FACTS ABOUT YOUR BIOLOGICAL CLOCK

A TEMPORAL ILLUSION IS A DISTORTION IN

THE PERCEPTION OF TIME THAT OCCURS FOR

VARIOUS REASONS, SUCH AS DIFFERENT KINDS

OF STRESS. IN SUCH CASES, A PERSON MAY

MOMENTARILY PERCEIVE TIME AS SLOWING DOWN,

STOPPING, SPEEDING UP, OR EVEN RUNNING

BACKWARD, AS THE TIMING AND TEMPORAL

ORDER OF EVENTS ARE MISPERCEIVED.

WHEN WE SAY THAT TIME SLOWS DOWN, WHAT

WE ACTUALLY MEAN IS THAT OUR INTERNAL

CLOCK SPEEDS UP, WHICH GIVES THE

IMPRESSION THAT TIME IN THE REST OF

THE WORLD HAS SLOWED DOWN

A NANOSECOND IS ONE BILLIONTH OF A SECOND.

A LONG TIME COMPARED TO THE FEMTOSECOND,

THE ATTOSECOND, AND THE SHORTEST POSSIBLE

UNIT OF TIME KNOWN AS PLANCK TIME

THE OLDEST KNOWN OBJECT IN THE UNIVERSE

IS A GALAXY CALLED Z8_GND_5296. IT’S 13.1

BILLION YEARS OLD—ONLY ABOUT SIX HUNDRED

MILLION YEARS YOUNGER THAN THE UNIVERSE

AS FOR THE OLDEST KNOWN OBJECT ON EARTH?

IT IS A 4.4-BILLION-YEAR-OLD PIECE OF ZIRCON

THAT WAS FOUND IN JACK HILLS IN WESTERN

AUSTRALIA. IT’S ONLY 160 MILLION YEARS

YOUNGER THAN THE EARTH

OUR SUN IS ABOUT FIVE BILLION YEARS OLD.

THE EARTH IS ESTIMATED TO BE 4,540,000,000 YEARS OLD

ACCORDING TO MODERN SCIENCE, TIME IS THE

FOURTH DIMENSION. THE FIRST THREE DIMENSIONS

ARE USED TO SPECIFY AN OBJECT’S LOCATION OR

MOVEMENT IN SPACE, WHILE THE FOURTH

DIMENSION LOCATES ITS POSITION IN TIME.

ALL FOUR DIMENSIONS ARE USED TO SPECIFY

COMPLETELY THE LOCATION OR DYNAMISM

OF AN OBJECT IN SPACE

TIME HAS HISTORICALLY BEEN CLOSELY RELATED

TO SPACE, THE TWO MERGING TOGETHER INTO

SPACE-TIME IN EINSTEIN’S SPECIAL RELATIVITY

AND GENERAL RELATIVITY. ACCORDING TO

THESE THEORIES, THE CONCEPT OF TIME

DEPENDS ON THE SPATIAL REFERENCE

FRAME OF THE OBSERVER, AND HUMAN

PERCEPTION AS WELL AS THE MEASUREMENT

BY INSTRUMENTS SUCH AS CLOCKS ARE

DIFFERENT FOR OBSERVERS IN RELATIVE MOTION

EINSTEIN’S THEORY OF RELATIVITY SUGGESTS

THAT BEFORE THE BIG BANG 13.7 BILLION YEARS

AGO, SPACE AND TIME DID NOT EXIST AND MATTER

WAS PACKED TOGETHER IN A TINY BALL. SINCE TIME

IS MEASURED BY MOTION IN SPACE, THERE WAS

NO TIME WITHOUT A MOVING COSMOS