Where Does Time Come From?

US physicist Prof Richard Muller thinks that new chunks of time could be created as the universe expands. And he wants to peer into the heart of colliding black holes to prove it…

- Prof Robert Matthews

As science stories go, it was huge in every sense: the first-ever detection of gravitational waves, ripples in the very fabric of space and time, triggered by the collision of two black holes far beyond the Milky Way.

Gravitational waves were predicted by Einstein a century ago and picked up in September 2015 by colossal laser detectors in the United States. Now, they are being hailed as a whole new way to observe the Universe. And one physicist believes they may soon allow scientists to witness a truly mind-boggling event: the emergence of time.

According to Prof Richard Muller of the University of California, Berkeley, when black holes collide they do more than disrupt the space around them. They also create what he calls “nows”: brief new instants of time.

It’s an astonishing idea, but according to Muller it’s no sci-fi fantasy. Within a few years, he says, the same detectors that discovered gravitational waves may provide hard evidence of instants of time being created in deep space.

RELATIVELY SPEAKING

Such claims put Muller at the forefront of research aimed at understanding this most ineffable component of our Universe. From Aristotle to Einstein, some of the most brilliant minds in history have pondered the nature of time, only to come away baffled. Around 1,500 years ago, the philosopher Augustine captured the views of many scientists, and his words continue to resonate today: “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.”