Introduction
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The subject of the
" journey in the time " is maybe the most absurd subject of fiction,
but certainly the most stimulating for neurones.
The end of the 19è century
and the beginning of the 20è century establish(constitute) a bend in the
history of the scientific and philosophic thought.
If the notion of time
aroused the questioning of the biggest thinkers of the history, it is during
this period that it took all its dimension. At first Darwin showed that the man and
any alive shape were the fruit of an evolution. The physicist Hendrik Antoon
Lorentz and the mathematician Henri Poincaré anticipated that time was a
relative notion before Einstein demonstrates him(it) in a
indubitable way. Breast und Zeit, Martin Heidegger's
essential work, one of the most important philosophers of the 20è century,
turns around the notion of time. All the Bergson's work abounds in penetrating
observations on the duration. Finally, in the field of the fiction, H.G. Wells has the brilliant blow
to imagine for the first time, in 1895 , the possibility of a movement in the
time in will due to his(its,her) " Machine to investigate time ".
Even though idea can seem extravagant, she(it) conditions(packages) most of the
works of science fiction which are going to follow and which one does not count
any more. Some consider it moreover as the first work of science fiction.
Of important aspect of a
work, at Zénon, Aristote, saint - Augustine, Newton, time became the centre
of contemporary works important as those of Hawking and Prigogine. At the beginning of
century, the astrophysicien Eddington said with
good reason that time is " supreme law of nature ". As for Wells, it(he) had very well
understood(included) him(it) and had formulated in what is maybe the deepest
analysis at the time: " 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 ".
There is of what to stay
without voice(vote) in front of an expression so clear of an essential
education of the Relativity ten years before Einstein to conceive her(it).
Besides the question to know if Wells had knowledge of
Lorentz and Poincaré's works, which established(constituted) a beautiful draft
of Einstein's works, an interesting question
would consist in wondering if Einstein, Bergson or still Heidegger read Wells's book, and in which
measure he influenced them. Let us note that this quotation can
establish(constitute) a critical answer to the philosophy which sub-aims the
famous work of Edwin Abbott Abbott, " Flatland ", extension of
the Platonic idealism, and which does not consider that time is a characteristic
appropriate(clean) for the world in three dimensions, because it shows itself
in universes of lower dimensions.
Prologue
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The prison of time
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At first, a report.
We are any prisoners.
Prisoners of the present, prisoners of time. We are the passengers of an
infinitely long train which always spins any right, which can not move back.
A train which turns
darker(charges) towards a disaster: the temporal collision.
Journey in the time
seems to be the only way of us go out of it. It is what is convinced of the
group Kronos. The group Kronos collects scholars and researchers of any
disciplines. They envisage all the possibilities of making the SCOOP, the
machine to travel in the time.
The solution of this
problem is a question of survival. Let us put ourselves in the skin of an enquèteur which tries to discover
and to collect essential data concerning the notion of time. She(it) concerns
us all and touches all the domains of knowledge: psychology, mathematics,
physical appearance(physics), history, biology, philosophy, literature... We
have to thread the combinations(overalls) of the engineer, the artist, the
scholar, the strategist, the thinker but always going away in the main thing.
LEFT I
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The beginning of our enquète is going to consist in
making the inventory of fixtures of searches on the notion of time.
Psychology of time
--------------------
Psychology is a recent
discipline. Before the creation, it is in the works of fiction that one
doubtless finds testimonies most parlants on the feeling and the
sensations of drainage of time. " In search of time lost " of Marcel Proust is maybe the most
significant work, but " The magic mountain " of Thomas Mann, "
The desert of Tartares " of Dino Buzatti and so many
other works of the history of the world literature are not in rest:
Shakespeare, Ronsard, Lamartine, Rousseau... Proust emits(utters) the
interesting idea that there are temporal Illusions in the same way as optical
illusions.
One can not ignore
neither Bergson and Heidegger, even though, rather
paradoxically, Bergson claiming of the psychology and Heidegger making philosopher's
work, interest granted(tuned) to the psychology seems more present at the
second than at the first, which becomes attached to a critical analysis of the
knowledge and to a fundamental reflection on the nature of time, whereas Heidegger becomes attached rather
to the way the man of which perceives time.
