March 15, 2013 • 20 mins
What exactly is time? Why is time difficult to define? How did Einstein define time? Learn more about time as Jonathan, Lauren and Joe nail down the interpretations, descriptions and definitions of this notoriously difficult-to-define concept.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
forward thinking. Welcome to forward thinking, everybody. My name is
Jonathan Strickland and I am joined here by my co
hosts of They are second to none. Would you introduce yourselves?
(00:23):
Not after that? Come on, Hi, I'm Lauren foc Obama,
I'm Joe McCormick here with our co host Punny Boo boo,
Thank you, thank you. We are we're talking about time
today and what is time? And why is it difficult
to really explain what time is? And why are we
(00:43):
doing a podcast about it? Anyway? Well, hey, y'all, I
want to ask you a question. Sure, okay, all right,
just put your put your thinking helmets on you, all right,
we'll do. Don't get hurt. Um. Before a second passes,
half a second has to pass, right, yes, the full
two of them? Actually yeah, I cannot pass until half
(01:03):
a second has been right, but before half of that
second passes, a quarter of the seconds two of them
in fact, right, and so you can't get to the
half a second until the quarter is right. Sure, Let's
repeat this process. Okay, does time ever passed? Having down
the the amount of time saying like so we're asking
what the smallest unit, what what the quantum particle of
(01:26):
tina is? Yeah, you kind of have to because I mean,
or is there one? Well, well, for instance, we all
remember I don't, well maybe you don't. I remember from
my days in the physical science classes and elementary school
being told that the atom was the basic building block
of matter, and that that was essentially as essentially as
small as you can go. We're lying to children. Even
(01:47):
at that time they knew. I mean, it's not like
we discovered sub atomic particles. Since I'm not that old,
they didn't want to pollute your innocent little brain the
idea of quarks and yeah, bossons and things of that nature. Yeah,
it's they just didn't want me to really understand particle physics,
I guess. And maybe like learning that Santa Claus isn't
(02:08):
real what Joe, I don't know, physics is like learning
that Santa Claus is real personally. But anyway, all right,
Well that the point magic is possible, kids, The point
being that you know, you learned that you can divide
things into ever smaller amounts, but there has to at
some point be yeah, the bottom level, right, people are
(02:29):
coming up with strings and stuff like that, right, strength theory, sure,
and so theoretically, based upon our understanding of the universe
as it stands right now, the standard model of the universe,
we consider the smallest theoretically measurable length to be the
Planck distance. What distance? The Planck Planck length? Alright, So
(02:52):
Planck length is, in theory, the smallest measurable distance that
we would ever be able to measure. This is assuming
that we were ever able to build a measuring device
precise enough to measure a plock. There is nothing that
we have remotely capable of measuring a distance that's small.
But the idea is that you could not measure anything
(03:12):
smaller than that. Ever, it's the smallest distance possible, the
plank distance you're talking about. Let's break this down to
the physics this so the plant distance, right, Yeah, it's
the it's the shortest distance I believe if I'm corrected,
that makes any sense in the standard model of physics.
That's right, going going shorter? You the math doesn't work, right,
(03:33):
it doesn't. Our our model breaks down, it doesn't. It
doesn't fit anymore. And so what what is pluck time?
How does that relate to plant distance? Pluck time is
the amount of time it would take a photon to
travel across plot distance at the speed of light. Okay,
so what's what's plank distance? Pluck distance all at one point. Essentially,
it's like one point six times ten to the negative
(03:55):
thirty five meters. So it makes Yeah, I run into
that kind figure all the time. They huge orders of magnitude,
smaller than anything we could detect in any way. Right,
it's it would make a nanometer seem enormous by comparison. Right,
a nanometer is one billionth of a meter. And then
so you imagine something going the fastest a thing can
(04:15):
possibly go across that distance exactly. That's that that makes sense, right,
plock time. If you if you're going at the speed
of light, nothing, as far as we know, according to
our model of the universe, can move faster than the
speed of lights. That's as fast as you can possibly go.
