Chapter
4: nature of time
---------------------------
We
feel dizzy under the influence of this tension between nothingness and
infinity, but it is still not anything.
We
here is in the heart of the mystery which coats the object of our enquète.
Big
misunderstanding
-------------------
What
is disturbing in time, it is that it seems that one can say, to the comment,
everything and his opposite. The history of the reflection around the notion of
time gives evidence of it. les thinkers privileged
for a long time , and privilege still sometimes, only an aspect of time.
For
Parménide,
considered as the only, Occidental father of the philosophy counts the BEING.
In the point which his(her) follower Zénon will try hard to demonstrate,
through paradoxes become famous, of which the most known is Achille's history
and the Tortoise, which movement is impossible and which time does not exist.
At
first sight, time seems to have nothing to make with the being; it seems even
to be his negation, because he shows himself through the wear and the death.
But by refining observation and by deepening(fathoming) reflection, one notices
that change is only way for the being to persist.
The
first aware(conscious) beings in the history of the humanity, and ourselves at
the first moments of our consciousness, let us observe quite made things, which
age and disappear. Stopwatches wasting(destroying) his(her) children. And so
religion made some shape be the most complex, the man, the product of a
decision and an act immediate of God. No notion of evolution. But it is there
only the continuation of the thought of Parménide, for whom
" Cà was not, it will not be, it is ". Religion as
fills some common sense. But besides, Christianity imposes the vision of linear
time against the cyclic time of the Greek mythology, and world seems dedicated
to the degradation without the help of the rescuer; but it is that the real,
unchanging and eternal being, lives(lies) somewhere else: in the paradise, what
joins Platon's point of view, what sets the eternity of the world
of ideas in the time of the changeable sensitive world. Later, Plotin and Saint
Augustine will put God, eternal, outside time and kissing(embracing) past and
future of a single glance; eternity is its present; what is a way of
recognizing the passage of the time of which world is prisoner; but God can not
have any link with the world, what rests(supports) the idea that time is the
opposite of the being, is not the being. In a general way, the being,
unchanging, represents what there is of more natural because he is given, he
falls under senses(directions); it is the present permanent employee for Saint
Augustine who speaks of " present of past, present of present and present
of future ". For Platon it is " the mobile image of
immovable eternity. For Newton, there is an absolute time and change
is secondary. For Einstein, time is a "
firm illusion ". Berkeley already considered that world is an illusion. Laplace will
develop all the consequences of Newton's
dynamics: Determinism and character absolved from time and from space, so from
being; it is the vision which corresponds to a certain perception of the
reality, in the sense(direction) where the movement of celestial bodies seems
unchanging, but it is to forget that punctual movement will disappear one day.
A
paradoxical history
-----------------------
But
in front of the dominant conception of the being as eternal and unchanging, is dévelopée a vision
of the more faithful world in what allow us to arrest(dread) our
senses(directions). The conception of the reality as the expression of a ceaseless
movement already existed in the Antiquity. The philosopher Héraclite, the
contemporary of Parménide, supported that
reality is the fruit of a ceaseless fight between opposite forces, chill,
beautiful and ugly, health and disease... It(he) observed that "
Everything pours; one never bathes twice in the same river ". At the
bottom(really), it is that will observe Platon. But
unlike this last one, Héraclite does not think that
the world in which we live is only a degenerate reflection of an ideal and eternal
world, on which time would have no grip. It is there that lives(lies) the true orginalité and the
force of this thought. It is what explains also why she finds few partisans.
