them. “Progress” was a product of experiment and observation.
From the concept of existing and nonexisting, one (1) and zero (0), plus (+) and minus (-), the most useful binary numbering system was developed. The first Chinese abacus was invented at least six hundred years ago as a system of doing arithmetic quickly without writing.
The computer was invented in the twentieth century by using electrical current, existing or nonexisting, applied to the binary numbering system one (1) and zero (0). Converting the binary numbers into the hexadecimal numbering system helped lead to construction of the first artificial brain.
The concept of a stone wheel is speed. The inventions of the wagon, car, airplane, space shuttle are the result of improving speed. Technology became human knowledge chasing speed. But humans never will be able to win the race, because speed limit is a part of the law of natural phenomena.
2
About Time
Dr. Paul Davis was a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Adelaide in Australia. He wrote the book About Time in 1995. He examined the deep mysteries of time and explored the consequences of Einstein’s relativity theory in his book. He was critical of Einstein’s concept of time as elastic, warped by rapid motion or gravitation, and that time cannot be meaningful divided into past, present, and future. Davis finds evidence that our current theory of time simply doesn’t add up.
Davis understands Einstein’s space-time concept very well. He knows time inside and outside, from the unit measure of time to cosmic string, from Western philosophy to Eastern philosophy, yet he still said in his book that he doesn’t know what time means to him. Why was he so confused about time? Maybe because most scientists believe in relativity theory rather than actually understanding the theory.
Time Definitions and Quotations
From time to time, time has had different definitions:
[Time is] the measured or measurable period during which an action, process or condition exists or continues. (Webster’s Dictionary, 1971)
[Time is] the period between two events or during which something exists, happens etc. (Webster’s Dictionary, 1976)
[Time is] an interval comprising a limited and continuous action. (Webster’s Third International Dictionary, 1993)
[Time is] a dimension that enables two identical events occurring at the same point in space to be distinguished, measured by the interval between the events. (Encarta World English Dictionary, 1999)
[Time is] the system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other as past, present, future indefinite and continuous duration regarded as that in which events succeed one another. (Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary, 2001)
There are lots of quotations about time in Western history as well as in Eastern history. Here are some that show thinking about the time in different ways:
Time cuts down all, both great and small. (The New England Primer, 1690)
Time is one’s best friend, teaching best of all the wisdom of silence. (A. Bronson Alcott, 1877)
Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean, and the pleasant land. So the little minutes, humble through they be, make the mighty ages of eternity. (Julia Carney, 1845)
Time is a test of trouble, but not a remedy. If such it prove, it proves too. There was no malady. (Emily Dickinson, 1896)
Time is a great legalizer, ever in the field of morals. (H. L. Mencken, 1917)
This is a world that goes slowly, because it has an eternity to go in. (Thomas B. Reed, 1890)
I never yet talked to the man who wanted to save time, who could tell me about he was going to do with the time he saved. (Will Rogers, 1972)
The future is no more uncertain than the present. (Walt Whitman, 1856)
An inch (space) of time has equivalent value of an inch (size) of gold.
(一寸光陰，一寸金)
Time is faster than a flying arrow; sun and moon like spindle does its web.
(光陰似箭，日月如梭)
New Concept of Time
Time has a unique value which never repeats itself. It is a perfect one-time pad for unbreakable encryption technology. (Daniel T. Yu, 1999)
Time is capable of measuring anything which is faster than speed of light. (Daniel T. Yu, 2000)
To study time is to study speed. (Daniel T. Yu, 2002)
The present can never be a part of time just as zero and infinity do not exist in eternity. (Daniel T. Yu, 2004)
Actually, the concept of time starts as one day. One day start from sunrise to sunset and from sunset to next sunrise. This cycle formed one day. Added days together becoming week, month, year, decade, century, and millennium. We subdivided one day into hours, minutes, and seconds. Second is the smallest time unit. In ancient Chinese literature, the Chinese use the word “quo-yin” (光陰) as time. The meaning of quo-yin is lightness and darkness.
Time Devices
A walk through time devices may help us gain a better understanding about time. Humans apply different concepts of time to different types of objects and materials. The sun, moon, water, fire, sand, stone, wood, metal, ammonia, crystal, and cesium have been used to measure the year, month, day, hour, minute, second, millisecond, microsecond, nanosecond, picosecond, and femtosecond.
Approximately five thousand years ago, Egyptians used a tall stone pillar to build a four-sided monument. The monument with its moving shadow formed a kind of sundial, enabling people to divide the day into morning and afternoon, with additional partitions into hours. The length of the shadow at noon also distinguished the shortest and longest days of the year.
In the Chinese language, time（時間）means “space between hours.” In prior eras, each Chinese hour equaled two hours of our modern time. Western and Eastern peoples in ancient days had the same concept that an hour is the smallest meaningful unit of time. Ancient Chinese used a lighted candle to measure the hours of the evening and used an incense stick to measure time within an hour.
Egyptians invented the water clock about 3,500 years ago. Water clocks were among the earliest timekeepers that didn’t depend on the observation of natural phenomenon in the solar system. A water clock is a volume concept of time, using water dripping at a fairly constant rate. Mechanized water clocks, with differing types of pointers that were dials based on an astrological model of the universe, were developed about 2,500 years ago by Greek and Roman horologists.
In the Han dynasty (third century), the Chinese invented the clepsydras, a device to measure time by noting the amount of water or mercury that passed through a small aperture over a particular period. It was Su Sung who built the most elaborate clock tower in the ninth century. Su Sung used a water-driven escapement mechanism on a thirty-foot-tall clock tower that had a bronze weight-power-driven armillary sphere for observation, an automatically rotating earthlike globe, and employing a front panel with doors that permitted viewing of a little human body figure that rang gongs. The clock held tablets indicating the hours, with twelve partitions for the day. The ancient Chinese twelve-time partitions are not in numbers but in Chinese characters, each character equivalent to two hours in our time.
In the first half of the fourteenth century, large mechanical clocks were invented in Italy. Then clocks were weight-driven (a natural force) and regulated by a verge escapement. As with water flow, the rate was difficult to regulate because of the pressure problem caused by weight and resistance of air particles.
Accurate mechanical clocks were invented by Dutch scientists in the seventeenth century. Christiaan Huygens made the first weight-swinging clock regulated by a swinging weight or oscillating mechanism.
From the seventeenth century through the early twentieth