So as fast as you can possibly go across the
shortest distance you could possibly go, therefore must be the
shortest amount of time possible with the smallest unit of tik. Well,
(04:38):
bringing to our essentially flawed mathematical understanding of the universe. Yes,
but but I mean, that does make sense if you
if you're saying, this is the fastest anything can go,
and this is the smallest amount of space that's possible,
then having something travel that space would have to be
the smallest amount of time by definition, because you can't
you can't go faster, and you can't be smaller. Therefore
(05:02):
that unit of time has to be the smallest amount
of time possible. Okay, so does this concept help us
define time? Because no, no, because we're because how do
we think on that scale? That scale? I mean, it's
great for math. Mathematically, it's fantastic because again it fits
our standard model of the universe. But in any meaningful
discussion that you know, I can't come up to you,
(05:24):
Joe and say, hey, how much plucked time has passed?
It's the last time we chatted. That's not meaningful, right,
So we got to figure out another way to define time.
How did Einstein do it? The standard story is that
he basically said, and we're paraphrasing here, that time is
what clock's measure, which is kind of a joke. It's
(05:45):
a circular. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a little
it's a joke. On the fact that for some reason,
we can't seem to define time in a way that
doesn't include the concept of time. All our definitions are circular,
right right at just like a clock. Oh, I know,
I'd get one now, Lauren just shakes her head disapprovingly.
(06:07):
But there there are concepts like this that are that
are useful. But you know, there it makes them difficult
to talk about. You know, how do you the old one? Like,
how do you define quality without invoking the idea of quality? Sure? Yeah,
it becomes this whole This again a circular argument. If
everything is subjective, If if this thing that we experience
(06:29):
is essentially subjective, then how do you define it? And
if it's if it's a point where you know, none
of us can can easily explain how this stuff happens,
Like how is time possible for our understanding? Time is
something that moves in one direction, it's a sequence of events.
In fact, Newton proposed that it was just a series
(06:51):
of moments that would stack on to one another, that
was standard across everything, because at that time there was
no reason to believe other wise that you know, the
time as it passed on Earth is the same as
time as it passes anywhere else, and it doesn't matter
where you are, what you're doing. It's this sequence of
events that continues on until infinity. Yeah, because he never
(07:12):
wasn't until Einstein that we started talking about how how
space and time are kind of part of the same
fabric and that they're fudged around by things like gravity
and speed and all that fun stuff. Well, so I've
got here a pretty interesting working not a definition, but
but a place to start when thinking about Okay, this
is from a Nova transcript I've got here and it's
(07:35):
Peter Gallison of Harvard University UM, and what he says
in this program is, um, we're always looking for things
that repeat over and over again, and that repetition, that
cycle of things forms a clock. I can understand. That's
all time becomes is some repetitive process, something we can count,
like you know, for like the four seasons or the sun,
(07:57):
the sun seeming to come up over the horizon sort
of thing. So that's interesting to me because what that
seems to suggest is that while it's not circular in
that it doesn't rely on the idea of time to
define time, it does make time utterly subjective. Like we've
talked about in a previous episode, you know about the
physics of relativity and time being actually subjective. It's truly
(08:20):
an experience. Yeah, Like, for instance, if you were if
you lived on a different planet, if you had never
lived on Earth, if you lived on a different planet
that had a different uh cycle, if the day night
cycle took place. Maybe it's a planet spun faster or
around the sun. Yeah, so maybe maybe it's let's say,
(08:40):
let's say, well beyond that, I mean, but that would
all depend upon the size of the planet, right, So anyway,
let's say that, let's say that it's a twenty hour day,
not twenty four hour day. Your concept of a day
would be different from my concept of a day. Uh.
If you were born somehow just floating in space with
no actual guiding experience, then day and night would be
(09:01):
meaningless to you entirely. You would have to track time
some other way. In fact, I kind of wonder about that.
Let's say that somehow, as a thought experiment, you were
born in the middle of space. You're just floating free there.
You've got everything you need to survive. But but how
would you Yeah, you're you're in two thousand one. Uh.
Also also strock Tostra is just playing constantly in the background. No,
(09:25):
nor so you're in the right. So you're talking about
your you're put into the zone that that is that?
What Lauren? Do you know I have? I have absolutely no, Okay,
Superman too anyway, the yeah, your general's odd. But General
z Odd wasn't alone. He had other people there. He
could he could track time by the number of times
(09:46):
his his idiotic uh yeah, how many times he grunted.
