the scientific method,
Galileo is often referred to as the father of modern science.
However, Galileo got into trouble when he turned his telescope toward a
wider horizon. The discovery of the four moons orbiting Jupiter — Io,
Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto — suggested that the Earth was not the
centre of the universe about which all celestial bodies orbited. By
challenging the geocentric model of the Solar System, Galileo found
himself accused of heresy and was placed under house arrest for the rest of
his life.
It was while under house arrest that Galileo published his final book
entitled Discourse on Two New Sciences (the two sciences being mechanics
and the strength of materials). The book was the culmination of Galileo's
work over the preceding forty years. We are going to be considering two of
the principles of motion described in the book. The first principle we will
consider deals with the addition of velocities.
As Galileo was living in a world in which the ship was the dominant
form of transport, he devised a maritime-themed explanation of his
principle. Consider the following diagram. Imagine a ship is moving at a
speed of v, and a man is walking on the ship at a speed of u (relative to the
ship). Then from the shore (denoted by the palm tree) the speed of the
walking man will be measured to be the sum of v and u:

This addition of velocities is called the Galilean transformation.

This principle is every bit as simple and intuitive as it might appear at
first glance, but it took the innovative mind of Galileo to publish the
principle for the first time. What is important to note is that when an object
is emitted by a source — for example, a man firing an arrow from a bow —
you have to add the velocity of the source to find the final velocity of the
object. This might seem trivial to our eyes, but it represented a great insight
in the 17th century.
The second principle of Galileo we will consider is the principle of
Galilean relativity. Put simply, Galileo stated that if you were travelling in a
straight line at a constant speed you would feel as if you were stationary. To
be more precise, there would be no experiment you could perform which
could reveal if you were either stationary or moving at a constant velocity.
For example, if you are sitting in an aeroplane and you throw a ball straight
up in the air, the ball will come straight back down into your hand. Even
though the aeroplane is moving extremely fast, the ball will not rush to the
back of the plane. So to all intents and purposes it feels as if you are
stationary. Hence, Galilean relativity states that the laws of motion are the
same for any observer in uniform motion.
We will be returning to consider this principle of Galilean relativity in the
next chapter when we consider how Einstein imagined running alongside a
ray of light.

Measuring the speed of light

Galileo performed an experiment for determining the speed of light by

having two observers with lanterns face each other over a great distance.
The lanterns had shutters which could be quickly opened and closed. When
one of the observers saw a flash of light from the distant lantern, he had to
reply by quickly flashing his own lantern. This rate of flashing of lanterns
could be timed and, when combined with the distance between the two
lanterns, it should have been possible to calculate a value for the speed of
light.
However, when Galileo performed the experiment he found the time
taken for the light to travel over a mile distance was virtually instantaneous.
If the speed of light was not actually instantaneous then it certainly had to
be extremely fast.
In 1676 the Danish astronomer Ole Romer showed that light does not
travel instantaneously but instead has a finite speed. He obtained his
measurement by observing the eclipses of Io — one of the moons of Jupiter.
He noted that the time of the eclipse became earlier as Earth approached
Jupiter, and became later as Earth moved away. Romer explained the
difference in the eclipse timings as being due to the additional time which
light took to reach the Earth. Romer presented his result to the French
Academy of Sciences, announcing that the speed of light was 220,000
kilometres per second (this is actually 26% less than the true value which
we now know is 299,792 kilometres per second).
In 1850, the French physicist Leon Foucault bounced a beam of light off
a rotating mirror to a distant fixed mirror. When the beam of light reflected
back to the rotating mirror, the mirror had rotated by a certain known
amount. Hence, the light came off at a slightly different angle. From
knowing the speed of rotation of the mirror and the angle at which the light
was reflected, Foucault measured the speed of light to be 299,796
kilometres per second, which is just 0.001% greater than the actual value.

Maxwell's equations

Our journey now moves in a surprising direction, to consider the science

of electricity and magnetism: electromagnetism.
Michael Faraday was the self-taught son of a blacksmith, but became an
experimental physicist of the highest order. In 1831 in London, Faraday
demonstrated to the Royal Society that a magnet moving through a coil of
wire produces an electric current in that wire. This was the discovery of
electromagnetic induction, and it is the same principle which allows
modern power stations to produce electricity. The principle that a changing
magnetic field produces a changing electric field is called Faraday's law.
Faraday's result seemed to be the inverse of a earlier result which was
obtained by the French physicist Andre-Marie Ampere. Ampere showed
that an electric current through a wire created a magnetic field. This became
know as Ampere's law.
But it took a great mathematical physicist to combine these two results of
Faraday and Ampere, thus revealing the remarkable underlying
significance.
At the end of the 20th century, Physics World magazine conducted a poll
of 100 leading physicists to discover who was considered to be the greatest
physicist of all time. There was no surprise when Albert Einstein and Isaac
Newton topped the poll, but in third place came a physicist who is largely
unknown to the general public. His name was James Clerk Maxwell, and
there is no doubt as to the esteem he is held in by physicists. According to
Max Planck: "He achieved greatness unequalled." According to Einstein:
"The work of James Clerk Maxwell changed the world forever." And
according to Richard Feynman: "From a long view of the history of
mankind — seen from, say, ten thousand years from now — there can be
little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged
as Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electrodynamics."
 James Clerk Maxwell was very much the archetypal Victorian
gentleman. He was born in 1831 into a God-fearing, hard-working
Edinburgh family. Maxwell displayed an early talent for mathematics and
geometry, and earned a place as an undergraduate at Edinburgh University.
Maxwell's stature as a mathematician grew rapidly in the academic
environment. He also possessed an inquiring mind for many aspects of
general science (what was then called "natural philosophy"), and in his
spare time performed many experiments which intrigued him. He was
particularly interested in the properties of light. By using a spinning colour
wheel he was able to show that white light could be formed by a
combination of red, green, and blue light. Maxwell's principle was used to
create the world's first colour photograph in 1861, produced from a set of
three separate monochrome images, and this was used to illustrate a lecture
on colour by Maxwell.
Maxwell would regularly attend lectures at London's Royal Institution
where he came into contact with Michael Faraday. Faraday had great
experimental technique, but weak mathematical skills. Maxwell was able to
use his own considerable mathematical skills to cast Faraday's Law into
mathematical form, and to combine it with the result of Ampere.
As a result, Maxwell created four equations which, rather ironically, are
now probably best known for being a very popular T-shirt design:

We are only interested in the last two equations which represent

Faraday's law and Maxwell's form of Ampere's law. The equation for
Faraday's law states how the electric field, E, is generated by a changing
magnetic field, B. And the equation for Ampere's law states the inverse:
how the magnetic field, B, is generated by a changing electric field, E.
Maxwell's great stroke of genius was to realise that these two equations
had the same form as the equation for a wave travelling through space. To
see this, remember once again that the equations give us the following
symmetrical results:
 1. A changing magnetic field creates an electric field.
2. A changing electric field creates a magnetic field.

Hence, the magnetic field can generate the electric field, and the electric
field can generate the magnetic field, and so on forever. The result is a self-
sustaining wave of alternating electric and magnetic fields called an
electromagnetic wave:

Maxwell realised that, according to his equations, the speed of the

resultant wave could be determined by two electric and magnetic constants
which had been determined by experiment. Hence, the speed of the wave, c,
is given by:
 where the magnetic constant, μ0, has a numeric value of 1.25663706 × 10-
6
, and the electric constant, ε0, has a numeric value of 8.85418782 × 10-12. If
you substitute these numeric values into the above formula (try this at home
with your calculator), you will find you get a value for c of approximately
299,796,000 m/s. Incredibly, Maxwell realised that this was exactly the
same speed as Leon Foucault had measured for the speed of light! So
Maxwell made the inspired leap to deduce from this that light was a form of
electromagnetic wave.
Visible light is not the only form of electromagnetic radiation. Depending
on the wavelength, other types of electromagnetic radiation include radio
waves, microwaves, infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays. By
discovering the fundamental form of all these different types of
electromagnetic radiation, Maxwell brought about the development of radio
and television, as well as many other modern technologies. According to
Carl Sagan: "Maxwell's equations have had a greater impact on human
history than any ten presidents."
But Maxwell's equations predicted some surprising properties of
electromagnetic waves. Firstly, the equations as printed on the T-shirt in the
earlier diagram are the equations for radiation through a vacuum containing
no electric charges or electric currents (if electric charges or currents are
present then the equations become more complicated). This is fine for our
purposes as we are interested in the speed of light in a vacuum. However,
this confused physicists at the time. All known waves up to that time were a
form of disturbance in some underlying medium. For example, sound
waves were a disturbance in air, and sea waves were a disturbance in water.
But Maxwell's equations seemed to indicate that electromagnetic waves
could travel through a vacuum containing no medium which could carry the
waves. All experiments to detect an underlying substance — called the
ether — drew a blank.
We now know that the ether does not exist, and electromagnetic waves
can, indeed, travel through a total vacuum. After all, how else could light
reach us from the stars across the intergalactic void?
It is interesting, at this point, to digress slightly and tell the story of what
happened when I gave this book to a friend of mine for proof-reading. He
took great exception to my description of the self-sustaining wave travelling
through space, with the electric and magnetic fields oscillating off each
other. His objection was based on the fact that it sounded like a form of
perpetual motion and, as he stated with great certainty, there was no such
thing as perpetual motion. Well, I had to break the bad news to my friend
that this was, indeed, a form of perpetual motion and it is the reason why
light from the stars can reach us across billions of light years. Indeed, if the
light was not intercepted by us it would continue on its merry way across
the universe. So this is most certainly a form of perpetual motion — we do
not see light slowing down! We do not see light running out of energy and
coming to a stop. So the next time a man down the pub tells you that
perpetual motion is impossible, just ask him when was the last time he saw
a ray of light coming to a halt?
In fact, one of the themes of this book, which we examine in detail in the
later chapters, is that if we are to achieve a fuller understanding of time then
we will have to overcome our in-built bias against the principle of perpetual
motion. As we will find, perpetual motion is all around us.
But, to return to the surprising properties of electromagnetic waves, let us
consider again the formula for the speed of the wave:

What is so truly astonishing about this result is that it contains no term

representing the speed of the source! Remember back to our discussion of
Galileo's principle of addition of velocities earlier in this chapter. It was
explained how the velocity of the source would always have to be added to
the velocity of an object to calculate the final velocity. However, Maxwell's
formula for the speed of light does not say that the speed of the source has
to be added. It is as if every observer would measure the same speed of
light — regardless of the motion of that observer.
To show how bizarre this result really is, let us replace the man walking
on the ship with a ray of light being emitted from a candle on the ship:

On the basis of Galileo's principle for the addition of velocities, we might

expect the observer on the shore to measure a greater value for the speed of
the ray of light than the ship-borne observer (the speed of light measured by
the observer on the shore would have the speed of the ship added to it).
However, as shown on the diagram, the result of Maxwell would appear to
indicate that the observer on the ship and the observer on the shore would
both measure the same value for the speed of the light emitted by the candle
(i.e., the observer on the shore does not have to add the speed of the ship).
This result seems to contradict everything we intuitively understand
about motion. But what are its full implications for reality?
3
SYNCHRONICITY
The date: June 1902.
Albert Einstein has moved to Bern having just accepted a job at the
patent office. Together with his wife and young son he is living in an
apartment at No. 49 Kramgasse (see http://tinyurl.com/einsteinhouse — the
house is now preserved as a museum). Every morning when he left his
apartment to go to work he would have turned left and walked past the
world-famous clock tower at the end of his street.
 As shown on the previous image, the clock tower displays a welter of
temporal information. Underneath the main clock is an astronomical clock
which displays the phases of the Moon. It also has a model of the Sun
which moves around the dial to indicate the current time of sunrise and
sunset. Every hour, a clockwork-powered automaton emerges at the top of
the tower to strike the bell. This is the gilded figure of Chronos, the Greek
god of time.
 In 1902, the clock tower played a particularly important role as it was
used as the official time keeper for the new railway station. Effectively, it
supplied the official time standard for the city of Bern. Other cities were not
necessarily synchronised with the time of Bern, so as trains passed the
station at speed they would synchronise their clocks with the time seen on
the clock tower.
As Einstein took his desk as a Technical Expert Class 3 at the patent
office, he would use his considerable technical ability to consider the
virtues and originality of the day's various patent applications. According to
Walter Isaacson in his biography of Einstein, these patent applications
included "dozens of new methods for synchronising clocks and
coordinating time through signals sent at the speed of light."
From the complex and fascinating clock tower he passed each morning,
to the various ingenious patent applications he dealt with in his job, Einstein
was surrounded by stimulating aspects of time and synchronisation.
Einstein was also well-informed about the latest developments in
physics. When he was an undergraduate at the Zurich Polytechnic he
became increasingly frustrated that the latest results about
electromagnetism proposed by James Clerk Maxwell were not studied as
part of the curriculum. This was because, since the age of 16, Einstein had
imagined riding alongside a beam of light. What would you see? Would the
light appear to be stationary? As we have seen, the latest result of Maxwell
seemed to indicate that, no, the light would not appear to be stationary —
you would still measure the same speed of light.
Einstein accepted the result of Maxwell — no matter how bizarre it
seemed. If you remember back to the discussion of Galilean relativity in the
previous chapter, you will remember how Galileo stated that the laws of
motion were the same for all observers in uniform motion. By accepting
that the speed of light was the same for all observers in uniform motion,
Einstein extended Galilean relativity to cover all of the laws of physics —
including the laws of electromagnetism. This became the principle of
relativity: the laws of physics are the same for all observers in uniform
motion.
I think the reason this principle might seem fairly reasonable to our eyes
is because it seems a logical extension of the Copernican principle which
was considered in Chapter One. The Copernican principle states that no
point — and no observer — in the universe holds a privileged position. It
certainly seems reasonable to assume that the laws of physics apply equally
to all observers — the universe is a very equitable place.
As part of Einstein's job at the patent office was to analyse patent
applications to determine if they would be successful in the real world, a
desk-bound Einstein would have had to construct imaginary "thought
experiments" in his head to examine their potential. Einstein now applied
this technique to analysing the implications of this observer-independent
speed of light.
The thought experiment which will now be described is a mainstay of
popular science books. We will be considering the experiment in more
detail than usual as I believe most descriptions of the experiment do not
describe it in sufficient detail. As a result, the essential extraordinary
conclusion of the experiment is often missed.
We will consider a train travelling along a track at a constant speed. The
train has a single carriage. Inside the carriage is Bob, who is standing in the
middle of the carriage. Outside the carriage is Alice, who is standing on the
station platform watching the train as it rushes by:

Next, something remarkable happens. At the brief moment when Bob is

directly in front of Alice, Alice sees two bolts of lightning hit the track at
the same time at precisely the position of the front and back of the carriage.
The bolts conveniently leave marks on the track (so the positions can be
found later), and they also leave marks on the front and back of the
carriage:
 Alice assumes the lightning bolts have hit the track at exactly the same
time because she sees the light from the bolts reaching her at the same time
(see the dashed lines on the previous diagram). But, from this observation,
can Alice necessarily be certain that the lightning bolts actually hit the track
at the same time? Alice realises that there are two factors which could have
influenced this result and caused the light from the two bolts to reach her at
the same time — even if the bolts did not hit the track simultaneously.
Firstly, the distance from her position to each of the two lightning bolts was
maybe not equal. So, to check this, Alice measures the distance between her
position and the two marks on the railway tracks which were left by the two
bolts. Alice finds the distance to each of the two marks is exactly the same.
So that part of the experiment is satisfactory.
Secondly, Alice realises that maybe the speed of the light was not the
same from each of the two bolts. Any inequality in the speed could have
resulted in the light from the two lightning bolts reaching her at the same
time — even if the bolts did not hit the ground simultaneously. However,
Alice had installed equipment to measure the speed of light from each of
the two bolts. Alice finds that, just as James Clerk Maxwell predicted, the
speed of light was exactly the same from each of the two bolts.
So Alice is left with a surefire conclusion, a logical certainty: the two
bolts really hit the ground simultaneously. The distance was the same, the
speed of light was the same, and the light from both bolts reached her at the
same time. It is therefore an absolute fact: both lightning bolts hit the
ground at the same time.
Now let us turn our attention to Bob who is riding on the train. As the
train continues its progress down the track at a constant speed, Alice
observes Bob's situation. Bob continues to get closer to the point where one
of the lightning bolts hit the track by the front of the carriage. Hence, he
moves closer to the light coming from that point in front of him. In the
process, he moves further away from the point on the track behind him
where the other lightning bolt hit the track.
So in the next diagram we see the train which has moved to the right, and
so Bob has moved closer to the lightning bolt near the front of the train:

Hence, the light from the lightning bolt in front of Bob reaches Bob first.
Alice and Bob both agree on this fact.
So the light rays from the two bolts do not reach Bob simultaneously.
But, from this, should Bob conclude that the lightning bolts did not strike
the ground simultaneously? Of course not. Bob is no fool. Bob suspects this
is merely an observational anomaly. He realises the train is moving. He
realises the movement of the train is taking him nearer to the position of the
front lightning bolt. Surely that is the only reason that light from the front
lightning bolt reached him first. Bob realises that there is only one way to
calculate if the lightning bolts really hit the ground simultaneously, and that
is to perform a few measurements.
So firstly, just like Alice did, Bob measures the distances. Remember that
the two lightning bolts conveniently left marks at the front and the back of
the carriage. So Bob measures the distances from his standing position to
the front and the back of the carriage and he finds both distances are the
same. So that is certainly not the reason why light from the front bolt
reached him first.
Bob is not too surprised about that, because Bob really suspects that it is
the apparent speed of the light which is the culprit. After all, he knows he is
on a moving train. His movement toward the position of the front lightning
bolt would have surely resulted in a greater effective speed of light from
that bolt. Fortunately, just like Alice, Bob had some accurate equipment
installed for measuring the speed of light from both lightning bolts.
However, when Bob measures the speed of light from both bolts he finds
the speed is the exactly same! This seems bizarre, but it is precisely in
accordance with the prediction of James Clerk Maxwell who stated that all
observers will measure the same speed of light. So Bob is left with
something of a mystery, and he examines the evidence:

1. The distance to each source of light at the front and the back of the
carriage is exactly the same.
2. The speed of light from each light source to Bob is exactly the same.
3. The light rays did not reach Bob simultaneously.

