Simplifying Complexity Big Ideas: Time
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Nov 13, 2023 
Sara Walker, Deputy Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, discusses the changing concepts of time throughout history. The podcast explores the relativity of time, from physics to computability theory, and questions whether time is fundamental or emergent. It also explores the connection between information, memory, and time, as well as the origin of life from a physicist's perspective.
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Clock Rebellion
- In the late 1800s, people protested standardized time by destroying clocks.
- This highlights how our current time perception is a cultural construct, not an absolute truth.
Evolving Time
- Physics has redefined time each century, from Newton's absolute time to thermodynamics' directional time and relativity's relative time.
- Each concept reflects the dominant physics of its era, not necessarily a universal truth about time.
Computational Relativity
- The runtime of a computer program varies depending on the machine, suggesting a relativity of time in computation theory.
- This relativity mirrors the relativity in physics, where time perception depends on the observer's reference frame.