TIME - THE ETERNAL BYSTANDER! OR IS IT?

How many times have you been told that time doesn’t stop for you? Well, it actually doesn’t stop for you unless you are the Big Bang. So, is there something bigger than the time itself? And if it stops, is it truly eternal? Can something eternal have a beginning? And if it does, then should it have an end as well? And if it begins and ends, then how can it be eternal? According to the theory of the Big Bang, time began to tick along with the expansion of the universe about 13.8 billion years ago. So, if we hop in our hypothetical time machine and go back to the moment of the Big Bang, can we actually witness the birth of time itself? And, is it possible for us to travel beyond the Big Bang? To answer both of the questions;

Yes, we can witness the birth of time, and no, we cannot travel beyond the Big Bang as our super-advanced locomotive which can travel through time will not work when there is no time to travel through. How can we go back to the moment which doesn’t exist?

I know how difficult it is to wrap our minds around this concept. How can time… not exist? How can time have a beginning and an end? If nothing existed before the Big Bang then, for how many years the situation was like that? And what is nothing? Maybe a timeless time before the Big Bang? Even if everything ceases to exist at the end of the universe, shouldn’t time still be ticking?

To answer that, let’s find the answer to the question, what is time?

According to Wikipedia, “Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future.”

Everything we see, feel, and perceive was created after the Big Bang… yes, even time. It’s a unidirectional process that can speed up, slow down, and eventually someday stop when our expanding universe finally reaches its inevitable cold demise.

To have a better understanding of time, let’s contrast time with temperature. As you may know, the temperature is the phenomenon that we perceive because of the motion of the molecules. The entropy of a system always moves towards chaos. The higher the energy of a system, the higher is the rate of motion of the particles inside it, and higher is its resultant temperature. So, the temperature is the outcome of the relative motion of the molecules. Similarly, let’s imagine time to work in a similar fashion. Some unknown and not to mention hypothetical particles’ interaction results in something which we perceive as time. So maybe, the biggest explosion of the universe about 13.8 billion years ago, gave birth to some strange particles which in turn gave birth to the concept of time. So naturally, at the end of the universe, time may also cease to exist as the particles that give birth to it also perish.

Obviously, this is purely imaginary and is not backed by any scientific journal. But, I hope I have succeeded in creating somewhat of an understanding of how time can have a beginning and an end. So if this is the case, then time can no longer be regarded as eternal. And if time is not eternal, then what is? The concept of eternity always goes hand in hand with time. Eternity is something that lasts forever. Forever is something that is not affected by the flow of time. And time, as we know, is no longer eternal. Hence, eternity is the superset of time. But, what is eternity? Maybe eternity is the sequence of never-ending Big Bangs and maybe these Big Bangs cause time to start, speed up, slow down, stop, and start again. A sequence of births and deaths of multiple universes in which time is born and dies multiple times. We often imagine time to be a cosmic river that flows and possibly forks many times. But, maybe time is not a river on its own. Maybe time is more of a boat that flows in the river of eternity.

So maybe we shouldn’t call it, “Time – The Eternal Bystander!” and start calling it, “Eternity – The Timeless Bystander!”

But, if eternity is timeless, then how do we even define it? If we try infinity, it makes eternity infinite. The universe is also infinite. So, is the universe eternal? And if the universe is eternal then, time should also be eternal as the fabric of this universe is stitched with the thread of time. But, as we established, time is not eternal. The universe may also shrink and end one day. If something infinite has an end then, why do we call it infinite in the first place? And if eternity is infinite, can it also have an end? If eternity has an end, is it eternal? If eternity is not eternal, then maybe everything is mortal. If everything is mortal then, nothing is immortal. But, what is nothing? A timeless time? The state before the Big Bang. The state before the birth of the universe? Maybe that is what is eternal. A state in which it cannot be defined. A state in which it cannot be compared. So, maybe we can conclude it like;

“Eternity – A Timeless State of Nonexistence!” 

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