Bob is clearly left with only one logical conclusion: the lightning bolts
did NOT hit the ground simultaneously!
This is the only conclusion available to Bob. It is simply a fact that the
lightning bolts did not hit the ground at the same time. This is a statement
of reality.
However, Alice was equally certain that the lightning bolts DID hit the
ground at the same time. She performed exactly the same accurate
measurements as Bob. For Alice, there is no doubt: it is simply a fact that
the lightning bolts DID hit the ground simultaneously.
So who is right? Alice or Bob? The extraordinary truth is that they are
both right — after all, they both proved their cases beyond logical doubt. As
Sherlock Holmes said: "When you have eliminated the impossible, all that
remains, however improbable, must be the truth." The only conclusion
which is left to us is that reality itself is different for both Alice and Bob!
In Alice's version of reality, the lightning bolts hit the ground
simultaneously. In Bob's version of reality, the lightning bolts did not hit the
ground simultaneously. Reality is a relative concept for the two observers.
This extraordinary outcome of the experiment is called relativity of
simultaneity.
This fundamental difference in the reality of two observers who are
moving relative to each other is described by Heinz Pagels in his book The
Cosmic Code: "Even after taking into account their relative motion and the
finite speed of light they cannot agree which event 'really' took place first."
The relativity of simultaneity thought experiment which has just been
described is often mistakenly presented as nothing more than an experiment
in signalling, or time synchronisation. Worst of all, it is frequently presented
as explaining what people "see", the observers seeing the light signals as
simultaneous or not. But the experiment is not at all about seeing light
signals. In fact, it is really nothing to do with light at all. What it reveals is
something far more extraordinary, far more profound. It is not about what is
seen, it is about what is measured. This is not about synchronisation — this
is about the whole of reality. It shows that merely by moving relative to
each other, two observers inhabit different realities. It is as if they inhabit
two different universes.
And the events which occur in the experiment need not just be lightning
bolts hitting a railway track, or lights flashing in a railway carriage. They
could be a gunshot, or a star exploding, or the outbreak of war, or the
assassination of a president. All aspects of reality are affected by this
outcome.
The effect is imperceptible at speeds far less than the speed of light, but it
is real nonetheless. If I am moving relative to you, then my reality is
different to your reality.
In his book The Emperor's New Mind, Roger Penrose emphasizes this
point by considering two people passing each other on the street at low
speed. Because of the relativity of simultaneity, they will both have
different conceptions of what is happening "now". While this effect is
small, the effect increases with distance (as we shall discover in the next
chapter). If they consider what is happening at, say, intergalactic distances
then the effect is very marked. Penrose considers one person walking in the
direction of the Andromeda galaxy, while one person walks in the other
direction. The person walking towards Andromeda will consider his "now"
moment on Andromeda to be hours or days ahead of the other person.
Penrose then considers a potential invasion of Earth by aliens living on
Andromeda: "Even with quite slow relative velocities, significant
differences in time-ordering will occur for events at great distances.
Imagine two people walking slowly past each other in the street. The events
in the Andromeda galaxy (the closest large galaxy to our own Milky Way)
judged by the two people to be simultaneous with the moment that they
pass one another could amount to a difference of several days. For one of
the people, the space fleet launched with the intent to wipe out life on the
planet Earth is already on its way; while for the other, the very decision
about whether or not to launch that fleet has not yet even been made!"
This effect has been called the Andromeda Paradox. [4]

Of course, what is happening "right now" in a galaxy 2.5 million light-

years from Earth is not of particular relevance as, even if the decision to
launch the space fleet is made right now, it would still take millions of years
for the fleet to reach Earth. We are in no immediate danger of alien
invasion.

And so we come to the end of the long journey of the last two chapters. It
is a journey which started 400 years ago in renaissance Italy at the dawn of
modern science when Galileo proposed the principle of addition of
velocities, and introduced the modern experimental method. It is a journey
which required the mathematical prowess of James Clerk Maxwell who
revealed the astonishing true nature of light. And it is a journey which has
ended with the genius of Einstein whose thought experiment involving the
speed of light revealed the true astonishing implications for reality.
4
SPACETIME
When the Black Death struck England in the year 1665 it must have
seemed like the end of the world. The bubonic plague, carried by fleas on
rats, had already killed a third of Europe's population. Once you were
infected, the extremities of your body turned black (hence "Black Death"),
and death almost surely resulted within four days.
The closure of Cambridge University during the plague forced a 23-year-
old Isaac Newton to take refuge at his home in Woolsthorpe in
Lincolnshire. It was while Newton was in forced isolation that he set his
mind to produce his greatest work, the Principia, which laid down the basis
of classical mechanics and Newtonian gravity, results still very much in use
to this day. Indeed, it was by using only an understanding of Newtonian
mechanics and gravity that NASA put the first man on the Moon in 1969.
The following image shows Isaac Newton as painted by William Blake in
1795:
 In order to arrive at his laws of motion, Newton had to employ a precise
definition of time. In the Scholium (introduction) to the Principia, Newton
stated: "Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself and from its own
nature, flows equably without relation to anything external."
So Newton believed in absolute time, which always operated as a
background on which all objects changed. It was as if all objects danced to
a single clock which controlled the entire universe. If no objects existed in
the universe, this ultimate clock would still exist counting down its absolute
time.
Newton had similar views on space. Newton believed that, even if all the
matter was removed from the universe, there would still be the "box" of
space by which all position could be measured. This was absolute space.
The proposal of absolute time and space was so important and successful
for Newton's theories of mechanics because it created a pre-existing
framework within which objects could move, and those movements could
be analysed and predicted by Newton's laws of motion.
According to absolute time, we could imagine the current state of reality
in the universe as being all those events that are "real" (i.e., currently
happening) at the moment we snap our fingers. That might include the boy
falling off his bike down the road, and a star exploding in the Andromeda
Galaxy. All of these events taken together would represent the current state
of the universe. And this current "now" moment would be determined by
Newton's absolute "clock of the universe" — all objects in the universe
would agree on the current absolute time:

Hence, we could represent the current "now" moment as being a single

slice out of all time. In the previous diagram, the current "now" moment is
indicated by the shaded slice. This "now" slice moves upwards in the time
direction from the past to the future (only two dimensions of space are
shown on the diagram instead of the usual three dimensions).
The slice represents all the events in the current universe (the events are
denoted by the black circles). Only the events included in the "now" slice
are "real" — they are the only events currently happening. The events of the
past have already happened and are no longer real. The events of the future
have not yet happened and are therefore not yet real. As the "now" slice
moves upwards along the time axis at a speed determined by Newton's
absolute clock, it turns the unreal future events into real current events, and
those real current events are turned into unreal past events.
However, remember back to our discussion of Einstein's thought
experiment in the last chapter. We discovered that Alice and Bob — who
were moving relative to each other — could not agree on whether events
occurred simultaneously. In other words, they disagreed about the reality
(whether or not an event was happening) of certain events. If two observers
cannot agree on the reality of events, then this poses a problem for
Newton's view of the universe. Newton's view was based on a slice of
events which were definitely real: only the events on the slice were real.
But Alice and Bob can apparently not agree which events should be on the
slice — they cannot agree which events are real. An event cannot be both
real and unreal at the same time. How can this problem with Newton's view
of the universe be resolved?
The resolution to this problem came from an unlikely source. In 1895,
the English writer Herbert George Wells (better known as H.G. Wells)
considered the possibility of treating time as a fourth dimension, and
creating a machine which allowed the operator to move freely in that fourth
dimension. After all, in our daily lives we can move in the three spatial
dimensions — left/right, up/down, forward/backward — as we wish. Might
it not be possible to imagine freedom to move in a fourth dimension as
well? Wells's book The Time Machine based on this principle became the
first book to popularise the concept of time travel and introduced the notion
of time as a fourth dimension to the general public. We are now quite used
to the idea of seeing time travel in popular fiction, so it is hard to imagine
what an impact this idea must have had when presented to the public for the
first time.
 The following extract is H.G. Wells's description of time from The Time
Machine. It is quite remarkable considering this was written twenty years
before Einstein's great insight: [5]
"Clearly", the Time Traveller proceeded, "any real body must have
extension in four dimensions: It must have length, breadth, thickness, and
— duration. But we incline to overlook this fact. There are really four
dimensions, three of which we call the three planes of space, and a fourth,
time. There is no difference between time and any of the three dimensions
of space except that our consciousness moves along it."
In truth, the idea of a fourth spatial dimension was tremendously
fashionable toward the end of the 19th century. This was largely due to the
efforts of popular writers such as Charles Hinton who took the latest
mathematical ideas about geometry in higher-dimensional spaces and made
them accessible to the general public. Another book of the time, Flatland: A
Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott, continued the
popular trend of the time by considering how travel in extra spatial
dimensions could allow liberation from conventional restraints. This idea of
a liberating fourth dimension was adopted by modern artists who moved
away from the restrictive one-point perspective system which portrayed the
world as three-dimensional. This is especially noticeable in the perspective-
free paintings of the cubists such as Pablo Picasso.
It was during this period, in this liberated environment, that Einstein's
former mathematics teacher at the Zurich Polytechnic, Hermann
Minkowski, took an interest in Einstein's work on relativity. Minkowski
was impressed with Einstein's progress — and more than a little surprised:
"It came as a tremendous surprise, for in his student days Einstein had been
a lazy dog. He had never bothered about mathematics at all." Minkowski
realised that an elegant explanation of Einstein's result could be provided if
time was considered as a fourth dimension — just as H.G. Wells had earlier
suggested. Instead of there being a single "now" slice of reality across the
entire universe — as Newton had suggested — we had to consider all of
time and space existing as one huge block-like structure. This is called
spacetime.
 In the previous diagram, Newton's "now" slice of time has vanished, and
all the events (the black circles) are now portrayed as being "real".
In principle, this presented the opportunity for time travel: if all times
existed, and time was just another dimension, we could travel back to those
times. This could not possibly have been the case in Newton's universe in
which only the present moment was real.
It might at first appear strange to treat time as another dimension.
Perhaps it helps to realise that we always give the position of events in
terms of four dimensions: three dimensions of space and one of time. For
example, we might arrange a meeting at the corner of two streets (providing
the value of the spatial dimensions) at a certain time (providing the value of
the time dimension). So events are inevitably defined in terms of four
dimensions. You have been doing this all your life perhaps without realising
it.
This approach, of treating space and time as dimensions of spacetime,
starts to reveal the very close connection between space and time. For
example, when we look at the stars we are essentially looking back in time.
This is because we are looking at the stars as they were many years ago: the
distances to the stars are so great that their light takes many years to reach
us. Other profound connections between space and time will be considered
in later chapters.
As we move around in space, we are inexorably moving forward in time.
Hence, as we progress through our lives we plot a path through spacetime
which is called a world line. In the next diagram, the world line of Bob is
denoted by the curved, directional line:
 Every object moves forward in time, so every object has a world line. We
might perceive an object at its single position "right now", but physics tells
us that a more accurate representation of an object is as a world line through
spacetime. This principle even applies to elementary particles which are
portrayed in Feynman diagrams as lines rather than point particles.
This is one of the most important points of this book, as we shall see in
later chapters. It is crucial to understanding the nature of time. Objects are
not really points in space — they are truly lines in spacetime. Indeed, we
ourselves exist as lines through spacetime, as if we are "stretched-out".
Every atom and particle in our body exists as a line in spacetime — we just
don't perceive it that way (for reasons we will discover in the next chapter).
 At each point of the world line of an observer, there will be an associated
plane — a slice of spacetime — which represents all the events which that
observer considers "real" at that particular point in time. This is called the
plane of simultaneity of the observer.
The plane of simultaneity of Bob is shown in the following diagram by
the shaded plane. Note that, at any point along Bob's world line, the plane
of simultaneity is always perpendicular to Bob's world line. It is a cross-
section of spacetime at a particular time. It represents all the events that are
real to Bob when Bob clicks his fingers "right now":
 This resembles Newton's "now" slice of space, but it differs in the crucial
fact that this plane is defined solely in terms of a particular observer —
unlike Newton's slice of absolute time, it does not apply to all observers.
That is where Newton went wrong: he took a result which applied only to
himself, and assumed it applied to all observers. He believed that the time
when he "clicked his fingers" represented the same absolute time for all
observers in the universe. That is not the case. Newton's model of absolute
time was a flawed concept.
If we have two observers — Alice and Bob — moving relative to each
other (as in the train example in the previous chapter) their world lines
through spacetime will be at angles to each other. However, their individual
planes of simultaneity will always be perpendicular to their world lines.
This is shown in the following diagram (showing Bob and Alice's separate
planes of simultaneity):
 As a result of these angled planes of simultaneity, Alice and Bob do not
agree as to which events are real and which are unreal (which events are
currently happening, which events are yet to happen, and which events have
already happened). This explains how, in a spacetime in which all events
are real, Alice and Bob only experience a "slice" of real events at any
moment along their world lines.
The difference in the angles of their planes of simultaneity also explains
how Alice and Bob can have vastly different experiences as to which events
are real at great distances. This is due to their angled planes of simultaneity
diverging greatly over vast distances (this is the reason for the Andromeda
Galaxy paradox discussed in the previous chapter).
So, at this stage, we have considered the basic principles of spacetime.
However, some very deep questions remain:

To say that all events in the universe are "real" all the time sounds like
crazy talk! Indeed, there remains some physicists who would not agree
— even though the principle has a firm basis in special relativity. Is
there any additional evidence that this is the case?
Why do human beings experience just one slice of spacetime, a "now"
moment? If all events are real, why cannot we see events in the future
and the past? Basically, why can't we remember the future?
Why do we experience movement of this "now" slice from past to
future?

We will be considering the first of these three questions later in this

chapter. Potential answers to the other two questions will be presented in
the next chapter.

