Time

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Ratings: 7.97/10 from 30 users.

TimeIn this four-programme series, string theory pioneer Michio Kaku goes on an extraordinary exploration of the world in search of time.

He discovers our sense of time passing and the clocks that drive our bodies. He reveals the forces of time that make and destroy us in a lifetime.

He journeys to some of the Earth's most spectacular geological sites to look for clues to the extraordinary depths of time at a planetary level. Finally, he takes us on a cosmic journey in search of the beginning (and the end) of time itself.

Daytime. Time seems to drive every moment. It's the most inescapable force we feel. But do we experience time from within our minds and bodies or from the outside?

Lifetime. The most powerful effect of time on our lives is the way it limits us. Our knowledge of death is so embedded in our lives and spirituality that, were immortality possible, would we lose the sense that makes us human?

Earthtime. We hold a unique knowledge of time, realising that it stretches deep into the past, and will continue into the future. How does this affect our sense of who we are?

Cosmictime. We've always structured our lives based on an unchanging past and a predictable and ordered future. But atomic and cosmic discoveries have changed all that. What is time itself? And will it ever end?

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35 Comments / User Reviews

  1. Eric Hughes

    Time does not exist it is a measurement of movement. No movement, no time.

  2. DustUp

    The writers of the movie "Lucy" had a more interesting concept of time, which Lucy explains to the physicists and scientists at the end of the show. Without time we don't exist. In her example, if you speed a car up fast enough, you will never see it. I might also add: 1. If everything were so speedy, say instantaneous (or faster lol), then it would end as fast as it began, instantly, and it would be as if it never existed. 2. If everything were so slow, taking an infinite amount of time (or longer ;), when nothing moves then you aren't alive and could never be born, nor could anything else including a galaxy or the universe. With these two extremes we could perceive that time is essential to everything. Your perception of time matters not, nor does the different time segments people may live or operate under... at any particular time in their lives.

    I might have watched this docu if not for the Michio. Having listened to him regarding other subjects, it is clear that being proficient enough at mathematics and whatever else is required in the academic world, doesn't always translate into wisdom or insight into other areas. Why should anyone be given notoriety regarding a theory? Like the string theory for instance, or the big bang theory, or the theory of relativity? Many people have many theories which have short comings just as do all those. How about some notoriety for coming up with practical low cost solutions? No. We listen to the fake news about fake people instead.

  3. JoB

    Time is a human construct! It is a form of measurement we have almost always applied as a way to distinguish change from one state to the next. There is no actual entity of time, if you were to convert all matter in the universe back into energy there would be no process of "aging" or "flow". Convert a small amount of that energy back into matter in the form of a cloud of dust, imagine we swiped our hand through this cloud to create turbulence. At what point would time initiate in this system? Would you suggest it initiates at the moment we converted the energy into matter? The moment we created the turbulence? Some interval during the turbulence? Or would it have always been active? The first suggestion wouldn't be plausible since the simple equation (t-1) would prove it couldn't have begun at that point, this also works for all the examples except the final one where it had possibly always been flowing. Yet if time had always been flowing then it would have to have been flowing forever, which if that's the case, it would be considered eternally passing and would defy its own logical reasoning since an eternal entity is a timeless entity or an entity in a realm "beyond time". This is undeniable reasoning which proves time is an artificial construct and thus cannot exist!!

  4. Guest

    could not watch the whole doc...not enough time... :) (but good so far)

  5. Nathan Cory

    Time in the physical world is simply a method of measurement regarding distance / space. Fundamentally time is psychological. Time is the result of thought.
    Memory (knowledge/experience) is the past.
    We project memory (knowledge/experience) into the future when we worry or desire, etc.
    Since time is fundamentally psychological, essentially all past, present, future, are in the now.
    So if one were to just act instantly, completely without thought, then there is literally no time! It's just action.

  6. Edward Campbell

    Dear Michio:

    There is one aspect of age-enhancing genetic research which is not broached...

    What do we do with the 7 billion people on the planet already; and the 2 people born every second?

    The gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ is certain to increase, despite the news that 50% of the world’s population now lives in cities This ratio is likely to grow because of the attraction of amenities and jobs, in so-called ‘civilization’.

