The nature of time is an age-old conundrum for physicists, philosophers, biologists and theologians. The Newtonian picture of time—a kind of cosmic clock that ticks off time in a manner that applies identically to everyone and everything—tightly aligns with our experience. But with special and general relativity, Einstein showed the fallacy inherent in experience: the rate at which time elapses depends on circumstance and environment. These discoveries raise even more basic, long-standing puzzles: What is time? Is it a fundamental feature of reality or something we humans impose on experience? Does time come into existence with the universe or does it transcend it? Why does time exist at all?

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Original Program Date: June 02 2013
MODERATOR: Ira Flatow
PARTICIPANTS: Paul Davies, Craig Callender, Tim Maudlin, Max Tegmark

Ira Flatow's Introduction 00:00

Participant Introductions 1:03

How did Einstein get involve with time? 3:36

What is the symmetry of time? 8:20

What was Einsteins concept of time? 10:09

Tim Maudlin has his own opinion on time. 12:42

How do you prove time dilation? 16:40

Can we look at the cosmos and see gravity's effect on time? 22:34

By moving faster we can travel forward in time? 29:03

If the universe is expanding what is it expanding into? 35:58

What does the universe look like? 40:38

Is time an illusion? 45:28

Does time flow? 49:16

Does time pass in a specific direction? 1:01:38

The geometry of spacetime. 1:04:35

The flow of time vs the time asymmetry.1:11:45

If it's fact that time passes then does Einstein agree? 1:17:09

What is the experimental evidence? 1:24:13