The emergence of spacetime

According to absolute time and space, if all the matter was removed from
the universe, there would still exist an underlying framework of absolute
axes of space and time. The space and time dimensions could then be
considered fundamental. However, in this chapter we have seen that
Newton's model of absolute time was a flawed concept. In my previous
book, it was explained how the principle that there is "nothing outside the
universe" logically implies that there can be no axes of space and time —
no box or clock — outside the entire universe. Absolute space and time
cannot be true. So, in that case, where do the dimensions of space and time
come from?
Considering time and space as being "emergent" properties is a very
fashionable trend in physics at the moment. This suggests that time and
space are not fundamental, pre-existing dimensions but instead "emerge"
from the interactions of the objects within the universe. The popularity of
this approach is largely due to a highly-influential 1997 string theory paper
by Juan Maldacena. Maldacena revealed that it was possible to consider a
string theory version of our universe as being a form of holographic
projection of the interaction of elementary particles on the boundary of our
universe. This would imply that space emerges as a result of more
fundamental interactions. This result tied in very nicely with the principle
of the holographic bound (considered in my previous book) which
suggested that the maximum amount of information which can be contained
in a region of space is proportional to the surface area of that region — not
its volume.
Though many would disagree, Maldacena's paper remains speculative.
Most seriously, the hypothesis requires the universe to have an attractive
cosmological constant (considered in my previous book) whereas the
universe appears to have a repulsive cosmological constant.
So is spacetime truly emergent? Well, if spacetime is emergent, that
would suggest that the dimensions of time and space are not fundamental
(i.e., they do not pre-exist as underlying axes) but "emerge" as a result of
the interactions of the objects within the universe. As we have discussed,
the absence of absolute time and space means that the dimensions of time
and space cannot pre-exist as underlying axes. Therefore, in the absence of
absolute time and space, I would suggest the solution to the question is
clear: time and space simply must be emergent, i.e., emerge from the
objects within the universe. There are no fundamental axes outside the
universe. Spacetime cannot, therefore, be fundamental. Logically, therefore,
spacetime must emerge from the interactions of the objects within the
universe.

The block universe

While many readers of popular science books may be well aware of the
concept of time as a fourth dimension, they perhaps still imagine the
movement of a "now" moment which moves through the spacetime
structure turning the future into the past. These readers are perhaps less
aware of the other main conclusion of Einstein's thought experiment, which
is, as we have seen, that all events — and therefore all times — are equally
real. There is therefore no special "now" moment. As Brian Greene notes in
his book The Fabric of the Cosmos: "A less than widely appreciated
implication of Einstein's work is that special relativity really treats all times
equally."
What this implies is truly quite staggering. It suggests that all times are
real, every point of our life has the same level of reality. The time when you
fell off a bike when you were a child is just as real as the current moment.
And the moment of your birth is just as real as the moment of your death. In
fact, all times really exist — the whole block of spacetime from the start of
the universe to the end of the universe exists as one unchanging block. This
is called the block universe model.
I considered the block universe model in depth in my first book, and I do
not want to repeat myself, but it has to be mentioned here as it appears to be
one of the few vitally-important genuine insights we can obtain about the
nature of time.
But, you might argue, you feel as though there is a moving "now"
moment. Surely time is moving? Surely "now" is a special moment? Well,
yes, you do feel a moving "now", but that is precisely how you have felt at
every other moment of your life:

Time is not actually moving — there are just multiple copies of you
stretched-out through spacetime. The moving "now" slice is just an illusion
of human perception (which we will consider in the next chapter).
 In the last section I asked the question as to whether any additional
evidence existed to back up the conclusion of special relativity that all times
exist. And, indeed, it seems basic logic can prove the existence of the block
universe model. This is because we can easily recognise that the concept of
a moving "now" is logically inconsistent. Put simply, it makes no sense to
ask the question: "How fast does time flow?" When we generally talk of the
speed of moving objects, we give an answer which represents the change in
position of the object with respect to time. However, when we talk about a
moving "now" moment we are talking about the movement of time itself,
and it makes no sense to talk about the speed at which time itself moves
with respect to itself. To say that time moves at a rate of one second per
second is absurd. The only logical conclusion is that time does not flow —
all times are real.
So not only does special relativity tell us that we live in a block universe,
basic logic tells us that it is undoubtedly the case.

The block universe in literature

If "killing your own grandfather" paradoxes are a favourite cliche of

schlocky science fiction, then a more accurate and sophisticated model of
time incorporating the block universe model can be found in more
intelligent sci-fi literature. These thoughtful portrayals of the block universe
present time as an unchanging, pre-existing block structure which can be
accessed by beings possessing extraordinary powers.
As an example, Alan Moore's magnificent Watchmen graphic novel
includes the character known as Doctor Manhattan. Doctor Manhattan is
created when the physicist Dr. Jonathan Osterman is accidentally
disintegrated when he is trapped in an Intrinsic Field Subtractor (the
"intrinsic field" apparently being the force which holds all matter together).
His body slowly reassembles itself into something greater: a blue-skinned
super-being with control over matter at a subatomic level. Osterman is
pressed into service by the U.S. government which gives him the name
Doctor Manhattan (named after the Manhattan Project).
Doctor Manhattan is an almost omnipotent figure, and possesses the
ability to perceive all times at once. It is as if Doctor Manhattan exists
"outside the universe" and is in possession of a godlike overview of the
entire block universe structure. As Doctor Manhattan explains: "There is no
future. There is no past. Do you see? Time is simultaneous, an intricately
structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the
whole design is visible in every facet."
While Doctor Manhattan's character might appear rather distant and
otherworldly, his realisation and description of the block universe is
instructive and carries a message for all of us. All times exist equally — this
is what science and logic tells us. Try and see the "whole design visible in
every facet" rather than concentrating on "viewing one edge at a time" (i.e.,
the "now" moment). As you can tell, Alan Moore writes the Doctor
Manhattan passages in Watchmen quite beautifully and poetically.
As another example of the use of the block universe model in quality
literature, in 1969 the science fiction author Kurt Vonnegut released his
most famous novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, now considered one of the finest
novels of the twentieth century. Slaughterhouse-Five is the story of Billy
Pilgrim who is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. The aliens
are friendly, and can see in four dimensions (i.e., including the time
dimension). Hence, the aliens possess a similar godlike overview of
spacetime to that enjoyed by Doctor Manhattan. The Tralfamadorians see it
as their duty to teach Earthlings about the true nature of time. As Billy
Pilgrim recalls: "The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was
that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive
in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments,
past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist. The
Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just the way we can
look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how
permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that
interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment
follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone
it is gone forever."
The Tralfamadorians were able to see the true nature of objects (and
people) stretched-out as world lines in spacetime, a continued existence
from baby to old age: "Tralfamadorians don't see human beings as two-
legged creatures, either. They see them as great millipedes — with babies'
legs at one end and old people's legs at the other."
As I said earlier in the chapter, this is an absolutely crucial point in this
book: we do not exist as points in time, we are "stretched-out" as world
lines from birth to death — like a millipede. This is the reality of our
existence in spacetime. We will be seeing in later chapters why this is so
important.

How to live in a block universe

The implications of the block universe model really seem quite

staggering. It states that you exist at all times: the past and the future are
just as real as the current moment. So the question arises: how should you
live your life in a block universe? Does an understanding of the block
universe give you an advantage over other people (who don't read quality
popular science books)? Should you behave differently?
Firstly, I think you should find living in a block universe reassuring. Life
can feel as though we are on an inexorable conveyor belt, from birth to
death. However, once you realise that the motion of time is just an illusion,
and that all times are equally real, you realise that the conveyor belt of time
is just an illusion of your mind. You can step off the conveyor belt. You can
appreciate that you are alive at all times, that you exist at all moments in
spacetime. You should feel relieved and empowered.
And death should hold less fear. True, the block universe model implies
that the circumstance and time of your death has already been decided, but
it also states that the moment of your death has no more importance than
any other time of your life. You will remain alive at other times — for
eternity. This is no crank theory — this is an underappreciated implication
of orthodox physics.
Michael Lockwood considers this principle in his book The Labyrinth of
Time. He tries to console those who may have lost loved ones: "Einstein
evidently believed that the spacetime view, when taken fully to heart, can
provide comfort to the bereaved. A person who is not living now, but did or
will live at other times, exists in just as substantial a sense as someone who
does not live here, but only in some other place. Einstein is urging us to
regard those living in times past, like those living in foreign parts, as
equally out there in spacetime, enjoying the same flesh-and-blood
existence as ourselves."
If all times are equally real, then this implies that those happy moments
you have in your past are just as real as the current moment. That should be
reassuring. But it also raises the intriguing question of whether it might be
possible to raise your level of awareness of past events to the same level of
awareness you have of the current moment, to relive the past. I believe this
is possible — though not in the obvious manner. It does not appear possible
to raise your awareness of the past, so, instead, lower the importance you
give to the current moment. Downgrade the "now". Realise that the current
moment is no more real than the past moments in your life. We are
inundated with advertising slogans which try to persuade us to increase the
importance we assign to the current moment: "Live for the day!" "Buy now,
pay later!" Instead, resist these temptations. Do not "live for the day", live
for all times. Realise that you exist at all times. Save for the future.
Appreciate the past as being as real as the current moment.
When it comes to living in a block universe, I think we could all learn
from Doctor Manhattan and Billy Pilgrim.
5
THE ARROW OF TIME
As we have just discussed, the block universe model suggests that all of
spacetime exists as an unchanging block, with no special "now" moment.
But, if that is the case, then why do we feel as though there is a "now"
moment, which gives the current moment priority over the past and the
future? In fact, not only do we feel a "now" moment, but we feel movement
of that now moment from what we call "the past" to what we call "the
future". So this seems to indicate a directionality in time. What is the origin
of this directionality?
This directionality — this so-called arrow of time — is not just limited to
our internal perception of the motion of time. External physical processes
also exhibit a directionality in time. For example, we might see an egg
breaking (in the forward time direction), but we never see a broken egg
reforming itself. These considerations might seem trivial, but they pose
serious questions for physics. This is because the laws of physics —
certainly Newtonian mechanics — are time symmetrical, i.e., they work the
same in the backward time direction as they do in the forward time
direction. Consider, for example, shooting a movie of two balls colliding,
with the first ball stopping and the second ball moving off at speed. If you
played the movie backwards, the events would still make sense according to
the laws of physics. This time, though, the second ball would come in
reverse, strike the stationary first ball, and the first ball would then move off
in reverse. Everything would happen perfectly in reverse, and it would look
as though it was happening in the forward time direction.
So if the laws of physics are time-symmetrical, why do so many
processes exhibit an arrow of time in the forward time direction?
 Let us first consider the psychological aspects of this question.

The feeling of "now"

In the discussion of the block universe in the previous chapter, it was

described how all times are equally real and there is, therefore, no special
"now" pointer which moves through time at a certain speed and determines
the current moment. Even though we derived this result in a logical manner,
there still lingers a considerable amount of resistance to this model. For
example, Lee Smolin recently devoted an entire book, entitled Time Reborn,
in an attempt to refute the block universe. The main reason I feel that many
people have such a problem accepting the block universe model is not
through any rational scientific basis, but because they instinctively feel a
special "now" moment. This feeling is so utterly entrenched into our lives
and psyche that it is an incredibly hard habit to break.
However, there is no place in physics for feelings. Physics is based on
measurement and cold equations. Is it possible to produce any hard
numerical measurement of this supposed "moving now"? No, of course it
isn't — for the reason presented in the previous chapter: it simply makes no
logical sense to try and measure how fast time flows. People might say with
complete certainty that they feel the movement of a "now" pointer, but you
will note that they never say precisely how fast it moves!
So why do we feel this motion of time, this so-called psychological
arrow of time? The physicist James Hartle believes the answer does not lie
with physics at all, but instead purely lies in human biology. Hartle has
considered how the human mind processes information, specifically
considering the mechanism of human memory.[6] Hartle realised that a
computer model of human memory could be constructed. The resultant
model applied not only to humans, but also to processing units with
computer memory such as robots. These generalised robots were given the
name IGUS (Information Gathering and Utilizing Systems).
Here is a cute example of an IGUS. We'll be seeing him again later:
 Hartle realised that the memory of an IGUS could be modelled as a series
of computer registers:

In the preceding diagram, the IGUS mechanism is contained within the

dashed rectangle. The ever-changing information about the outside world is
denoted by a pack of cards (shown on the left of the diagram), with the top
card changing with time. The latest information about the external world —
the top card on the pack — is captured by the electronic eye of the IGUS.
That information is stored in its first memory register, R1. As time passes,
that information in register R1 gets shuffled back further in memory into
register R2, and the new latest information is captured into R1. So as each
new piece of information comes in, the information which is already held in
memory gets shuffled further and further back in the memory registers.
Eventually, the information is shuffled out of the bank of registers
completely, into the waste bin, and the information is lost ("forgotten").
Now, the important point here is that our brains could assign equal
priority to each of these memory registers. It could say the contents of R2
are just as important as the contents of R1, or it could even say that the
contents of R4 are more important than the contents of R1! But that is not
what happens in practice. In fact, any creature whose brain worked on the
principle that the contents of R4 were more important than the contents of R1
would be quickly killed off through evolution. This is because such a
creature would be perpetually living in the past. It would be acting
according to the state of the universe a few seconds ago. Hartle gives the
example of a frog trying to use its sticky tongue to catch a fly on a leaf. If
the frog is operating based on the contents of R4 then it will be considering
the state of the universe a few seconds ago. By the time the frog sticks its
tongue out to catch the fly, the fly will have long since flown.
So, instead, our brains assign greater importance to the contents of
memory register R1. Evolution has shown that this is the most efficient way
to catch flies. The brain still retains the contents of memory registers R2 to
R4, but it makes their contents appear "foggy" to us, to make it clear that
these contents should not be regarded as being as important as the contents
of R1. Hence, we call the contents of R2 to R4 "memories".
The brain retains the contents of R2 to R4, and makes their contents
available to us, because memories are useful for evolutionary purposes. But
the brain emphasizes the importance of the contents of R1. If the brain really
wanted to, it could raise the importance of the contents of R2 to R4 to the
same level of importance as the contents of R1. Our memories would then be
perceived as being just as real as the current moment. We would then be
truly like the Tralfamadorians from Slaughterhouse-Five, viewing all past
moments in time as being as equally real as the current moment.
How extraordinary! And perfectly legitimate within the laws of physics.
So the feeling of a special "now" moment is purely a construction of
biology. Do not be fooled — this has nothing to do with physics. Physics
states that all times are equally real.
But it is interesting that this is how an IGUS (such as ourselves) can
generate a "now" moment from the static block universe structure: it is
purely an illusion of human perception.
This is why we do not see objects as continuous world lines in spacetime
(like the Tralfamadorians). We only ever regard the true state of the
universe as being the information which resides in the latest register R1. So
we only ever see a cross-section of spacetime at one point "right now". In
this respect, human perception fools us — it does not provide us with an
accurate view of reality. As I stressed in the previous chapter, it is vital to
understand that the correct view of reality is that objects exist as stretched-
out world lines in spacetime.
So, if this book is a detective story trying to solve the true nature of time,
this tells us we cannot trust the testimony of our witnesses.

The moving "now"

So, given that the universe has a static block universe structure, why does
an IGUS feel the movement of this "now" moment? In other words, what is
the reason for the psychological arrow of time? To answer this, you will
notice that there is a clear directionality in the way the captured information
passes through the IGUS memory registers: the information always passes
from left to right, from register R1 to register R4. It is always one-way traffic.
This directionality results in an asymmetry in our memory: we can
remember the past, but we cannot remember the future. This asymmetry is
the reason we feel movement: we feel the past is somewhere "we have
been" and the future is somewhere "we are going".
If we return to consider our cartoon character who lives in the block
universe, we find that at each point in his existence he is able to remember
his past, but is unable to remember his future:
 So this asymmetry results in our cartoon character feeling a form of
motion in time, directed from the past to the future. However, due to his
existence at all times in the block universe model, there is no actual motion
at all. The universe is a static block of spacetime.
This sensation of a "moving now" explains how humans can observe
motion in an otherwise completely static block universe structure. The
storage registers of our memory hold past states of our environment. As the
data shuffles through our memory registers, we can compare the past state
of the environment with the current observed state. Any change in the state
of our environment would be interpreted as "motion" of the objects in the
environment. So, even in a completely static block universe structure,
human beings can obtain an impression of motion. There are probably good
evolutionary reasons why we have developed a memory which works in
this manner: it is undoubtedly a huge evolutionary advantage to be able to
detect objects in motion. This is the reason why a tiger creeps slowly
through the African Savannah when it is tracking its prey — it is because
the visual system of a gazelle is attuned to detecting motion.
So what science and logic seems to be telling us is that the sensation we
have of movement through time is nothing more than an illusion generated
by our brains! You might find this very hard to accept, after all, surely our
brains never fool us into believing that something which is static appears to
be moving? Well, if you think that is the case, consider the following
optical illusion:

You should be able to see motion in the image (Einstein's head moves).
So the brain clearly has a tendency to give an impression of movement in
a situation which is completely static. There is much in physics which is
counter-intuitive, and placing too much credence on the evidence of our
own eyes — and our "feelings" — can hinder our progress to uncover the
truth. We have to be careful only to analyse the available data, and not
impose our own preconceptions on the result.

