Your Time and My Time

"Time", which seems to most people such an uncomplicated thing, is really quite creepy and I´m not sure that anyone fully understands it.

Yes, we know that if Einstein (and Maxwell before him) were correct that everyone will measure the speed of light the same, irrespective of their own motion, then our personal clocks will vary according to how fast we are moving relative to one another.  The ping-pong balls on a passing train do a good job in explaining why our clocks must vary.  And it´s been proved, as well, with atomic clocks on planes. So, it must be true.

But  -  who actually understands how the Universe can operate in this bizarre way?  I´m standing on a street corner with a friend, say, waiting for a bus not due for another half hour. We are each wearing our super-accurate watches, which we synchronise out of boredom. I finally decide to go for a walk and return about 20 minutes later.  We compare the time on our watches again. Whoops!!!!!!  My watch is slow now!  Or his is fast?  No  -  they are both right.  Yes, it must be so, per Einstein  -  but how on Earth can it be?  Maybe I walked into another dimension?  Our watches are these amazing mechanical ones, that work perfectly, yet,  they´ve ticked at different rates for a while. Now, I´m back and we keep track and now they´re ticking at the same rate. I think this is an example of something that seems to happen quite a lot in cosmology - where we - well, "they" - have discovered how the Universe works, but not why.

As for another inevitable consequence, that someone living at the top of a mountain will age faster than someone living at the bottom ..................well.....................

Where did the Universe Come From?

Here is a good question to ponder at night when you can´t get off to sleep!

Where did the Universe come from? Was it created - and if so, by "what" or "whom"? Or maybe it´s always been "here"? Or the question is irrelevant? Sorry, but I don´t have the answer and neither does anyone else. I am not a cosmologist nor anything else relevant, unless you consider an accountant/language teacher/salesman/investment adviser/property agent relevant. Some cosmologists say, truthfully, that no-one has the answer to such questions, while others come up with possibilties that are at best far-fetched. Where theories are advanced, they border on mysticism - looking for logical explanations where there can be none.

There only seem to be three possibilties: the Universe has existed eternally or it was created by something outside of itself or it "made itself". The trouble is that all of these seem logically impossible.

If the Universe has existed for ever, then it is hard to see how anything can happen, such as me sitting here typing this, as everything would already have happened an eternity ago. Our universe would have existed and then vanished again an eternity ago, next year´s Olympics would already have happened, yesterday and tomorrow have both been and gone an eternity ago.

The idea that the Universe was created, possibly by God or some other agency, seems a bit of a cop-out, as it just moves the question a step further back. Where did God or the other agency come from?

Also, it does not answer the question "why?". If it was created as a conscious decision, then why did the creator do it - what was his/her/its purpose? Could there possibly be a purpose?

Did the Universe create itself? This seems like another cop-out. How could it create itself, if, before it existed, there was absolutely nothing at all of any kind. Nothing, nothing.......nothing. Anyway, where did the rules and regulations and laws allowing it to create itself come from?

If you have a good convincing answer - then you are deluding yourself!!!!!!!!!