For Your Knowledge – The Concept of Time
Published by Facts You Might Not Know
For Your Knowledge is a series of short scientific and/or biological facts. This is entry #4 – The Concept of Time.
Time is a concept created by mankind. It is primarily used as a measuring tool for the
duration of an occurrence or event. It is widely accepted as a thing we must abide by,
thus governing when we awake, work, eat, play, sleep, etc. Though this concept is a
major part of our day to day lives there are very few of us that understand where and how
it started – we constantly look at our clocks and watches or ask strangers “Do you have
the time?” but do we ever stop to think what this thing called “Time” really is. Below are
a few time facts for you to ponder.
Image Credit: www.treehugger.com
- Time is fundamental – by understanding time, one has a better chance of understanding distance, energy, mass, momentum, velocity, and weight.
- Time is not a constant – it changes based on perception and may slow down if you travel at a very high speed due to the pull of gravity.
- Time is a dimension – it can be considered the fourth dimension while length, width, and depth are the other three. If you like 3-D, imagine 4-D, also known as ‘space-time’.
- Time is an illusion – actually it is a temporal illusion. This means dependent upon one’s action, the brain may perceive time differently. When busy doing things you enjoy time seems to go by very quickly but when doing tedious and boring tasks time seems to move more slowly.
- Time is accurate – The time on your cell phones is atomic clock time. Atomic clock time is so accurate that it may only lose less than a second in 400 million years. Atomic clocks allow time to be transmitted via radio signals and/or a Global Positioning System (GPS) to computers, cell phones, and other devices keeping mankind in synch.
- Time has no father – an image depicting an elderly man with a beard wearing a robe & glasses has been used to represent the passage of time. This is not a real person. ‘Father Time’ is a myth.
- The world’s most accurate clock is located at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. It measures the vibrations from a single atom of mercury.
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Liked it
On February 2, 2011 at 6:06 pm
A nice share
On February 2, 2011 at 8:14 pm
Excellent article concerning the concept of time! I have been telling people and those that read my older articles this concerning time for longer than I care to remember! Time is a human concept.
On February 2, 2011 at 9:38 pm
This was informative and profundity all at once.
On February 3, 2011 at 3:14 am
good one
On February 8, 2011 at 2:31 pm
nice