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Is Time Real or Relative?

TIME: WHAT IT IS AND IS NOT

Our unique position in the cosmic fabric has deceived us into thinking of time in certain ways. At certain levels of the cosmos, there is no such thing as a specific arrow of time as clearly explained by Richard Feynman and Roger Penrose. Stephen Hawking has also clearly suggested that the arrow of time appears rigid for certain events above the quantum level. He uses the analogy of the broken cup of tea on the floor suddenly reassembling and jumping up back onto the edge of the table from whence it fell. In our experience, such a thing can never occur. In this analysis, he is correct. But there is an exception, and this is where confusion over the meaning of time creeps in. Living processes are that exception.

Since we are part of the living fabric of the cosmos, there is little wonder that confusion over time has blinded us to the true nature of what is called time. Time is change, plain and simple. As a dimension, it differs from the length, breadth and height we associate with measuring things in three dimensions. Time is called the fourth dimension by some. It is transient. It varies according to a power function within the context of a gravity field gradient, which also varies according to the same inverse power function. The dimension of time has a connection to isotopic spin and vortex phenomena.

We are obsessed with time, but this has not always been so. Time concepts evolved with the development of clocks, both in Asia and later in the west. The concept of time is a natural enough evolutionary development in thinking, given the diurnal, lunar and solar cycles to which all of us are tied. But time as we have come to appreciate it, is something of a misunderstanding.

To get a grasp of time's essence, we must turn to the quantum world and findings of people like Richard Feynman and Roger Penrose. We then must turn our gaze to the complex universe around us in the macro sense and see where "time" fits into the whole and how it functions. We need to understand the idea of time reversal invariance or time non-invariance as seen in quantum events. Then one needs to apply this to the arrow of time to which we are familiar.

Richard Feynman correctly described the fact that there is no such thing as an arrow of time in the quantum cosmos. All events are interchangeable and reversible. For example, an electron usually "orbits" in the lowest energy level about an atomic nucleus. When it absorbs

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