Illusion of time. A man invented time, or rather a timer. Yes, it is a timer that every day keeps its report from 00:00 to 24:00. This timer takes its cycle order from the so-called "Atomic clock", where the interaction of particles is taken as the reference period. Also, this timer is synchronized with the change of day and night and its name is Universal Time. You can conduct a simple experiment, close yourself in a room where there are no windows, only artificial lighting, there is no electronics. And being there with the light constantly on, at some point you will realize that you have lost track of time, the illusion of time will cease to affect you.

The past is just your memories and the consequences of interactions with the world in the present. The past is just a log file. And the future is a causal relationship of this interaction in the present. That is, if you hit the ball, then at the moment of impact you create this connection. If you see all the interactions along the path of this ball, then you can say that you looked into the future). But this is just math in the present. Why is this illusion so stable, and we still continue to live by the timer. Our body constantly interacts with the environment, we breathe, move, eat, we are in constant interaction with the outside world, and the external environment is very aggressive towards our body. Starting with the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, the stress we experience. We completely forgot about our body, switching our attention to the clothes we wear, we spend much more time chasing fashion. And we do not notice that our body gradually wears out as a result of aggressive exploitation, at some point there is an anguish and the body ceases to have time to recover. This is how aging begins. But where in all this process is time? It is simply not there, there is only interaction and no time. This interaction takes place right now in the present, at this very moment, because there is no other. It is necessary to feel it, to feel that there is only a way of interactions. For example, let's take a chessboard, arrange the pieces and just sit and watch. And what will we see before us? We will see the pieces on the chessboard and nothing else, we will continue to sit and watch stubbornly, and still the pieces, "time" has passed and nothing has happened, there are no changes, it is not tangible, in this case we know about it only from the timer. And if we rearrange the figures, what happens? We look at the chessboard and see the figures again, turning to memory we understand that they have changed their original state. That is, an interaction took place, the pieces went their way along the chessboard, a completely tangible action that is associated with the clock. But these clocks have nothing to do with the movement of chess! There was an interaction and a memory of it appeared, a picture that, by the way, though about the past but in the present. The picture is in this moment here and now, and no matter what information it carries. And the nature of the information will always be the same, which will reflect the result of the interaction. In our example, there will be a picture in which all the figures are in their original position. That is, until you interact with them. It turns out that the past is only a memory of interactions. And we notice the past only by the fact that there are memories of events, actions. We do not remember events that did not happen, we do not remember the day in which nothing happened. Whenever we turn to this past, we turn to the present, and it doesn't matter if we turn to our memory, look at a photo or video. All this action takes place in the present. If you mentally imagine a certain room in which nothing can be broken, where there is no change of day and night, seasons, no aging, and you leave you alone, then you will never feel or invent any past and future in this room. This whole illusion of the past exists only because of external factors, but this is just an illusion that dissolves upon careful consideration. The same applies to the future, the projection of a causal relationship in the present. At this moment you think that you know your future, at least the nearest, for example, tomorrow. But this is also an illusion, nothing more than a projection. But the implementation of this projection is possible, with a miscalculation of all possible interactions that occur. Since everything is interconnected, it is necessary to calculate all decisions, all people, because even someone's indirect interaction can affect the course of events. But in the end, if you imagine that someone has done this huge work, then ultimately its result will be just variations of certain events with different percentage potential for implementation. This action will be akin to fortune-telling on coffee grounds, of course, in some cases everything will go more possible way development, but there will also be a case where everything goes differently. Based on this, the future of this is only a possibility, a set of variations from the present. There is no future, just like the past, there is only the present and there is a timer by which we live, creating the illusion of time.

Man, unfortunately, is so attached to this timer that his whole life revolves around him. His morning starts with a timer, his work in progress according to the timer, his lunch is again a timer, dinner is there, it's time to sleep and our timer made his way here. It is present in all aspects of life, we focus on it as if it is a natural course of events, everything is as it should be, as it should be. But this stopwatch reflects only the landmark of sunset and dawn, but nothing more. And what functions does this device actually perform in society? As we can see, it regulates our activity, our whole life, that is, in fact, it is a device for counting and indirect control. Which considers how much we work, how much we rest, determines when we eat and sleep. A modern person is like a squirrel in a wheel, always in pursuit, everything is trying to keep up with this time, he still worries that this time is always catastrophically short. Pushed myself into limits. Perhaps now you understand the absurdity of this situation, when a person artificially created time and now he himself suffers from its lack.

