TTC Video - Examining the Big Questions of Time
TTC Video - Examining the Big Questions of Time
.MP4, AVC, 1280x720, 30 fps | English, AAC, 2 Ch | 5h 17m | 4.45 GB
Lecturer: Laura Helmuth, PhD Editor in Chief of Scientific American | Course No. 10160
.MP4, AVC, 1280x720, 30 fps | English, AAC, 2 Ch | 5h 17m | 4.45 GB
Lecturer: Laura Helmuth, PhD Editor in Chief of Scientific American | Course No. 10160
The theologian and philosopher Augustine of Hippo wrote, “What is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I want to explain it to someone who does ask me, I do not know.” In the intervening 2,000 years since those words were written, most of us, if asked, would have to give the same reply as St. Augustine. After all, for the aspects of past, present, and future, we think in terms of them all day long. In many ways, these elements of time are the building blocks of how we perceive the events of our lives. We feel confident we know what it means to measure our lives as an element of time through the past, present, and future. But beyond this, what is “time” really? Or, does it even exist at all?
Produced in partnership with the venerable Scientific American magazine, the 12 eye-opening lessons of Examining the Big Questions of Time explain how philosophers, physicists, cosmologists, and neuroscientists have wrestled with the deeper meanings of time and what their research has contributed to our collective understanding of it. With Laura Helmuth, editor in chief of Scientific American, as your guide, this course challenges you to leave your assumptions about your personal temporal existence at the door and to allow your mind to be pushed to the farthest frontiers of the past and future—even to the edge of the universe.
Throughout the 12 lessons of this course, you’ll explore topics drawn directly from the pages of Scientific American as you explore some of the greatest scientific questions of the last few centuries. You may be surprised to discover truths you had never before considered possible—and you’ll never think about time in the same way again.
Primed for Time
Some of the first concepts we teach our children are aspects of life related to time. Before, after, later, now, not now—those are all terms we use to help our children learn to navigate the world around them, the temporal world we’ve built for them. But more significant than the schedules we set for ourselves to organize our days, the evolution of humanity occurred in a diurnal environment, where time seems to be an integral part of our existence. In fact, experiments reveal that even infants can differentiate between certain periods of time.
In this course, you’ll learn about the several different types of time we experience as humans, including:
Body Time. The nerve structure in the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus is the “master clock” that syncs up all the body’s clocks, hardwired in every cell of the body. Even in a petri dish under constant lighting, human cells still follow 24-hour cycles of gene activity, hormone secretion, and energy production.
Mind Time. Separate from our physiology, the brain must organize the chronology of events in our lives—creating memories and affecting our ability to recall them—and also determine how we experience the subjective passage of time.
Cultural Time. Around the world, cultures vary widely with respect to their expectations of time. How is it that in some cultures, timekeeping is of primary importance, while in others, it plays a lesser role?
What We Wish We Knew
Long before humans were concerned with understanding the nature of time, we were concerned with its measurement. When should we plant? When should we move the animals to the higher pasture? Today, our use of cell phones, digital television, GPS driving directions, and navigation between the planets all rely on our ability to precisely measure time. In this course, you will learn about the fascinating history of timekeeping machinery through the ages—up to the latest optical clocks that can keep time to within one second in roughly 3.7 billion years.
But while we’ve exponentially increased our ability to measure time, how much progress have we made in understanding the nature of time itself? Galileo and Newton both worked with the concept of time, but assumed it was an absolute, the same for everyone, everywhere. Einstein’s theories showed that time is relative, dependent on the motion of its observers.
In this course, studies from Scientific American will guide you through many of humanity’s most exciting questions about time, including:
Is time real, or is it an illusion?
Could the universe have existed before the Big Bang?
What can the quantum world teach us about time?
Must time always move from the past to the present?
Could wormholes help us travel through time?
Thought Experiments
When it comes to time, space, and cosmology, not every variable and outcome can be directly measured—or sometimes even imagined. In those situations, we turn to thought experiments and ask ourselves the “what if …” questions that allow us to cross any limiting barriers.
In Examining the Big Questions of Time, you’ll explore several famous thought experiments that have guided scientists’ understanding of time and its relation to space and motion. These include:
No Universal Present Moment. This experiment asks us to imagine a person on Earth, a person on Mars, and a third individual traveling from Earth to Mars at 80 percent of the speed of light. Given what we know about the distance between the two planets and the speed of light, the goal is to identify a moment that could logically be called “now” by all three individuals. But what if there isn’t one?
The Twin Paradox. In this thought experiment developed by Einstein over 100 years ago, identical twins test the concept of time dilation, the slowing of time caused by motion. One makes a high-speed rocket journey, returning home to discover that he or she has aged less than the twin who remained on Earth. The results of this thought experiment, one of the most famous in relativity theory, has since been measurably confirmed.
