The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. Bertrand Russell, attributions & variations
Time is not composed of indivisible nows any more than any other magnitude is composed of indivisibles. Aristotle, Physics VI
I see the Past, Present & Future, existing all at once
Before me; O Divine Spirit sustain me on thy wings! William Blake, Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion
Time is the mercy of Eternity; without Time’s swiftness
Which is the swiftest of all things, all were eternal torment. William Blake, Milton
Eternity is in love with the productions of time. William Blake
Time forks perpetually toward innumerable futures. Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden
Yet Time, who changes all, had altered him
In soul and aspect as in age; years steal
Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb;
And life’s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim. Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage III:8
O Time! the beautifier of the dead,
Adorner of the ruin, comforter
And only healer when the heart hath bled –
Time! the corrector where our judgments err,
The test of truth, love, sole philosopher,
For all besides are sophists, from thy thrift
Which never loses though it doth defer –
Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift
My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift. ibid. IV:130
We need natural clocks that can time hundreds of millions, even billions, of years. And, praise be, nature has provided us with just the wide range of clocks that we need. What’s more, their ranges of sensitivity overlap with each other, so we can use them as checks on each other. Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth p88
The predictability of the rate of decay is the key to all radiometric clocks ... Every unstable or radioactive isotope decays at its own characteristic rate which is precisely known. ibid. p94
The favoured measure of decay rate is the ‘half-life’. The half-life of a radioactive isotope is the time taken for half of its atoms to decay. ibid. p95
Time Travel – it’s not yet been invented. But thirty years from now, it will have been. Looper 2012 starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt & Bruce Willis & Emily Blunt & Paul Dano & Frank Brennan & Noah Segan & Piper Perabo & Jeff Daniels & Pierce Gagnon & Summer Qing & Tracie Thoms et al, director Rian Johnson, opening commentary
The press have dubbed him the Fizzle bomber. We stopped him this time, but this was only a small attack. This is his grand plan: March 1975 – he keeps changing the day – the explosion will level ten blocks of New York and leave over eleven thousand dead. Predestination 2014 starring Ethan Hawke & Sarah Snook & Monique Heath & Olivia Sprague & Noah Taylor & Madeleine West & Christopher Kirby & Freya Stafford & Jim Knobeloch & Christopher Stollery & Tyler Coppin & Rob Jenkins et al, directors Michael & Peter Spierig
Jane, I work for a new organisation seeking young women like yourself to train on a career in the civil service. We’re what you might call progressive. ibid. recruiter
It’s re-shaping wrong-doings … Finding people who are special … For people with exception abilities … You see the work we do is complicated. ibid.
It’s a time machine.’ ibid. him to him
If you shoot me, you’ll become me. ibid.
The innocent and the beautiful
Have no enemy but time. W B Yeats
No time to lose. The story of the wild and lawless days of the post-impressionists. Monty Python’s Flying Circus s3e12: A Book Before Bedtime, BBC 1973
Just 150 years ago it was all very different: for instance, back then America had hundreds of towns each using its own local time, and fifty railway companies each with its own time. How We Got to Now with Steven Johnson s1e2: Time, BBC 2018
Back in the mid 1800s hand-crafted luxury watches were the only kind on the market. ibid.
Waltham: It’s a steal at $13 … The so-called soldiers’ watch. ibid.
The Earth’s rotation is slowly down … [and] not always consistent. ibid.
But perhaps the greatest fantasy of all is one that I think at some level we all share: what if you could turn back the clock and relive your childhood … What if you could travel through time? Dominic Sandbrook, Tomorrow’s Worlds: The Unearthly History of Science Fiction IV: Time Travel, BBC 2014
The story of Time Travel is a fantastic voyage. ibid.
The Time Machine (2002) … Wells’s time traveller leaps first thousand then millions of years … A machine, a maverick and an extraordinary destination. ibid.
Dr Who … Science Fiction’s sacred ground … Just how odd it must have seemed to those first viewers who tuned in on Saturday 23rd November 1963: the story of an irascible old man with an extraordinary secret, wandering through space and time in of all things a battered British police box. ibid.
Back to the Future was born: a story of teenager Marty McFly, a mad professor Doc Brown and a very distinctive time machine. ibid.
It’d hard not to fall in love with the De Lorean’s Heath Robinson charm. ibid.
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1983) … Metropolis (1927): the first full-length science fiction film … Blade Runner (1982) … Science Fiction’s dystopian vision of the future … Groundhog Day offers a surprisingly bleak look into the darkest corners of the human soul … Groundhog Day is basically a modern morality tale … Quantum Leap (1989-1993) … ibid.
Time Travel stories have long been a vehicle for sharp social criticism. ibid.
Philip K Dick was immersed in a psychedelic counter culture of late sixties’ San Francisco. ibid.
Rozzer negotiator: What do you want?
Professor: Time. Money Heist s1e2: Lethal Negligence, Netflix 2017
All you have to decide is what to do with the time given to you. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring 2001 starring Elijah Wood & Ian McKellen & Viggo Mortensen & Liv Tyler & Sean Astin & Cate Blanchett & John Rhys-Davis & Dominic Monaghan & Orlando Bloom & Christopher Lee & Hugo Weaving & Sean Bean & Ian Holm & Andy Serkis et al, director Peter Jackson, Gandolph
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare. W H Davies, Leisure, 1911
Time is the mercy of Eternity; without Time’s swiftness
Which is the swiftest of all things, all were eternal torment. William Blake, Milton
It was the coming of the railway that led to Britain adopting a standard time across the country. Great Railway Adventures with Dan Cruickshank: Brilliant Brunel, National Geographic 2010
What then is time? If no-one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know. St Augustine of Hippo
What then is time if not the inevitable march of disorder, the inevitable destruction of God’s structured universe into nothing more than an eternal pile of sand? The Entire History of the Universe e3: Why Did Time Start Going Forward?
Time was not the same across the cosmos. And here within the immense gravity of the black hole time trickled more slowly. The Entire History of the Universe s17: What Actually Are Space and Time?
What is space made of? Does time exist? ibid.
Does time itself have properties? Or is it defined only by the events that run in its current? ibid.
What is time? … Unlike space, time has a direction, a distinct past and a coming future. ibid.
Time travel: some incredibly profound questions begin to emerge … The bootstrap paradox … The restoration paradox … The ex nihilo paradox … The pre-destination paradox … The autoinfanticide paradox … Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of time travel. The Entire History of the Universe e25: Is Time Travel Possible In Our Universe?
Despite its myriad impracticalities, there are slivers of possibility lurking at the edge of physics, temporal loopholes lying just out of reach. ibid.
If time travel is possible, just how could we do it? ibid.
Debates between eternalist and presentist philosophers have raged since the days of ancient Greece. ibid.
Rossi had provided the first experimental evidence that time travel to the future is possible. But does this really count as time travel? ibid.
An endless array of yous, each a little different from the next, playing out every possible outcome of every possible event in constantly fracturing streams along the great river of time. ibid.