That's how he tracks time. But no, no, if you
were if you were suspended in space and you you
aren't on a planet, you're not in in you know,
orbiting some sort of other body, how would you would
have to be something internal? If you don't have anything
external around you, then you would turn to the number
(10:07):
of times that your heart beats, or or the number
of times the blink you blink, or etcetera. Yeah, you know,
just just any and if you have a iPod up
there the number of times blink whetity two comes on shuffle. No, no,
this is kind of interesting. I like that you object
to my choice of band, which was only based upon
the fact the idea of blinking. I get very well
(10:29):
what you did there and Joe is bothered by all
the small things. As it turns out, well, no, it's
interesting if you try to look up, you know, look
up scientific definitions of what is a second in terms
of science, it's some it's you know, they'll say, like
it's the time it takes uh this atom to do this,
(10:51):
and it's some huge random number that they use as
the constant to base that on, which, to me is
is kind of one of those funny indicators that are like, oh,
second is completely arbitrary, just like what it's Our day
length got divided into some relatively stable, manageable pieces, manageable
pieces like hours and minutes and seconds, and that's what
(11:14):
a second is. There's no second in the universe right right,
And our measurement of time here on Earth is all
based on the oscillation of very small things. It's based
on on waveforms that we can more or less detect
through mechanical means. Sure, like like the vibration of an
ion that's cool to near absolute zero. Yes, that's what
(11:35):
the quantum clock is based off of. The quantum clock
measures time, or the way we measure time with the
quantum clock. Is we super cool? A an aluminum ion
to near absolute zero. Absolute zero is a concept where
we essentially have no molecular movement. Right There's there's nothing
moving because really heat, when you get down to it,
is molecules moving around, and the hotter things are, the
(11:58):
more they move around in general. So when you've got
going to near absolute zero, there's almost no molecular movement.
You measure the the vibrations of this alunium ion, which
are at a very regular rate, and you're using a
very very precise ultra violet laser that's doing this at
an incredible frequency. So every second, it's measuring this hundreds
(12:19):
of thousands of times in order to determine, uh specifically,
how long a second is. And the idea is that
by doing that you have the world's most accurate clock,
which is accurate to what one second for every three
point seven million years. You're not gonna you're not gonna
worry about losing one for three seven billion years. That's
pretty good clock. But it's so funny because it's the
(12:40):
most accurate possible way of measuring this utterly arbitrary quantity.
Well it's arbitrary, but it's still meaning. It's it's meaning
and especially since I mean, your your average risk watch,
which works off of a quartz crystal um, is going
to lose maybe fifteen seconds a month. Really high precision
expensive watches lose maybe ten seconds a year. To be ere,
I would have wasted those anyway, I don't really consider
(13:04):
them losing because I what am I gonna do with
those fifteen seconds? Probably, you know, maybe download another movie,
go on a tangent on a podcast, could do that,
could do that, maybe make a reference to to another
another pop band, just to watch jos reaction. But yeah, no, no,
it's again we're getting back to the whole idea. Yes,
(13:26):
it's an arbitrary amount, and if you were to step
outside the human experience, it's largely meaningless. But inside the
human experience it's meaningful. I mean, just like other other
ways that we've tweaked time are meaningful to us in
a specific context, Like Joe. I mean, there's a there's
a something that we do with time every year that
(13:48):
I know you're just dying to talk about. It's something
that we introduced, Oh run around World War One? For
some reason? Why don't we talk about that? Okay? Well, uh,
I assume you're talking about daylight saving time. Thank you Joe.
By the way, for all you listening, it is saving singular. Right.
(14:08):
That sounds totally wrong, doesn't stop Joe from saying savings
every time he talks to me about this. Yeah, we
talked about daylight saving time a lot. So yeah, the
story of this goes, and this is the funny part,
because hey, Lauren, how did daylight saving time get started?
Do you know? I think it had something to do
(14:28):
with with with farmers needing extra time in the mornings.
There you go, there you go, farmers. Everybody thinks this.
I thought this, Jonathan, didn't you think this. I thought
it was because our robot overlords came down and told
us to switch our clocks back. No, you're you're totally
everybody gets this wrong. This is that's I thought exactly.