If you observe your thoughts for at least a day, you can easily understand that a significant part of them does not bring any benefit and, on the contrary, becomes the cause of irritability, inattention and loss of energy. Oddly enough, but the best solution to many problems is simply being in the "now" moment. It is enough to take your thoughts under observation: try to notice their appearance, not develop them, but focus on what is happening around (for example, consider various items with close range listen to the sounds, feel the sensations of your body).

The illusion of time has deeply penetrated our consciousness. We constantly predict the future, hover in dreams, wait for something, or over and over again experience long-past events and grievances. In fact, there is no future or past. The future never existed, because all thinking about it takes place in the present. The past has lost its meaning psychologically) immediately after the appearance. Only the moment now is really important, because only in it our whole life happens.

Eventually we have two possibilities:

1. live an illusory life in our thoughts and imagination
2. try to be fully present in the now moment.

The overwhelming majority chooses the first option of existence, but not of their own free will, but out of not knowledge, habit, or because of the prevailing stereotype of the behavior of others.

You can learn to stay in the present by carefully observing your thoughts and emerging fantasies. It is advisable to create a habit of tracking and stopping internal dialogue, to replace it with contemplation and listening to reality.

When you are fully present in the present, everything around you changes. The colors of the once gray, faded space bloom with unprecedented shades, the surroundings acquire unprecedented sharpness and three-dimensionality. One has only to look at how the old asphalt strikes the eye with a myriad of unseen details. Any tree attracts the eye with the most complex geometric pattern of the bark. Every object, every little thing around acquires a kind of fabulous charm. Now you are looking at the surrounding landscape as if for the first time, contemplating the majestic pictures of everyday life. There are no goals to be achieved. There are no problems that appear out of nowhere. Everything is perfect for you, everything is achieved. It remains only to stay in the ever-flowing now.

Evgeny Trubitsin

• Translation

My grandfather was a watchmaker. When I was a kid, I used to sit at his big wooden table for a long time, watching him assemble all these mechanisms, consisting of dozens of tiny parts. All his patience, determination and precision, which he put into every detail of his mechanisms, always delighted me.

Watching the working mechanism at first you feel some kind of magic. Whereas Digital Watch they look somehow cold and boring, seeing the watch engine you are immediately fascinated by it and the craftsmanship that made it all work. I myself had a watch only at the age of 12, when my grandfather offered one of his works. And putting them on my wrist, he said something that I will never forget:

Remember, time is the most precious gift for everyone.

Maybe not as dramatic as Uncle Ben in his last words from the movie Spider-Man, but his words always pop into my head when I think about the design of something. Time is the most valuable and limited resource we have.

The Significance of Time in the Digital Age

Creating a digital experience comes with an ingrained panacea, which is speed and performance. Amazon has calculated that if their site load time increases by just one second, then this will lead to a drop in sales annually by $1.6 billion. Google will lose almost 8 million search queries and results for them, if their page loses one-fourth of a second in speed - unbelievable!

So what are we to do?

We create a representation of the budget while trying to stay within it, run image optimization, minify our Javascript and CSS, cache our assets located on servers in the most exotic places on the globe.

But there is one "but". First, speed does not mean better interaction. And secondly, the importance of time is a very subjective value, as Einstein aptly noted:

“When you spend time with a beautiful girl for an hour, it seems to you that only one minute passes, however, when you sit on a hot stove for a minute, it seems to you that an hour passes.”

Think back to when you didn't have your "best" day in a long time? Time has suddenly slowed down and the only thing on your mind is, “Why am I not sitting on my plush couch watching the latest episode of Game of Thrones yet. And this is just one of the thoughts that just overwhelm your head at such a moment.
When you look at your watch, you literally feel how slowly time passes. Sometimes it even seems that the hands of the clock stop for a second.