Even a physicist, a thinker as powerful as Newton can not
refrain from conceiving a time and a space absolved which(whom) would join the
universe. Nevertheless Newton introduces time in science, by
developing calculation tiny as tool of the "dynamics", what
establishes(constitutes) a considerable progress with regard to the Greek
geometry, necessarily static; but it(he) makes him(it) through a formalism
which seems to deny time, as gives evidence of it the declaration of principles
of Laplace. In fact, nothing more normal. It is in equations
that Newton introduces the variable " t ". Now an
equation puts on the past and future same foot, in the sense(direction) where
the knowledge of the state of the system at the given moment allows to
calculate its previous state and its future state. So, the knowledge of the
position of the earth(ground) around the sun at the moment when I write these
lines, allows to know with a very big precision which was its position here is
more or less for a long time, and which will be its position in more or less
for a long time. Laplace was convinced that
this knowledge could extend in the infinity in past and future. But the
beginning of twentieth century came to put a flat in this claim. The French
mathematician Poincaré demonstrated that
any system was very sensitive to its initial conditions and that a light
disturbance at first could have considerable long-term effects. And so the prévisibilité of the
state of a system as the earth(ground) extends in best in some million years.
Beyond, it is not possible to predict that the earth(ground) will still turn
around the sun. But to add to our confusion, Poincaré
demonstrated also the theorem of recurrence. It(he) stipulates that a system
will always go back by all the possible states if one leaves him(her) the time
of it. Destabilized, the being resumes power.
This
power, it(he) can find her(it) due to an education of the French chemist Lavoisier in the
18è century. Lavoisier made numerous
experiences(experiments) of transformation of solid material(subject) in gas
material(subject). He noticed that the quantity of material(subject)
kept(preserved) and he concluded from it that " Nothing gets lost, nothing
builds up itself ". In other words, the material(subject) which composes
the universe is the same for a long time. It is likely that we are established(constituted)
with atoms which contributed to the size of Cléopâtre's nose, to the machoire of a
tyrannosaur, to the crown of thorns of the Christ either, in a less glorious
way, to the pustules of a pestiféré, to the bump of Low
Sunday or to Hannibal's urine. The being is not maybe unchanging, but he is
eternal.
In
the 19è century always, an abstract revolution, as important as the
demonstration of the movement of the earth(ground) around the sun by Copernic, occurs
and gives a real brightness to the conception of time as movement. The English
naturalist Charles Darwin elaborates the theory of evolution of sorts. It(he)
shows that the man and the alive sorts were not shaped such which by God but
are products of a very slow and very long evolution. Common sense will
hold(retain) that we are the cousins of the monkeys because we have a common ancètre, a small
lemur. The science of the 20è century will refine this vision by showing that
any form of life is the fruit of an original broth in which appeared the first
molecules. This vision of things is optimistic because it reveals a world in
constant evolution towards more complexity. But a shadow glides over the
picture(table).
With
the development of the industrial world, the engineers grant(tune) more and
more interest to the processes of transformation of the heat in energy and inversément. They
notice while there is always a loss of heat during the passage of the energy
from a warm source towards a cold source. Conclusion is simple and dramatic:
eventually, the universe is promised to the thermic death, that is that it
cools inéxorablement. It is a nasty blow for the being. It remains maybe
eternal, but he degrades bit by bit. Dynamics newtonienne
vacillates also . The laws of transformation of gases do not answer any more
the equalities of the equations of the dynamics. It is then that among in the
dance an Austrian physicist, a Ludwig Boltzmann. A
physicist in the tragic fate. The object of study privileged by the thermodynamics,
they are gases. A gas is consisted of a too big number of molecules to be put
in equations. Boltzmann is going then to
imagine to apply probability theory, or rather statistics, to this complex
phenomenon. It(he) considers every molecule of gas as a motive which would
study dynamics. The craftiness of Boltzmann's method
consists in estimating the global behavior of the myriad of molecules which
compose the gas to predict the evolution of the system. Boltzmann restores
so the power of prediction of the dynamics newtonienne. But in
the run-up, Boltzmann forgot a thing(matter). It is that by assimilating
the molecules of the gas to objects similar to those studied by the dynamics,
it(he) returns their "reversible" movements by simple negation of
variable time. In other words, it is enough to knock down the sense(direction)
of time to find the exact position of molecules in past and state of the gas at
any time. Now the essential education of the second law of the thermodynamics,
it is the irreversibility of considered phenomena. Because of the loss of heat
in a transformation, one can not find the exact state of the situation of
departure. So Boltzmann's theory does not
correspond to the reality. Mocked by some of his(her) colleagues, Boltzmann will not
recover from it and will commit suicide. The most tragic in this history, it is
that Boltzmann's works established(constituted) a considerable
overhang in the understanding of tiny phenomena. Boltzmann gave of
the weight to the notion of atom. Now the most important discovery of the 20è
century is maybe that of this tiniest element that one knows: the atom.
