Lead
Time is a familiar and unfamiliar concept, neither visible, touchable, but ubiquitous, has become one of the physical constants of human life, and it is even no exaggeration to say that human life is almost all revolving around time, people eat and go to work to see the time, some people work day and night stay up late, and some people work and live at a very fast pace, and even rest and sleep have to calculate time.
However, even with such a fast pace of life, people's sense of time is not satisfied.
On the contrary, in the eyes of many people, since 2012, it seems that the speed of time has suddenly accelerated, and there are often feelings such as "Isn't this week just gone" or "A month has passed in the blink of an eye", but what is the reason for the change in people's perception of time?
The paradox of time.
Zeno's paradox "Achilles and the tortoise" is an argument given by the ancient Greece philosopher Zeno in order to refute the "theory of motion", Zeno believes that in the process of Achilles running with the tortoise, even if Achilles runs faster, but because of the shortening of the time step, Achilles will always be in a state of tortoise chasing, and will never be able to catch up.
However, this is not the only paradox Zeno proposes, there is a famous philosophical school in ancient Greece called the "grass farming school", as the name suggests, the purpose of this school is to oppose the cultivation of crops, Zeno is a member of this school.
Because agriculture had already occupied an important position in the national economy of ancient Greece at that time, and the grass farming school believed that it was better to let crops grow naturally than to grow them artificially, so they questioned the necessity of crop cultivation.
Therefore, Zeno gives the argument of the "half-paradox", Zeno argues that as long as an object is to move from point A to point B, then it will first stop at the midpoint C between point A and point B, so in order to complete the movement from A to B, the movement from A to C must be completed first, and then there will be a midpoint between C and B, and there will be a midpoint D point between C and B.
The object will be placed in front of one destination after another, which means that the object will "endlessly" go to the midpoint on the way from A to B, so the object will not be able to move from A to B.
Zeno argues that the "paradox of the two" overturns the necessity of object motion, because objects cannot move from A to B location, and the motion that represents objects only exists in people's imaginations.
Zeno's two paradoxes had a great influence on later philosophers, including the famous philosopher Aristotle, who believed that time is composed of successive units in Zeno's paradox, and it is the existence of the units of time that advances the motion of objects.
These two paradoxes also influenced the development of physics, asking physicists the question of how time plays a role in the motion of objects.
Time and space can never be separated, and in the eyes of physicists, time is everywhere, just like space, in the universe.
Albert Einstein also proposed in his theory of relativity that time is relative, not absolute, and can be affected by a variety of factors.
As long as human beings can change the flow rate of time, it will even have an impact on human life thousands of years later, all of which are determined by the universe.
But what is the reason for the change in the way people live by changing the way people live, which has led to a change in people's perception of time?
The relativity of time.
Time is also relative, and as Einstein put forward in his theory of relativity, time is affected by space, as well as by the speed of the object's motion and the gravitational pull.
Einstein's "time" in his theory of relativity is relative to today's physical constants, not absolute time, which Einstein believed was a physical constant proposed by Newton.
Newton believed that time is absolute, that is, the flow rate of time is certain and does not change with the change of human cognition.
Newton's "absolute view of time" became the mainstream concept of time at that time, but as Newton's laws of physics were refuted by more and more physical phenomena, Newton's "absolute view of time" was overturned by Einstein's "relative time".
In Einstein's theory of relativity, the relationship between time and space is described, and space is also divided into three-dimensional, four-dimensional and other dimensions, and the four-dimensional space refers to the combination of three-dimensional space and time, and time also plays an important role in it.
In Einstein's theory of relativity, time is relative and can be bent in space, and like the relationship between space, the flow of time is greatly reduced in some extreme gravitational environments, such as near black holes.
Due to the presence of this refraction effect, in the vicinity of the black hole, the gravitational pull inside the black hole will cause a large change in the speed of time flow around it.
But even if the speed of time varies greatly, there is no situation in the universe where the speed of time does not change, and Einstein proposed a point in the theory of relativity called time dilation.
Time dilation is a phenomenon of time change between moving objects relative to stationary objects when the speed of movement is close to the speed of light, that is, fast things are slow things.
For example, if someone travels in space on a Gemini spaceship and returns to Earth after a period of time, hundreds of years have passed on Earth, and during this time, people on the spacecraft have only felt that ten years have passed.
Einstein discovered this phenomenon when he was testing his theory of relativity, he used an atomic clock to record time, and he used an airplane to bring the atomic clock to the opposite side of the earth, and after a period of time, he returned to find that the atomic clock carried on the plane recorded a fraction of the time recorded by the atomic clock below.
This is evidence of a change in the flow of time, the flow of time in the universe can change due to the curvature of space, the gravitational pull of a black hole, the relative speed of motion of objects, etc., but in the same space, the flow speed of time does not change.
Changes in time perception.
Einstein's theory of relativity was undoubtedly subversive in that era, but as the times evolved, people's perception of the theory of relativity changed, and just after 2012, many people began to feel as if time was passing quickly.
Some people even believe that 2012 is the end of the world, and the passage of time after that only becomes faster, but this statement is obviously unscientific, 2012 is just an ordinary year, and the reason for this change is mainly in the rhythm of people's lives.
With the continuous development of science and technology, people's lives have been changed by technological products, and they have been subverted by a product called "smart phone".
People's lives are getting busier and busier, and many people are busy looking at their mobile phones when they work, which leads to people having free time to kill time after work, and the sense of time passing will be weakened when people are unconscious.
However, it is difficult for people to have free time in their fast-paced life, so this requires people to accomplish more things in a certain amount of free time, and when time is tight, people will be very "passive" to deal with their own things.
In this way, the sense of the passage of time can appear particularly fast in passive situations, and in modern society, there are also online games.
People are often immersed in the world of online games, and some people even play games for hours without noticing, which leads to people not being aware of the passage of time in reality.
When playing games, the human brain produces dopamine, which causes positive emotions such as happiness, happiness, and a sense of accomplishment.
This is one of the reasons why many people are addicted to games, they get pleasure from games, and they are not so sensitive to the perception of time and environment around them.
This also leads to people not playing games in their daily lives, and even looking at their phones from time to time while dealing with their own things, so that the sense of time passing will be reduced.
The convenience and fun brought by electronic products such as mobile phones and computers in modern society have dulled people's perception of time, and their pace of life has not slowed down even during their rest time.
The pace of people's life is fast and slow, but fast people must be the epitome of slow pace, and there are many reasons why people choose a fast-paced lifestyle, among which the convenience of mobile phones and computers and the general fast-paced lifestyle are important factors.
epilogue
The change in people's perception of time is only a change in the way we live, but if the flow rate of time changes, can the physical constants remain stable?
If the flow of time changes, it must be a change in the universe, and how will humanity respond?
Time is surrounded by a space composed of countless possible states, its existence guides people's lives, and affects human beings all the time, and how to use time correctly is what human beings should think about.