But here comes the weekend, and the perception of time changes dramatically. A disproportionate amount of new experiences changes your sense of time. And why are working days dragging by so slowly while weekends just fly by.

Time<>interactive design

Time is key criterion interactive design. At the end of the day, absolute minutes and seconds users have to wait for no reason. About how people interact with design and remember it, Amazon lifts the veil of this magic.

UIE research has compared user experience to the speed of web pages. The results showed that users rated Amazon's responsiveness faster than About.com, on average, although the first page fully loaded on the order of 36 seconds, against 8. It is amazing! Users are not looking for shortcuts...
When users do only what they intended, then the site is perceived by them as a quick resource.

How is this possible?

We don't see time as absolute value. Its perception depends more on the individual state and context. When we enjoy the process itself, we barely have time to keep track of time. This rule applies to user interfaces as well. Well-designed interfaces are perceived by us as faster, when in fact they are not.
Let's take a look at what types of design strategies we can use to change our perception of time and possibly create a more dynamic user experience.

1. Keep user busy

Have you ever been to Manhattan? When you stand near pedestrian crossing, while waiting for the green light, you become an observer of the amazing patterned behavior of a person. People greedily press the signal button in the hope of somehow reducing the waiting time. The frequency of pressing these buttons usually proportionally increases the level of irritability of other pedestrians.
While most people just don't know that:

About 90% of all Manhattan pedestrian buttons simply don't work.

So why are all those buttons still there? Why doesn't the metropolis get rid of them if they're just empty shells?
In fact, the only question is what we mean by performance. People, by pressing this button, often subconsciously shorten the waiting time than it actually is. These buttons work, and they work amazingly. Just not the way we think.

Keeping users busy is one of the oldest and most effective strategies to reduce wait times. This is the basis for the presence of mirrors in our elevators; why there are always books and tabloids in the waiting rooms, and why we tend to constantly fiddle with our cell phones, checking the time, in anticipation of an upcoming meeting.

But what about the web?

In those good old days when people used Internet browser Explorer, we have always observed a white canvas before new page has been loaded.

The whiteness that filled the entire space of the page created some kind of self-reflection and uncertainty.
Small changes introduced in subsequent versions were able to correct this situation. By saving the current tab view before the new page is loaded, IE gave the illusion that sites were loading much faster, simply because users kept interacting with the content.

Disney Land is well known for reimagining the idea of ​​traditional queues in the direction of having a good time. Borrowing basic principles from architecture, they are confident that if a person at the beginning of the line sees its end, then he will never be demoralized. You move through the various stages of the queue, which open more and more "magic". Some people go as far as the Disney Land workers say, just standing in line because they enjoy the process.

To summarize; the signal buttons we discussed earlier do their job in terms of user interaction. Although technically they don't do anything, they function perfectly psychologically.

If you want to create a smoother experience, stop looking at technology as a panacea. So let's make waiting times shorter by offering people helpful tips, links, quotes and more, adding a touch of meaning.

2. Take action with optimism

Today's web and mobile applications stuffed with microstats. Whether it's a like heart on Instagram or a retweet button on a microblog; applications just need to talk to servers all the time.
Each such interaction requires a connection to the backend, which in turn carries potential delays in the operation of the interface. Let's take a look at what we can do to get rid of the latter and make our applications feel multivendor responsive.
Research goes back to 1968, suggesting that we roughly divide response time into three categories:

100 milliseconds
Any response with a wait time of 100 milliseconds is considered to be instantaneous. Check it out on your phone. Most mobile websites have an annoying click delay of up to 300 milliseconds. These extra milliseconds can create a noticeable notch in the opinion about the speed of the interface.

1 second
The user continues to be "tete-a-tete" with the application, but the feeling of control over the instantaneous reaction of the elements is lost.

10 Seconds
Represents the absolute limit before the user starts thinking big.

By all means, we are trying to meet these sweet 100 milliseconds of time. The design strategy from Mike Krieger says "Take action with optimism" in an attempt to solve this problem.
Instead of showing a loading indicator, by liking a photo on Instagram, the user sees the heart icon instantly wake up while the connection with the server is established behind the scenes. This makes the interaction smoother, as the user's work will only be interrupted when an error occurs.

