The Time Illusion (Kindle Single)

by John Gribbin

The fundamental laws of physics do not distinguish between past and future.

Boltzmann’s Brain paradox,

The equation tells us that the four-dimensional length of an object, usually known as extension, stays the same however the object moves. If the length contracts, the time stretches, by an equivalent amount, and vice-versa.

Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Time just is.

An electron can disappear from one energy level and instantaneously reappear in a level with lower energy, provided that a quantum of light (a photon) carrying energy equal to the energy difference between the two levels is released.

(The “quantum leap” of popular mythology is actually a very small change made entirely at random.)

But there is no mathematical description of a process which changes the excited atom into an unexcited atom plus a photon.

a quantum system that is constantly “watched” (that is, monitored in some way) will never change.

Simply put, the more slowly a particle moves the less certainty there is in its position.

The arrow of time points, but it does not move.