A Study of Time

This is a piece my dad wrote in 1984. It seems worth sharing.

It is not the movement of the sun and stars across the sky which impels Man’s first, fundamental recognition of the notion of “time” or that “time flows.” It is, instead, the vitally compelling observation that all people and, of lesser significance, that all things, change, grow old, and, after the passage of a remarkably uniform life span, die.

Were it not for these vital and attention-focusing effects, there would be no need for marking, nor recognition of, the passage of time.

Even if people and things did die, but only at irregular intervals and as the result of observable random occurring physical events, the regular march of the sun across the sky and the repetitious change of the seasons would be no more suggestive of the notion that “time” passes than would the sight of the regular rotation of a chain of gears.

GGL 5/30/84

COP

Let me tell you the story of an intelligent Flea. Or is it a story of time (or, of God?). His name shall be Cop, for he is a Copernicus among the race of intelligent Fleas.

Cop inhabits, and has resided thereon for quite a long while, a tooth on a cog-wheel. Cop doesn’t know it is a tooth on a cog-wheel. Cop knows of it, and thinks of it, simply as his “world.” Cop’s cog-wheel tooth is illuminated and is visible to him. Most of the rest of his universe is in darkness and is invisible and its existence is unsuspected by him.

Cop’s cog-wheel is rotating and centrifugal force is tending to fling him off and out into space, but gravitational attraction is keeping him in place. Cop doesn’t know that gravity is holding him on his tooth. Cop is unaware of and doesn’t know anything about gravity. He doesn’t sense it and has no instruments with which to detect or measure gravity. Cop doesn’t even have any conception of such a notion as “being off his world.”

Unknown to Cop, an completely unsuspected by him, Cop’s cog-wheel is one of a group of cog-wheels of varying diameters and having varying numbers of teeth, all assembled together and comprising a gear-train. Each of the other gears in the assembly has one illuminated tooth, which at times may be visible to Cop; otherwise, all his universe is in darkness and is invisible and the existence of which is unsuspected by him. The other wheels in the gear-train assembly are at varying distances from Cop’s wheel; a few are quite near, some are far removed, and many are distributed in between. Being geared together, if one is rotated, they all rotate; being of varying sizes, however, and having varying number of teeth, they do not all rotate at the same relative rate.

This gear-train, which is Cop’s “Universe,” is driven by a crank attached to the main drive-wheel and is being rotated at a constant rate. To Cop, the illuminated teeth of the other cog-wheels simply appear to be pin-points of light in a dark sky; which he sometimes can see and sometimes cannot. Two, however, are much larger than the others and when they are visible, his own world is much better illuminated; and, of these two, one is much brighter than the other.

Now I have told you that Cop is an extraordinary Flea of a race of intelligent Fleas; and Cop is fascinated by these pin-points of light he sees in the dark sky; and  he has spent much time observing them and taking notes. Cop has observed that there seems to be some patterns to the behaviors of these lights in the heavens; and even though they come and go, some quite dependably and some very erratically, Cop has learned that he can recognize some individuals among them.

To some of these he has given individual names. To the largest and brightest, which he has learned is very regular with respect to its periodic appearances and disappearances, he has given the name the “Sun.” The next which is also quite regular, but still something of a wanderer, he calls the “Moon.”

To the pin-points, most of which, though they may be moving quite rapidly, are so far removed from Cop’s world as to appear to be motionless, Cop has given the group name, “Stars.” Some few pin-points, which do appear to move about in the sky in a confusingly complex manner, Cop has named the “Wanderers”. He sometimes calls them “Planets.”

Cop has observed that the appearances and disappearances of his celestial objects and their relative positions in the sky, follow fixed and determinable relationships; and, in the course of his long studies of these objects, he has worked out a system of rules by which he can describe these relationships and predict the various events.

Cop has also determined that certain periodic events which occur on his world can be related to the apparent periodicity of the behavior of the several celestial bodies; especially of the two larger ones. Cop’s world undergoes a cycle of seasons, alternating between a “warm” season and a “cold” season. Co has observed that when the Sun has appeared and disappeared about 365 times, Cop’s world has turned from warm to cold and back to warm again. It has also long been common knowledge among Cop and his fellow intelligent Fleas that Fleas are born, change, grow old, and die; and that as this happens, about 70 season cycles have passed.

Cop concludes that there must be “time”; that “time” is something which moves or “flows” from “past” to “present” to “the future.” He decides that the period of the Sun will serve as a convenient unit for the measurement of time. The period between one appearance of the Sun and its next, he designates a “Day.” The 365-day period from one warm season to the next, he designates the “year.” Cop concluded that the average life-span of a Flea must be about “three-score and ten” years.

These are the facts known to Cop, the intelligent Flea, and the conclusions he derived from them. Cop published these findings in a paper entitled “On the Discovery of Time,” for the benefit and edification of his fellow intelligent Fleas.

Unbeknown to Cop, a Man was rotating the crank which powered and gave motion to Cop’s whole gear-train assembly universe. During all of Cop’s life-time, all during the time Cop had spent studying his illuminated cog-wheel teeth, the Man had been turning the crank at a uniformly constant rate. Now, the man began to grow weary. He no longer could keep the rate uniform. He alternately slowed the crank and then speeded it up.

Cop’s world, and all the other illuminated cog-wheel teeth worlds of Cop’s universe, began to rotate at non-uniform rates; alternately speeding up and slowing down.

As Cop’s world changed rotation rate, Cop was alternately subjected to first, greater, then less centrifugal force. But Cop knew nothing of this; he neither sensed gravity nor acceleration; and he had no instruments with which to detect or measure either. Cop would have no way of knowing from observation of his time-keepers, the Sun and the Stars, that his “time” was being speeded or slowed; because the velocities of his time-keepers were undergoing the same relative changes as his own. Whether rotating fast, or slow, they all would have maintained exact synchronization.

The only clues, pointing to the profound change which was taking place within his universe, and which would have been detectable by Cop, would have been his own innate sense of the speeding or slowing of the passage of time; or, if the apparent longevity of his race, in terms of the number of season-cycles passing between the birth and death of a Flea, should have undergone an observable change. Do you suppose either of these manifestations would have occurred in Cop’s universe? Do you suppose either have ever occurred to anyone in our own universe?

For my part, I have on numerous occasions had a strong and distinct feeling, or sensation, that “time” was flowing either slowly or exceedingly fast. Yet whenever on such occasion I have consulted my time-keeper, it has told me that time was proceeding at its own standard and invariably steady pace. Do you suppose that God, or some higher power, may not sometimes speed up, or slow down, the turning of the crank?

Advertisement