(14:49):
It was farmers, farmers need extra times, something about yeah,
that's not farms. Huh. No, apparently that Well, from what
I've read, daylight's saving time or something like it had
been proposed a bunch of times by people throughout the years,
but the first time it was widely implemented was during
World War One, when um various powers on each side,
(15:11):
like I think, great Britain and Germany implemented daylight saving
time in order to save energy, specifically coal. That coal
and energy were about the same thing. Well, you know,
even candles were pretty pretty expensive, and I'm sure that
wax was not easy to come by. Well, yeah, no
matter what, they were using electric lights or whatever it. Uh,
(15:33):
they were burning them into the evening hours and that
was wasting energy during wartime, Yeah, which you could use
that energy to kill people rather than which is much better. Well,
during war, it's kind of necessary at least to the
people fighting the war. That or maybe not fighting, but
the people waging the war. Yeah, that they wanted that priority,
so that they instituted this. And uh, contrary to what
(15:58):
all of us seemed to think before we learn about this,
farmers hated this because if you actually think about it,
the farmers they have to get up early and they
have to do their chores. You know, they're supposed to
do their chores along with sunrise, because there's a bunch
of stuff that they get up early to take advantage
of the daylight, and because a lot of crops have
to be harvested, and it's some specific time frame that
(16:20):
has to do with like the do point in the morning,
or or or or caring for animals, like there are
certain that the animals are accustomed to a particular cycle
as well, and so you have your cycle as a
farmer has to match the cycle of the crops and
animals that you care for, right but so so you
so some politicians come in and say, well, yeah, we're
gonna institute daylight saving time, um, and we're gonna steal
(16:44):
all the light from your morning and we're gonna put
it in the evening where we can use it better
to wage war. Um. So the farmers suddenly they get
up to do their morning chores and it looks like
Picasso's blue period. Um. Yeah, even if they even if
they were keeping their time to the time of the sun,
because you could argue that, so why does the farmer
even care about what the clock says? The farmer could
(17:06):
get up whenever the sun comes up, which is true,
except that everything else is working on the clocks. So,
for example, the transportation system is working from the clocks.
And if as a farmer, you have to get your
goods out to somebody else, right, yeah, you missed the
train and everything is exactly. That means that the train
is coming an hour earlier than what it did before
(17:27):
daylight saving time was instituted. Then you have to rush again.
You have to get up earlier than what you would
normally get up. You know again, Otherwise clock wouldn't really matter.
It's because you have to deal with the outside world
that it matters. So there there are tons of people
around the world who just give a big thumbs down.
(17:47):
Thumbs down there, I was seeing big thumbs down to
daylight saving time, like the state of Arizona. State of
Arizona just won't do it. I know. I think it's
some Canadian provinces. I think, is it Saskatchewan. Now I'm
going to feel bad if from remembering the wrong one.
But some Canadian provinces they just know I think. I
(18:10):
think Russia as a whole, They're like, no, we know
that too cold here. Time doesn't even pass. Yeah, um,
stay the same seven. So that's funny though that when
I was a kid, I assumed daylight saving time before
I got to the misconception about farmers. I think I
(18:30):
assumed it had something to do with like science, right,
like the planet this actually it has some meaning that
that we must do because of his like leap here.
I thought it was something like leap here right where
you have to borrow an hour by part of the
year and give it back another part of the year.
That's telling me a lot about Joe and his child
(18:52):
child sense. That's that's you know, that's what makes well.
I mean when you look at it, when you look
at it, Yeah, weren't we taught uh that was the
smallest building block of matter? Yeah? Well, I mean, this
is this is all kind of illustrating how tricky it
is to talk about time in any way that is, uh,
that is meaningful from outside the human experience. But then again,
(19:14):
we all live in the human experience, so what do
we care. Uh, here's what I want to do. I
want I want our listeners to want I wanted to
watch the Forward Thinking episode about time because it's amazing.
Joe did a great job on that. Two. I want
you to go to the fw thinking dot com website
and check that out. We've got some blog posts, we've
(19:34):
got the video series, we've got this audio podcast, We've
got lots of other stuff there, and we want you
to have a conversation with us to talk about what
is it about the future that get that has you
excited or confused. Maybe there's something about the future that
you're just what are we going to do in fifty
years when dot dot dot. We want to know those questions,
and we want to open this up and have a
real conversation with you guys, so we welcome you to
(19:57):
be take part in that. We are really eager to
have this and uh, thanks guys so much for listening
and being a part of this so far. We're really
excited and we cannot wait to really dive into the
future even deeper than we already have. Guys, we're gonna
wrap this up. It's been great. I hope you have
been enjoying the podcast less know and we will talk
(20:17):
to you again really soon. For more on this topic
and the future of technology, visit forward Thinking dot Com,
brought to you by Toyota. Let's Go Places,
Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
forward thinking. Welcome to forward thinking, everybody. My name is
Jonathan Strickland and I am joined here by my co
hosts of They are second to none. Would you introduce yourselves?