Twitter uses the same technology.

To summarize; design and build more lively user interfaces that will only enhance the presentation of the flow, giving people an instant response.

3. Use interface transitions

Animation has become a key element of modern user interface design. And if time and space are an integral part of interactive design, then animation is the key to its expression. We introduce animation as nothing more than a decoration for our application, but it is an incredibly powerful tool for teaching users how to interact, storytelling, enhancing streaming experience, but also for branding interactions.

When it comes to using animations, time is of the essence. crucial. Tighten with it - and you will simply force users to view your miracle transitions. Make it too short and users will probably just skip it. important details. There are enough articles on this topic, so I won't go into it here.

However, in the context of time perception, there is important point which we must take into account. We can use animation to reduce the perceived wait time. Take a look at the example below:

This animation is quite slow, isn't it? If we constantly see her, then inevitably she will annoy us. But using this kind of animation, we can buy extra time while the new content is loading. Slow animations can shift the focus away from the wait time to the app's usage experience. The critical factor here is the moment if we encounter this trick again and again.

To summarize; the more consciously we experience the waiting time, the longer it becomes. Like a magician, using animation, we can capture the attention of users and focus it on what we want.

4. Avoid Modal Spinners

Have you ever wondered why you always end up in the longest line at the store? The reason for this lies in significance.

We are constantly facing slow queues. We then tell others about our bad experiences during casual after-work gatherings. Moreover, the more we talk about it, the more significance we attach to this event in our memory. The next time in a similar situation, the same moment will surely pop up in our subconscious, and after it, negative emotions. As a result, we have a completely biased assessment of what is happening and are forced to think that in similar situations we find ourselves more often than everyone else.

The same applies to ajax spinners and other indicators of activity.

No matter how beautiful this indicator is, after you come across hundreds of such elements, different in their shape and color, you will definitely think: “This guy is just eating my time.”

“The idea of ​​showing a progress bar is certainly a good idea, but in the end the result may not turn out to be better side, because by definition, such elements make you pay attention to the very fact that you need to wait.

- Luke Wrublevsky.

For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that spinners are not always a bad decision. The bad decision is how we use them. Let's look at two approaches when building a chat application.

Approach A
Whenever the user presses the send button of a message, a modal spinner pops up on the entire page indicating that the message is in this moment heading off.
Approach B
Whenever the user presses the send message button, a small indicator appears next to the message being sent. And as soon as the server returns a response to the request, the indicator will disappear.

So which approach do you think is better? It's obvious, isn't it? While Approach A creates friction by forcing the user to look at the indicator every time they send a message, Approach B carries the perception of inseparable interaction.

Compare this to the "Add to Favorites" microblog button we discussed earlier. Just imagine how annoying it would be for users if every time they clicked on this button, they had to wait for the moment when the request was fully processed on the server. In this case, you would immediately refuse to use this feature.
Although such a solution is not only applicable to the chat application. It applies to all kinds of interactions associated with microstates. Approach B is obviously better, but people still go for Approach A because they think it's easier to implement.

To summarize; the use of indicators is acceptable. But you should avoid full-screen spinners that block the rest of the user interface.

5. Report long wait times

Sometimes long time waiting is just inevitable. The way we present it has a big impact on how people perceive it.
For example, let's consider going to a restaurant. When waiting in a restaurant, several factors come into play:

• Will they serve me immediately? Will I get immediate attention?
• Do I know the approximate waiting time and is it reasonable?
• Do I understand why I need to wait in the first place?
• Was I honestly warned about the waiting time or will I have to wait longer than others?
• Do I like the smell of food in the air?

All these factors create a list of criteria environment for ours further action. In fact, by creating a reality that does not meet expectations, you can easily turn even the most loyal visitor 180 degrees.

The same rules apply to the digital environment, where a little faux pas about an ill-chosen button color can turn a seemingly modest and calm person into the most vicious troll. Let's avoid those moments by helping people use their time more productively.

Progress bars

The first tool that comes to mind when a user needs to display the progress of an action is the good old progress bar. It turns out there are good ones and bad progress bars. So when is this tool bad?

In short, when he lies.