Schrödinger's Cat. This thought experiment was developed to challenge the quantum theory that any observer affects the state of a particle. In this situation, a cat is suspended between life and death, its fate hinging on the state of a particular quantum particle. If the particle is in state A, the cat is alive. If the particle is in state B, the cat is dead. But if observation itself could affect the state of the particle, then the cat could be dead with respect to itself, alive relative to a human in the room, and dead relative to a second human outside the room.
With the benefit of thought experiments, mathematics, and our increasingly accurate ability to measure time, some of our biggest current questions about time might be answered one day. But with time being as basic to humanity’s existence as it seems to be, new questions will continue to arise, always pushing our thought processes and imaginations to the limit.
Throughout the 12 lessons of this course, you’ll explore topics drawn directly from the pages of Scientific American as you explore some of the greatest scientific questions of the last few centuries. You may be surprised to discover truths you had never before considered possible—and you’ll never think about time in the same way again.
Primed for Time
Some of the first concepts we teach our children are aspects of life related to time. Before, after, later, now, not now—those are all terms we use to help our children learn to navigate the world around them, the temporal world we’ve built for them. But more significant than the schedules we set for ourselves to organize our days, the evolution of humanity occurred in a diurnal environment, where time seems to be an integral part of our existence. In fact, experiments reveal that even infants can differentiate between certain periods of time.
In this course, you’ll learn about the several different types of time we experience as humans, including:
Body Time. The nerve structure in the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus is the “master clock” that syncs up all the body’s clocks, hardwired in every cell of the body. Even in a petri dish under constant lighting, human cells still follow 24-hour cycles of gene activity, hormone secretion, and energy production.
Mind Time. Separate from our physiology, the brain must organize the chronology of events in our lives—creating memories and affecting our ability to recall them—and also determine how we experience the subjective passage of time.
Cultural Time. Around the world, cultures vary widely with respect to their expectations of time. How is it that in some cultures, timekeeping is of primary importance, while in others, it plays a lesser role?
What We Wish We Knew
Long before humans were concerned with understanding the nature of time, we were concerned with its measurement. When should we plant? When should we move the animals to the higher pasture? Today, our use of cell phones, digital television, GPS driving directions, and navigation between the planets all rely on our ability to precisely measure time. In this course, you will learn about the fascinating history of timekeeping machinery through the ages—up to the latest optical clocks that can keep time to within one second in roughly 3.7 billion years.
But while we’ve exponentially increased our ability to measure time, how much progress have we made in understanding the nature of time itself? Galileo and Newton both worked with the concept of time, but assumed it was an absolute, the same for everyone, everywhere. Einstein’s theories showed that time is relative, dependent on the motion of its observers.
In this course, studies from Scientific American will guide you through many of humanity’s most exciting questions about time, including:
Is time real, or is it an illusion?
Could the universe have existed before the Big Bang?
What can the quantum world teach us about time?
Must time always move from the past to the present?
Could wormholes help us travel through time?
Thought Experiments
When it comes to time, space, and cosmology, not every variable and outcome can be directly measured—or sometimes even imagined. In those situations, we turn to thought experiments and ask ourselves the “what if …” questions that allow us to cross any limiting barriers.
In Examining the Big Questions of Time, you’ll explore several famous thought experiments that have guided scientists’ understanding of time and its relation to space and motion. These include:
No Universal Present Moment. This experiment asks us to imagine a person on Earth, a person on Mars, and a third individual traveling from Earth to Mars at 80 percent of the speed of light. Given what we know about the distance between the two planets and the speed of light, the goal is to identify a moment that could logically be called “now” by all three individuals. But what if there isn’t one?
The Twin Paradox. In this thought experiment developed by Einstein over 100 years ago, identical twins test the concept of time dilation, the slowing of time caused by motion. One makes a high-speed rocket journey, returning home to discover that he or she has aged less than the twin who remained on Earth. The results of this thought experiment, one of the most famous in relativity theory, has since been measurably confirmed.
Schrödinger's Cat. This thought experiment was developed to challenge the quantum theory that any observer affects the state of a particle. In this situation, a cat is suspended between life and death, its fate hinging on the state of a particular quantum particle. If the particle is in state A, the cat is alive. If the particle is in state B, the cat is dead. But if observation itself could affect the state of the particle, then the cat could be dead with respect to itself, alive relative to a human in the room, and dead relative to a second human outside the room.
With the benefit of thought experiments, mathematics, and our increasingly accurate ability to measure time, some of our biggest current questions about time might be answered one day. But with time being as basic to humanity’s existence as it seems to be, new questions will continue to arise, always pushing our thought processes and imaginations to the limit.
TTC Video - Examining the Big Questions of Time