(00:23):
Not after that? Come on, Hi, I'm Lauren foc Obama,
I'm Joe McCormick here with our co host Punny Boo boo,
Thank you, thank you. We are we're talking about time
today and what is time? And why is it difficult
to really explain what time is? And why are we
(00:43):
doing a podcast about it? Anyway? Well, hey, y'all, I
want to ask you a question. Sure, okay, all right,
just put your put your thinking helmets on you, all right,
we'll do. Don't get hurt. Um. Before a second passes,
half a second has to pass, right, yes, the full
two of them? Actually yeah, I cannot pass until half
(01:03):
a second has been right, but before half of that
second passes, a quarter of the seconds two of them
in fact, right, and so you can't get to the
half a second until the quarter is right. Sure, Let's
repeat this process. Okay, does time ever passed? Having down
the the amount of time saying like so we're asking
what the smallest unit, what what the quantum particle of
(01:26):
tina is? Yeah, you kind of have to because I mean,
or is there one? Well, well, for instance, we all
remember I don't, well maybe you don't. I remember from
my days in the physical science classes and elementary school
being told that the atom was the basic building block
of matter, and that that was essentially as essentially as
small as you can go. We're lying to children. Even
(01:47):
at that time they knew. I mean, it's not like
we discovered sub atomic particles. Since I'm not that old,
they didn't want to pollute your innocent little brain the
idea of quarks and yeah, bossons and things of that nature. Yeah,
it's they just didn't want me to really understand particle physics,
I guess. And maybe like learning that Santa Claus isn't
(02:08):
real what Joe, I don't know, physics is like learning
that Santa Claus is real personally. But anyway, all right,
Well that the point magic is possible, kids, The point
being that you know, you learned that you can divide
things into ever smaller amounts, but there has to at
some point be yeah, the bottom level, right, people are
(02:29):
coming up with strings and stuff like that, right, strength theory, sure,
and so theoretically, based upon our understanding of the universe
as it stands right now, the standard model of the universe,
we consider the smallest theoretically measurable length to be the
Planck distance. What distance? The Planck Planck length? Alright, So
(02:52):
Planck length is, in theory, the smallest measurable distance that
we would ever be able to measure. This is assuming
that we were ever able to build a measuring device
precise enough to measure a plock. There is nothing that
we have remotely capable of measuring a distance that's small.
But the idea is that you could not measure anything
(03:12):
smaller than that. Ever, it's the smallest distance possible, the
plank distance you're talking about. Let's break this down to
the physics this so the plant distance, right, Yeah, it's
the it's the shortest distance I believe if I'm corrected,
that makes any sense in the standard model of physics.
That's right, going going shorter? You the math doesn't work, right,
(03:33):
it doesn't. Our our model breaks down, it doesn't. It
doesn't fit anymore. And so what what is pluck time?
How does that relate to plant distance? Pluck time is
the amount of time it would take a photon to
travel across plot distance at the speed of light. Okay,
so what's what's plank distance? Pluck distance all at one point. Essentially,
it's like one point six times ten to the negative
(03:55):
thirty five meters. So it makes Yeah, I run into
that kind figure all the time. They huge orders of magnitude,
smaller than anything we could detect in any way. Right,
it's it would make a nanometer seem enormous by comparison. Right,
a nanometer is one billionth of a meter. And then
so you imagine something going the fastest a thing can
(04:15):
possibly go across that distance exactly. That's that that makes sense, right,
plock time. If you if you're going at the speed
of light, nothing, as far as we know, according to
our model of the universe, can move faster than the
speed of lights. That's as fast as you can possibly go.
So as fast as you can possibly go across the
shortest distance you could possibly go, therefore must be the
shortest amount of time possible with the smallest unit of tik. Well,
(04:38):
bringing to our essentially flawed mathematical understanding of the universe. Yes,
but but I mean, that does make sense if you
if you're saying, this is the fastest anything can go,
and this is the smallest amount of space that's possible,
then having something travel that space would have to be
the smallest amount of time by definition, because you can't
you can't go faster, and you can't be smaller. Therefore
(05:02):
that unit of time has to be the smallest amount
of time possible. Okay, so does this concept help us
define time? Because no, no, because we're because how do
we think on that scale? That scale? I mean, it's
great for math. Mathematically, it's fantastic because again it fits
our standard model of the universe. But in any meaningful
discussion that you know, I can't come up to you,
(05:24):
Joe and say, hey, how much plucked time has passed?