    By 2050 the projected population of Earth will be at least 9 billion.

    If people are destined by science to artificially live for 200 -1000 years or more, (as was broached in the sci-fi film ‘Dune’) there are going to be severe perceived restrictions on the ones not able to access such powerful ‘progress’, and status-enhancing mechanisms.

    Those that can afford their own extremely expensive time bubble will invariably lock themselves away from the majority of humanity, while the rest of us wither and die. History proves that the politics of envy will always cause problems where there is blatant imbalance in opportunities of choice. Life extension being the most valued.

    As is always the case, the exploited majority pays for the lifestyle (or in this instance, life extension) of the super rich. Those that can afford it will suddenly, for personal safety, stop telling the truth about their age, but now that we live in a hyper-connected world their personal details will be splashed across a thousand ‘celebrity news’ web sites and a million blogs.

    1. tankman

      No worries there are plans to destroy about 70% of the human race over the next hundred or so years

    2. Space_Cadet_1952

      Where did you get this priceless piece of Wikileaks information? Who by? How? So many questions Mr Assange...

  7. The N.T.C.Y.

    I hate the new utube. Another part of our lives that has become infected with the commercialization of clean living and clean entertainment. I find it disturbing that it is impossible to get away from advertisement. This was the reason I disconnected my tv and cable and started downloading torrent files. I can understand 1 but not 4 commercials in 25 mins. ;-( bad utube

    1. POZZIMYSTIC

      Have you heard of adblock plus? it's free eliminates commercials completely

    2. vlboogie

      I agree with you 100%. Very bad move on utube's part.

    3. ali khan

      So if there were no ads where they will get money to add more servers to their database. lol I have got no problems with ad. google needs money in order to run youtube free.

  8. Paki Hooligan

    King caught the prank..

  9. Xercès Des Stèles

    funny how this doc about time abruptly ends during the middle of an interview with a lady whos husband has the worst known case of amnesia...

    i mean really i cannot watch the end, it stops at 3:19/9:37 on part 6/6...

    wtfffffffff

  10. Daryl Walters

    As a non scientist, I found this doc great. Thankyou for giving us this for free!

  11. DonDon1

    OK i watched this quite some time ago and some of it was entertaining. However, any notion of going backwards in time is simply poppycock. Tell me what respected scientist(s) actually believe it's possible and how so.

  12. SONNYCORBI

    I have not watched this doc yet but i will. Time may be relative to perception? For example if i were to design a new type of automobile first there is an inert feeling/desire then thought about this auto begins to surface then perhaps a drawing then a clay sculptor of the auto, (simplifying things here), and then finally the full size auto is complete. Now lets say this whole process from the concept state to the end product takes five years to complete from concept to finished result. Now divide infinity into five years (the larger number into the smaller number); that would be instant creation. Our perception/allusion of time may be based on our life span, how long we manifest this form, say 75, years. But if our perception came from the concept state without the form then time would not exist. You see these theoretical physicist have to have something they can hold in their hand or hit with a hammer, an atom a string or what have you. Understand this, if there were no form just pure energy without form they would have to classify their findings under metaphysics.

  13. NicodemoA

    It is only when we eradicate death from our expereince that we will become truly human. Our current "human" state is not our normal state rather one that is severely distorted and limited within the concept of time

  14. RobotGuru

    isn't time just a man made concept?, when your checking what time it is...your just measuring your position on earth in correlation to the sun, in essence time isn't an energy, it's only a measurement of motion...that was originally made to determine when the sun will come/go....assuming this is correct, does that mean that mean the concept of past, present, and future are man made as well?

    1. Eric Gilpin

      Time is a very real phenomenon that occurs, as far as we know, in every place in the universe and at every possible speed. It does not relate to our position in correlation with the sun because our sun is in this one place. unless of course you are talking about "daytime" which is our 24 hour cycle on earth.

      Time is essentially the recording of events. When you walk to the store you create a visual map in the fourth dimension from point A to when you stop moving.

      Home -------------------------------You----------------------------> Store

      All events prior to where you currently sit are in the "past" and the outcome of the event you are in is the "future". remember that this is one long line of time.

