Time

"Time... you can't see it, you can't hear it, you can't weigh it, you can't measure it in a laboratory. It is a subjective sense of becoming, what we are, instead of what we were a nanosecond ago, becoming what we will be in another nanosecond. The whole piece of time's a landscape existing, we form behind us and we move, we move through it, slice by slice." - From the movie: A Man from Earth

                What exactly is time? Time has always been there, from the beginning all the way to eternity. Time is incomprehensible, as large and infinite as the universe itself, and just as a mystery.  It indeed has always been there, but at the same time, as the quote says, "you can't see it, you can't hear it, you can't weigh it, you can't measure it...". Now, some of you may be thinking that clocks measure time but, if we continue this quote, someone asks "don't clocks measure time?" and the man answers with  "No, they measure themselves, the objective referee of a clock is another clock". And despite not being able to see, hear, weigh, or measure it we, as a race, acknowledge time's existence. Why? Because what we do not only see, and hear, but feel too, are the effects of time as we "move through it".

                Time is indeed the sense of becoming that this quote talks about, we see and feel what we become, maybe not in a nanosecond, but we can see change in ourselves, but even more so in others. We notice how people around us change, both physically and mentally. We can see people we grow up with get taller, wider, shorter, thinner, all complements of time. In J.R.R Tolkien's "The Hobbit", one of  Gollum's riddles portrays these very effects of time. "This thing all things devours; Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel; Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town, And beats mountain down."  The answer of course, being time.  And, indeed, it seems all things are swallowed up into the gaping jaws of the mighty beast we all call, time. In my mind's eye, time is one of the most amazing topics to talk about, because it is indeed always there, but we may not ever fully understand it. Unlike other topics, such as emotions, reasons of thought, ethics, morality, etc. because, those topics may only apply to some people, and we will never understand those because they are all different for every person, while time effects everybody.

                There is also the idea of time travel, that is commonly used in popular Sci-Fi culture. And, we have indeed found that, while in space, time is different because our bodies age slower. So, the furthest anyone has "traveled into the future" is only a few milliseconds. This record is held by Valeri Polyakov, who has spent more time in space in one mission than any other man (473 days, 18 hours, or 14 months) And though there is no way, currently, that we can forcefully shoot a man though time via time machine yet, it is proven, though only slight amounts, time travel has been accomplished. And, it is believed that black holes in space are powerful enough to indeed slow time down immensely, however this has not been confirmed because anything that gets close to a black hole will be pulled in (including light), and will not come out (at least on that side, there may be another side of the black hole, making it a worm hole). All these theories, although very interesting, are still theories.

                Time. Nobody knows exactly "what" it is, however it still proves to be the strongest force in the universe. And, man has a long ways to go if they ever wish to succeed in overcoming it. These are just a young philosopher's views on an infinite topic.