It's the last time we chatted. That's not meaningful, right,
So we got to figure out another way to define time.
How did Einstein do it? The standard story is that
he basically said, and we're paraphrasing here, that time is
what clock's measure, which is kind of a joke. It's
(05:45):
a circular. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a little
it's a joke. On the fact that for some reason,
we can't seem to define time in a way that
doesn't include the concept of time. All our definitions are circular,
right right at just like a clock. Oh, I know,
I'd get one now, Lauren just shakes her head disapprovingly.
(06:07):
But there there are concepts like this that are that
are useful. But you know, there it makes them difficult
to talk about. You know, how do you the old one? Like,
how do you define quality without invoking the idea of quality? Sure? Yeah,
it becomes this whole This again a circular argument. If
everything is subjective, If if this thing that we experience
(06:29):
is essentially subjective, then how do you define it? And
if it's if it's a point where you know, none
of us can can easily explain how this stuff happens,
Like how is time possible for our understanding? Time is
something that moves in one direction, it's a sequence of events.
In fact, Newton proposed that it was just a series
(06:51):
of moments that would stack on to one another, that
was standard across everything, because at that time there was
no reason to believe other wise that you know, the
time as it passed on Earth is the same as
time as it passes anywhere else, and it doesn't matter
where you are, what you're doing. It's this sequence of
events that continues on until infinity. Yeah, because he never
(07:12):
wasn't until Einstein that we started talking about how how
space and time are kind of part of the same
fabric and that they're fudged around by things like gravity
and speed and all that fun stuff. Well, so I've
got here a pretty interesting working not a definition, but
but a place to start when thinking about Okay, this
is from a Nova transcript I've got here and it's
(07:35):
Peter Gallison of Harvard University UM, and what he says
in this program is, um, we're always looking for things
that repeat over and over again, and that repetition, that
cycle of things forms a clock. I can understand. That's
all time becomes is some repetitive process, something we can count,
like you know, for like the four seasons or the sun,
(07:57):
the sun seeming to come up over the horizon sort
of thing. So that's interesting to me because what that
seems to suggest is that while it's not circular in
that it doesn't rely on the idea of time to
define time, it does make time utterly subjective. Like we've
talked about in a previous episode, you know about the
physics of relativity and time being actually subjective. It's truly
(08:20):
an experience. Yeah, Like, for instance, if you were if
you lived on a different planet, if you had never
lived on Earth, if you lived on a different planet
that had a different uh cycle, if the day night
cycle took place. Maybe it's a planet spun faster or
around the sun. Yeah, so maybe maybe it's let's say,
(08:40):
let's say, well beyond that, I mean, but that would
all depend upon the size of the planet, right, So anyway,
let's say that, let's say that it's a twenty hour day,
not twenty four hour day. Your concept of a day
would be different from my concept of a day. Uh.
If you were born somehow just floating in space with
no actual guiding experience, then day and night would be
(09:01):
meaningless to you entirely. You would have to track time
some other way. In fact, I kind of wonder about that.
Let's say that somehow, as a thought experiment, you were
born in the middle of space. You're just floating free there.
You've got everything you need to survive. But but how
would you Yeah, you're you're in two thousand one. Uh.
Also also strock Tostra is just playing constantly in the background. No,
(09:25):
nor so you're in the right. So you're talking about
your you're put into the zone that that is that?
What Lauren? Do you know I have? I have absolutely no, Okay,
Superman too anyway, the yeah, your general's odd. But General
z Odd wasn't alone. He had other people there. He
could he could track time by the number of times
(09:46):
his his idiotic uh yeah, how many times he grunted.