Why can't we remember the future?

So, as has just been described, the underlying reason as to why we

experience a moving "now" moment is due to an asymmetry in out
memory: we can remember the past, but we cannot remember the future.
This asymmetry generates a feeling of movement: we feel the past is
somewhere "we have been" and the future is somewhere "we are going".
So, as we continue our analysis, it seems essential to try to understand the
root cause of this asymmetry, which is: why can't we remember the future?
It might be imagined that the answer to this question is irretrievably
locked in the maze of neurons in our head. The answer would appear to be a
very personal matter, the result of individual brain chemistry. However,
once again James Hartle's IGUS model casts light on the mystery by
considering the laws of physics.
Any event which occurs in spacetime has a light cone associated with it.
In this example, we will be considering the light cone for past events (there
is also a corresponding light cone for future events). The past light cone
contains every event which might possibly cause a particular event.
Basically, the past event must have occurred close enough to the future
event so that light had enough time to reach the future event. This allows
the past event to have been the cause of the future event.
The past light cone for an IGUS is shown in grey in the following
diagram:
 The IGUS lies at the apex of the cone. Two events, A and B, are shown
on the diagram. As can be seen, event A lies within the past light cone of
the IGUS. This means that light (and, hence, information) from the event
has had sufficient time to reach the IGUS. As far as the IGUS is concerned,
event A is an event in its past. The IGUS possesses information about the
event.
However, it can be seen that event B lies outside the past light cone of the
IGUS. This means that light (and information) from event B has not had
enough time to reach the IGUS. Light from event B will only reach the
IGUS after some additional time has passed (see how the arrow from event
B intersects the IGUS world line some time in the future of the IGUS).
Hence, event B can be considered to lie in the future of the IGUS. As far as
the IGUS is concerned, event B is a future event.
So why is the IGUS unable to remember the future? Well, James Hartle
makes the rather obvious and brilliant insight that "One reason the robot
doesn't remember the future is that it receives no information about it."
There has been enough time for information from event A (the past event)
to reach the IGUS, so information about that event has been captured into
the memory registers of the IGUS. However, there has not been enough
time for information from event B (the future event) to reach the IGUS.
Information from event B has therefore not been stored in the IGUS
memory registers. Whereas the IGUS can remember event A (the past
event), it is unable to remember event B (the future event). The IGUS is
therefore unable to remember the future.
So, far from being a matter of personal brain physiology, we discover
that the reason we cannot remember the future is purely due to the physics
of the external universe: we cannot remember the future because we have
received no information from the future. And this is an important message:
the boundary between the internal processes of our minds and the external
processes of the universe is a very blurred boundary. Human beings are not
the isolated entities we often imagine we are.

The thermodynamic arrow of time

This behaviour of light which has just been described — always

travelling from the past to the future — appears to represent another
directionality in time, another arrow of time. This behaviour is actually
called the radiative arrow of time. There are in fact many different "arrows
of time". For example:

We have already discussed the psychological arrow of time, and

examined why we feel the motion of time from the past into the future.
We have also considered the radiative arrow of time, and seen its
importance in generating the psychological arrow of time.
 There is also a quantum mechanical arrow of time. If you read my first
book, Hidden In Plain Sight, you will know that before we measure a
property of a particle, the particle behaves as though it has all possible
property values. However, when we measure the actual property of the
particle, there is an apparent "quantum jump" to a particular value.
This quantum jump always happens in the forward time direction.
Another arrow of time is the thermodynamic arrow of time. Heat will
always flow from a warm body to a cold body.

Interestingly, these seemingly unrelated arrows of time all have several

features in common. Firstly, all of these arrows of time represent an
irreversible process. In the psychological arrow of time, we feel movement
in the forward time direction, but we cannot reverse our motion to feel as if
we are travelling in the reverse time direction. In the radiative arrow of
time, light travels in all directions away from a source and scatters
randomly off objects, but scattered light is never observed converging back
towards a source. In the quantum mechanical arrow of time, quantum jumps
happen in the forward time direction, but can never happen in the reverse
time direction. And in the thermodynamic arrow of time, heat flows from
hot to cold, but the reverse process is never observed (the heat of a body at
constant temperature does not spontaneously move to one corner of the
body for no reason).
The second similarity between all of these arrows of time is that all of
these irreversible processes happen in the same forward time direction.
So, these similarities lead us to quite an intriguing thought: might it be
possible that all of these arrows of time have the same underlying cause?
That would explain the similarities. In fact, it is indeed now the case that
physicists believe that all of these arrows of time have the same cause. And,
perhaps surprisingly, the underlying cause is believed to be the principle
behind the thermodynamic arrow of time.
Thermodynamics is the theory of heat and motion ("thermo" +
"dynamics"). Heat always flows from a hot substance to a cold substance,
and this motion can be tapped — just like the motion of water can be tapped
to drive a water wheel. This motion provides the energy for steam engines,
for example. And it was during the era of the steam engine that the science
of thermodynamics first appeared.
 So why does heat always flow from hot to cold? Well, what is really
happening is that the heat is moving from being concentrated to being
dispersed. If you have two objects — one hot and one cold — and you
connect them to form a single system, the eventual result will be a single
system at the same temperature. In other words, heat has flowed from the
hot object to the cold object in order to equalise the temperature of the two
objects.
In 1865, the German physicist Rudolf Clausius observed this flow of heat
and tried to express the motion in mathematical terms. He arrived at the
following inequality:

This inequality says that the rate of change of a measurable property, S,

in a thermodynamic process is always greater than 0. In other words, the
value of S always increases. Clausius gave a name to this peculiar property,
S: he called it entropy. The inequality therefore states that the value of
entropy always increases with time. This forms the second law of
thermodynamics.
So at last this equation gives us a clear mathematical formulation for an
arrow of time: it is the arrow of time captured in an equation! We are not
talking about a subjective psychological arrow of time here — this is a
measurable physical quantity which always increases with time.
However, despite the success of the laws of thermodynamics, in the
middle of the 19th century no one quite understood what entropy was, or
why it should always increase. In order to make sense of entropy, another
conceptual leap was required. That leap was the acceptance of the existence
of atoms.
At the time, the existence of atoms was still in doubt. However, if we
consider objects to be made of atoms then we can realise that heat is simply
the random motion of atoms. The spread of heat through an object is then
the spreading of this random atomic motion through the object.
The great Austrian physicist, Ludwig Boltzmann, realised that if we
consider our world as being made up of atoms, we could obtain an
understanding of entropy, and why it must always increase. If we have a
system made up of atoms, we could consider those atoms to be in either an
ordered state, or a totally random disordered state (this is not something you
could do if you considered objects to be a continuous solid). Entropy could
then be regarded as the amount of disorder, or randomness, of the atoms in
a system. For example, if heat energy was in a very ordered state, confined
to a few atoms vibrating at the edge of an object, that heat energy would
tend to spread through the whole object. In other words, order would be
lost: disorder increases. In the final state, all the atoms in the object would
be randomly vibrating, so the whole object would be the same temperature,
with no trace left of that initial ordered state. This would be a state of
maximum disorder, maximum entropy.
Boltzmann produced an equation which allowed you to assign a value to
entropy — the amount of disorder:

This is Boltzmann's famous equation, engraved on his tombstone in

Vienna.
The value for the W term in the equation is produced by examining a
system and calculating how disordered is its current state. For example, a
pack of 52 playing cards could be randomly shuffled into a huge number of
different sequences. If, however, you found the pack perfectly ordered in
sequence, ace to king in all four suits, then this would represent a very
special, ordered state. And that sequence would represent a very small
proportion of all the possible sequences. Hence, the W value would be very
small for that perfect sequence — giving a very small entropy value in
Boltzmann's formula.
In the case of maximum entropy, the pack would be completely
disordered, and the W value would then be equal to the total number of
possible sequences of the cards: a huge number.
So, by considering Boltzmann's formula, why should entropy always
increase? Well, a system will have many more disordered states rather than
ordered states. Consider the pack of playing cards again. If the entire pack
of cards was ordered in sequence, that represents a very special, ordered
state with low entropy. However, a pack of cards has many more disordered
states. If the ordered pack was then randomly shuffled, it would most likely
move to one of the disordered states — it would be highly unlikely to move
to the ordered state. Because systems have many more disordered states
than ordered states, a system which changes state randomly will tend to
move to a more disordered state.
So this explains the thermodynamic arrow of time. It explains why an
area of heat (random atomic motion) spreads, and never shrinks. And this
principle — that disorder will spread — applies to all dynamic systems. It
explains why we might see a china cup breaking into hundreds of
disordered pieces, but we never see broken china pieces spontaneously
reforming to form a cup. To quote Jim Al-Khalili from his BBC TV
programme Order And Disorder: "Boltzmann's equation contains within it
the mortality of everything, from a china jug, to a human life, to the
universe itself."

Loschmidt's paradox

However, we are not out of the woods yet. There is still a problem with
our proposed solution to the thermodynamic arrow of time. If you
remember back to the start of this chapter, it was described how the laws of
physics are fundamentally time-symmetrical, i.e., they work the same in the
backward time direction as in the forward time direction. So the laws of
physics do not favour any direction of time — forward or backward. And,
surprisingly, when we consider Boltzmann's solution we also find that no
direction of time is preferred. Boltzmann's solution just says "a system that
changes randomly will tend to become more disordered." But, if you
consider the backward time direction, systems change just as much in the
backward time direction as they do in the forward time direction. Again, no
particular direction of time is preferred.
 So change of entropy is fundamentally time-symmetrical. I do not think
this point is widely appreciated.
Hence, it appears that we should find entropy increasing in the reverse
time direction just as much as we observe entropy increasing in the forward
time direction. This argument is called Loschmidt's paradox, named after
Josef Loschmidt who was Ludwig Boltzmann's teacher.
Now let us apply Loschmidt's paradox to the whole universe. As change
of entropy is fundamentally time symmetrical then that suggests that we
should see entropy increasing as we look back in time from our current
moment. This increase of entropy into the past is indicated by the dashed
line in the following diagram:

Note the symmetry of the "V" shape. This is due to change of entropy
being fundamentally time-symmetrical.
However, this is, of course, not what we observe. Objects tend to have
lower entropy in the past — not higher entropy as this diagram suggests.
Consider a rusting old car, which will continue rusting into the future (i.e.,
increasing its entropy). However, if we look into the past we will find a
sparkly new car with lower entropy. So as we look into the past we find
objects with lower entropy — not higher entropy.
So why do objects have lower entropy in the past? This is due to the very
special state of the universe when it was created. The universe was created
with incredibly low entropy, and all the objects contained within the
universe have been essentially falling apart ever since!
The following diagram shows the incorrect dashed line removed, and
replaced with a line revealing the extremely low entropy at the origin of the
universe. It shows the entropy value steadily increasing throughout the
lifetime of the universe:

So why was entropy so incredibly low at the origin of the universe? We

are not yet certain as to why that was the case, but a possible solution may
be found from an unlikely source …
 Entropy and biology

There was a story in the news recently of a remarkable young girl from
Montana called Gabby Williams. Gabby is 8 years old, but resembles a
baby. The rate at which she is ageing has slowed to a snail's pace. Gabby is
not the only person with this condition: there is a 29-year-old man from
Florida who has the body of a 10-year-old, and a 31-year-old Brazilian
woman has the body of a 2-year-old. This condition is so rare that doctors
do not even have a name for it.
These remarkable people have come to the attention of a medical
researcher called Dr. Richard Walker, now retired but currently based in St.
Petersburg. Dr. Walker believes these people could hold the secret to
immortality within their genetic structure. He refers to the process of ageing
as "developmental inertia" (which is a very interesting term with particular
relevance to physics — as we shall see later). Walker believes that it might
be possible to identify an "off switch" for developmental inertia, and thus
avoid the ageing process altogether.
However, if Dr. Walker is to achieve immortality he will have to
overcome a fundamental biological limit. It appears that a human cell can
only divide about 50 times. This limit on cell division is called the Hayflick
limit. At the end of each strand of DNA there is a repeated sequence of
molecules which act to stop the DNA from fraying — much like the piece
of plastic on the end of shoelaces. With each cell division, this piece of
"plastic" DNA shortens. So this behaves like a molecular clock, with each
cell having a self destruct mechanism which is designed to limit life span.
When the clock expires, the cell undergoes programmed cell death. The
Hayflick limit is different for other animals: if you are lucky enough to be a
Galapagos turtle your cells can divide about 110 times.
If Dr. Walker is right, it might be possible to circumvent the Hayflick
limit. He realises that this would not necessarily lead to eternal life: he
admits that a serious accident or disease is still going to kill you. However,
if you can avoid getting run over by a car, or contracting ebola, it would
appear that Dr. Walker does indeed suggest that living forever is a real
medical possibility.
 However, as Dr. Walker appears to have a preference for adopting
physics terms in his research, perhaps someone might introduce him to the
concept of what we might call "developmental entropy". Fundamentally, a
human being represents a physical system which is inevitably prone to
increasing entropy. In this respect, a human is no different from a rusting
car, or a breaking egg. A human has to follow the unidirectional arrow of
time from cradle to grave, as there is simply no way of circumventing the
second law of thermodynamics. And the second law of thermodynamics
certainly applies to cell division.
A mature human is made up of several trillion cells. When these cells
become old and require replacing (e.g., skin cells are constantly being
shed), new cells can be produced by mitosis. Mitosis is cell division: one
old cell can produce two identical daughter cells. It is essential that the
DNA in the original cell is precisely copied to the two new daughter cells.
However, during this copying of the DNA, it is possible for errors to creep
into the copied DNA, and these errors can accumulate over time. Imagine
taking a photocopy of an image, and then photocopying that photocopy, and
then repeating the process many times. Eventually, you will find many
errors creeping into your photocopied image so that it no longer resembles
the original image.
Unfortunately, these accumulated errors in the DNA can produce
cancerous cells. Cancer is generally described as the result of accumulated
DNA errors, and the role of carcinogens (cancer-causing chemicals) is often
listed as the main cause. However, we can clearly also view the
accumulation of DNA errors as an inevitable result of increasing entropy.
This explains why cancer is predominantly a disease of old age. As the
cancer researcher Robert Weinberg explains: "Cancer is an inevitability the
moment you create complex multicellular organisms and give the individual
cells the license to proliferate. It is simply a consequence of increasing
entropy, increasing disorder. If we lived long enough, sooner or later we
would all get cancer." [7]
Interestingly, though, it appears that a certain strain of cancer can avoid
the seeming inevitability of entropic damage. In Baltimore in 1951 some
cancerous cells were removed (without permission) from a tumour in
Henrietta Lacks. Scientists were stunned to discover that these cells were
apparently immortal. Whereas normal human cells could survive for only a
few days, these cells (known as HeLa, after the initial letters of Henrietta
Lacks' name) could survive and replicate without limit. These immortal
cells have been grown and distributed around the world, and have been used
in countless experiments. Henrietta Lacks left a tremendous legacy to the
medical world, and has undoubtedly saved many lives. In many laboratories
around the world, Henrietta Lacks continues to live.
So how can HeLa cells be immortal? How can they avoid inevitable
damage due to increasing entropy and damaged DNA during replication?
Well, the truth is that even HeLa cells are subject to increasing entropy. Cell
division in HeLa continues to damage the DNA and produce mutations,
which results in new strains. It appears that absolutely nothing can escape
the degradation due to the second law of thermodynamics.

