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Time Quirks: Perceived Time Flow Slowing, Stopping Or Speeding Up

I wonder if anyone can stop time? I think it is a cool power. Anyone know if any articles or anything about it really happening?
 
IIRC it was Brad Steiger (or was it Keel?) who wrote about the
atomic clocks in Denver and Hawaii suddenly being
out of sync for several months, then just as suddenly
slipping back into sync.

The point being that somewhere
between the two clocks, an actual temporal anomaly
occurred. If this happened all the time and either on a larger
or smaller scale, who would notice?

Brings to mind the Star Trek TNG episode where
they kept coming into contact with bubbles of space
where time moved faster or slower.

TVgeek
 
Two not very scientific thoughts came to me reading this thread. The first was
a memory* that when the calendar was adjusted and we lost 11 days, some
folks rioted, feeling they had been robbed of some of their time!

The other was a dim memory of a kiddies' tv show from the sixties. Called the
Magic Boomerang, it was, not surprisingly, imported from Australia. The story
was formulaic: some criminals were foiled or some accident undone by a boy
whose magic boomerang caused time to be arrested, while it was in flight. Being
pre-digital, the actors all had to hold a pose, while the little lad ran about putting things
to rights.

Luckily, he hadn't reached the age when an Aussie lad begins to take an interest in
tying down kangaroos. :p

*not a personal memory of the period, honest
 
I hadn't heard that story about atomic clocks becoming unsynchronised - if it was for real, and not a technical glitch, I suspect the world's physicists would have been fascinated.

Google has so far not turned up anything on it, but for more than you want to know about accurate time-keeping, vist the USNO Time Service
 
I have a sneaking suspicion that the atomic clock/timeslip
story came from Brad Steiger's "Mysteries of Time and Space".
Of course that is the one book I've lent out that has never been returned. (Naturally!)

I'll check the library this weekend and see what I can chase up on the story.

TVgeek

** I'm SURE it was Brad Steiger -- and he repeated it several times in different books. If I can't find a reference for this
soon, I'll email him directly and share the reply!**
 
Time perception - reminds me of the phrase ' A watched pot never boils' ,you have to go off and do something else and come back to it I suppose .

I recall a good short story by Robert Westall , Joanna and the Angel , where an angel stops time ( cant remember why ) except for that experienced by the girl . She couldn't interact with her environment at all because everything had stopped - blades of grass were like static knives that cut , nothing could be moved or changed . This seemed quite a sensible theory to me , if time stops then nothing can change in any way until it starts up again .
( though I suppose you wouldnt be able to breathe either , if you were totally unable to interreact with you environment - it was only a story! )
 
I always had this probelm with a Sekonda watch I used to wear regularily that seemed hold the second when you first looked at it. It used to go on for ages. I was sitting at a desk in school one day when i turned to my mate siting beside me and he was staring at the watch, he had seem this second hand thing two. I own a Citizen Eco Drive now which isn't as had as the Selonda at that but it does a time dilation in reverse, sort of. It has a solar cell and when it goes in the dark, eg coat sleeve goes over it, the second hand stop to conserve energy and when it comes back into light it speeds round to the second when it went into the dark, ive watched people looking at the watch as well, when they see it moving, they dont now what to make of it. Some seem to stare around like theyve just zoned out and a minute of their life flashed by. Often amusing.
 
Not a Selonda, a Sekonda. Tough as nuts Russian watch, big lump of stainless steel
 
Marion said:
I recall a good short story by Robert Westall , Joanna and the Angel , where an angel stops time except for that experienced by the girl. She couldn't interact with her environment at all because everything had stopped - blades of grass were like static knives that cut , nothing could be moved or changed .
Well, even the atmosphere would be as solid as diamond, there would be no light (unless you took a torch)
sounds a bit like the effect of travelling at lightspeed
To be able to move, you would need to slow down time but not stop it
or to put it another way speed yourself up so that everything appears very slow
you would have to contend with problems of high inertia, high friction, and low gravity in this case, but at least you could move
steve b
 
Follow up

Well, I just received a very pleasant email from
author Brad Steiger who says he did NOT mention
the "Atomic-Clocks-out-of-sync" incident
in "Mysteries of Time and Space"
(which he reminded me is still in print!)

I didn't dream this -- I'll have to start cruising
the public library for the details. The timeframe
seemed to be late 60's or early 70's.

I'll get back to you!

TVgeek
 
I dont have any concrete details, but I remember a story once reading that 2 atomic clocks were set to the same time, one was left on the ground and the other was flow around at a high altitude for some time. When the time on the two clocks was compared at the end of the experiment they were found to be different. The story claimed that time was affected by gravity and the speed of light - in much the same way that light and time are affected by a black hole
 
Dirtybob said:
I remember a story once reading that 2 atomic clocks were set to the same time, one was left on the ground and the other was flow around at a high altitude for some time. When the time on the two clocks was compared at the end of the experiment they were found to be different. The story claimed that time was affected by gravity and the speed of light - in much the same way that light and time are affected by a black hole
Quite correct. In fact there's a discussion on this subject here.
 