The psychologist Jacques
Montangéro determined five characteristics establishing(constituting) the
fundamental lines(features) of the notion of time: two main aspects:
Temporal hereditary
order, that is the order of events or moments considered as discreet units and
Duration;
Three qualities, which differentiate
order and interval temporal, of the order and the interval numeric(digital) and
spatial:
The irreversibility
which determines the fixed character of order - front can not become later in
the same reference system-, and the unidirectionalité,
The alliance of linear
and cyclic progress (spiral or wheel which turns: dialectic of the durability
and the change) and the temporal horizon: past, present, future; at the
beginning, environment(middle), at the end.
Montangéro considers simultaneity as
a succession nobody, quite as Piaget, who associates besides
succession in ordinal and duration to cardinal, is
digital and analogical, order and interval.
One can move closer to
these characteristics of the objective modalities of time established by the
philosopher Kant. Kant determined clearly the essential
aspects of time:
* Succession: before / after
* Duration: since / jusqu in
* Simultaneity: during, at the same time
Two events can succeed
one another or take place at the same time. They have each a duration, they do
without such at such moment. To decide on their simultaneity or on their
succession, it is necessary to consider their origin. But previous history
which succeed one another do not prevent that a part of the duration of each of
events coincides. It is here that one realizes the wealth of duration. The
determination of the simultaneity and the succession of two events
requires(demands) to consider "moments" of each of these events, the
two moments of each of their previous history. But the coincidence of two
events can be determined in reference to their durability, to their duration.
Duration is the
extension of moment.
But if he speaks about
"objective" modalities, Kant asserts besides that
time is pure shape, a priori , of the internal sense(direction), that is the
sensibility: a sensitive intuition; it(he) makes it so a subjective notion.
As for the psychologist
Paul Fraisse, it(he) established three laws:
1) The more an activity
is split, the more it appears to last for a long time
2) The more an activity
is interesting, the more it seems brief.
3) The time of a
wait(expectation) is always too long.
It is enough, to
illustrate these laws, to think of our perception of time at the dentist, the
court, in concert, during the practice of our favourite sport, the school...
Einstein said: " Sit down
one hour near a beautiful girl, it passes as one minute. Sit down one minute on
an ardent heater, and it passes as one hour. It is it relativity ".
The relativity of time
can be careful another way, according to the perspectives of the length and the
short term. A period of boredom or idleness seems to continue, while time
dedicated to a passion seems always too short. But when one thinks again about
these active periods with enough recession(drop), the period of idleness is
empty and does not take a place in the time, whereas period dedicated to the
passion takes an important place in the time: she(it) lasts.
Physiologie of time
--------------------
These observations lead(drive)
us to another testimony of the relativity of time. One can remain all its
existence indifferent to the question of time and of its paradoxes, but it
seems that nobody can refrain from having this unpleasant feeling which time
crosses(spends) more and more fast, too fast, as one ages.
Proportions
-----------
We judge this
acceleration of the drainage of time according to our sensations and our
impressions(printings).
One could at first think
that the same lapse of time takes a different value according to its direct
report with the age.
For a, 5 year old child
1 year represent 1 / 5è of the life.
For a 30 year old man,
the same period represents only 1 / 30è its life.
And for a 80 year old
person, 1 / 80è of the life.
But if one respects these
proportions, it would mean that the year of the 30 year old man should have to
seem to him(her) 6 times as short as that of the 5 year old child, and that of
the 80 year old person, 16 times as short as that of the child 5 year old and
2,6666 times as short as that of the 30 year old man. Absurd or to verify?
This explanation costs
only if one returns reports(connections) between year and the age to more
reasonable proportions. But question is then to know how to how determine them?
The biologist and the
physicist P. Lecomte of Noüy brought a contribution
important for the explanation of this paradox. It(he) established a constant of
physiological activity of repair A which confirms developed proportions higher.
It is the report between the size of a wound and its time of healing. Of Noüy showed that this report
remains constant according to the age. Figures show that activity réparatrice tissues varies from 1
to 5 from 10 to 60 years. A wound which heals in 20 days at a 10 year old child
will heal in 31 days in 20 years, in 41 days in 30 years, in 55 days in 40
years, in 78 days in 50 years and in 100 days in 60 years. At different ages,
are needed different times to carry out the same work.
Now this individual time
is measured with regard to the constant time of the revolution of the celestial
bodies which serves of model in the time of our watches itself. This time is
foreign to our vital activities. In fact, " the individual time of the
alive things which are born and which die is more real and more significant for
us than mathematical time conceived for us but foreign to our vital activities
", asserts sensibly this physicist.
Indeed, if one knocks
down perspective and if one measures physical time by means of physiological
time, one observes that physical time passes by more quickly in the end than at
the beginning of the life, logarithmiquement, as that of the
radioactive atoms, and more arithmetically. And one finds an explanation in the
sensation of faster drainage of time with the age.
