What is the time? Ever since man was fascinated to know his origin, this question has been challenging human civilization. Many scholars in history had spent their entire lives understanding the time. But no one succeeded in understanding the true nature of time. Almost every intellectually dynamic civilization of our world has done unprecedented work in understanding time. The work done by them is the basis of our definition of time today and even today we are trying to understand the real form of time by doing various basic calculations and experiments. If we try to define time from a simple point of view, then we can say that time is just a way of measuring the interval between any two events.
In Sanatan Dharma, the time has been considered continuous and cyclic. According to this, as the cosmic energy interacts with each other, time continues to be born. According to this, as time progresses, all the things in the universe will disintegrate and the universe will again reach zero and the universe will be born again from zero when cosmic energy interacts with each other and time will arise again. We also find this very place in Sanatan texts where time has been described as false and illusion. There is also mention in the texts about the relative time, where there is mention of devas, demons, humans, Brahma, micro-beings, late ancestors, the separation of time of mind. Similarly, time has been described in Greek civilization in two ways, one is Chronos and the other is kairos. Kronos tells us the time of continuous and human beings which moves continuously in the same direction rather Kairos tells the time which is not continuous and changes abruptly not according to us. And in the Kaballah (a group of Jewish thinkers) tradition, the time has been regarded as mere contradiction and Maya. Many Western Civilization scholars (Newton, Einstein) later worked on all these views and tried to understand the time in a more experimental and mathematical way. And even today scholars from all over the world are engaged in understanding the reality of time.
According to Sir Isaac Newton, time is simply a means of measuring the interval between two events occurring by the clock. According to Newton, this movement of the clock is the same in the entire universe. If we try to test this concept of Newton, we find that this concept is completely applicable to our classical world and on us. But if we try to test this concept on the very high-speed matter and Quantum World like very small particles, then this concept gets knocked down. So now the question arises that what is the universal definition of time? After grappling with this question for many years, there comes a personality who completely changes our attitude towards physics and nature. This man was the great physicist Albert Einstein, by whom the theory of relativity was given which enable us to understand nature much better.
According to the theory of relativity, the reality is never absolute, but reality is relative. This theory tells us that time is the fundamental truth of this universe and it helps us to study the progress and existence of all things present in the past, present, and future. This theory tells us that the time of an object changes with its speed. So far, we can only see the change in time in very high-speed moving (whose speed is near the speed of light) objects because the changes in time of low-speed objects are very subtle which we cannot detect from current technology but From the mathematical formulas of this theory, we can know that changes theoretically. For example, we can take the pi-meson particle, which is formed at the top layers of the atmosphere by the disintegration caused by the interaction of cosmic rays and our earth’s atmosphere. The lifetime of this particle is only 2 microseconds (1 millionth part of 2 seconds) and its speed is almost the same as the speed of light and we can detect this particle on Earth. But if we try to understand this process according to Newton’s laws, we will find that it is impossible for this particle to reach the earth. So here comes to our rescue the theory of relativity which tells us that if an object is moving around the speed of light, its time is different from the time of our world. This particle is moving towards the Earth with high speed, according to the theory of relativity, its time dilate (Time Dilation). This means that if we analyze its motion from the Earth, then we find that the life span which was 2 microseconds before now this time has spread to 15 microseconds, and now this particle can easily reach the Earth at such a speed. So if we take another example, it is as if there are two friends Ram and Shyam. Ram decides that he will roam in this universe for the next few years by a train moving around the speed of light. So suppose now when Ram returns to meet his friend Shyam after 3 years, he finds that his friend Shyam has become much older now but he is still quite young (3 years older when he left Shyam). So how did this happen? The answer also was given to us by the same principle that when Ram sat on the train from here, his speed was very high due to which his time had dilated. So due to this, only after 3 years when ram return to meet Shyam, Shyam has spent 50 years. So through these examples, we can say that time is relative and not absolute.
So far, we have discussed only what is the nature of time, but now the question arises that how does time arise? From the experiments and knowledge so far, we know that time takes birth through the interaction of any two things like energy and time will continue to be born as long as this activity continues. But even on the complete veracity of this fact, not all scholars have a single opinion because their argument is that where there is absolute zero, is there a time or not? Time is certainly a complex subject and to date, we are not able to understand its reality. Some scholars also believe that time is not the fundamental truth of the universe, but it is just a hallucination. They argue to prove it logically that time is a relative unit that depends on the point of view, speed, the mass of two objects, so it is only a hallucination. One more opinion supports this fact that time seems to be paused for the objects and particles moving at the speed of light, which means time does not matter for all those particles. So that’s why those scholars have formulated the timeless theory and are engaged in making that theory even more fundamental. They argue that gravity brings changes in time, so the question arises that where there is no gravity, what does time mean there? Many scholars are trying to find how to reverse the flow of time?
So far, we have discussed only what is the nature of time, but now the question arises that how does time arise? From the experiments and knowledge so far, we know that time takes birth through the interaction of any two things like between energy and time will continue to be born as long as this activity continues. But even on the complete veracity of this fact, not all scholars have a single opinion because their argument is that where there is absolute zero, is there a time or not? Time is certainly a complex subject and to date we are not able to understand its reality. Some scholars also believe that time is not the fundamental truth of the universe, but it is just a hallucination. They argue to prove it logically that time is a relative unit that depends on the point of view, speed, the mass of two objects, so it is only a hallucination. One more opinion supports this fact that the time seems to be paused for the objects and particles moving at the speed of light, which means time does not matter for all those particles. So that’s why those scholars have formulated the timeless theory and are engaged in making that theory even more fundamental. They argue that gravity brings changes in time, so the question arises that where there is no gravity, what does time mean there? Many scholars are trying to find how to reverse the flow of time? Today we are engaged in making a complete theory by combining time and gravity. Undoubtedly it is very challenging to understand the reality of time, but the real fun of science is hidden in finding answers to similar questions. Granted, we are unable to understand the reality of time right now but we are progressing in finding answers to these questions with the continuation of time and undoubtedly we will be able to understand the reality of time in the future.
For the students who want to do research on this subject, it is a very golden and challenging work where their intellectual and worldly development will be very excellent and they will also get fame in the whole world.