      But of course there is rarely a set timeline. Many choices will face you on your epic quest to the store. These alternate paths can be represented as branches.

      Park
      /
      /
      /
      Home -------------------------------You----------------------------> Store

      So, to sum it all up:
      -No humans did not invent time, but we discovered the concept on our own
      -We did invent the word "Time" through language
      - When we find a new advanced civilization out there they will likely understand time as we do

      ...But I'm 17 years old what the f*** do I know

    2. Jessica Casey

      I would agree that time, past, present, and future are all man-made concepts. I am not a physisist by an means, but in my opinion, time is simple a means of measuring change. The earth turns, people age (for various reasons), seasons change, growth and decay. There is no driving force for this other than forces like gravity, motion, magnetism, etc. Although, this is just my opinion.

  15. oskarmajhi

    I definitely believe that the nitrous oxide effects time. I fell asleep once to the scrolling cast appearances at the end of a film, I had a dream where i had some nitrous. I felt I was dreaming that dream for hours. So many things happened in it. When I woke up the credits had barely moved so i had another one . I was sleeping for no more than 40 seconds then had a snozzle . I wondered, how can I perceive or “imagine” nearly an entire days worth of very specifically detailed events, in under a minute?

  16. jw

    I was once stuck in a 10 second time loop, I escaped once the Nitrous Oxide wore off.

  17. Juggernaut Davis

    I won't watch past part I. This is a simpleton's analysis of time hosted by the flashiest physicist they could drum up.

    I wouldn't show this documentary to 14 year old science students...which seems to be who the target audience is.

    1. Daryl Walters

      Wow mate! It's absolute gugs like you that put people off science. If you're sooooooo smart, why are you watching docs? Is you're best mate "Sheldon Cooper"?
      You're a wanker mate! Lol!

  18. Tony

    Have not finished watching so my comment may be updated later. I saw the first doc and if it sets the stage for the others then I believe the idea is to prove time is ticking away at it's normal pace and there is not one thing we can do about that. However the perception of time is relative to the viewer ( Your Self ) and your state of mind at the moment. If you are skydiving and experience the slow motion effect that dose not mean everyone's sense of time is affected or could be affected at that moment just because you are falling. I was a race car driver for several years and experienced the slow motion affect every race. I think that is part of the addiction to racing.

  19. brendan

    The fact that the guy was FALLING is the only thing that could have affected time. GRAVITY affects time, and nobody knows exactly what that is. The experiments and speculation are bullsh*t.

  20. ?es

    i think the time is just energy when we control the energy we have the time or the energy matter given the energy time.mean some energy matter(x) - some energy matter (y) if the speed of energy(x) > the speed of energ(y) element (xy) have the time

  21. Candace

    I definitely believe that the brain effects time. I fell asleep once to the scrolling cast appearances at the end of a film, I had a dream where a myriad of events occurred. I felt I was dreaming that dream for hours. So many things happened in it. When I woke up the credits had barely moved. I was sleeping for no more than 40 seconds. I wondered, how can I perceive or "imagine" nearly an entire days worth of very specifically detailed events, in under a minute?

  22. Mohammed

    I think this is a b****** documentary and with wrong title well i think the title should be 'age' rather than 'time'.'brain can slow down the time' that is the most ridicules claim i have ever heard. well brain may flow adrenalin to increase the frame at we normally see (24fps). but again title is misleading.

  23. Robert

    The flow of adrenalin is about the perception of time. That is why when one is in an accident, it is said that it happened in slow motion. Chemicals such as the THC in marijuana also effect the perception of time --slowing it for the perceiver.

  24. TUKAI

    it has worth to watch..
    time is only one valuable knowledge....

  25. Mark

    The flow of Adrenalin is not directly correlated to brain synapse, thus suspended time could be perceived as the reality you want to see. So in effect the mind could change time.

  26. vitaloverdose

    the mind changes time ? How about the synapse in the brain increase with the flow of adrenalin. This is a pointless experiment and does not prove what the makers of the video claim it does.

  27. Vlatko

    Corrected. Thanks Randy Phillips.