According to his theory of relativity, as the speed of an object increases time slows down, until it comes to a complete halt at the speed of light. A clock in a space craft travelling at 90 per cent of the speed of light, for instance, would take the equivalent of about 138 Earth minutes to record 1 hour, and a person on board the craft would likewise age at less than half the rate of someone who had remained on the Earth. As unlikely as the theory of relativity may seem, it has been confirmed by scientific experiment. A few years ago, an ultra-precise atomic clock, accurate to one billionth of a second, was taken by jet from London to Washington and back. The difference between the elapsed time it recorded and that measured on the ground was exactly as Einstein predicted.
Time is nature's way of preventing everything from happening at once'.
Although Einstein's theory suggests that this insight would not apply at the speed of light, this graffiti has the distinct advantage of ringing true with our everyday perceptions, which many other definitions and explanations do not. While all this suggests that us ordinary folk are well advised to trust in our common sense and leave the philosophising to the denizens of ivory towers, there are many questions about time that we can get our minds around without too much difficulty. For some people the most pressing issue relating to time is whether the new millennium really begins today, or in January next year. In an article in one of the southern newspapers this week, the nation's most-admired pedant, the Federal ALP president and former quiz king Barry Jones, was quoted as plumping for the latter. This was despite the fact that all his party's premiers were busy hosting millennium celebrations last night.