2003: Forward Or Back?
Since time immemorial, philosophers and physicists have considered time one of the most difficult notions to comprehend. Modern scientists are no exception. Perhaps this is not all about objective complexities of time as such. The human brain simply lacks the tools required for adequate perception and study of time. Defining space could not be simpler (though even in this case we recognize the limitations of human understanding), while time staggers imagination. Maybe it is a taboo imposed by nature specially to protect Homo sapiens from unknown and dangerous brain strain.
However, the forbidden fruit is tempting, and scientists at all times went to great lengths to fully comprehend this seemingly simple and yet so tantalizingly complex notion. To illustrate, Christian theologian and philosopher Saint Augustine (354-430) wrote, “What is time? When nobody questions me about it, I know it, but when I want to explain what it is, then I don’t. For in reality there is neither past nor future, there is only present which is but a fleeting moment... My soul searches for a solution to this complex riddle. But I admit before Thee, O Lord, that hard as I tried I know not what time is.” Augustine believed that time is embedded in human consciousness, which expects (that is future), perceives (present), and remembers (past), and kept praying to Lord to enlighten him and help him fully understand the nature of time.
One of the peculiarities of perception of time by humans is, obviously, their inability to distinguish shades below a certain threshold. We all know the duration of a second, but the duration of a microsecond is beyond us. Meanwhile, time is unlimited and thus can be divided into infinitely small fragments. And an event or even events can happen at that fleeting moment. If such an event is protracted, we will notice it sooner or later. But what if some event will start and end within, say, one millionth of a second? We will not know it happened, as our senses will not detect it and the mind will not analyze it. It is not ruled out, though, that even momentary events can have a strong impact on our surroundings and on ourselves.
Very seldom — once in a couple centuries — brought into this world are people who perceive the flow of events in time as it is, in its entirety. Moreover, they can react to it. Every so often such people are called madmen and sometimes geniuses. Be that as it may, without them, without their perception of the multitude of fleeting events invisible to most, the history of humanity would have taken a different course. In part, such a notion as fine art could just as well have been lost to humanity.
On one special night shared by the years 2002 and 2003, a twelve- year-old Vasyl (father would call him Basileus, which is Greek for emperor) fell asleep in his room, not waiting until midnight. Obviously, he worked out too hard at the gym. As usual, instead of practicing the regular sports (boxing, wrestling, judo, volleyball) he worked out in the weight room. After all, Vasyl lost all interest in sports events, as he always knew better than his rivals what they would do next. Vasyl found it more difficult to control the movements of his body rather than unerringly predict which way his rival was going to send the ball.
Completely strung-out, Vasyl was dozing off in the corner of the sofa and heard in his sleep the faint ticking of the clock on the opposite wall. But at one moment it seemed to him that the ticking sound was amplified to thunder and the clock face swelled many times over. The boy watched intently the three — now gigantic — hands of the clock fuse into one at midnight and, holding his breath, waited for the second hand to reappear to the right of the dark line. For some reason he was numbed and shivery. A thin second hand split from the dark line, formed by the three hands, and instead of taking its usual course to the right of the vertical line, it moved to the left!
This meant that at this fatal moment the future of Earth ceased to exist, disappeared. In fact, it became its past, which never existed. All things past have become our future. The reversal of history started. Looming ahead were all too familiar world and religious wars, nuclear bombs, bloody coups, lunatic dictators, epidemics, famines, human rights abuses, exterminations of antique art, arbitrariness, and illiteracy which were further aggravated as time went by. And the reality was gradually turning into legendary Atlantis, a myth of unimaginable achievements of humanity in the dim and distant past. Similar reversals have already happened on Earth many times over. It is all in books on history of civilization.
Vasyl still had a chance to seize that only one microscopic moment of present. He dashed toward the clock and pushed the thin and long second hand to the right with both his hands, exerting his every effort as he did so. Then followed a moment of stillness, expectation, and silence saturated with horror. A ticktack, and all the three hands moved to the right, one so leisurely and imperceptibly, the other a little faster, while the second hand was just finishing the first lap of honor. 2003 got underway! There is no telling what future holds for us.
