Concept of time in Physics and Metaphysics

Dr.M.R.IyerFormer Head, RSSD, BARC

& Ex-IAEAiyermr2007@gmail.com

Website:https://sites.google.com/site/mriyerweb/

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Units of time visualized in the ancient treatises of Hindu

philosophical thought encompass a stupendous wide range

right from a fraction of a microsecond to 10E22 seconds

encompassing 30 decades.

All these units were given names - from the infinitesimal Truti,

lasting less than 1/ 3,000,0000th of a second to a

Mahamanvantara of 311 trillion years.

In modern science the units considered relate to

atomic/nuclear times to age of the universe and beyond.

More fundamental is the cyclic nature of time envisaged in

ancient scriptures many millenniums back.

What was the need for our ancestors to visualize these time

scales? We have to brood over this. Unless one had

application of these, nobody would so meticulously give a

definition to these.

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A day Ahorathram (sidereal as distinct from lunar) was divided into 60 Ghati (Nazhika) and again into 60 Vighati (Vinazhika). The now familiar subdivision of a day into hour, minutes and seconds were not used in those days. Even now astrological calculations use Nazhika and Vinazhika. Further submultiples in terms of 60 divisions were Lepta, Leekshaka, Lava, Renu and Truti in that order (see chart). Truti is the lowest unit of time as per this scheme and is equivalent to 33 nanoseconds (33 x 10E-9 of a second). On the higher side the multiples of day were paksha (2 phases of the moon), masa, rithu (seasons), ayana (the 2 equinoxes – Dakhinayanam and Utharayanam), year, cycle of 60 years, the 4 yugas-Satya – 1728000 yrs, Dwapara 1296000 yrs, Thretha 864000 yrs, Kali 432000 yrs, Manvathara (71 Maha yugas – sum of 4 yugas), Kalpa (Brahma’s day time – 1000 mahayugas), year of Brahma and Mahamanvanthara (life of one Brahma)MRI/BARCOA/SATAS2014 3

The 8.64 billion years that mark a full day-and-night cyclein Brahma’s life is about half the modern estimate forthe age of the universe. This closely relates to the age ofthe universe as the time elapsed since the big bang bymodern astronomical observations and models as 13.978billion years. There is a remarkable closeness of the twoobservations. We can as well visualize the time betweenbig bang to big bang as Brahma’s one day!

I shall quote translation of an extract from Rig Veda (X:129) to show our ancients thought of creation which issimilar to the start of “Big Bang”. No doubt, greatscientists who had seen the boundary of science such asEinstein and Oppenhemier were influenced by Hinduscriptures:

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Hinduism is the only religion that propounds the idea of life-cycles of the universe. It suggests that the universe undergoes an infinite number of deaths and rebirths. Hinduism, according to Carl Sagan, "... is the only religion in which the time scales correspond... to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of the Brahma, 8.64 billion years long, longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang.

The Big Bang theory envisages that the universe started out of nothing in an incomprehensible short time of 10E-43 sec from a point. Prior to that nothing existed, no space, time, matter or energy. There is no better description of this “singularity”, as it is called today, more eloquent than that contained in the Rig veda X-129It continues to expand and cool to this day and we are inside of it: incredible creatures living on a unique planet, circling a beautiful star clustered together with several hundred billion other stars in a galaxy soaring through the cosmos, all of which is inside of an expanding universe that began as an infinitesimal singularity which appeared out of nowhere for reasons unknown. This is the Big Bang theory. If as some scientists think the universe could collapse and then we are back to the point where we started and then perhaps the Brahma’s second day would begin! Compare these statements of science with those contained in Rig Veda

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The Hymn of Creation (Rig Veda X-129)

At that time there was neitherexistence nor non-existence,neither the worlds nor the sky.There was nothing that was beyond.There was no death, nor immortality.There was no knowledge of the day and night.That one alone breathed, without air, by itself.Besides that there was nothing.....Men of vision found in their meditative state,the connection between the Being and the Non-Being.All gods were subsequent to this creative activity.Then who knows from where this came into existence!Where this creation came from ,whether He supported it or not,He who is controlling it from the highest of the heavens,He perhaps knows it or He knows it not !

-What could be more for eloquent testimony of the wisdom of our ancestors!

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The macro units of time are visualized through themovement of heavenly bodies seen through theinner mind, but it is still more surprising where wasthe need for visualizing the sub multiples of asecond which encompasses in today’s scientificparlance the atomic and nuclear times. It is mindboggling to see how a human mind can visualizesuch extremes of time scales.We must appreciate that concept of zero invented byancient Indians is the basis for building these timescales. Without the concept of zero these wide rangeof time units would not have been possible.

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Nobody could have conceived the infinitesimal time andinfinity of time without this concept. The Arabs throughtheir trade connections got inkling of the Hindu concept ofZero and carried it to the west. And quite paradoxically thenumber system came to be known as Arab numerals whichwas quite unfair to the higher intelligent culture of theHindus of the past. The western culture seems to be quitebiased against the wisdom of the Indians which is a legacyof the British colonization.It is unfortunate that many review books on the topic fromeven by people like Stephen Hawking, Elton while devotingpages after pages on biblical concepts ignore these richtreasure of human knowledge in Hindu scriptures. Evenwe don’t include these topics in the university system!

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Modern astronomy also envisages universe of acyclic nature. This cyclic nature was conceived manymany centuries ago in Hindu philosophy. The Hinducalendar is based on scientific basis and onplanetary movements. It is the only calendar wherethere is a cycle of 60 years with names. This goes toconclude they envisaged beyond the movement ofsun and the moon and worked with concepts of thewhole universe.The European system of year and dates have beenmore on immortalizing personalities such July afterJulius Caesar and trying to have the maximumnumber of days indicative of more powerful kings.

