• Question: What is the nature of time and how did it come about?

    Asked by Currete_cr_13 to Annette, Dave, Jaine, Julio, Mike on 14 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Jaine Blayney

      Jaine Blayney answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      If I am ever late for anything, I tend to shout out that ‘time is an artificial construct’. I get the 24 hours/365 days thing, but I do like to argue with the set-up. I met a woman who worked on the robot-landings on Mars. The Mars day (called a sol) is about 3% longer than the earth day, so she had to wear two different watches. The average Mars year is around 686 earth days. The earth time (24 hrs) came from the Ancient Egyptians (http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/11/15/3364432.htm)

    • Photo: Annette Neill

      Annette Neill answered on 16 Nov 2016:

      There are many theories about time and its origin. I am closest to the Big bang theory that puts time beginning about 14 billion years ago. But for me time is relative so it can “fly” sometimes as we all know and other times “drag”. Once we became aware of the sun, moon and stars, people starting calculating time. They used all types of equations and laws to measure it.

Comments