Remember the procedure for installing applications on old Windows versions, which starts incredibly quickly, and after 99% gets a stake for a time that does not meet expectations. If you had known from the very beginning how long the installation process would take, you'd better go and drink coffee. But you can't afford it.
The displayed progress bears incorrect expectations. And instead of enjoying a great latte, you hang around the monitor, waiting for the last percent of the installation to complete. Not inspiring, is it?

And this is not a secret for anyone. Progress bars have been fooling us for years. The task of creating an "honest" progress bar that reflects the real state of the system is by no means trivial.

But maybe we ourselves got "bad" progress bars. Maybe we should rethink why we use them in the first place. Perhaps their purpose never included the possibility of providing accurate information. Or maybe their real advantage lies in building reasonable expectations and providing visual way monitor progress evaluation.

One way to build a "fair" progress bar is to make sure your component is moving at a constant, predictable speed. But that is not all.

Acceleration of progress bars

As mentioned earlier, time is highly subjective. What if we try to change the perception of speed and time using little designer goodies? Will we fly away with such an invention? Research conducted by Chris Harrison tries to answer this question. Here is the research result.

The frequency and rhythm of changes are known to affect the perception of time. Studies have shown that a blinking indicator is perceived more quickly than an ordinary static one. The time illusion became even more intense when they changed the direction of the loading lane's edges in reverse direction. All these slight changes bar progress makes it perceived 11% faster.

Other studies have shown that users are more sensitive to the pour progress of the component itself. As Daniel Kahneman states, “Users prefer loading bars that are faster at the beginning and end of a procedure, while actually coinciding with one or another phase of the process itself.”

Some may object, saying that all these design features are very deceptive and manipulative. I would say it's great. Like traffic light buttons in Manhattan, these design tricks reduce the perception of time and improve the overall user experience.

Try this simple trick: the next time you move a large file to your computer, resize the progress bar window. The wider this window, the faster the progress indicator will be perceived.

Countdown / Estimated end time

While the progress bar is a visual display tool, it is often not enough. Especially long waiting times require a more accurate reading. That's what exists for countdown.

David Meister's not entirely honest research on waiting lines showed that knowing the approximate waiting time, a person perceives it as faster. On the other hand, providing incorrect information can only aggravate the situation.

“Imagine a pilot who relentlessly repeats: “Just a few more minutes”, only adds insult to injury when the wait goes on and on. Passengers are not only forced to wait, but they are already losing faith in his words.”

Users can greatly benefit from displaying such information during long periods of waiting. This gives them a free hand for other things to return to the current one a little later. Again, accuracy is not as important as it might seem. Users need at least approximate information about how long this procedure will take. Will he be able to take his eyes off the screen for a minute or two, or more than 10?

To summarize; speed up your progress bars. Adopt countdown components for long waits, let the user make better use of their time.

6. Load content progressively

A few months ago, I was in London for a conference. Whenever I visit this city, I go to one of my favorite places: Joe & Juice. I just love the atmosphere of this place. Unobtrusive music, plenty of room to work, freshly squeezed orange juice, great espresso and obviously a great Slayer 3-group coffee machine.

This time, my visit to this cozy corner was slightly different. It was a sunny Friday afternoon that disappointed me with a sign on the door of this store about repairs. It was a simple huge one that said: "We are updating for you." I'm sure you've come across similar ones. The point is to fuel the anticipation, you need people to know exactly what innovations you will have in the near future.
Behind recent times, there has been a lot of debate about whether to use the progressive way of rendering images, or just stick to the linear way. The main difference is how the images are loaded:

While the progressive approach uses multiple stages to display a distinct image, the second approach loads the image linearly from top to bottom. The main idea of ​​the progressive approach is to improve the user experience by detailing the object already present on the page, while letting the user know what is happening.

Although this approach is applicable not only to images. Facebook took the idea of ​​progressive image loading as a basis and applied it to his posts. The post that hasn't loaded yet uses this prototype:

Such prototypes set expectations. When you go to facebook.com the user experience is much smoother because something already exists on the page. As soon as the content of the post is fully loaded, the prototype is replaced full text post.
Pinterest uses a similar strategy. Only they fill the pin with the predominant color of the image, until the last one loads on the page.