Besides,
the report of the thermic degradation of the universe involves(puts at stake) a
notion which provoked and which always provokes confusion: the entropy. There
is there nothing of complicated well. The entropy is the size(greatness) which
measures the degree of disorder of a closed system. Classic example chosen to
illustrate him(it) is that of a hermetic box that a partition in the environment(middle)
separates in two equal parts. A part is empty, the other one contains a gas.
One creates an opening in the central wall. The gas spreads naturally in the
empty part and at the end of moment divided up in a way balanced in all the
box. The gas then reached(affected) the maximum of disorder, in agreement with
the second law of the thermodynamics. In other words, the entropy of the system
is maximal. These observations become disturbing when one associates them to an
education of the equations of a scientific revolution of the beginning of the
20è century. Einstein's theory of
relativity. By concern to keep(preserve) a static universe, blinded(filled)
maybe by the ancestral conception of an unchanging being, Einstein did not
know how to pull(fire) a major education of his(her) theory: the expansion of
the universe. This honor returns to the Belgian canon Georges Lemaître. It(he)
deducted equations of Einstein that the universe
had an origin, that it was the fruit of it that the astrophysicien Georges
Gamow will call later Big Bang. A primitive atom would have
begun(affected) an expansion here is about 15 billion years. Question is to
know which is the fate of the universe. The astrophysicien Friedman
proposed two eventualities: Either the quantity of material(subject) contained
in the universe is sufficient to counter a day the expansion of the universe
and to provoke a contraction in what one calls Big Crunch,
the opposite of Big Bang, either this quantity of
material(subject) is insufficient and the universe will continue to dilate in
the infinity, getting closer bit by bit to the zero absolved degree, by virtue
of the second law of the thermodynamics which wants that a closed system aims
towards its maximum of entropy. But this exit does not seem to frighten the
chemist and Belgian Nobel prize of Russian origin Ilya Prigogine. Big admirer
of the thought of Bergson, for whom "
time is pure novelty or it is not anything ", Prigogine insists
on the irreversibility of time, so on the movement which animates(stimulates)
time, which is time. But especially, leaning on Boltzmann's works, integrating
the educations of the theory of the chaos, there showed the extrème
sensibility of certain systems to their initial conditions and the spontaneous
creation of order, are phenomena of negentropie, that is
phenomena which go the processes of increase of the entropy. But the existence
of processes auto-organized in the nature and the tendency towards a bigger
complexity of the organization, what Prigogine tends to
consider as universal laws, does not contradict the second law of the
thermodynamics, because these processes generate of the entropy as price to be
paid for the creation of order.
Anyway,
one realizes that perception and conception of the reality evolved a lot since
two millenniums. The vision of a static and unchanging universe in left the
place with the change, and in a more general way, with the movement. Time is
not any more a factor outside the things which acts on them by provoking their
wear and their disappearance. Time is constituent of the being. It is the
tension which persists and changes an entity.
In
The legend of tomorrow, (Flammarion, on 1997), the
geneticist Albert Jacquard gives a version updated by these observations:
" Is reality the moon, the reflection of the moon or the light of the
moon? My senses(directions) are informed only by this light,
established(constituted) by vibrations. Without the drainage of duration,
she(it) would have no existence. The colour of things shows itself only by the
waves which they reflect, and these waves are defined only according to time.
