Immortalising Time

 Immortalising Time.

Time. The fourth dimension that's the nemesis of the first three dimensions. Nemesis, because time irreversibly degenerates and decays every form, living and non living. Form, that is defined and manifested in the three dimensions. Man's obsession with time and measuring it has been ancient and relentless.

     It was only in the 17th century, that pendulum clocks were developed.

These were very accurate as their period of oscillation was determined by the acceleration due to gravity (which remains constant)and the length of the pendulum.

  Thereafter, came the quartz clocks, that worked on quartz crystals. In 1955, Louis Essen and Jack Perry came out with the Caessium Atomic clock that measured the second with an accuracy to about one part in 10 raised to the power of 10. Very very accurate. And currently, the most accurate measurement of the second is done by optical atomic clocks that have an accuracy to the tune of one part in 10 raised to the power of 18.

         All these thoughts arose in my mind, as I very accidentally located a Clock museum tucked away deep in Schwarzwald. The German Clock Museum (German: Deutsches Uhrenmuseum) is situated near the centre of the Black Forest town of Furtwangen im Schwarzwald (Germany). It is a historical centre with not just chronometers of different eras but also the machines that were used in the early 20th century for clockmaking. These machines are all in mint working condition and to ensure that this legacy is preserved, a group of workers assemble every Tuesday, and get about the job of manufacturing the very same clocks of that era. Truly astonishing.

As I made my way through the museum, the museum curator, Frau Ute very enthusiastically explained the details of the machines and their working.

      Time has always fascinated me. Time. Does it really exist, or is it a dimension that's man made? Man's obsession to measure. Einstein showed that time can actually never be the same and it can slow down as velocity increases. It perhaps is just the manifestation of one of the most fundamental truths of quantum physics.

   Entropy of the universe is always increasing. Disorder is always the rule. And man endeavors to measure the rate of this degeneration. Degeneration of the tangible form and the intangibles like relstionships. Time ravages everything. What's the need to measure this entity that has the supreme power to mutate and eventually disintegrate everything. The lines of that Guru Dutt classiic stream seamlessly in my mind. 

      Wakt ne kiya kya haseen sitam

Hum rahen na hum, tum rahen na tum......

The universe is supposedly 14 billion years old. Is that really a measurement or mere speculation? All that exists is only the now. And its measure is..........

Eternity. 

But mans obsession to measure the second to its nth power goes on relentlessly.

Dr. Deepak Ranade.