Going from a prototype to an actual object is more seamless in terms of user interaction, and as a result feels faster to us.
Similarly, we need to prioritize those assets on our page that are above and below the bottom of the web page.

To summarize; Gradual loading of content is as important as the user experience itself, and should be as fast as possible.

Finally

Our perception of time, like every interaction of people with anything, we put into this world in the form various circumstances which we cannot be aware of. And until technology can completely eliminate anticipation, we can take advantage of our subjective perception of the world and make it more lively, seamless and beautiful. Add tags

Illusion of time

Earlier I spoke about the influence of language and words on the formation of a person's subjective reality. We discussed this in the chapter on words, as well as in the chapter on levels of perception of reality. We found out that there are keywords that enter our lives so much that they form the very structure of our experience. Some of these words are words related to time: time, future, past, present. These words create the illusion of the existence of time. In the same chapter on words, an example of a tribe was given in which these words are not used. For them, there is no past or future. In fact, they live only in the present. At the same time, they perfectly coexist with nature and the surrounding world. How is this possible? Or maybe time, as we know it, is not real, but is a product of our language and culture? We are so accustomed to the perception of the world through the prism of time that we do not even think about the correctness of such a view of the world.

Let's deal with some illusions of time.

What is the past? First, let's remember that behind every word there is some kind of image, some kind of meaning that we put into it. What is the "past" for you? What meaning do you put into this word? What image from the inner world appears to you in connection with this word? Personally, my “past” is associated with some pictures in which I see events that once happened to me. I see myself as a child in different circumstances. I see some memorable events from different periods of my life. Also, at the word “past”, I can wave my hand behind my back and say: “This is what has passed”, while in my mind (on inner screen) to see a certain road that winds its way back from my back. Well, I have it, and you? What do you see in your channels of information in response to this word? Whatever you answer, it will all be information from the internal information channel. See for yourself.

I want to ask you a direct question. Can you show me the past right now? If the past really exists, then show it to me. Wherever you show, it will all be either something right here in the present in the present reality, or something that you perceive on the inner screen in your mind. And if so, then it will be already in the present, right here and now.

However, there is a strong feeling that the past definitely exists. This is evidenced archaeological finds, historical documents and just yours personal memory. “I remember cooking dinner for myself yesterday. I remember showering and brushing my teeth in the morning. All this was, although it has passed, ”you say. All this, of course, you can say, but you must admit that everything that you have listed is only your memories. And memories are images in your internal channel of information. That is, in fact, all these images about the past are going right now in your mind, and not in the past.

One more objection can be predicted from your side. You can say that the present is a continuation of past events, that the present is the way it is because you did things in the past. For example, a minute ago you put a glass on the table, and now it is standing there. I want to tell you that when you put down a glass in the past, you actually did it in the present. Just now you remember it as the past. For any question about what happened yesterday or a year ago, you will give out information from memory. And everything that comes from memory is going right now. So all your past is your memories that are going on right now. If you had no memory, would you have a past in your subjective world?

Consider now such a thing as "future". The future is even more unrealistic than the past. When you think about the future, you will most likely imagine how something you expect or expect to see will happen. For example, when you think about the future, you may imagine something that will cause you anxiety, or maybe something that will inspire you to do something. Often they think about the future when they plan something. Perhaps it will be today's evening promenade, or maybe you will imagine how wonderful it will be to relax on the sea this summer. Be that as it may, thinking about the future, in your mind, in your inner channel of information, you build pictures that represent possible development events or what you expect in the future. When you think about the future, you do it now, in the present.

At that moment, when the long-awaited future comes, the reality in it turns out to be not quite what you imagined it to be. I want to note again that if you really find yourself at sea in the summer, as you imagined it, then there you will also be in the present. And all that can be said about the future is that in our mind it is only an imaginary idea of ​​something that is not now, but may soon be. But it will appear again now, in the present.

