The basic laws of physics work equally well forward or backward in time, yet we perceive time to move in one direction only—toward the future. Why?
Maybe science was finally ready to tackle the mystery of what made the Big Bang go bang. And if so, then maybe science could also address one of the deepest questions of all: What came before the Big Bang?
Any science fiction aficionado has seen it all before: beaming through walls, riding in starships that move faster than light, or traveling instantly to distant places in space and time. These ideas aren’t just creative fantasies, though; they emerge from theoretical physics, especially the work of Albert Einstein, whose vision included a universe that curves back on itself in three dimensions of space and a fourth, invisible dimension of time. If Einstein’s version of the universe is correct—and experiments done over the last century suggest that essentially it is—then the fictionalized feats based on his theories might be possible as well. The potential has become so tantalizing that serious physicists now regularly comment on Einstein-based technologies in the most august journals of their field.
"There isn't just one dimension of time," Itzhak Bars of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles tells New Scientist. "There are two. One whole dimension of time and another of space have until now gone entirely unnoticed by us."
The Telegraph, a British newspaper, reported in its December 18, 2007 issue that
A Spanish scientist suggests that the universe's end will come not with a bang but standstill - that time is literally running out and will, one day, stop altogether.
This is a fascinating parallel even though I don't understand it very well, and apparently scientists don't understand time very well either. The two aspects of time that I find interesting are that time seems to be unidirectional, and that time will disappear.
First, I'll comment on the direction of time. The scriptures don't directly discuss time itself. I searched the online scriptures at lds.org for various phrases containing the word "time" and only found the two scriptures I posted in Mormon Belief: Time pertains to Mortality. There are many uses of the word "time" in the scriptures, but those uses of the word "time" are in a different context. I think, though, the scriptures give a strong implication that time is unidirectional, always going forward. The scriptures have a strong focus on repentance, that we must change our behavior to become more in harmony with God's will. The context is always that we must repent, and then in the future become more like Christ. There is no implication that as we repent we can go back in time and relive our past.
In You Can't Travel Back in Time, Scientists Say I posted that some scientists say backwards travel is impossible (play the video) because it would violate the principle of causality and, in addition, would require unimaginable amounts of energy. This scientific view of negative time-travel being impossible is in agreement with the scriptural view of time. Other scientists, though, say that backwards travel is theoretically possible but is not practicable.
Next, concerning the disappearance of time, as I pointed out in my previous posts, we believe that when this world is recreated as an immortal world via the Atonement of Jesus Christ, time will cease, for in eternity there is no time. Because some scientists speculate there is no time, there is a form of a parallel between the religious and scientific views, although the religious view of no time pertains to an immortal world and the scientific view of no time pertains to a mortal world.
If science does discover how to travel in time, since from the scientific viewpoint time is a dimension, it will be interesting to see if humans in that distant future are able to travel bidirectionally or just unidirectionally.
Time, as we know it, pertains to this earth, to mortality. There is no time in God's domain, Heaven, for God is Eternal.
Or have angels ceased to appear unto the children of men? Or has he withheld the power of the Holy Ghost from them? Or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man upon the face thereof to be saved? (Book of Mormon, Moroni 7:36)That verse tells us that God will not withhold the Holy Ghost from the children of men as long as time shall last, implying that time shall come to an end after the Savior has finished his work in redeeming the children of men. Time is a measure of the sequence of events that comprise mortality. Mortality is a temporary existence. People, animals, and plants come into existence and then disappear. Events pertaining to the earth, such as earthquakes and storms, occur and then cease. But in the domain of God, that is, after the resurrection, all things are eternal. There is no end to eternal things. There is no time in eternity.
And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer: (Revelation 10:6)John saw an angel come down from heaven. The angel declared "by him that liveth for ever and ever" that time would cease, referring to the eventual completion of the Lord's work when all things will become eternal.
A handful of proposals exist for time travel. The most developed of these approaches involves a wormhole—a hypothetical tunnel connecting two regions of space-time. The regions bridged could be two completely different universes or two parts of one universe. Matter can travel through either mouth of the wormhole to reach a destination on the other side.
Sub-title: Not to mention the question of which way it goes...
Discover published an interesting article, dated June 12, 2007, about the question whether time exists or not.
The possibility that time may not exist is known among physicists as the “problem of time.” It may be the biggest, but it is far from the only temporal conundrum. Vying for second place is this strange fact: The laws of physics don’t explain why time always points to the future. All the laws—whether Newton’s, Einstein’s, or the quirky quantum rules—would work equally well if time ran backward. As far as we can tell, though, time is a one-way process; it never reverses, even though no laws restrict it.