My synapses fired!!

The atomic-clocks-out-of-sync story was from Martin Caidin (creator of the "Six Million Dollar Man") who was also well known for his demonstrations of psychokinesis. Sadly, he died in 1997.

He wrote several books on the paranormal
including one about experiences on airplanes. This is where
the clock story came from! Now I have to track down my copy
of the book...

TVgeek
 
Why does time seem to pass so much faster the older you get? When I was a kid, summers seemed to last for years, even though they were jam packed with fun and frolicking. Nowadays a year passes and it feels like only a few months. Last week was Xmas ffs! I have to keep asking myself, what did I do with all that time?

So what has changed? I don't think I am any more distracted? Is my brain slowing down? Does anyone else experience this?

I am seriously feeling like someone's stealing my time.

Please don't take too long to reply, I shall be 50 next week I am sure...

:eek!!!!:
 
Theory of relativity…

I think it’s something to do with the proportion of your life a Summer forms and the amount of new things you fit into it.

When you’re five three months is 5% of your life, a year is 20% of your whole life and everything still seems new – it seems a long time.

When you hit say 50 and you’re holding down a fairly mundane job, three months is 0.5% of your life, a year is around 2%, so they’re not such a big deal, quite often not a lot changes, so a Summer and a year seems shorter.

I’m told it gets worse as you get older.

Sorry, but I’ve just realised this is incredibly gloomy.
:(

I'm not getting any younger either.
 
Looking back from my mid-40's, it seems like only yesterday I was surrounded by beautiful young women, late teens and early twenties.....

Hang on, that was yesterday, in the Uni refectory.....

And they were all sitting at other tables :(

Actually, I agree with Timble - it's down to your perception of things. As a 5-y-o, everything is still new and exciting, and a day is a whole series of adventures. Then, by your teens, there's not much left to discover - booze and nookie, really :D - and, into middle age, it's a case of been there, done that, got the scars, and another boring day at the office, or whatever. So, in self-defence, your memory starts skipping the boring bits.....


P.S. My Dad's 70 this year, and he reckons that days seem to last forever, but years pass in an eye-blink...
 
siriuss said:
Just to clear up I'm not any where near 50, only 24. :D

This week you're 24.

25 in a month, 30 in another fortnight, 50 the following week......;)
 
Yup. I reckon it's because as we get older we tend to get into a situation where one day just melts into the next and whole months can vanish unnoticed.

Scary, isn't it?
 
It all get's very strange when you have a child. Time seems to have slowed down, but at the same time I feel as if I have let an agent of time into my life.

'Aty' makes me feel very old.

Cujo
 
Is it possible that with all the energy in a child that is growing, that the mind goes faster due to all the energy & chemicals causing growth and thus time seems to go slower?

And after maturation, you chemically slow down from the growth process, so time seems to speed up when it's just less chemical reactions?

It would be interresting if it were the case, maybe helping explain a part of the "window of opportunity" that children have with remarkable learning abilities when young.

I don't even know if my theory is medically feasible, but I thought I'd throw it out...
 
Yeah I was thinking along those kind of lines. Sounds plausable - also when you are drunk time goes faster, and I'm sure the brain is operating slower!

Or maybe if you surround yourself with children you can nab a bit of their time ... :p
 
I think its a question of memory. Time passes at the same rate but you remember less of it because your memory is more completely full. This also covers the learning thing (although I find that I am learning better now (at 27) than I ever have because I have learned how to learn.
 
This is something that has bugged me for years. I remember when I was 8, me and a friend were watching some 5 year-olds playing cowboys and indians and my friend turned to me and said do you remember when we were like that. It really seemed years and years ago!
I've always felt the younger you are the longer time seems to last. I work in an office and seem to be one of the only people who enjoys it when time seems to drag. I always think that I'm getting more life out of life! (if that makes sense!)
My son is two next week and I can't believe how thats flown by! And yet for him its been an eternity! (if that makes sense as well!)
 
Breakfast said:
...although I find that I am learning better now (at 27) than I ever have because I have learned how to learn.

An important skill. Took me 'til my 40's to do it 'properly' :rolleyes:

Originally posted by cat simon
My son is two next week and I can't believe how thats flown by! And yet for him its been an eternity!


No... for him, it's been a lifetime :)

As I've probably mentioned elsewhere, my nephews and nieces are aged 13 down to 5. Seeing life through their eyes is an education in itself....
 
The more I see small children together the more convinced I am that humans are born evil and only slowly socialised...
 
Yes and no...

I think they're born in a state of perfect innocence, but are possessed by evil by the time they're two.

Then the socialisation process starts (and, for some, stops again PDQ :D )
 
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