As a final argument for the illusory nature of the future, I will ask you right now to show me the future. You are unlikely to succeed, because wherever you show, it will again be in that, is in the present. Just as with the past, the future does not belong to the present reality, it belongs to our imagination. The future, as well as the past, are images in our mind. They, at their core, like any abstract image in our mind, are illusory, and are convenient generalizations so that we can successfully navigate the world. There is only the present. In the present, we remember the events that happened to us in the same present. In the present, we imagine what will happen to us in the same present. The past and the future are only the work of memory and imagination.

However, even acknowledging that the past and the future are a figment of the imagination, it still cannot be denied that the events that we remember did take place, and the future will come in one form or another. This is what we see all the time in our lives. How can this be explained, if not by time? I have already told you before that there is a certain objective reality that we do not have direct access to. Our mind, receiving information from it, builds a model of the world for us, i.e. creates our subjective reality. So, time, as we know it, is a model of certain processes in objective reality associated with change. How this actually happens, no one knows, and scientists are trying to figure it out. It is possible to distinguish between objective processes associated with changes by introducing the concept physical time, but for our subjective reflection these processes introduce the concept psychological time.

The time we know is psychological time. Of course, it describes physical time quite well, but it is not really what really exists. Already in the 20th century, Einstein discovered that the physical time in objects moving relative to each other is different. For example, it is known that if a rocket is launched from the Earth, which will move at a speed close to the speed of light, then time on this rocket will go much slower than on earth. And while one year passes on the clock of this rocket, earth clock a hundred years pass. The astronauts will return to a planet where their grandchildren will be older than them. This seems striking to us for one reason - our mind creates only a model of time for us, and does not reflect physical time as it is. There are no objects on our earth that move at a speed close to the speed of light, so the changes in physical time on moving objects are so insignificant that we simply do not notice it and consider it non-existent. For us, this is not significant, and it seems to us that time flows the same way everywhere. This is ours subjective feeling time.

If the past and the future are the construction of our mind, then what can we state right now? Only one thing: right now you can see how the changes are happening. Both the outer world and the inner world are changing. Changes are happening right now. Just watch: there is a permanent now that is constantly changing. But this can already be observed directly, this is the actual reality.

Try to direct your attention to what is happening right in front of you for a minute. You can also watch the events inner world: thoughts, feelings. They are also happening right now. Even if you remember something from the past, it can also be found right now as another thought and image on your inner screen.

If you understand that the past and the future are images in your mind, you can track how often you are absorbed in these images. How often do you remember the events that happened to you. You remember it now, and it affects you now. Influences your thoughts, your emotional condition. Watch how often you go into the future. More precisely, how often do you build expectations, plans in your mind. How often do you worry about something that might be. This anxiety comes again from those terrible images of the future that you are drawing in your mind right now. And when you can catch yourself preoccupied with the past or the future, you can remember that these are just images in your mind. And then you can switch your attention to what is really happening to you right now, to this moment, to the present reality that you are in. And then you will understand that there is only here and now. And that is what all the great spiritual teachers are talking about. It exists only now and only here. Everything else is just a game of the mind, an abstract reality created by the mind.

Time does not exist! One of the latest discoveries of scientists is simply shocking. What then does the concept of "time" mean? Really for modern man it's just the change of day and night and the constantly hurrying hands of the clock? And what about other processes occurring in time, to which all people are subject, for example, growing up or aging? Let's try to understand and understand.

Is time just an illusion? But after all, we all live by the clock: we sleep, we are awake, we work, we eat. It turns out that people themselves came up with time for the convenience of coordinating and controlling the processes and events taking place around us. This may sound strange, but scientific point view time is inexplicable. Although, of course, scientists gave its definition of this seemingly simple concept.

Time is explained as a conditional relative measure of the motion of matter, as one of the coordinates existing space, which contains physical bodies. Philosophy on this occasion says that time is an irreversible direction within which all processes of being exist. It flows only in one direction: past - present - future. And there can be no other deviations here.

How many years time?

The age of time can be determined. Let's dive deeper into physics and remember that our universe was formed in certain point after big bang approximately 13.72 billion years ago. It was then that space, objects, and hence time arose, which will be exactly the same age as the Universe. Before that, there was nothing.

New eras and new events - everything around us is changing and time cannot be stopped, it flows as usual. But where and from where? Scientists all over the world and in all ages have tried to answer this question. Disputes, in the end, ended with just vague definitions.

