by: My_Name

They nearly have it in the article but don&#x27;t take the next step, which is to realise that time <i>is</i> gravity. We are falling towards the future at the speed of causality. You can slow your experience of that by travelling really fast, or by being near something with a large gravity. Quantum particles can simply ignore gravity and time while we are forced to feel their effects due to our size, like a mote of dust can ignore gravity, but a brick can&#x27;t.

12/9/2025, 9:17:53 AM

by: thom

All of this should be familiar to the average programmer. The Creator (I call him Colin), rushed for time and bereft of more elegant ideas, has widely deployed lazy loading as a solution to the finite processing power of the universe. Almost all of physics (the speed of light, the expansion of space, quantum entanglement) is an answer to the question of how the universe (and indeed Colin himself) can avoid doing too much work.

12/9/2025, 8:44:01 AM

by: ChuckMcM

This was perhaps my favorite part of Physics 390 (&quot;modern physics&quot;) which was about quantum dynamics and relativity. The speed of light is defined in terms of a velocity (~300,000,000 m&#x2F;s) but if you were traveling at the speed of light time stops (which keeps the rule that its constant in all frames of reference). That and time passes more quickly at higher altitudes and these days we can actually measure that. Wild stuff.

12/9/2025, 8:24:38 AM

by: finghin

SEP is always an interesting companion to these articles about physical fundamentals. [0]<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;plato.stanford.edu&#x2F;entries&#x2F;time&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;plato.stanford.edu&#x2F;entries&#x2F;time&#x2F;</a>

12/9/2025, 8:47:10 AM

by: slyfox125

We understand &quot;time&quot; in the context that we must: to subsist in order to procreate. The extent it exists outside of our own perception as we imagine it does, is debatable. Ultimately, time is our sensory interpretation of the world around us to facilitate our survival and thus, we may never make sense of it outside the constraints it exists within.

12/9/2025, 8:18:04 AM

by: tornikeo

Not related to this article, but this post seems to attract so many cranks. Just look at other comments. The amount of weird (out-of-touch) comments on this post is fascinating.

12/9/2025, 8:42:45 AM

by: nrhrjrjrjtntbt

Bad for the BBC brand to have this site licensed which is riddled with ads. Turning off JS does the trick though.

12/9/2025, 9:07:49 AM

by: robot-wrangler

IANACosmologist, but in for a penny, in for a pound. If one accepts weirdness along the lines of extra spatial dimensions and mathematical singularities made physical, why not throw in a few extra dimensions for time or why not have imaginary time (in Hawking&#x27;s sense)?<p>&gt; One might think this means that imaginary numbers are just a mathematical game having nothing to do with the real world. From the viewpoint of positivist philosophy, however, one cannot determine what is real. All one can do is find which mathematical models describe the universe we live in. [1]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Imaginary_time" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Imaginary_time</a>

12/9/2025, 8:29:16 AM

by: grishka

There&#x27;s another inscrutable mystery in physics, the nature of consciousness. Time might as well be an artifact of <i>that</i>. I&#x27;m surprised this article doesn&#x27;t mention this possibility.<p>Here&#x27;s an interesting lecture about it: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=YusrOYGAhqM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=YusrOYGAhqM</a>

12/9/2025, 8:58:56 AM

by:

12/9/2025, 8:30:36 AM

by: zkmon

What&#x27;s new here? I spent a few minutes reading it end to end, and it sounds like slop without new info.

12/9/2025, 8:54:58 AM

by: user3939382

I have a solution that addresses this. Will publish soon, it’s a slow process.

12/9/2025, 9:03:18 AM

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12/9/2025, 7:57:46 AM

by: ndsipa_pomu

One problem that I have with trying to understand &quot;time&quot; is that we can&#x27;t measure how quickly it &quot;flows&quot; or at least how quickly we travel through it.

12/9/2025, 8:52:13 AM

by:

12/9/2025, 8:20:12 AM

by: juleiie

Can anyone actually understand this at this point?<p>I will reread it like three times maybe the third time is the charm

12/9/2025, 8:31:13 AM

by: FIGYJ

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12/9/2025, 9:00:25 AM

by: huflungdung

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12/9/2025, 7:55:28 AM

by: andreashaerter

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12/9/2025, 7:18:50 AM

by: mock-possum

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12/9/2025, 7:13:41 AM

by: dotancohen

<p><pre><code> &gt; Combining quantum mechanics and General Relativity is all well and good, but there‘s one key mystery it doesn’t address: why does time only seem to flow in one direction? </code></pre> Could the problem just be with us? When time flows backwards, we lose the ability to perceive the events that came after the &quot;current&quot; event. As it flows forward again, we have more time in our context window. We are able to perceive only those events that have occurred before the current event.<p>Time still flows and ebbs, we just lack the ability to sense it just like a cork in a river doesn&#x27;t feel the water flowing past.

12/9/2025, 7:56:04 AM

by: msuniverse2026

In Anthroposophy or Western occult science time runs in reverse in something we call the etheric body. The physical body on the other hand is something that experiences the world through organs that register only the present moment. It can&#x27;t perceive what no longer physically exists or what has not yet manifested physically. The etheric is a time-body, containing the complete formative record of one&#x27;s biography and is the source of memory, the brain is sort of a receiving organ for it, though the whole body utilises it.<p>Upon death the etheric body opens up and turns itself inside out and as you identify less with your physical body and more with your etheric body your perception of time is now in reverse. Your entire life tableau is opened in front of you, and as your spiritual organs of perception once &quot;facing inwards&quot; to your interior are now &quot;outward-facing&quot; and working backwards you start to see the effects of all your choices and actions from the perspective of its consequences. This is the source of those &quot;life flashes before your eyes&quot; moments people with near death experiences go through.<p>Only for very unconscious people is it a hell-like experience. Even if you lived a rather thoughtless and abusive life it is said that it can still be a time of reflection and learning. Eventually after viewing your entire life &quot;inside out&quot; your perception opens up to your pre-birth condition, the etheric body sloughs off (being made of elemental beings itself) and is picked up and put together with all the karma of your previous lives for your next go-around on Earth. You liberate the elementals in your etheric body (which are just below humans in the spiritual hierarchy) by growing spiritually either during life or in the etheric condition and eventually, hopefully, move up the spiritual hierarchy to a being that liberates humans, an Angel.<p>Thought maybe HN might be interested in some other conceptions of time. :^)

12/9/2025, 8:36:30 AM