“Time is the music and death is the applause in the dance of life. The beauty of our existence is defined by the way we move to the pulse.”

In this stage of life as mysterious as it seems, the perspective of time itself is bizarre. What is time? What we know about it is it started somewhere in the past (probably when you were born: at least for you this definition is true). But we can no longer describe anything on this day in such a generalized and isolated way. So, what actually is it? Even if it has no tangible effect, you can still feel its impact and it somehow propels you on, whether you like it or not. You were born 18 years ago and not probably 16 million kilometers in the past. We plan our whole life with respect to time which is like an object that is fixed with space and we are moving along it like a passenger taking a ride in a bus. Join me as we embark on three different perspectives on time, unraveling the complexities of time and savoring the moments it unfolds.

The typical frame of reference: What do you think time is? Objectively, time is the space between two events. You woke up, had a cup of tea. The very space between these two events is time. It could be five minutes or 30 minutes or an hour. But what may be an objective event for you may not hold the same significance for me. I could still be sleeping. We can see that time is a subjective experience and is not the same for everybody. Our calendar lies to us by showing only one Saturday, but there are as many Saturdays as there are humans on this planet. You could be scrolling TikTok on a Friday night, but I might be in a business meeting. So where are these observations leading us to? 

Time is relative and doesn’t progress linearly for everybody. On one hand, when you are in a state of flow—a state of focus and enjoyment— time flies. On the other hand, when we are very bored, either it is the event of going to school or daily reading, time moves very slowly for us. The pause in your watch does not halt the progression of time. This simplicity may not endure in the exploration of the remaining two perspectives.

The religious frame of reference: What mask could religion and monks possibly take off from the face of time that occupies a whole new section in this article, what is time? It is the space between two thoughts. Some Eastern philosophies, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, view time as cyclical rather than linear. The cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth (reincarnation) is seen as an eternal recurrence until spiritual enlightenment is achieved. It is common for monotheistic religions like Judaism, Islam, and Christianity to view time as a component of a divine design. It is believed that everything happens in accordance with God's plan, and that time passes linearly and leads to a preset destination that is frequently connected to ideas like salvation, judgment, or the afterlife. Religiously, time is viewed as an eternal illusion, a concept that accompanies us from birth to the tranquil embrace of death. 

The scientific frame of reference (Thanks for giving your precious time and question again): “What is time?” To answer this let’s imagine from the beginning with another question: “Did the universe have a beginning or it existed forever?” If it didn’t have one, then there would be an infinite period of time before any event and titling it like that would be absurd, right? Should there be any beginning? But why should time itself begin at one particular time?

We can relate time with the beginning of the universe or before the beginning of the universe as there may arise two sides where one could account on the theory that universe had existed forever or on the theory that it was set in motion at some finite time in such a manner as to look as though it had existed forever. Here we enter into the realm of scientific understanding of time apart from different theories of the beginning of the universe from this one discovery. But before we know about that discovery why on earth do we need to know about the universe in this very article about time. Here comes Einstein to defend my article by his theory of relativity where he relates time with space considering time to be the fourth dimension.

Being a three-dimensional creature, while it may be hard to imagine the fourth direction apart from the three-dimensional space which we can easily perceive, there is some evidence however which supports the idea of the existence of the fourth dimension and we are moving along it right now. Einstein proposed that space and time are interconnected, connecting the fourth dimension much like the three spatial axes. Without time our three-dimensional space wouldn’t move; it would rather be in one state at its time which allows us to move in it. This proves the importance of time even if we cannot see it (being out of our realm). But why can’t we see it?

Many objects are obscure to us, not because our perception is poor, but simply because these objects are outside of the realm of our conception. Let us consider that we three-dimensional beings are packed in a two-dimensional plane and the third plane being time. Now move that two-dimensional person upward in the plane of time considering that direction to be future and leftover direction to be past so the higher up our two-dimensional person gets, the older he becomes. This feels like our daily life. There is like a magical constant force that is pushing us towards that dimension at some constant rate and we sadly can’t control it. It may be misleading to say we cannot control the rate of time flow in our life because Einstein allowed us in his special relativity postulate equations to move slower with time as we move faster in space. Well, that’s the gossip for another article.

All of these ideas that we are drawing about time and space are by assuming we are rational beings who are free to observe the universe as we want and draw logical deductions from what we see. Time is the most unknown of all unknown things. Time is like an arrow which moves forward piercing the space and heart of a physicist, trailing away a fundamental question: “Try to understand me, if you can!”

Kiran Paudyal

Grade XII

Trinity International College, Dillibazar