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What a wild ride this post has been as people tell us that time doesn't exist but also it's been measured to have a negative number (something went out before it went in), but hey we all experience time differently anyway so what does it all matter, check out the clock to feel it in action._

I'll start with the hard science just so we all know defining time is as easy as grabbing hold of fog.

Is time a fundamental part of reality? A quiet revolution in physics suggests not

By Florian Neukart, January 29, 2026

Time, in this view, is not something that exists independently of physical processes. It is the cumulative record of what has happened. Each interaction adds a new entry, and the arrow of time reflects the fact that this record only grows.

Sounds like time is an emergent property of Bitcoin!

source: Great Mysteries of Physics 1: is time an illusion?, March 8, 2023

Space-Time Does Not Exist – Here’s Why That Matters

By Daryl Janzen, October 4, 2025

Events do not exist; they happen. Consequently, space-time does not exist. Events happen everywhere throughout the course of existence, and the occurrence of an event is categorically different from the existence of anything — whether object, place, or concept.

Hmmm, not sure I go along with this however it makes for a compelling if challenging argument.

Ok, so we don't know what time is but apparently we can measure it even when it's not there.

Physicists have measured ‘negative time’ in the lab

By Howard Wiseman, May 1, 2026 Also see: Physicists have measured 'negative time' in the lab, by Howard Wiseman, May 1, 2026

What one finds is that the photon actually arrives far earlier than that. In fact, it arrives so early it appears to have spent a negative amount of time inside the cloud – to exit, on average, before it enters.

! No, I don't get it but apparently, "Our experiment is fully explained by standard physics."

Still talking about time but let's change tack slightly moving away from the hard science and towards what it can actually mean to us humans.

How Indigenous ideas about non‑linear time can help us navigate ecological crises

By Philip McKibbin, February 12, 2026

[..] non-linearity challenges us to imagine beyond anthropocentrism. We conceptualise time in human ways, but it is not only us who are threatened by, and forced to navigate, these crises. Breaking free of linear time helps us to think about the world beyond “the human”. It leads us to wonder.

If time doesn't exist as a fundamental property of the universe we exist within and/or it's an emergent property then each concept of time is akin to everyone's concept of love , something that can be described and experienced differently by each of us, totally valid eh!

Researchers Hana Burgess and Te Kahuratai Painting contrast Māori time with colonial [Mike: Western] time, saying:

With settler colonial ontologies, time is flattened, made one dimensional, reduced to a linear process […] Along this arrow of time, the “present” is placed at the pinnacle of existence, disconnected from both the past and future.

Why Time Moves Differently In Different Languages

By Erica Brozovsky, 31 Mar 2026

In English-speaking countries, the past is "behind" us and the future is still "ahead." But there's much more linguistic variety in how we talk about time... and it might actually influence how we perceive it.

Time, it's "a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff", and to prove it check out this clock that fits your Western view of counting time but will make your brain explode!

The Accursèd Alphabetical Clock

Created by Ryan Bateman

This clock displays the current time alphabetically.

In Three-Hand mode, the hours, minutes, and seconds are each independently sorted by their English spelling, with a hand for each. In Combined mode, every possible time (43,200 of them) is spelled out, sorted alphabetically, and a single needle points to the current one.

I've written much about time even though I am no clearer on any of it, you?

• Time, A Discussion, August 25, 2024
• All Things Time, February 9, 2025
• Space-Time, I Still Don't Know What It Is, No-One Does, March 18, 2026
• The Hours Slip Way, The Days Drag On, But The Weeks Fly By, May 4, 2020

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