However, there is one example in which it might appear that life provides
an exception to the inevitability of increasing entropy. Life has the ability to
give birth to new life. And that new life, that new baby, appears perfect and
untainted. So how can this apparent circumvention of the second law of
thermodynamics be explained?
I do not believe the solution to this question which is generally presented
is the correct solution. The usual explanation is that the second law only
applies to closed systems, and a human being is not a closed system. A
human interacts with its environment: it eats food, it expels waste. The food
has grown under the Sun — itself a source of low entropy energy — and the
expelled waste has high entropy. So the total entropy of a human system
can be reduced through interaction with the environment.
However, as I say, I do not believe this is actually the correct explanation
of how entropy is apparently massively reduced during the birth of a new
human baby. In order to discover the correct solution, we need to consider
degrees of freedom.
The number of degrees of freedom of a system is how many independent
distinguishing values it possesses which are allowed to vary. That statement
is not as complicated as it might sound. Once again, consider a pack of 52
playing cards which has been randomly shuffled. How do we identify one
particular ordering of that pack of cards from the random ordering of a
different pack of cards? Well, firstly, the two packs might have a different
card as the top card in the pack. If the packs have a different top card, then
that would certainly allow us to distinguish between the orderings of the
two packs. However, if the two top cards are the same for both packs, we
would then consider the second card in the packs. Basically, as I am sure
you can see, there will be 52 different positions in the pack which will
allow us to distinguish between the orderings of the two packs. We could
therefore say that each pack has 52 degrees of freedom.
Now let us consider a pack consisting of only three cards: the ace, two,
and three of hearts. This pack, therefore, has only 3 degrees of freedom,
compared with the 52 degrees of freedom the pack had before. How many
different random orderings of this three card pack are now possible? You
can see from the following diagram that there are now only six possible
different orderings:
 One of the orderings — ordering number one at the top of the diagram —
is the special, ordered state. But there are now only five other possible
disordered states. This is a far fewer number of disordered states than was
the case with the 52 card pack. This means the maximum W term (the
number of possible disordered states) in Boltzmann's formula for entropy is
smaller, and so maximum entropy is reduced.
Now let us return to consider the birth of a human baby. How is it
possible that two, wrinkly, middle-aged, entropy-rich parents can create
such perfect low-entropy offspring? Well, the degrees of freedom available
for describing a baby are far fewer than those available for describing an
adult human. Put simply, babies all tend to look quite similar to each other.
They have fewer distinguishing features. It is not even possible to
determine the sex of a baby from facial appearances.
The available degrees of freedom for describing the few cells of an
embryo are even fewer. And — as with our three card pack of cards —
fewer degrees of freedom means maximum entropy is reduced. Basically, it
becomes impossible to produce a baby with high-entropy distinguishing
features, such as wrinkles, or a moustache (unless you are very unlucky).
Your baby is going to look pretty much like everyone else's baby. This
explains how a ageing couple can produce perfect, low-entropy offspring.
The low entropy of the early universe is often presented as one of the
great mysteries in physics. However, given our extraordinary knowledge of
the state of the universe just a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, this
surely should not be considered a mystery anymore. A simple comparison
to a newborn low-entropy human baby can cast a light on this mystery.
Let us consider the universe and evaluate how many degrees of freedom
it has. In how many ways could we distinguish between one state of the
universe and a different state of the universe? Clearly, the number of
different values needed to describe a universe is going to be an
astronomically huge number. Hence, we could say that the universe has a
staggeringly huge number of degrees of freedom.
But what about the first few seconds after the Big Bang? How many
degrees of freedom would the universe have had then? It is likely that the
universe would have had far fewer degrees of freedom. The universe was
much smoother, being composed of pure energy, with the elementary
particles yet to emerge. This embryonic universe resembled a smooth blob,
marred only by tiny quantum fluctuations, with few distinguishing features:
a true baby universe.
 We normally associate a smooth distribution with high entropy, but this is
not the case if the smoothness is an inevitable consequence of few degrees
of freedom — as is the case with a baby. All babies are smooth, but all
babies have low entropy.
So this reduction in the degrees of freedom provides a reason as to why
entropy was so low in the early universe. As Roger Penrose explains in his
book The Road to Reality: "There is a common view that the entropy
increase in the second law is somehow just a necessary consequence of the
expansion of the universe … There are comparatively few degrees of
freedom available to the universe when it is 'small', providing some kind of
low ceiling to possible entropy values, and more available degrees of
freedom when the universe gets larger, giving a higher 'ceiling', thereby
allowing higher entropies." (Penrose then continued to expound his own
theory involving gravity, which I don't agree with).
As the elementary particles emerged, the maximum possible entropy
massively increased. The particles became free to interact via all the
fundamental forces. One millisecond after the birth of the universe, the
strong nuclear force acted to clump quarks together to form protons and
neutrons. Gravity acted to clump all particles to form stars and galaxies.
Distinguishing features emerged within the universe. But the underlying
reason for the low entropy at the very start of the universe was surely the
very few available degrees of freedom.
Just as with the universe, a newborn baby is relatively smooth and
featureless. However, as the baby matures, it develops its distinguishing
characteristics. The baby develops more degrees of freedom. It develops
clearer facial definition, it grows tall or short, it develops wrinkles.
All these characteristics are what help to distinguish us from each other.
Society views wrinkles negatively, but it is experience with gives us depth
and makes us interesting. And so it is with the universe. The universe was
born smooth and perfect, but it only became interesting when the wrinkles
(stars, planets, life) started appearing. We become more interesting as we
age for precisely the same reason that the universe became more interesting.
Unfortunately, the second law suggests the entropy of the universe will
continue to increase until it reaches a maximum value of disorder. At that
point, all the atoms of the universe will be in a random state, so the universe
will all be a constant temperature. At this point, the universe has run down.
Nothing will happen in the universe. This fate of the universe has been
given the name heat death.
To quote Jim Al-Khalili from Order And Disorder: "The process of
change and degradation is unavoidable. The Second Law says the universe
itself must one day reach a point of maximum entropy, maximum disorder.
The universe itself must one day die."
Our journey through life matches the journey of the universe. We inhabit
a universe which was born as a perfect baby, has its most interesting years
during the time it ages and becomes wrinkly, before dying of old age.
In this chapter we have seen it is impossible to define boundaries
between ourselves and the external universe. We are all part of the one
universe. So, in that sense, the universe is truly a living entity.
6
TIME DILATION
If you remember back to Chapter Three you will recall a lengthy
explanation of simultaneity: when events happen at the same time. It was
explained how vital simultaneity was in shaping reality for different
observers. In this chapter, I want to return to the subject of simultaneity and
show how it is completely central to the topic of time.
If we think deeply about time and simultaneity, we can realise that all
measurements of time are measurements of simultaneous events. For
example, imagine I time a sprinter over a 100m race, and at the end of the
race my stopwatch tells me 10 seconds have elapsed. What has actually
happened in terms of time? Actually, all that has happened is that two pairs
of simultaneous events have occurred. The first pair of simultaneous events
was my stopwatch pointing to zero, and the race starting. The second pair of
simultaneous events was the winning runner crossing the line and my
stopwatch pointing to 10 seconds.
 From the existence of these simultaneous events, we deduce something
like: "The race took ten seconds", or "ten seconds of time passed". So we
make it sound as if time is moving, or passing by, but really all we have is
the existence of these two pairs of simultaneous events. There is nothing
moving or dynamic here — there is just the existence of events.
Of course, you might want to sub-divide the race into smaller time
intervals ("ticks") such as hundredths of seconds. But the same argument
applies — you just end up with more simultaneous events. It is very much
like frames of a movie: each frame of the movie represents a series of
simultaneous events. If you have a sufficiently high frame rate then the
scene appears to move. But all that really exists is a sequence of
simultaneous events in each frame. All that really exists is the movie reel.
Einstein was well aware of this fact as he explained in his
groundbreaking 1905 special relativity paper: "We have to take into account
that all our judgements in which time plays a part are always judgements of
simultaneous events. If, for instance, I say: 'That train arrives here at 7
o'clock', I mean something like this: 'The pointing of the small hand of my
watch to 7 and the arrival of the train are simultaneous events.'"
So time itself is defined by simultaneous events. But, crucially, this
means that anything that can affect the simultaneity of events can therefore
affect time itself. Remembering back to our discussion of simultaneity
involving Einstein's thought experiment about the moving train, it is clear
just what can affect the simultaneity of events: motion! It was the motion of
the train relative to the observer standing on the platform which affected
which events Bob and Alice considered to be simultaneous.
So if simultaneity is affected by relative motion, then time itself must be
affected by relative motion (remember: time itself is defined by
simultaneous events). In that case, how might it be possible to generate
quantitative equations to reveal precisely how much the passing of time is
modified for moving observers? To calculate this, we will now follow
Einstein's workings by using only high-school mathematics (this adds
weight to my contention that, as we get to the most fundamental levels of
Nature, the mathematics should become simpler — not more complex).
In order to generate his equation, Einstein considered the light clock
which we first encountered in Chapter One. This consists of a ray of light
bouncing between two mirrors which are a distance L apart (see the
following diagram). This light clock was placed on a train travelling at a
constant velocity. The clock was oriented so that the direction the light
travels was perpendicular to the direction of motion of the train.
Bob is once again travelling on the train, and his job is to measure the
time taken for the ray of light to travel between the two mirrors. This time
— according to Bob — was measured as t:
 Then from distance = speed × time we get:

However, to Alice — who sees the train moving — it appears the ray of
light has to travel a greater distance. This is due to the additional velocity of
the train making the light travel in a longer, angled path (see the following
diagram). Alice on the platform measures this new time for the light to
travel between the two mirrors to be t′.
If the speed of the train is v, then the train travels a distance vt′ in this
time:
 Referring to this second diagram, we see that the distance the light now
has to travel (according to Alice) is D. Now, remember that all observers
will measure the same value for the speed of light. So, according to Alice,
the distance D is (from distance = speed × time):

If we consider the path of the light as forming the hypotenuse of a right-

angled triangle:
 We can then apply Pythagoras's theorem to this triangle (you will
remember that Pythagoras's theorem says that the square on the side of the
hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides). So:

From the earlier equation, we know that:

So substituting this value for L into the previous equation gives:

Which gives:

Rearranging to get all the t and t′ values on different sides:

Dividing all terms by c2 gives:

Finally, taking the square root of both sides gives:

 So here we have our final equation describing the phenomenon of time
dilation. It shows that the rate that time passes for Bob on the train, t, is less
than the rate that time passes for Alice on the platform, t′.
We can see from the equation that the rate at which time slows down for
Bob on the train is given by:

So, if the train is travelling at 80% of the speed of light (it's an unusually
fast train), we find time on the train slows down by a rate of:

Which means that time for Bob on the train will pass at only 60% of the
rate that time passes Alice on the platform.
Alice will actually age faster than Bob!

Interestingly, the formula for time dilation seems to indicate that the
speed of light represents an ultimate speed limit for all objects in the
universe (in the formula, if v was greater than c then we would have to take
the square root of a negative number — and you can't do that). But why
should the speed of light represent the ultimate speed limit? We will be
returning to this question later.

Time travel

Many times I hear people asking: "Will time travel ever be possible?
What does physics say about it?" These people are often surprised to hear
that not only is time travel possible but it been experimentally demonstrated
many times!
As we have just seen, time travels more slowly for an observer who is
moving relative to another observer. With a bit of thought, we can see that
this can clearly lead to a form of time travel. If the moving observer returns
to the stationary observer, and their clocks are compared, it should be seen
that less time has passed for the observer who went on the round trip. So, as
far as the moving observer is concerned, he has travelled into the future of
the stationary observer: he has travelled forward in time.
Theoretically, there is no limit to how far you can travel into the future —
it is only dependent on how close you travel to the speed of light. In just a
few years of travelling away from the Earth and back again (at a speed
close to the speed of light), many thousands of years could have passed on
Earth. If you have seen the movie Planet of the Apes you will know that the
time travel described — caused by precisely this type of time dilation — to
Earth in the year AD 3978 is theoretically plausible. You can't beat
intelligent sci-fi.
Of course, as was described right at the start of this book, time dilation
has been experimentally tested by Hafele and Keating who flew their
atomic clocks round the world. When the clocks were returned to base and
compared to the standard, it was found that less time had elapsed for the
moving clocks. Hence, the moving clocks had effectively travelled several
nanoseconds into the future. This is time travel for real.
However, this principle — of time dilation on a round trip — does seem
to raise something of a puzzle. Consider a thought experiment involving
two twins. One twin stays on Earth while the other twin gets in a spaceship
and travels away at a speed close to the speed of light. When the spaceship
turns around and returns to Earth, the twin who was in the spaceship finds
that he has aged less than the twin who has remained on Earth. This is
precisely in accordance with the expected time dilation.
However, the puzzle arises because surely all motion is relative. If that is
the case it is just as valid for the twin on the spaceship to consider himself
stationary, and the twin back on Earth to be moving at close to the speed of
light. This principle of relative motion was expressed by Einstein who,
when travelling by train from London to Oxford, asked the ticket inspector:
"Does Oxford stop at this train?" Einstein was considering the train to be
stationary, and the town to be moving.
So, if the twin on the spaceship considers himself to be stationary, surely
he would expect the twin back on Earth to be the one who ages less? After
all, it is now the twin on Earth who is doing the travelling.
This apparent paradox is called the twin paradox.
The resolution of the paradox comes from realising that the experiences
of the two twins are not identical. To be precise, the twin on the spaceship
experiences acceleration when he takes off, when he turns around, and
when he returns to Earth. He would experience inertial forces due to this
acceleration (we will be considering inertial forces in the next chapter).
However, the twin who remains on Earth experiences no such acceleration.
Once it is realised that the situation is not symmetrical, the formula for
time dilation produces the correct non symmetrical result for the ageing of
the twins. [8]

Let us now leave time travel into the future, and consider the possibility
of time travel into the past. We shall see that this is rather a more
complicated affair. We shall have to consider the curvature of spacetime
itself.
The equations of general relativity describe how spacetime can be curved
by the presence of mass (general relativity was considered in my previous
book). The equations are complex, but precise solutions to the equations
have been found for idealised situations in which simplifying assumptions
can be made. In 1935, Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen revealed a
solution which resembled a tube effectively providing a shortcut between
two regions of spacetime. This was called the Einstein-Rosen bridge,
though John Wheeler popularised the name wormhole:
 By creating a shortcut in spacetime, wormholes raise the possibility of
travelling great distances in space in a very short time. This possibility was
explored in Carl Sagan's novel Contact (and later film of the same name).
In the book, a radio telescope in New Mexico receives a coded transmission
from extraterrestrial beings. The decoded message forms instructions to
build a vehicle which is used to transport five passengers through a
wormhole to a planet near the distant star Vega — in merely a few seconds.
After spending several hours on the alien planet, the travellers return to
Earth to discover that only a few seconds have elapsed on Earth since their
voyage began.
This plot hints that wormholes can also be used for travelling in time as
well as space. Indeed, assuming that it is possible to create a traversable
wormhole, it would be a fairly straightforward procedure to turn that
wormhole into a time machine. The following procedure was described by
Kip Thorne in his book Black Holes and Time Warps. A wormhole has two
mouths and there is no obvious connection in space between the two
mouths: if I step through one mouth of the wormhole, I immediately emerge
out of the other mouth. With no obvious connection between the two
mouths, the two mouths can be moved quite independently of one another.
To turn our wormhole into a time machine, one mouth must be kept on
Earth, while the other mouth is sent away on a spaceship at a speed
approaching the speed of light (this is treating the wormhole mouth very
much like one of the twins in the previous thought experiment). Time
dilation ensures that time passes more slowly for the wormhole mouth
travelling on the spaceship. So when the spaceship returns to Earth, if you
walked through the wormhole on the spaceship, you would return to an
earlier time.
This wormhole time machine to the past raises problems as it introduces
the possibility of changing the past. If it is possible to change the past then
that could potentially lead to the grandfather paradox. The grandfather
paradox considers the possibility that you use a time machine to travel back
in time to kill your own grandfather before you are conceived. However, if
as a result of you murdering your grandfather, you are not conceived then
you would not have been able to travel back in time. Hence, this results in a
paradoxical situation.
From the point of view of this book, the ability to change the past poses a
particular problem. All through this book, the block universe structure has
been presented as a static, unchanging block of spacetime. There is no
possibility of altering any aspect of the structure — it is as if it is carved in
stone. However, if it is possible to travel back in time to change the past
then this appears to disprove the whole block universe argument.
Fortunately, as we shall now see, the solution to the grandfather paradox
also solves the apparent problem with the block universe model.
Another form of the grandfather paradox was proposed in 1990 by Joe
Polchinksi, then a professor of physics at the University of Texas. What was
ideal about Polchinski's paradox was that it avoided any questions about
human free will (would you really be able to kill your own grandfather?).
Hence, the paradox could now be analysed purely from a physics
viewpoint.
The reason Polchinski's paradox did not involve human free will was
because it did not involve humans. Instead, it involved billiard balls. The
paradox considered a billiard ball rolling along a billiard table and entering
a wormhole mouth at the far end of the table. It is then possible for that
billiard ball to travel back in time and emerge out of the second wormhole
mouth. Polchinski's paradox considered the situation in which the second
wormhole mouth was also positioned on the billiard table. What would
happen if, when the billiard ball travels back in time and emerges out of the
second wormhole mouth, it collides with its earlier self and deflects its
earlier self away from the wormhole? It would appear the ball is prevented
from entering the wormhole in the first place. This would result in a
paradox very similar to the grandfather paradox. If the billiard ball is
prevented from ever entering the wormhole because it is deflected, then it
cannot emerge from the second wormhole mouth and deflect itself.

