TITLE:
Is “Time” Speeding up?
AUTHORS:
Ken Biegeleisen
KEYWORDS:
Time, Perpetual Motion, Speed of Light, Second Law of Thermodynamics, Time Crystal, Bible, Genesis, Lifespan
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.3 No.12,
December
7,
2016
ABSTRACT: This article considers the possibility that there might be a plausible scientific explanation for the 900-year lifespans of the characters in the beginning of the biblical book of Genesis. The explanation is based upon the hypothesis that there may be two different forms of “time”. The first form would be “astronomical” time, which is based upon the quasi-perpetual rotational and revolutionary motions of heavenly bodies. The rates of these processes, which ideally consume no energy, have been, to a first approximation, relatively invariant, at least within the brief temporal framework of recorded human history. The second form of time would be “thermodynamic” time, the measurement of which is based upon the movements of clocks, whose reported rates of passage of time are linked inextricably to a decrease in the free energy of the system. This second form of time is the form generally employed to measure the rates of progress of physical phenomena, such as chemical reactions. If the underlying rate of passage of thermodynamic time had changed at some point in history, both the chemical reactions and the clocks used to measure their progress, would have changed together, which change might therefore have gone unnoticed. The effects of a changing thermodynamic clock on human perception of the world, and upon the perceived speed of light, are discussed.