• Question: how was time created?

    Asked by emilywhittallwh to David, Helen, Ian, rhysphillips, Sarah on 19 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Ian van der Linde

      Ian van der Linde answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Time is a side-effect of the expansion of the Universe, so it started with the big bang. When (if?) the Universe stops expanding, then time will stop moving forward.

    • Photo: Rhys Phillips

      Rhys Phillips answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Time is an illusion.

      For a more serious answer, see Ian’s answer above…

    • Photo: Helen Fletcher

      Helen Fletcher answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      To difficult for me!! My friend Pam says;
      Early man would have seen time as the movement of celestial bodies, day and night and the passing of the seasons. They built structures such as Stonehenge to celebrate the passing of seasons -particularly the summer and winter solstice. The summer solstice is 21st June – longest day. The art and decoration found at many archaeological sites reflect the significance of the seasons, these were there before people started to write things down.

Comments

  • Photo: Helen

    Helen commented on :

    I am now spending all MY time posting answers to these questions from the people I work with!!!

    Time wasn’t invented. It is a basic part of the way the universe works – it’s nature’s way of stopping everything happening at once!
    Humans though are able to notice how time passes and we’ve probably always had some sense of the passage of time, from the change of the seasons to the phases of the moon to the rising and setting of the sun every day. At some point, early civilisations began to break these natural periods of time into more manageable chunks so that the passage of tme could be measured – by the burning of a candle or the filling of a container with dripping water (simple clocks). Sundials also allow the day to be split into divisions. At some point – nobody is really sure when, the idea of hours minutes and seconds was thought of and applied to early mechanical clocks. Nowadays, it’s possible to measure incredibly short periods of time accurately, using the speed at which certain atoms vibrate. (*Not* going to go into general relativity and time dilation!)