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Often it has been said that how the “primitive” Indians would have thought deeply about the planetary motions without the aid of any scientific gadgets. Many modern discoveries such as quantum mechanics have been the result of intuitive thinking by scientists. George Sudarshan who once drew analogy of modern science and religion; both involve full faith. Nobody has ever seen the inside of the atom as spheres of electrons moving around the nucleus! And we believe it. Cognitive science and intuition today are not treated as contradictory but complementary.

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What is Time?For the earthlings time is intrinsically related to the rising and setting of the sun.Concept of time is governed by the sequential registering of events in our brain through our senses, it is subjective. What we refer as Time is in reality an interval of time. Man quantified it using various terrestrial methods. • Sun dials which make use of the shadow of the sun. • Use of flow of water or sand to measure time. • Period of pendulum. Man made use of this to make machines for

measuring time. Invention of clock escape mechanism .• Spring controlled motion for use as clock. • Frequency of vibration from a crystal • More precise clocks the atomic frequency of oscillation of atoms.• In addition to that we have the biological clock in our body which is

related to the growth and death of cells in the body.In each of the mechanisms which is used to measure time we are trying to find the time intervals using different phenomenon and cannot be termed as universal.

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Sufficient for all purposes for earthbound beings. But when we try to conceive the universe at large naturally the question arises “What is absolute Time?” Can it be measured by any of the methods developed in the terrestrial environment at all? Time has a unique property which Elton calls arrow of time means it is unidirectional.The problem arises when man tries to extrapolate the time concept to the universe at large.Time is related to human memory or storage of events in our memory without which there is no correlation of time. One year in the mental clock of a ten year old would be much longer than one year in the life of a 50 year old man - Hammond in his book “Time Wrapped”

What is the concept of time for a firefly whose life is only a few hours? How different it is from ours? Is it possible that the concept of time could be different for some intelligent beings whose life span is significantly longer than oursIs it fair to assume the concept to be same throughout the universe and propound theories of the universe?

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Delving into the Units of time used in the Vedas led me to review the concept of TIME itself and the close parallelism that can be found in our ancient scriptures and that is evolving in modern Physics. There is the story of King Kakudumi visiting Brahmaloka seeking Brahma’s blessings for a suitable bridegroom for his daughter. The King had to wait and when Brahma listened to the King’s request after the concert, laughs and enlightens him thus: (Vyasa’s Srimad Bhagavatham 9.3.32)

tatputra-pautra-naptṝṇāṁgotrāṇi ca naśṛṇmahe

kālo ’bhiyātas tri-ṇava-catur-yuga-vikalpitaḥ

Oh! King, all those whom you may have decided within the core of your heart to accept as your son-in-law have passed away in the course of time. Twenty-seven chatur-yugashave already passed. Those upon whom you may have decided are now gone, and so are their sons, grandsons and other descendants.

One has to understand the underlying principle. The methodology used by our ancient rishis is to take recourse to analogies and similes by means of stories to make it discernible the findings of their deep meditation to the common man.

This is a case of illustration of time dilation. MRI/BARCOA/SATAS2014 13

It is stupendous that this principle of relative time was propounded by rishis of the distant past. It also gives a numerical idea of time dilation. Brahma’s day is said to be 3.1 billion solar years of man on the earth. Is it not somewhat similar to the postulates in quantum mechanics? Often one wonders if Einstein was not influenced by this Hindu notion of time dilation when he was brooding as to how to overcome the observation that the velocity of light is constant!

Einstein’s theory of relativity also precisely pictures a similar effect viz. if one travels very near to the speed of light then the time intervals for the two observers could be vastly different.

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The space-time picture of the universe is abstract in both the systems. For example in quantum theory we are told that “what is appealing to common sense” is not the right thing! Without going into the intricacies of the theories. I can only say that both the systems call for studied faith in the masters! And make one conclude that the Physics and Metaphysics converge at this point.

The analogy of Einstein’s twins paradox which says that if one of the twins travels at 50% speed of light and returns to earth he will find his brother 20 years older! Is this different from the story of the King Kakudumi visting Brahmaloka ? We should note that the aging process cannot simply be applied since that is governed by the biological aging of the cells and nothing to do with time dilation! However everybody believes that analogy but not the story of King! That gives us something to chew on!! MRI/BARCOA/SATAS2014 15

Modem science do the same thing as theancients did “meditation” in which they try toconnect some observations through modelswhich is again the result of intuitive approach toa possible distant past. Stephen Hawing in hisrecent book talks of reality as only “modeldependent” which closely corresponds to theconcept of “MAYA” in our scriptures. Themedium of “modelling” or hypothesis restrictedto conjectures only when we are perforced toreduce the effects to be translated to thatdiscernible to one of our five senses! This is sowhether it is the model of the atom, nuclearforces, or the black holes or the universe. So themethodologies are almost same.MRI/BARCOA/SATAS2014 16

We need to translate any theory into model dependent reality appealing to our 5 senses. This is nothing but Maya:

"For that which we cannot see, feel, smell, touch, or understand, we do not believe. For this, we are merely fools walking on the grounds of great potential with no comprehension of what it is (Maya).“

- Buddha’s disciple

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A Fine Tuned WorldMahadeva R Iyer

In Bouquet & Garlands, Authors Press, 2007https://sites.google.com/site/mriyerweb/

Thank you very much for your TIME!MRI/BARCOA/SATAS2014 18