This one is a constituent of the reality. In an instant without thickness that
we call present, any dynamics is impossible; nothing of what we call reality
can find there place. The immediate, it is nothingness ". Supplementary
argument brought with Jacquard loom to the thesis of the reality conceived as
fundamentally in movement results from the quantum physics. Quantum theory
provoked an abstract revolution at least as important as relativity at this
beginning of 20è century. Einstein took in it part, but
it(he) is not any more here than one of his(her) actors. Which is the essential
education of the quantum physics? That material(subject) has an undulatory
behavior. Now a wave, it is of the movement.
If
it is a thing(matter) which has sense(direction) only in the movement, it is
well a wave. Albert Jacquart's point of view loses however a little of its
force when it makes of time a parameter, certainly fundamental, but a parameter
among the others, as the fundamental constituents of the material(subject) such
the electron, the proton, the neutron, the various forces of the nature.
The
other arguments confirm the conception of time as movement.
One
of them consists in observing that the smallest shape to be, the tiniest
particle establishes(constitutes) a demonstration of order, of negentropie, "
from distance to balance ", so movement.
Another
argument consists in turning(returning) the conception of an immovable being
against herself(itself). The physicist and American Nobel prize Richard Feynman
says: " time, it is what passes when nothing happens ". It(he) makes
reference to time absolved from Newton. For Newton, time
seems to exist before any thing(matter), it is the frame which they join
necessarily .
But
the fact which time continues to exist without reference to anything, in the
absolute vacuum, does not it imply that it is an essential aspect of the being,
who can not him(her) do without time? Irony of the "absolute" reasoning.
Finally,
one can notice that time is "really proportional" in the movement,
because the movement of a celestial body which is of use of reference to the
measure of time can represent the needles of a clock and be itself time. But
even though one considers him(it) only as inversément
proportional in the movement, time is movement, simply it is then inverse
movement.
Tension,
evolution permanent: time is movement
------------------------------------------------------
But
it is not maybe of the science that it is necessary to wait for the most
powerful testimony of the movement of the reality. It is the place and the
moment to to call back(remind) Wells's quotation already evoked in the general
introduction: " a cube can have a real existence without lasting during a
some time? Manifestly, any real body has to extend in four
directions(managements). It(he) has to have Length, Width, Thickness and...
Duration. But by a natural infirmity of the flesh, we tilt to neglect this fact.
There are really four dimensions: three that we call the three plans of the
Space, and a fourth: Time. One tends however to establish an artificial
distinction between first three dimensions and last one, because it turns out
that we become aware of what surrounds us that by intermittence, whereas time
passes by, of past towards the future, since the beginning till the end of our
life ".
These
extraordinary lines were written in 1895; temptation is big to imagine Wells making a
jump in the future of some years to bring back(report) educations of Einstein's theory
of it. These lines establish(constitute) maybe the deepest reflection which was
ever formulated at the time. If it(he) had been also far, doubtless Einstein would
have accepted the education of his(her) equations which revealed him(her) the
expansion of the universe.
The
Argentine writer J.L. Borgès gave a beautiful formulation of time as
movement: " time is the fundamental problem of the existence... Time is
succession... To exist, it is a being time, and ourselves, we are time... I
mean that it is impossible to put him(it) in brackets... Our consciousness
crosses(spends) constantly from a state to the other one, and that's it, time,
succession ".
One
will have understood(included) that the central thesis of this section, it is
that not only movement is possible, to contradict Zénon, but that
it is "indispensable" to be him. Time, movement is even what gives
the illusion of the being.
Time:
identity and difference
-----------------------------
Let
us go even farther and let us plunge in the heart of time. Pure reasoning can
convince us that time is movement and that reality is "time", so when
reality is movement: " time is only possibility for an entity to be
different from herself(itself) or to change position. It is only way for the
change generally to express itself ".
