11 surprising facts about the weather – 11/27/2023 – Science

To celebrate 60 years of the “Doctor Who” series, let’s talk about time.

From the BBC Future archives, we extracted 11 amazing facts about physics, psychology and the history of time. They show that there is much more to time than our vain philosophy supposes.

1. Your language affects your perception of time

Imagine time as a straight line. In which direction does he walk? Horizontal or vertical? Or maybe he’s not a line for you.

The answer to all of these questions may depend on which language you speak.

Much of the way we perceive time is influenced by languages. English speakers, for example, describe time as being in front of them or behind them, or as a horizontal line that moves from left to right.

But Mandarin speakers imagine time as a vertical line, where the bottom represents the future. People in Greece, on the other hand, tend to observe time as a three-dimensional unit that can be “large” or “a lot”, rather than “long”.

And in Pormpuraaw, a remote Australian Aboriginal community, time runs east-west.

The language we speak to describe the passage of time can also have strange effects on the way we think. We can, for example, remember qualities attributed to someone in the present more quickly than those attributed to the same person in the past.

2. When the Universe dies, there will be no future or past

As with our perception, the way time passes changes as the Universe ages.

The “arrow of time”, which points from the past towards the future, is believed to have its origins in the Big Bang.

The Universe, in its infancy, probably had very low entropy — the measure of its disorganization or randomness. Since then, entropy has been increasing — and this change is what gives the arrow of time its directionality.

It is for this same reason that it is easy to crack the shell of a fresh egg, but extremely difficult to create a whole egg from disordered fragments and a yolk.

No one knows what will happen at the end of the Universe, but a strong possibility is its “hot death”, with entropy reaching a maximum level and the arrow of time losing its direction. It would be as if all the eggs in the Universe were already cracked and there was nothing more interesting to happen.

3. It might not be possible to have conscious experiences without time

We count, therefore, we exist.

The passage of time is the invisible beat of our lives. It affects every moment of our consciousness.

We and time are in a perpetual handshake. Even a human being immersed in a completely dark cave would still be governed by the circadian rhythm of our internal clocks.

Holly Andersen studies the philosophy of science and metaphysics at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia (Canada). She warns about what the loss of our sense of time could do to our sense of identity.

Andersen believes that it is not possible to have conscious experiences without the passage of time. Just analyze how our personal identity is constructed over time and archived in the form of memories.

“These memories constitute you over time,” she explains. “If you miss a period of time, you will be a different person.”

4. No watch is 100% accurate

Meteorologists work tirelessly to keep track of the weather. They employ increasingly precise techniques to measure the passage of hours, minutes and seconds.

But atomic clocks are not perfect, despite their incredible precision. In fact, no clock on Earth is entirely “correct.”

The actual process of determining what time it is right now is based on a series of clocks, which measure time around the world. Each national laboratory sends its time measurement to the International Office of Weights and Measures in Paris, France, which calculates a weighted average of them all.

The right time, therefore, is a human construction.

5. The experience of time is actively created by our brain

Several factors are fundamental to building our perception of time: memory, concentration, emotions and our notion that time, in some way, is located in space.

Our perception of time is rooted in our mental reality. Time is not only at the center of our daily organization, but in the way we experience it.

The advantage is that it gives us some degree of control over how we experience time.

For example, if you want to feel like life isn’t rushing around you, the solution is novelty. Research indicates that a life full of routine, repetitive activities will make you feel like time is passing more quickly.

6. People from the 22nd century are already among us — but they are not time travelers

The next century often seems very far away — a distant land, where hypothetical generations yet to be born live.

But there are already millions of people on Earth who will witness the fireworks at the turn of the year 2099. A child born in 2023, for example, will be in their 70s.

Our connections over long periods of life are much greater than we can realize. Our family ties leave us just a leap away from the last century and the next.

7. We can call all experiences time warps

Time does not always flow at the same speed for everyone. Is time only in our mind?

A car appears to skid for an eternity, scattering gravel into the air, where it appears motionless. Time seems to almost stop and, at that moment, you react and dive in search of safety.

In situations like this, stress can alert the brain to speed up its internal processing and help you cope with a life or death situation.

Brain disorders such as epilepsy or strokes can also temporarily trick the brain, speeding up or stopping the sensation of time passing.

Some people, like athletes, can even train their brain to create a time warp when necessary. This is the case of the surfer facing a wave at the perfect moment and the tireless football player.

Apparently, time is a fragile illusion. At any moment, we can enter an alternate reality.

8. When daylight saving time comes, you have to thank (or blame) a builder

Setting the clock forward in summer to make the most of the hours of sunlight in higher latitudes is not a practice enjoyed by everyone.

But whether you like it or not, there is a stubborn supporter of daylight saving time in the UK who needs to be thanked. If it weren’t for a builder named William Willett (1856-1915), a quarter of the planet — including the United States — might never have adopted daylight saving time.

Willett managed to convince British political leaders, and the United Kingdom adopted the change during World War I, due to coal shortages. The longer daylight hours reduced the consumption of electricity generated by coal to keep the lights on.

The results were so good that, during the Second World War, the United Kingdom went further and temporarily doubled summer time, moving two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, to reduce industry costs.

9. You don’t actually live in the present

It’s easy to call the moment you’re reading these words “now.” But it’s not true.

Let’s take as an example the simple act of looking at a person talking to you across the table. The confirmation that she is moving her lips reaches your eyes before the sound of your voice (since light moves faster than sound), but our brain synchronizes so that the image and sound coincide.

And that’s not even the strangest observation about time. The laws of physics suggest that in some cases time can also flow backwards. Philosopher Katie Robertson explains these phenomena and their dizzying implications in a video.

10. Our days are getting longer due to the Moon’s gravity

It may be surprising to see that the Moon — Earth’s constant orbital companion during our astronomical ballet around the Sun — is moving away from us.

Every year, the distance between the Earth and the Moon increases by 3.8 cm, making our days a little longer.

This is due to the influence of the Moon’s gravity on our planet.

The Moon’s gravitational pull creates tides, which are “volumes” of water that extend in an elliptical shape, against or with the lunar gravity. But the Earth rotates on its axis much faster than the Moon’s orbit, which causes the friction of the ocean basins to drag the water along with them.

This process gradually sucks the rotational energy of our planet, reducing its movement, while the Moon gains energy. This causes the satellite to move into a higher orbit and further away from Earth.

The gradual reduction in the speed of our planet’s rotation has already caused the length of the average day on Earth to increase by about 1.09 milliseconds per century since the late 1600s. Other estimates are slightly higher (1.78 ms per century), based on observations of older eclipses.

None of these numbers seem significant, but over the 4.5 billion year history of planet Earth, the accumulation is considerable.

11. Many people live outside of conventional time — for them, this year is not 2023

For many people in Nepal, this report was not published in 2023. This is because, in the Nepalese Bikram Sambat calendar, we are in the year 2080.

In addition to having at least four calendars adopted by different ethnic groups, Nepal maintains a 15-minute difference in standard time zones.

Several cultures live very well for several years simultaneously. In Myanmar, this is the year 1384, while in Thailand it is already 2566.

In Ethiopia, the year has 13 months and the current year is 2016. And in the Islamic calendar, the year 1445 began in July.

Read the original version of this report (in English) on the website BBC Future.