That's how he tracks time. But no, no, if you
were if you were suspended in space and you you
aren't on a planet, you're not in in you know,
orbiting some sort of other body, how would you would
have to be something internal? If you don't have anything
external around you, then you would turn to the number
(10:07):
of times that your heart beats, or or the number
of times the blink you blink, or etcetera. Yeah, you know,
just just any and if you have a iPod up
there the number of times blink whetity two comes on shuffle. No, no,
this is kind of interesting. I like that you object
to my choice of band, which was only based upon
the fact the idea of blinking. I get very well
(10:29):
what you did there and Joe is bothered by all
the small things. As it turns out, well, no, it's
interesting if you try to look up, you know, look
up scientific definitions of what is a second in terms
of science, it's some it's you know, they'll say, like
it's the time it takes uh this atom to do this,
(10:51):
and it's some huge random number that they use as
the constant to base that on, which, to me is
is kind of one of those funny indicators that are like, oh,
second is completely arbitrary, just like what it's Our day
length got divided into some relatively stable, manageable pieces, manageable
pieces like hours and minutes and seconds, and that's what
(11:14):
a second is. There's no second in the universe right right,
And our measurement of time here on Earth is all
based on the oscillation of very small things. It's based
on on waveforms that we can more or less detect
through mechanical means. Sure, like like the vibration of an
ion that's cool to near absolute zero. Yes, that's what
(11:35):
the quantum clock is based off of. The quantum clock
measures time, or the way we measure time with the
quantum clock. Is we super cool? A an aluminum ion
to near absolute zero. Absolute zero is a concept where
we essentially have no molecular movement. Right There's there's nothing
moving because really heat, when you get down to it,
is molecules moving around, and the hotter things are, the
(11:58):
more they move around in general. So when you've got
going to near absolute zero, there's almost no molecular movement.
You measure the the vibrations of this alunium ion, which
are at a very regular rate, and you're using a
very very precise ultra violet laser that's doing this at
an incredible frequency. So every second, it's measuring this hundreds
(12:19):
of thousands of times in order to determine, uh specifically,
how long a second is. And the idea is that
by doing that you have the world's most accurate clock,
which is accurate to what one second for every three
point seven million years. You're not gonna you're not gonna
worry about losing one for three seven billion years. That's
pretty good clock. But it's so funny because it's the
(12:40):
most accurate possible way of measuring this utterly arbitrary quantity.
Well it's arbitrary, but it's still meaning. It's it's meaning
and especially since I mean, your your average risk watch,
which works off of a quartz crystal um, is going
to lose maybe fifteen seconds a month. Really high precision
expensive watches lose maybe ten seconds a year. To be ere,
I would have wasted those anyway, I don't really consider
(13:04):
them losing because I what am I gonna do with
those fifteen seconds? Probably, you know, maybe download another movie,
go on a tangent on a podcast, could do that,
could do that, maybe make a reference to to another
another pop band, just to watch jos reaction. But yeah, no, no,
it's again we're getting back to the whole idea. Yes,
(13:26):
it's an arbitrary amount, and if you were to step
outside the human experience, it's largely meaningless. But inside the
human experience it's meaningful. I mean, just like other other
ways that we've tweaked time are meaningful to us in
a specific context, Like Joe. I mean, there's a there's
a something that we do with time every year that
(13:48):
I know you're just dying to talk about. It's something
that we introduced, Oh run around World War One? For
some reason? Why don't we talk about that? Okay? Well, uh,
I assume you're talking about daylight saving time. Thank you Joe.
By the way, for all you listening, it is saving singular. Right.
(14:08):
That sounds totally wrong, doesn't stop Joe from saying savings
every time he talks to me about this. Yeah, we
talked about daylight saving time a lot. So yeah, the
story of this goes, and this is the funny part,
because hey, Lauren, how did daylight saving time get started?
Do you know? I think it had something to do
(14:28):
with with with farmers needing extra time in the mornings.
There you go, there you go, farmers. Everybody thinks this.
I thought this, Jonathan, didn't you think this. I thought
it was because our robot overlords came down and told
us to switch our clocks back. No, you're you're totally
everybody gets this wrong. This is that's I thought exactly.