It is necessary to admit
as a real fact that a sidereal year is shorter for an old man than for a child.
She(it) represents for the old man a term more close than for the child. At the
same time, it(he) will not be able to realize so many activities or to live as
many sensations as the child. Besides, the mathematical curves which express
proportions and the variations of the constant of physiological activity of
repair A coincide on an important part of their length between 10 and 80 years.
The hypothesis of proportions finds so a scientific confirmation in the
observation of a concrete activity, the physiological activity of healing of a
wound.
Biologic clock
----------------
Another way of
explaining the sensation of acceleration of time with the age, is to get in touch
her(it) with the slowing down of the biologic clock. Our brain works due to
electric impulses which convey information.
Electric impulses have a
frequency, that is certain number, rhythm of vibrations by unit of time: a
speed. The waves of the day before, the attentiveness are waves
"alpha". If rhythm, so the speed, so the frequency of waves alpha
decreases, outside events will more fast seem to take place. Because the speed
of assimilation of information slows down at the old person&. And always
because of the fact that time is inversément proportional in the
speed, time put by the old person to assimilate this information is longer than
at a younger person. Trying(feeling) more and more difficulties following the rhythm
of the daily life, the person feels(smells) its appropriate(clean) time to pass
more and more fast by with the age. And as every individual compares,
assimilates time outside his appropriate(clean) time, the old person has the
feeling that this outside time passes more and more fast by. To
understand(include) this phenomenon, it is not useless to think again about the
acceleration of the appropriate(clean) time of Totus stayed on earth(ground)
and in the slowing down of the appropriate(clean) time of Nihil which travels in the
space at the speed of light; outside time, its not appropriate(clean) time,
seems motionless for the traveler. As it(he) assimilates this time outside the
appropriate(clean) time, it(he) has the feeling that the appropriate(clean)
time is slow. But when it(he) finds Totus, Nihil realizes that outside
time continued to pass by normally and that it is its appropriate(clean) time
alone(only) which(who) slowed down. inversément, the old person has the
impression(printing) which outside time more and more fast crosses(spends).
She(it) assimilates this sensation in his(its,her) appropriate(clean) time. But
if she(it) could have a point of comparison, she would notice that outside time
passes by normally and that it is its appropriate(clean) time alone(only)
which(who) accelerated.
Relativity
---------
If one applies the
principle of relativity, which will allow us to resolve scientific paradoxes,
in this psychological time, time would more fast be supposed to be really the
person who feels him(it) so. As frequency decreases with the estrangement in
the case of a brilliant information, and gives a feeling slowing down of time,
the decrease of the intellectual frequency with the age slows down the capacity
of perception of stimuli at the old man.
Maturity
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A third type of
explanation of this phenomenon is based on the notion of "maturity".
With the age acquires itself patience and sensation more fast to see spending time.
A child does not want, does not know how to wait for the satisfaction of a need
or a desire. It is impatient that she(it) comes true at once. Time will seem to
him(her) all the more long as satisfaction is more distant or slow to come.
Maturity learns us to master our implusions; the interval of time
between the desire and its satisfaction seems less long and time appears so to
pass more fast. Presented so, maturity could look like the resignation, the
wait(expectation). But on the other hand, one grants(tunes) less attention in
time, in the desire. So one acts more besides. And that to say some common
sense which supports that old age falls again psychologically in childhood.
From a certain age, time would begin again so to seem longer! And a paradox would
come to mine(undermine) initial paradox.
Memory(report)
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Finally, it would seem
that the sensation of acceleration of the ageing is bound(connected) to a
decrease of the capacities of the memory, " if one considers that the
subjective estimation of time is a function of the number of
registered(recorded) information " (Vidal and Pacault, p. 222). The more the
brain is capable of storing of information, the more time has to seem long.
It is likely that the resolution of this paradox passes by a mixture of various proposed solutions.
Time, speed
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The invention of the
cinema allowed to make an important discovery in the field of the perception of
time. One realized so as for a human being, the speed of drainage of the
reality is about 0,04s, is 25 images by second.
But it is
the train of slug(shirt) compared with the movement of the particles of our
body, which would make in a speed of 40000 km by hour, is 11,111 km by second.
If one slows down at most this speed, 1m by second or 10-33cm at infinitely
long time, the appropriate(clean) time of the particle is slowed down of so
much because body will evolve at the speed of 1m by second or of 10-33cm at
infinitely long time.
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