It would appear that this scenario would raise a clear paradox. It would
also not be reconcilable with the block universe model. It would appear that
such a scenario could not occur in reality. Does this mean wormholes
cannot exist? Or that the block universe model is wrong?
Fortunately, it has been realised that it is possible to travel back to the
past — and even affect past events — without introducing paradoxes.
Consider the previous billiard ball example again. When the ball travels
back to the past and emerges from the wormhole, it is possible that it
deflects its earlier self into the wormhole, instead of away from it:

There is now no paradox in this result. It is also a situation which can

exist in a block universe: the past is affected, but events which have already
occurred (i.e., set in stone in the block universe) have not be altered.
This principle in time travel — that only situations can occur which do
not result in paradoxes — is called the Novikov self-consistency principle.
7
INERTIA
In this chapter we will be considering motion. There is an inextricable
link between time and motion. Motion is defined as the variation in position
of an object at different times. So without time, there can be no motion. It
could also be argued that without motion, there can be no time. As Richard
Wolfson describes in his book Simply Einstein: Relativity Demystified: "The
study of motion is profound, for several reasons. First, motion is the source
of all change. Imagine a world without motion: Earth stops rotating, so it's
perpetual daytime. Atoms cease moving, so there's no chemistry — no
release of energy. Nothing evolves, transforms, mutates, develops, or
otherwise changes. What does it mean to move? It means getting from one
place to another, and doing so in some time. Whatever else motion means, it
involves passing through time and through space. So motion holds the key
to understanding time and space."
In this chapter we will be paying attention to a particular kind of motion
called inertial motion. Inertial motion is the motion of an object which is
not being acted-on by any force. The resultant inertial motion is actually
very mysterious. For example, if you were travelling at constant velocity on
a very smooth train, you could consider yourself to be in inertial motion. As
a result, as long as the train is smooth enough, you would not feel as if you
were travelling at all! So this clearly raises some fascinating and important
questions about the nature of motion, and what it means to be "moving".
Inertial motion seems to be telling us something very profound about the
nature of time and space. In the next chapter, it will become clear as to why
inertial motion is so important for our understanding of time.
 Perpetual motion

The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, wondered if there was a "natural state"

of motion. As Richard Wolfson again explains, the natural state of motion
would be a state which requires "no explanation — a state that an object
naturally assumes unless something is explicitly done to it, like pushing or
pulling it." To this end, Aristotle considered moving objects, such as a block
of wood being pushed along a table, and saw that all such moving objects
eventually came to a halt. Hence, Aristotle believed that any moving object
would eventually slow down and come to a halt — unless it was acted upon
by a constant force to keep it in motion.
From this observation, Aristotle believed he could deduce the natural
state of motion. As Aristotle observed that it required a force to maintain an
object in motion, he believed the natural state of motion was to be
stationary. A stationary object is to be expected — it requires no
explanation. Whereas if you see a moving object, you could reasonably
seek an explanation, an answer to the question "What is making it move?"
Aristotle's argument regarding the natural state of motion was
convincing, and remained dominant until Galileo performed his
experiments of motion. According to Galileo: "Ignorato moto, ignorator
natura", a Latin phrase which translates to "He who fails to understand
motion, fails to understand Nature." We considered the principle of Galilean
relativity in Chapter Two. It is Galilean relativity which introduced the
world to the principle of inertial motion.
If you remember, Galilean relativity states that the laws of motion are the
same for all observers who are moving at a constant velocity. There is no
experiment you could perform to determine if you were stationary or
moving at constant velocity.
It is this movement at constant velocity which is inertial motion. If it is
impossible to distinguish between being stationary and being in inertial
motion, then clearly an observer moving with inertial motion will feel
stationary (otherwise it would be possible to detect the motion). So Galilean
relativity reveals that an observer moving at constant velocity (inertial
motion) will feel stationary.
 It is the principle of Galilean relativity which is the reason why the
geocentric model of the universe proved dominant for so long (rather than
the heliocentric model being adopted). This is because the early
astronomers were fooled by the undetectable inertial motion of the Earth.
Because the Earth orbits the Sun at a constant, smooth velocity, and because
the astronomers moved at the same rate as the Earth, they were
fundamentally unable to detect its motion: they felt stationary. Indeed, the
notion that the Earth orbits the sun would have appeared an absurd
suggestion to them. [9]
Galileo then considered Aristotle's concept of a natural state of motion. If
you remember, Aristotle believed that the natural state of motion was to be
stationary, as a moving object would tend to become stationary. However,
Galileo performed an ingenious series of experiments which led him to a
different conclusion. These experiments of Galileo are illustrated by the
following diagrams:
 As shown in Figure a), Galileo rolled a ball down a slope and discovered
it rose to the same height up an opposite slope. As shown in Figure b), if
Galileo increased the distance between the slopes, the ball still rose to the
same height up the opposite slope — but it obviously had to travel further.
As shown in Figure c), Galileo then reasoned that if there was no opposite
slope, the ball would travel forever as it would be forever unable to reach
the initial height up the slope.
Galileo's conclusion was remarkable. It suggested that an object moving
horizontally in a straight line would continue indefinitely. At this point, you
might raise an objection. Surely motion cannot continue indefinitely
without continually providing some energy to the system? In raising this
objection, maybe your instincts have been biased by some of the crazy
designs for perpetual motion machines which are all doomed to failure.

It is certainly true that it is not possible to build a practical perpetual

motion machine. Such a device would crank round a few times before
seizing to a halt. The reason why all these machines fail is because they do
not take into account the force of friction. Friction converts kinetic energy
into heat energy which is radiated from the system. This loss of energy
results in the inevitable slowing of the system.
However, if it could be possible to eliminate the force of friction from the
system then the motion of the machine would indeed continue forever — as
predicted by Galileo. For example, flywheels have been built which float on
superconducting magnets (virtually frictionless) and are sealed in a vacuum
to eliminate air resistance. These flywheels will keep spinning for a period
(the so-called zero-load rundown time) of many years. If such a device
could ever be made completely friction-free then it would, indeed, be a
perpetual motion machine. In fact, electric currents (the flow of electrons)
in superconducting materials can continue in motion indefinitely — a form
of perpetual motion which is already with us.
The notion of perpetual motion might seem very wrong and alien to us.
Our worldview has been so shaped by all the tales of doomed perpetual
motion machines that we instinctively discard any notion that perpetual
motion — of any kind — might be possible. On the basis of this discussion,
however, we find that perpetual motion is not only possible, it is natural.
Earlier in this section we considered Aristotle's argument that the natural
state of motion was to be stationary — as it required no explanation. Now,
however, we see that Galileo proved Aristotle to be wrong. As Richard
Wolfson states in his book Simply Einstein, Galileo showed that "motion
itself needs no cause or explanation … motion is natural." According to
Galileo, the natural state of motion is no longer being stationary — the
natural state is motion at a constant speed in a straight line, in other words
the natural state of motion is inertial motion. This is a hugely important
result, and we will return to it later in this book:

The natural state of motion is not being stationary, it is constant

velocity in a straight line (inertial motion).

This principle is called inertia. The discovery of inertia was Galileo's

greatest contribution to physics.
You have probably seen the Olympic sport of curling, in which a granite
stone is sent sliding across ice. The stone travels at low speed, but the
almost frictionless ice ensures the stone hardly slows down at all. This is an
excellent example of inertia. If we could imagine a perfectly frictionless
form of ice then it is clear that the stone would travel at its low speed
forever:

Galileo died in 1642, the same year that Isaac Newton was born. When
Newton started as a student in Trinity College in Cambridge University he
found that the curriculum was still dominated by the thinkings of Aristotle.
Newton introduced the college to the new developments of Copernicus and
Galileo.
Newton accepted Galileo's conclusions about the laws of motion, and
built on them himself to produce his three laws of motion which form the
basis of classical mechanics:

1. Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state

of motion (or remain at rest) unless an external force is applied to it.
2. Forces act to accelerate objects. The acceleration is proportional to the
force which is applied, and inversely proportional to the mass of the
object: F=m×a
3. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
 Newton's first law of motion is just a restatement of Galileo's concept of
inertia, and so the first law is often called the "law of inertia". The word
"inertia" comes from the Greek word for "laziness", and we can see where
this comes from. The definition of inertia is that an object likes to continue
in its state of motion — be that moving or remaining stationary — unless a
force acts on it.
Newton's three laws of motion defined our conception of mechanics for
the next three hundred years.

Inertial mass and gravitational mass

Einstein's great talent was for identifying a simple, unifying link between
two seemingly distinct effects. This talent was clearly shown when he
realised that the force due to gravity was indistinguishable from the force
due to acceleration. This led to the theory of general relativity (for details,
see my previous book). This realisation allowed Einstein to unify two
properties which, for centuries, had been considered to be distinct: inertial
mass and gravitational mass.
The inertial mass of an object determines its resistance to acceleration,
i.e., its inertia. Newton's second law of motion says that the acceleration
experienced by an object is inversely proportional to the inertial mass of
that object.
It might seem strange to us now, but after Newton published his laws of
motion and his law of gravitation, it was considered that the inertial mass of
an object might well be different from the mass of the object which
attracted other objects: the gravitational mass. After all, the two effects —
acceleration and gravity — were considered to be completely distinct
effects. There was no obvious reason why the object might not behave
differently when subjected to the two different forces.
Of course, when Einstein realised that the force due to gravity was
completely equivalent to the force experienced during acceleration this
removed the centuries-long distinction between gravitational mass and
inertial mass. An object is now considered to have just one single value for
its mass, and this is used for calculations of both acceleration and gravity.
However, experiments have continued to test if any difference between
gravitational and inertial mass can be detected. In 1885, the Hungarian
physicist Roland Eötvös (pronounced "urt-vursch") proposed the most
famous of these experiments, an experiment which is now known simply as
the Eötvös experiment. The experiment uses a balance (called a torsion
balance) on which masses are dangled on a piece of string which can rotate.
The outward force on the masses (due to centrifugal force) would be
dependent on the inertial mass. The downward force on the masses is
dependent on the gravitational mass. The masses are carefully selected so
that the string will not rotate if the inertial mass is precisely equal to the
gravitational mass so that the effects cancel each other. The torsion balance
at the University of Washington is so sensitive that it can tell if it has rained
recently as the extra water in the soil has an increased gravitational pull on
their equipment.
But there is a simpler way to test if inertial mass is equal to gravitational
mass. Newton's laws of motion only deal with inertial mass, the second law
stating that a force applied to an object will produce an acceleration
according to F=mi×a, where mi is the inertial mass. On the surface of the
Earth, for a falling object, we can equate this force to the force of gravity:

Where mg is the gravitational mass, M is the mass of the Earth, and R is

the radius of the Earth. If inertial mass equals gravitational mass then mi =
mg, and the two terms cancel from the equation. We are left with a formula
for the acceleration due to gravity on the surface of the Earth:
 There is no term in this formula which is dependent on the mass of the
falling object — the only mass featured in this equation is the mass of the
Earth. So this indicates that — if inertial mass really is equal to
gravitational mass — all masses will fall at the same rate (just as Galileo
demonstrated on the Leaning Tower of Pisa centuries ago).
So it is possible to test the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass
just be checking if all masses fall at the same rate, and this test can be
performed with great accuracy. The Center of Applied Space Technology
and Microgravity (ZARM) in the University of Bremen is dominated by a
146-metre-tall drop tower which provides 9.3 seconds of free-fall during
which experiments can be performed. Many different fields of research use
the weightless environment. Various masses have been dropped to see if
they all fall at the same rate, and no discrepancy has been found:
 In all these experiments, the inertial mass and the gravitational mass of
various elements has been found to be identical to 13 decimal places.
Almost certainly, no difference will ever be found.