The passage of time is unfathomable

The unsurpassed theoretical physicist Albert Einstein in his theory of relativity proved the inseparable connection between time and space. With his work, he broke seemingly unshakable ideas about time. After all, Newton believed that time goes the same way anywhere in space. Einstein claimed the exact opposite: only the speed of light was and remains constant, not time. And no object can reach it.

You have probably noticed that sometimes time seems to stop, and sometimes, on the contrary, it moves faster. In such cases, we say: "How time flies!". Let me give you an example from my own practice. I remember it clearly. We were on our way to a very important meeting. I remember when I looked at the clock. Therefore install exact time The entire journey was easy. We arrived at our destination 15 minutes early. This surprised us. After all, we usually drive here for about 45 minutes, but this time we got there in 30! Back we went all the same way, the speed did not change, and the time was noted. It's amazing, but we got back in 43 minutes! This actually happened. And there are other cases when you are in a hurry and just rush at the speed that you are only capable of. And it seems that time has stopped and you are doing everything, as in a slow motion movie. Or, let's say, you can go to work much later and come on time. How and how can this be explained?

Experimentally confirmed the fact that the passage of time slows down under the influence of gravity. In other words, the more powerful gravity, the slower time flows at a certain point. And where gravity is weak, time goes faster. Does this mean that the force of gravity is different on Earth in different places? Or does it only apply to space? How exactly these laws operate on Earth is not clear.

Einstein also put forward a theory that may seem fantastic. According to his assumptions, the faster an object moves, the slower time flows on it. It turns out that the closer the speed of an object to the speed of light, the slower the hours and minutes go at this point. For example, in real time, 1 hour will pass, and on the object, let's say 10 minutes. That is why it seems to us that time seems to slow down. But then it turns out that a person may not feel the speed of light at all. It is hard to believe.

Modern scientists destroy classical ideas about time

Einstein's general theory of relativity would have been considered fundamental for a very long time if it had not collided with modern quantum physics. Science says that light is both waves and at the same time particles.

Two physicists Bryce-DeWitt and John Wheeler more than 40 years ago compiled the Grand Unifying Equation, which explains that everything in the universe is interconnected. Their discovery immediately caused a lot of controversy, because on the other hand it proved that time simply does not exist in nature.

This theory is confirmed by scientists from National Institute standards and technologies. According to them atomic clock check the clocks of the whole world. They claim that these ultra-precise watches do not measure time as such. It is determined only by marks applied to the dial.

The discovery of German physicists

Physicists from Germany Günther Nimtz and Alfons Stallhofen during the experiments recorded the movement of a photon, the speed of which exceeded the speed of light. With this experiment, they once again questioned Einstein's theory of relativity. The researchers said they were able to obtain a known modern physics"tunnel effect" with "zero time". Professor Stalhofen said on this occasion that they were faced with such a paradox of time when an object can be at the end point of the path without even starting to move. Fantasy, and more!

Their experiment, the essence of which we will not delve into, was repeated by other scientists. The experimental results were similar. But it is worth saying that many physicists still rely on the theory of relativity and believe that the speed of light cannot be exceeded, since it is absolute.

An experiment was conducted to achieve the speed of light particles. Accelerating in the accelerator, energy elementary particles increases as speed increases. But, approaching the speed of light, they have an unusual glow. It was called the Vavilov-Cherenkov glow, after the names of the scientists who discovered it. And the faster the particles accelerated, the more they glowed, the faster they lost their energy and slowed down. With such a fast movement, it was not possible to achieve the speed of light.

Black holes and time

What happens inside black holes is impossible to know. But in their area, the forces of attraction are incredibly strong. There, time slows down to infinity. Even the light cannot overcome such a monstrous gravity.

Let's see how this happens with an example. Let's pretend that spaceship falls into a black hole. It flies at breakneck speed and the faster it falls, the faster it accelerates to the speed of light. From the outside it looks different. If we were to watch the flight of a rocket, it would seem to us that it is approaching a black hole indefinitely. Time actually stops there. In reality, it is. Scientists say that there is no science fiction in this.