(14:49):
It was farmers, farmers need extra times, something about yeah,
that's not farms. Huh. No, apparently that Well, from what
I've read, daylight's saving time or something like it had
been proposed a bunch of times by people throughout the years,
but the first time it was widely implemented was during
World War One, when um various powers on each side,
(15:11):
like I think, great Britain and Germany implemented daylight saving
time in order to save energy, specifically coal. That coal
and energy were about the same thing. Well, you know,
even candles were pretty pretty expensive, and I'm sure that
wax was not easy to come by. Well, yeah, no
matter what, they were using electric lights or whatever it. Uh,
(15:33):
they were burning them into the evening hours and that
was wasting energy during wartime, Yeah, which you could use
that energy to kill people rather than which is much better. Well,
during war, it's kind of necessary at least to the
people fighting the war. That or maybe not fighting, but
the people waging the war. Yeah, that they wanted that priority,
so that they instituted this. And uh, contrary to what
(15:58):
all of us seemed to think before we learn about this,
farmers hated this because if you actually think about it,
the farmers they have to get up early and they
have to do their chores. You know, they're supposed to
do their chores along with sunrise, because there's a bunch
of stuff that they get up early to take advantage
of the daylight, and because a lot of crops have
to be harvested, and it's some specific time frame that
(16:20):
has to do with like the do point in the morning,
or or or or caring for animals, like there are
certain that the animals are accustomed to a particular cycle
as well, and so you have your cycle as a
farmer has to match the cycle of the crops and
animals that you care for, right but so so you
so some politicians come in and say, well, yeah, we're
gonna institute daylight saving time, um, and we're gonna steal
(16:44):
all the light from your morning and we're gonna put
it in the evening where we can use it better
to wage war. Um. So the farmers suddenly they get
up to do their morning chores and it looks like
Picasso's blue period. Um. Yeah, even if they even if
they were keeping their time to the time of the sun,
because you could argue that, so why does the farmer
even care about what the clock says? The farmer could
(17:06):
get up whenever the sun comes up, which is true,
except that everything else is working on the clocks. So,
for example, the transportation system is working from the clocks.
And if as a farmer, you have to get your
goods out to somebody else, right, yeah, you missed the
train and everything is exactly. That means that the train
is coming an hour earlier than what it did before
(17:27):
daylight saving time was instituted. Then you have to rush again.
You have to get up earlier than what you would
normally get up. You know again, Otherwise clock wouldn't really matter.
It's because you have to deal with the outside world
that it matters. So there there are tons of people
around the world who just give a big thumbs down.
(17:47):
Thumbs down there, I was seeing big thumbs down to
daylight saving time, like the state of Arizona. State of
Arizona just won't do it. I know. I think it's
some Canadian provinces. I think, is it Saskatchewan. Now I'm
going to feel bad if from remembering the wrong one.
But some Canadian provinces they just know I think. I
(18:10):
think Russia as a whole, They're like, no, we know
that too cold here. Time doesn't even pass. Yeah, um,
stay the same seven. So that's funny though that when
I was a kid, I assumed daylight saving time before
I got to the misconception about farmers. I think I
(18:30):
assumed it had something to do with like science, right,
like the planet this actually it has some meaning that
that we must do because of his like leap here.
I thought it was something like leap here right where
you have to borrow an hour by part of the
year and give it back another part of the year.
That's telling me a lot about Joe and his child
(18:52):
child sense. That's that's you know, that's what makes well.
I mean when you look at it, when you look
at it, Yeah, weren't we taught uh that was the
smallest building block of matter? Yeah? Well, I mean, this
is this is all kind of illustrating how tricky it
is to talk about time in any way that is, uh,
that is meaningful from outside the human experience. But then again,
(19:14):
we all live in the human experience, so what do
we care. Uh, here's what I want to do. I
want I want our listeners to want I wanted to
watch the Forward Thinking episode about time because it's amazing.
Joe did a great job on that. Two. I want
you to go to the fw thinking dot com website
and check that out. We've got some blog posts, we've
(19:34):
got the video series, we've got this audio podcast, We've
got lots of other stuff there, and we want you
to have a conversation with us to talk about what
is it about the future that get that has you
excited or confused. Maybe there's something about the future that
you're just what are we going to do in fifty
years when dot dot dot. We want to know those questions,
and we want to open this up and have a
real conversation with you guys, so we welcome you to
(19:57):
be take part in that. We are really eager to
have this and uh, thanks guys so much for listening
and being a part of this so far. We're really
excited and we cannot wait to really dive into the
future even deeper than we already have. Guys, we're gonna
wrap this up. It's been great. I hope you have
been enjoying the podcast less know and we will talk
(20:17):
to you again really soon. For more on this topic
and the future of technology, visit forward Thinking dot Com,
brought to you by Toyota. Let's Go Places,
Fw:Thinking News
Hosts And Creators
Jonathan Strickland
Joe McCormick
Lauren Vogelbaum
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