Inertial forces

Consider a question, the answer of which might appear quite obvious at

first glance, but is not as simple as it might appear. The question is: how do
you determine that an object is moving? If you look out of your window, for
example, you might see a bird flying past. It would appear easy to tell that
the bird is moving. But why should the bird not consider itself to be
stationary, and it is you who are moving? In other words, if motion is
relative, how is it possible to tell what is stationary and what is moving?
In this case of the bird, it would appear that it is possible to tell that the
bird is moving relative to the trees and buildings around it. In other words,
both the bird and the observer could agree that the bird is moving relative to
its immediate environment. So motion relative to the immediate
environment would appear to be a way to definitively determine if an object
is moving.
However, Newton raised an objection to this apparent importance of the
immediate environment. He described an experiment in which a bucket
containing water was spun at speed at the end of a rope. The water starts to
spin within the bucket:
 If all motion was relative, then we would be justified in considering the
water to be stationary and the rest of the universe revolving around the
water. However, the water does not behave as if it is stationary — the water
surface becomes concave and climbs up the sides of the bucket (see the
second bucket in the previous diagram). Somehow Nature can tell that the
water is moving.
From our previous discussion about the bird outside your window, we
can see that the obvious way to determine that the water is moving is to
consider its motion relative to its immediate environment. However, the
immediate environment of the water is the sides of the bucket, and the
water is not moving at all relative to the sides of the bucket (the water is
rotating at the same speed as the bucket). So the principle of using the
immediate environment to determine the relative motion of an object is not
applicable in all cases.
Newton took this result as being evidence for absolute space. According
to Newton, absolute space permeates the universe and provides an absolute
reference for motion. Nature can determine that the water is rotating
relative to absolute space, and this is the reason the water rises up the sides
of the bucket.
Newton's bucket argument was so convincing that absolute space was
accepted as the true model of space for 200 years, until an alternative was
provided by the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach in the late 19th century.
In his career, Mach contributed much to physics. You will recall the
speed of supersonic aircraft being referred to as "Mach 1", "Mach 2". Those
terms are named after Ernst Mach whose experiments in supersonic
velocity included the definition of the Mach number — the ratio of a
projectile's velocity to the speed of sound. But it is Mach's insights into the
nature of space — and the cause of inertial forces — which interests us
here.
Mach considered the conclusions Newton drew from his bucket
experiment and decided Newton was too quick to disregard the effect of the
environment. True, the water was not rotating with respect to the immediate
environment, but there were many more objects in the environment than
just the bucket. For example, there is the planet Earth, or the planets, or the
fixed stars in the sky. And these distant objects would possess vastly more
mass than the sides of the bucket. Maybe they were more influential?
Maybe Nature could detect that the water was rotating relative to this more
distant, hugely more massive environment?
So Mach considered the situation in which the sides of the bucket were
much larger, more distant, possessing hugely more mass:
 What would happen now when this massive bucket rotates with the
water? As Mach wrote in The Science of Mechanics (1883): "No one is
competent to say how the experiment would turn out if the sides of the
vessel increased in thickness and mass until they were ultimately several
leagues thick."
It is now believed that, if the sides of Mach's bucket really were
sufficiently huge, spacetime would be dragged around inside the bucket at
the same angular velocity as the water. As a result, the water inside the
bucket would, indeed, not rise up the walls of the bucket. This effect is
called frame-dragging. NASA's Gravity Probe B satellite was sent into
orbit in 2004 to see if it could detect frame-dragging of spacetime by the
rotation of the Earth. The experimental equipment consisted of four
extremely sensitive gyroscopes — the most perfectly spherical manmade
objects ever created. Essentially, the Earth performed the role of Mach's
huge bucket, and the four gyroscopes on the satellite performed the role of
the water in the bucket, detecting any evidence of frame-dragging. In 2011
it was announced that the experiment had successfully measured frame-
dragging due to the rotation of the Earth — the first time the effect had been
detected.
So Mach believed that motion of an object could be defined relative to all
the other masses in the universe, and this was the cause of inertia — the
reason you feel a force when you are accelerated. Nature can detect the
change in your velocity relative to all the other objects in the universe. As
Mach was quoted as saying: "When the subway jerks, it's the fixed stars that
throw you down."
Einstein was heavily influenced by the work of Mach. As with Mach,
Einstein was also not convinced by Newton's concept of absolute space.
However, this idea of Mach's — of the fixed stars billions of miles away
having an instantaneous effect on your velocity — sounded far too much
like Newton's instantaneous action-at-a-distance theory of gravity.
So Einstein proposed a gravitational field which spread throughout space.
This gravitational field controlled the motion of masses. An object in free-
fall would follow the field lines of this gravitational field. If an object was
accelerated, it would cross the field lines of the gravitational field
(essentially the definition of acceleration — a deviation from free-fall
motion). Nature could then determine an object was being accelerated.
This, then, provides an explanation for the inertial force you experience
when you are accelerated. The physicist John Stachel has coined the term
inertio-gravitational field for this reason. Just as Einstein revealed the
equivalence between gravity and acceleration, and the equivalence between
inertial mass and gravitational mass, so the term "inertio-gravitational field"
stresses that just the one field is responsible for both inertial and
gravitational forces.
John Woodward, in a paper entitled What is the Cause of Inertia?, is in
no doubt: "What is the cause of inertia? Gravity." [10]
Imagine you are a Grand Prix motor racing driver driving at speed
around a tight corner. Your car — and your body in the cockpit — changes
direction around the corner, and therefore it is deviating from the normal
free-fall direction of travelling in a straight line. This means the car is
crossing inertio-gravitational field lines: it is accelerating. However, your
head is sticking out of the cockpit and wants to continue in free-fall inertial
motion in a straight line down the road. The stress this causes in your body
— as if your head is being pulled off — is the inertial force felt during
acceleration.
 The force the driver feels is often described in terms of g-force, maybe
3g, 4g, or 5g. A force of 1g is defined as being equal to the force due to the
force of gravity, so the concept of g-force again reveals the link between
gravity and inertia.
So the sideways force you feel as you drive around a corner at speed is
actually the force of horizontal gravity!
But what determines the shape of the inertio-gravitational field? The
curvature of the gravitational field is inevitably determined by all the other
masses in the universe. After all, the distant stars may be billions of light-
years away, but we are still affected by their gravity — as weak as it may
be. All the masses in the universe are inevitably affected by the
gravitational pull of all the other masses in the universe. So the strength and
direction of the gravitational field at any point is determined by the
distribution of masses in the rest of the universe.
In this way, general relativity is very much Machian in nature. In the
absence of absolute space, the inertial forces you feel are inevitably
controlled by the position and distribution of the fixed stars because these
celestial bodies determine the shape of the inertio-gravitational field
throughout the universe. Of course, the greatest influence on the
gravitational field in our immediate vicinity is provided by the planet Earth.
And the resultant force of gravity we feel directed towards the centre of this
planet is usually the greatest inertial force we experience.
Unless you are a Grand Prix driver.
8
THE UNIVERSAL SPEED
In the course of the previous chapters, we have gained a working
understanding of the phenomenon of time dilation. In Chapter Six we
derived the formula to determine how time slows down for a moving object.
This was based on the principle of relativity, the principle that all the laws
of physics should be the same for all observers. In turn, that implies that the
measured speed of light should be the same for all observers. We have
noted that this reminds us of the Copernican principle: no observer holds a
privileged position in the universe. No observer is special — all observers
are equal. This seems very much like a fundamental principle which would
necessarily be true.
However, there are several indications that we have not yet got to the
bottom of the mystery of relativity. Specifically, the centrality of the speed
of light in all this seems rather puzzling. Why should electromagnetic
radiation (light) play a role in determining the passage of time? Why does
the speed of light appear to represent an absolute speed limit for all objects
in the universe? Is there perhaps some deeper principle at play here which
we need to uncover?
In this chapter, we start to get some answers …

The first thing we need to consider is how we might go about creating a

mathematical model of spacetime. If we manage to create a mathematical
model then we can analyse it and hopefully gain a deeper understanding of
its properties.
But how on earth are we to combine measures of space and measures of
time in order to create a model of a combined "spacetime"? To quote Brian
Cox and Jeff Forshaw from their book Why Does E=mc2: "If distance in
space is measured in meters and distance in time in seconds, how can we
even begin to contemplate combining the two. It is like adding apples and
oranges, because they are not the same type of quantity."
The one piece of absolutely vital information we can use is that all
observers — no matter how they are moving — must measure the same
value for the speed of light. So, as speed represents a connection between
distance and time, this could potentially provide the means for combining
space and time into spacetime.
Imagine there is a flash of light at the origin of our coordinate system. In
the following diagram, the path of light is shown by the dashed arrow
coming from the origin.
 The sphere of light in three-dimensional space will expand outwards and,
after a period of time t, will have a radius of ct. Considering the diagram,
and using Pythagoras's theorem extended to three dimensions, we get:

which gives:
 The expression on the left hand side of this equation is very important.
Because all observers will agree on the measured speed of light, all
observers will agree on the value of this expression. Also, we see the
expression combines measurements of both space and time. So this is a
combination of space and time on which all observers can agree. The square
root of the value of this expression is given the name spacetime distance (or
the spacetime interval), though this "distance" value actually combines both
space and time.
Now, this is where things start to get really interesting. Because, as
described in the previous chapter, every observer in inertial motion
considers himself to be perfectly stationary — it is all the other objects
which are moving relative to you. Essentially, in the previous diagram, this
means you are permanently placing yourself at the origin of the coordinate
system and everything else in the universe is defined relative to your
position. In the previous formula for spacetime distance, this means that
your values for x, y, and z are all zero (because you do not move relative to
yourself). But, if you consider the formula for spacetime distance, you will
see that if x, y, and z are all set to zero then the value of the distance in
spacetime does not become zero — it becomes equal to ct.
What does this mean? It means that even if you are perfectly stationary,
the spacetime distance you travel is equal to ct, which is the speed of light
multiplied by time. This can only mean one thing: even when you feel
stationary, you are moving in spacetime at the speed of light! In fact, in
the next section we shall see that everything moves through spacetime at
the speed of light.
At last, this is a remarkable result which seems to reveal a deep truth
about the nature of time. As Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw say in their book
Why Does E=mc2: "The statement that everything moves at the same speed
through spacetime sounds rather profound."
 Euclidean relativity

It might seem surprising to hear that all objects move through spacetime
at the speed of light. After all, we obviously see various objects (cars, birds,
etc.) moving around us at different speeds. However, crucially, note that
these objects are moving at different speeds in space — not in spacetime.
Once time is taken into account, and we consider the combined speed of
these objects in a spacetime composed of both space and time, then we find
that everything is moving at the same speed. As Brian Greene explains in
his book The Fabric of the Cosmos: "The combined speed of any object's
motion through space and its motion through time is always precisely equal
to the speed of light."
How can this be? How can considering time as well as space make all the
difference? Well, it is because of time dilation: an object which is moving
relative to an observer will experience less time. So, to put it simply, an
object which is moving faster through space will move slower in time. If
an object is moving at a fixed speed — the speed of light — in spacetime
then this effect is inevitable. After all, there is only enough speed to go
round. If an object uses up the majority of its speed to travel through space,
then it has less speed left over to travel through time.
As Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw explain: "This newfound way of thinking
about how things move through spacetime can help us get a different handle
on why moving clocks run slow. In this spacetime way of thinking, a
moving clock uses up some of its fixed quota of spacetime speed because of
its motion through space and that leaves less for its motion through time."
So the principle that everything travels at the same speed in spacetime
predicts time dilation: a reduction in measured time for a moving object.
And if we calculate the amount of time dilation predicted by this principle
we find it is exactly the same amount predicted by special relativity.
However, this new, simple principle is surely the true principle which lies
behind relativity.
This innovative approach to relativity is called Euclidean relativity
(although Carl Brannen calls it proper time geometry in a paper on the
topic [11]). I am surprised it does not get more recognition.
 But, of course, this is not the whole story. The truth is surely that the true
fundamental principle behind relativity is the Copernican principle. In
spacetime, no point is preferred, no observer is special, and all observers
move at the same speed in spacetime. Every object is treated exactly the
same. Every object moves at exactly the same speed.
In human society, rich people can move faster by buying expensive cars
and planes. However, physics recognises no such inequality. In physics,
everyone — and every object — is equal. Everyone is treated the same. The
laws of physics are the same for everyone. Everyone ages the same as
entropy takes it toll equally. Under the laws of physics, everyone moves at
the same speed in spacetime. You cannot buy a faster car to drive through
spacetime more quickly. This is the true essence of the egalitarian
Copernican principle.
The world of physics is a more equal world.

Sliding through time

At the start of this chapter, a couple of relativity-related questions were

posed. It was wondered why electromagnetic radiation (light) should play a
role in determining the passage of time. Also, it was wondered why the
speed of light should appear to represent an absolute speed limit for all
objects in the universe. It was suggested that there was maybe a more
fundamental principle that we were missing that might provide the answers.
Well, now we have our more fundamental principle, and now we have
our answers. Everything moves at the same speed in spacetime — not just
light. There is nothing special about light. Light does not play a central role
in determining the passage of time.
So why does light feature in most descriptions of special relativity? This
is because light is unusual in that it has no mass. This means that light is
free to travel at the maximum speed through space (mass normally acts to
restrict speed through space). Hence, all of light's speed through spacetime
is directed through space, and none of its speed is directed through time. As
a result, light does not experience the passing of time.
This means that light's speed through spacetime is very obvious to our
eyes — it is the same as its speed through space. So out of all the objects in
the universe, only light appears to be travelling at this magical universal
speed. Whereas, in fact, everything is travelling at this universal speed — in
spacetime.
So the speed of light is not a universal speed limit at all, it is just the
speed that everything is moving — in spacetime.
With this insight, I would suggest we no longer refer to objects travelling
at the speed of light but instead we should refer to the universal speed —
the speed at which everything travels in spacetime.
Consider the diagram below which shows an object slowing down while
travelling in space. Initially, its speed arrow in spacetime is pointing to the
right, showing that most of its speed is through space. However, as the
object slows, its speed arrow in spacetime rotates anticlockwise so that less
of its speed is through space, and most of its speed is through time:

So as you see objects slowing down or speeding up, what is actually

happening is that their speed arrow in spacetime is rotating. But the actual
speed of the object through spacetime is unaffected (the length of the speed
arrow remains unchanged).
Now, this is interesting. Perhaps we can obtain further insights from this
approach.
The principle that all objects move at the same, constant speed in
spacetime is interesting. If they are moving at the same constant speed —
never slowing down — then this sounds very much like a form of perpetual
motion. Even when objects appear to be slowing down, all that is really
happening is that their speed arrow is rotating in spacetime. And where
have we heard about perpetual motion before? Well, in the last chapter on
inertia it was revealed that the natural state of motion is perpetual motion.
We now see this is true: the natural state of motion is perpetual motion in
spacetime.
In the previous chapter, the example was presented of curling: if the ice
was completely frictionless then the stone would continue its perpetual
motion forever.

However, as the stone eventually slows (due to friction) its speed arrow
rotates in the anticlockwise direction. Eventually, the stone appears to stop.
However, the magnitude of the speed arrow in spacetime is unaffected, and
the stone therefore continues to move in time at the universal speed. So
what has really happened is that the inertial, perpetual motion of the stone
in space has rotated to become inertial, perpetual motion in time.
 So this gives us a tremendous insight. The motion we feel in time — the
passage of time — is caused by our inertial motion in time! The principle
which is causing our motion in time is the same principle which ensures the
curling stone slides forever across frictionless ice. It is as if we are sliding
through time!

Just as the perpetual motion of the curling stone across the frictionless ice
is natural motion which requires no additional source of power, so our
perpetual motion through time requires no additional power. It is the natural
state of motion.
9
ENERGY AND MOMENTUM
Throughout this book, it has been found that by considering the motion
of objects we have obtained insights into the nature of time. From
considering curling stones on ice, to trains on railway tracks, we have
discovered the similarity — and symmetry — between motion in space and
motion in time. In this chapter we are going to consider two more related
properties of objects in motion: their energy and momentum. We will see if
these properties can provide further insights into the nature of time.
It was Rene Descartes and Isaac Newton who first identified the property
of momentum of a moving object. Momentum is the property you get when
you multiply the mass of an object with its velocity. For example, a heavy
lorry moving fast would have a lot of momentum. So the formula for
momentum is mass multiplied by velocity: mv.
Momentum does not just have a numerical value, it always has an
associated direction. Essentially, this means that momentum is always
represented by an arrow (an arrow has both a magnitude (length) and a
direction). The correct technical term for such an arrow is a vector.
Momentum is a vector quantity.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of momentum is that it is always
conserved, which means the total momentum of a closed system does not
change with time. In collisions, momentum can be transferred from one
object to another, but if you add up all the momentum of all the objects you
will find the total momentum before the collision is equal to the total
momentum after the collision.
This principle that momentum is always conserved leads us to think that
momentum represents some important underlying feature of Nature. We
will see later just how important this is.
Momentum is even conserved in situations in which all the objects are
initially stationary — such as an explosion. Imagine a stick of dynamite
standing in a stationary position on a table. Nothing is moving, so the total
momentum of that system is zero. When the dynamite explodes, fragments
will shoot out at great speed to the left and right, and up and down. So it
might appear that momentum is not conserved here because a stationary
situation has transformed into a situation with a great deal of motion.
However, remember that momentum is a vector quantity: it is represented
by arrows. The momentum of a fragment which shoots out to the left can be
represented by an vector of a certain length pointing to the left. Similarly,
the momentum of a fragment which shoots out to the right can be
represented by a vector of a certain length pointing to the right. If we add a
vector pointing to the left with a vector pointing to the right then they
cancel each other out and the sum total is zero. So if we correctly consider
all the momentum of all the exploding fragments as vectors shooting out in
all directions, we will find the sum total is again zero. So total momentum
is conserved even in the case of an explosion.
(This principle — that momentum must be conserved in an explosion —
is a big clue. Think: what has the history of the universe got in common
with an explosion?)
But, here is an interesting thought. Imagine a car driving along a road at a
constant speed. It clearly has momentum. It also clearly has an amount of
kinetic energy, the energy associated with movement. We could tie a rope to
the back of the car and, as the car pulls on the rope, it could make a
windmill spin. So we could use the energy of the car to do work. This all
makes sense and probably fits with your intuitive notion of momentum and
energy.
However, as we discussed in the second chapter, we also know that all
motion has to be relative — there is no such thing as absolute motion in the
universe. With this in mind, imagine you are driving alongside the first car,
and you choose a constant speed which precisely matches the speed of the
first car. Now, as you look across to the first car, it no longer appears to be
moving: it appears stationary. In fact, as far as you are concerned, the first
car is stationary. With no observer having precedence in the universe, your
viewpoint is just as valid as the viewpoint of any other observer. So, as far
as you are concerned, the first car now has no momentum, and it has no
kinetic energy. For example, if you have a windmill on your car, you could
no longer use the energy of the first car to turn the blades of your windmill
— the attached rope would be slack.
So this reveals that the momentum and kinetic energy of an object are
completely observer-dependent, which might come as something of a
surprise (it is something they don't tell you in school!). This also seems to
point to a possible connection between momentum and energy, which we
will discover shortly.
However, as we discussed in the previous chapter, everything travels at a
constant speed in spacetime: the speed of light. Motion in space is really
just a shadow of true motion in spacetime. So this observer-dependent
impression of the momentum and energy of the car in space is not the whole
story. To see the whole story we have to consider the motion of the car in
spacetime — not just in space.
Once again, imagine you are driving alongside the first car, and you are
driving at precisely the same constant speed as the first car. As you look
across, the first car appears stationary. In fact, in your frame of reference,
the first car is stationary. But, as we discussed in the previous chapter, we
know that everything moves at the speed of light in spacetime. So what has
effectively happened here is that — as far as you are concerned — the
spacetime velocity vector of the car has rotated so that it no longer points in
space, but now points only in time. In other words, the first car — which
you see as stationary — must now be moving at the speed of light through
time. This provides us with a general result: a stationary object moves
through time at the speed of light. The only reason the object appears
stationary to our eyes is because we are travelling through time at exactly
the same speed!
But momentum is associated with motion (remember: momentum is mass
multiplied by velocity). Admittedly, momentum is usually only associated
with motion through space. However, in our new spacetime model, we
might now reasonably ask what is the momentum of the car through time.
The answer, fairly obviously, is that momentum is the mass of the object
multiplied by its speed through time. So for a stationary object, momentum
through time is given by the mass of the object multiplied by the speed of
light: mc.
Now, this is interesting. The momentum through time of a stationary
object is mc. What other property of a stationary object do we know? Well,
Einstein showed in his famous equation E=mc2 that the total energy of a
stationary object is equal to mc2. This indicates that if we consider the
momentum of an object through time, and multiply that value by the speed
of light, we obtain the total energy of that object. This seems to indicate that
we can consider energy to be momentum in the time direction.
We can show this relationship between momentum and energy in a
spacetime diagram. The following diagram shows momentum in spacetime,
which takes into account an object's motion in both space and time. The
value of this momentum in spacetime is the usual formula for momentum
which is mass multiplied by the velocity in spacetime (which we know is
always the speed of light: all objects travel at the speed of light in
spacetime). So the value of the momentum in spacetime is mc. This value is
drawn on the diagonal arrow in the following diagram:

As we have just discussed, the total energy of the object, E, is the

momentum of the object in time multiplied by the speed of light. So on the
diagram we have taken the total energy and divided it by the speed of light
to give the momentum in the time direction (drawn on the vertical time
axis). The diagram also shows momentum in space, commonly denoted by
p, along the horizontal space axis.
Interestingly, as momentum is always conserved, this spacetime
momentum vector must always be conserved. This means its length and
direction must always be unchanged. The only way this is possible is if the
proportion of the vector in the space direction and the proportion of the
vector in the time direction are both unchanged (conserved). Hence, we
have a conserved quantity in the space direction and a conserved quantity in
the time direction. In the space direction, the conserved quantity can be
seen to be momentum. And in the time direction, the conserved quantity is
energy. Hence, this single diagram gives us two conservation laws: the law
of conservation of momentum, and the law of conservation of energy.
Let us multiply each of the sides of the triangle by the speed of light, c
(this will not affect the shape of the triangle). We can then use Pythagoras
on this right-angled triangle to give: [12]

which, when we reorganise the terms, gives:

This is a hugely-important equation called the energy-momentum

relation. It reveals the relationship between energy, mass, and momentum,
and it applies to absolutely everything in the universe, from a car driving
along a road to the energy and momentum of light itself.
Let us consider some examples of the use of this equation. Firstly, if we
consider a stationary object which has mass — for example, a block of
wood on a table — that object has no momentum in space so p=0 in this
case, and the equation reduces to E=mc2, the famous formula for the energy
of a stationary object. So that is correct.
Let us now consider the other extreme, an object which is moving at the
maximum speed through space: the speed of light. So what moves at the
speed of light? The answer is in the question: light moves at the speed of
light. Let us consider the particles which make up light which are photons.
Photons are massless, which is the reason light can travel vast distances
from the stars. So, for a single photon, m=0 in the equation, and the
equation then reduces to E=pc, which is known to be the correct
relationship between energy and momentum for a photon (yes, even though
photons are massless they still have energy and momentum).
So the energy-momentum relation is correct for the two extremes, and for
everything else in between.

Why does E=mc ? 2

Let us now consider what we have discovered about the nature of energy,
and, in particular, what we have discovered about E=mc2.
E=mc2 is perhaps the most famous equation in physics. As the amount of
mass in this formula is multiplied by the incredibly huge value of the square
of the speed of light, this formula reveals that a small amount of mass can
be converted to a tremendous amount of energy. This is the principle behind
nuclear power and nuclear weapons. As Andrew Steane says in his book
The Wonderful World of Relativity: "This means that the total daily energy
production of all the power stations in the world could in principle be
obtained from just 14 kilograms of raw material."
How are we to make sense of this formula indicating that there is an
equivalence between mass and energy? Some puzzling questions might
include "How can an amount of mass at rest contain such a huge amount of
energy?", and "Why does the speed of light feature so prominently in an
equation linking mass and energy?"
Well, armed with the insights we have gained so far, we can now provide
answers to these questions.
In the previous chapter it was shown that all objects travel at the speed of
light in spacetime. This principle implies that all the spacetime speed of a
stationary object must be directed through time: a stationary object moves
through time at the speed of light.
So this, then, provides the answer to the mystery of E=mc2. A stationary
object is, in fact, far from stationary: it is speeding through time at the
speed of light. It is this tremendous momentum in the time direction that
results in a mass at apparent rest containing a huge amount of energy. As
Richard Feynman said, this is "an energy that a particle possesses from its
mere existence." [13]
And this reveals the secret as to why the speed of light appears in the
famous equation linking mass with energy.
So, by considering all objects as moving at the speed of light through
spacetime, we are shedding light on numerous mysteries. As Carl Brannen
says in his aforementioned paper: "Various odd attributes of the theory of
relativity, such as the huge amount of energy present in matter, and the
impossibility of matter exceeding the speed of light, become natural
consequences of a universal speed for all matter and energy."
10
THE SECRET OF TIME
The aim of this series of books is to try to uncover some fundamental
answers, to get to the bottom of things, to find out "why" things are the way
they are. The aim is to discover how much of the universe could have been
created differently ("contingent"), and how much is a logical necessity. Our
eventual goal is expressed by Einstein: "What I am really interested in is
whether God could have made the world in a different way; that is, whether
the necessity of logical simplicity leaves any freedom at all."
Regarding the laws of Nature, if a law was found to be a logical necessity
for the existence of the universe, then it would appear that there could be no
choice of the form that law could take. In other words, if the universe could
only exist with a law of Nature taking a particular form — with no possible
alternative allowing the existence of the universe — then it would appear
that that would necessarily define the form of the law.
With this thought in mind, I believe it is possible to show that the
universe could not exist without a dimension of time. Hence, time would be
shown to be a logical necessity.
In order to arrive at this original hypothesis, we follow the method used
in all my books: building-up from fundamental principles. These
fundamental principles have to be so axiomatic, so obviously correct, that
they would have to be true in any conceivable universe. Such a principle
has to be self-contained, containing within itself the reason why it is
obviously true.
It appears it is possible to build-up a universe from a remarkably small
number of such principles. My list of fundamental principles is small, but it
is growing. These principles are:
 The second law of thermodynamics. The principle that disorder will
tend to increase. As we have seen in this book, this is the principle
behind the arrow of time.
The principle that "there is nothing outside the universe". If the
universe is the totality of everything that exists (which it is — by
definition), then this principle is obviously true. If you read my first
book then you know that this is a remarkably powerful principle,
potentially explaining symmetries in Nature, and quantum mechanical
and relativistic behaviour. It also leads to …
The principle that the universe has zero total energy. This principle
played a central role in my second book, which showed it potentially
led to a intriguing modification of general relativity which possibly
explained paradoxical black holes.
The Copernican principle. The principle that no point in the universe is
preferred, no observer is special. It has been suggested in this book
that this is the reason why all objects travel at the same speed: the
speed of light in spacetime.

In this book, we have just found a remarkable result: momentum in the

time dimension is responsible for energy. This is quite a shocking twist.
Who would have suspected that two apparently completely unrelated
quantities, time and energy, would be so closely related? This is suspicious.
We seem to have stumbled upon evidence linking time to a completely
different property. Is this the clue we have been seeking?
Let us see if energy is referenced in our list of fundamental principles.
Yes, the third principle in the list says that the universe must have zero total
energy. You will be aware of this principle if you have read my second
book. As Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler said in their classic textbook
Gravitation: "There is no such thing as the energy (or angular momentum,
or charge) of a closed universe, according to general relativity, and this is
for a simple reason. To weigh something one needs a platform on which to
stand to do the weighing."
There can be no such weighing platform outside the universe — because
there is nothing outside the universe. You could never put the universe on
weighing scales to determine the total energy of the universe.
If you read my second book you will be aware that it is possible to attain
a universe with zero energy if gravitational energy is considered negative.
How can gravitational energy be negative? Well, if objects are separated to
infinity they feel no gravitational pull between themselves, so the
gravitational energy of the system is zero in that case. But when those
objects were initially clumped together, you had to put a lot of energy into
the system to force them apart. So if you have to put energy into a system
just to get to a zero energy situation, this means the energy of the system
when those objects were initially clumped together must have been
negative.
This energy is called the gravitational binding energy, and is equal to the
amount of energy which would be required to separate a group of masses to
infinity. In a page on his superb website, Matt Strassler calls this energy
interaction energy, and makes the crucial point that interaction energy can
be negative. [14]
So now we see why we need time: time gives us energy! Our emphasis
on time in our investigation has been a red herring: the secret was nothing
to do with time, it was all about energy all along! What a twist! Time was
only involved because momentum in the time direction gives us energy. A
time dimension is required so that energy is possible.
A zero-energy universe satisfies the vital principle that energy is
conserved over the period of the Big Bang. As Alan Guth explains in The
Inflationary Universe: "If the creation of the universe is to be described by
physical laws that embody the conservation of energy, then the universe
must have the same energy as whatever it was created from. If the universe
was created from nothing, then the total energy must be zero." Basically,
what this means is that the universe must have had zero energy before the
Big Bang (as absolutely nothing was in existence), so the universe must
also have zero total energy in the era after the Big Bang.
Earlier in this chapter it was considered how momentum is conserved
even in situations which are initially stationary — such as an explosion. If
we correctly consider the momentum of all the exploding fragments as
vectors shooting out in all directions, we will find the sum total is zero. The
question was asked: what has the history of the universe got in common
with an explosion? I hope this made you think of the Big Bang, which can,
indeed, be thought of as a form of explosion. If we perform the vector sum
of the momentum of all the exploding fragments of the universe after the
Big Bang, we will find the sum total is zero — just like in an explosion. I
actually found this quote on a website: "What's the momentum of the
universe? A tough question? Well, no! If the universe began with a Big
Bang (for instance — an explosion), the momentum of the universe before
the explosion was zero." [15]
As we saw in the previous chapter, momentum and energy can be
combined into an energy-momentum vector in spacetime. If momentum is
conserved during an explosion (such as the Big Bang) then so must energy
be conserved. So this again reveals why the total energy of the universe is
zero.
A universe made of energy is a universe which can sum to zero, and can
therefore satisfy the constraint that the total energy must equal zero. A
universe made of energy is a universe which can exist.
Conversely, a universe without time could not sum to zero. A universe
without time would have no energy (remember: we need time to give us
energy). Therefore, a universe without time would be a universe composed
of simple particles (i.e., not world lines). These simple particles could not
sum to zero.
What does time bring to the party? Time brings directionality. As we
have seen, the second law of thermodynamics introduces an arrow of time.
This turns simple particles into directional world lines: vectors. These are
vectors of energy-momentum: the "stuff" of the universe.
And vectors can cancel each other — by pointing in different directions.
This was shown in the example of momentum being zero after an explosion
because the momentum vectors cancel each other. So a universe composed
of energy-momentum is a universe whose "stuff" can sum to zero.
It appears that in order to see the secret of time, we have to be more like
Doctor Manhattan and Billy Pilgrim. We have to ignore the failings of our
human perception and see particles as they really are: as world lines in
spacetime. And we now see that we can consider these world lines to be
composed of energy-momentum, travelling at the speed of light in
spacetime.
Hence, the universe needs time. A universe with a dimension of time is a
universe which can exist.
There have been proposals in the past for so-called anthropic hypotheses
which suggest that a universe needs a dimension of time or else it would not
be an interesting universe in which intelligent life could develop.[16]
However, I believe the hypothesis presented in this book is the first
hypothesis to propose that a universe without time simply could not exist at
all.
What is the secret of time? Time gives us energy, and without energy the
universe could not exist at all.
FURTHER READING
Introducing Time by Craig Callender and Ralph Edney
An excellent illustrated book about the physics and philosophy of time.

Simply Einstein by Richard Wolfson

The best introduction to relativity.

Of Particular Significance by Matt Strassler

http://profmattstrassler.com/
So much great stuff to read!

The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Richard Feynman

http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/
Released online for the first time. Volume One is relevant to the material
this book.

The Reference Frame by Luboš Motl

http://motls.blogspot.com
High-level analysis of the latest physics developments written by a divisive
character.
PICTURE CREDITS
All photographs are public domain unless otherwise stated.
Hafele and Keating photograph is an historic image provided by
Wikipedia.
Bern Clock Tower photograph is courtesy of Mike Lehmann and is
provided by Wikimedia Commons.
Einstein optical illusion based on an original idea by Akiyoshi Kitaoka.
Photograph of Drop Tower Bremen is courtesy of ZARM, University of
Bremen.
NOTES
[1] There was also an effect due to the height of the aircraft. Time is
predicted to run faster in a weaker gravitational field: a clock at the top of
Mount Everest gains 30 milliseconds a year over a clock at ground level.
The measured effect was precisely in accordance with Einstein's theory of
general relativity.
[2] The period of the swing is actually only accurate if the amplitude of
the swing is not too large. The shorter the swing, the greater the accuracy of
the clock.
[3] Ben Majoy, Redefining Time, http://www.vice.com/read/time-
redefined
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rietdijk-Putnam_argument As the talk
page states: "The Andromeda Paradox is a form of the argument in which
two people at the same place and instant have two different universes
attached to them."
[5] In his 1913 novel The World Set Free, H.G. Wells also uncannily
anticipated the development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons, a novel
which even influenced the American atomic bomb programme.
[6] James Hartle, The Physics of 'Now', http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-
qc/0403001
[7] George Johnson, Unearthing Prehistoric Tumors, and Debate, New
York Times, December 27th 2010.
[8] Note that, contrary to what many popular science books state, it is not
necessary to use general relativity in this situation involving acceleration.
Special relativity is sufficient. General relativity would only need to be used
if the spacetime was curved.
[9] Actually, a rotating object is not travelling at constant velocity, but is
continuously accelerating towards the centre of rotation. The Earth's
rotation has the effect of slightly reducing the pull of gravity, but this was
undetectable to the early astronomers.
[10] John Woodward, What is the Cause of Inertia?,
http://tinyurl.com/inertiapaper
[11] Carl Brannen, The Proper Time Geometry,
http://brannenworks.com/a_ptg.pdf
[12] Note the usual plus sign in Pythagoras is changed to a minus sign
here. This is because of the unusual way that distances are measured in
spacetime: the further you travel in space, the less distance you travel in
spacetime (moving clocks run slow).
[13] Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law
[14] Matt Strassler, The Energy That Holds Things Together,
http://tinyurl.com/energywebsite
[15] http://tinyurl.com/momentumwebsite
[16] Max Tegmark, On the dimensionality of spacetime,
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9702052
 Table of Contents
ALSO BY ANDREW THOMAS
PREFACE
1 INTRODUCTION
2 THE SPEED OF LIGHT
3 SYNCHRONICITY
4 SPACETIME
5 THE ARROW OF TIME
6 TIME DILATION
7 INERTIA
8 THE UNIVERSAL SPEED
9 ENERGY AND MOMENTUM
10 THE SECRET OF TIME
FURTHER READING
PICTURE CREDITS
NOTES
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