Time,
it is a being one and different from one, it is to change either or to say the
least to move. By what an entity is at the same moment identical to
herself(itself), 1, and different from herself(itself),-1. To persist, it is to
differ. One way or another, time, it is a being in movement.
Extensive
and extensive movements
-------------------------------
To
define time as movement is not sufficient. It is necessary again to distinguish
between two types of movements: the movement which is of use of reference to
the establishment of a calendar, as the rotation of the earth(ground) on
herself(itself), or its revolution around the sun, and the internal movement
which animates(stimulates) any shape to be, alive or " sluggish ".
One
will call first movement, which corresponds to a "movement" in the
space, "a extensive" movement; one will call second movement, which
corresponds to a modification, even imperceptible, in the shape of an entity,
"the extensive" movement.
Any
entity is at least in extensive movement. And according to the relativity,
because movement is relative, any entity is also in extensive movement.
An
original question is: any extensive movement is consisted of perceptible
extensive movements in a smaller scale(ladder)?
Differentiation
in the time of an entity is a discovery of the same type as the one according
to that the three angles of a triangle, in geometry euclidienne, that is
in a flat space-time, make always 180 °.
The
identity of an entity consists of the difference with regard to quite other
shape to be, and with regard to the nothingness if it is alone; at least,
identity consists of the "presence", and if entity is not alone, in
the spatial specificity, that is in the fact that a person or an object
occupies a position - a space - appropriate(clean) and different from quite
other object at the same moment.
But
an entity can differ with regard to herself(itself) only in the time.
An
entity which does not differ with regard to herself(itself) is it in the time?
In
the worst, a thing(matter) perfectly identical to herself(itself), that is
who(which) does not change, differ from the nothingness; 4 possibilities:
Is
she(it) appears and disappears
Is
she(it) appears and does not disappear
Is
she(it) does not appear and disappears
Is
she(it) does not appear and does not disappear
In
3 cases on 4, one absolved time ago, a front and one later
-Disappearance
/ appearance; in the 4è case, it is eternity.
But
from a logical point of view, there is a symmetry completed between these four
possibilities.
An
entity can be different from herself(itself) only through time. How shows
itself this difference? Through movements of particles, observable. Is a
spatial difference. Now, spatial difference, movement, is the evident testimony
of the passage of time for an entity perfectly identical to herself(itself) -
seemingly.
If
an entity differs from herself(itself) only through a movement, that is an
extensive movement - which is not time, but in the time-, it is always in the
time. For such an entity, extensive movement assimilates to the extensive
movement.
A
material entity can differ from herself(itself) only in the time and from
another entity in the space or the time.
A
not material entity occupies a space. Does a not material entity have to occupy
so "necessarily" of time to distinguish itself from another material
entity? Otherwise, would several not material entities be confused(merged) the
any in the others?
A
material entity can not change space, - it is necessary here to include the
movements of a body which does not move, as the blinking of eyes, for example-,
that in the time.
This
represents another knowledge of the same type as that, mathematical, according
to which the sum the three angles of a triangle is 180 °.
An
entity perfectly, absolutely fixed extensivement and
extensively is not possible according to the current physics, because of the
relativity of the movement, and because of the undulatory aspect of the
material(subject). Indeed, wave is always in movement. And if there was an
entity purely corpusculaire, she(it) should be
in the absolute and inaccessible black for any entity or field of force,
otherwise she(it) is unstable. So nothing can distinguish her(it) from the
nothingness, so she(it) does not exist.
Besides,
the universe is a without containing contents; there is any potentially
inaccessible place.
Can
one spread(widen) the assertion according to which an entity can be different
from herself(itself) only in the time in the assertion when it can not be
"that" in the time?
Yes,
if to be, it is to persist, to be still .
Especially
since, by the absurd, a fleeting entity of 10-43s
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