{"id":3301,"date":"2009-11-19T13:27:07","date_gmt":"2009-11-19T21:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/?p=3301"},"modified":"2009-11-19T13:27:07","modified_gmt":"2009-11-19T21:27:07","slug":"a-conversation-on-the-existence-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/19\/a-conversation-on-the-existence-of-time\/","title":{"rendered":"A Conversation on the Existence of Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You know, other people talk a lot about time, too &#8212; it&#8217;s not just me.  Here&#8217;s a great <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/video\/lindau\/index.html\">video from <em>Nature<\/em><\/a>, featuring a conversation between <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/David_Gross\">David Gross<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.scientificcommons.org\/itzhak_fouxon\">Itzhak Fouxon<\/a> about the existence of time.  (Via <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/sc_k\">Sarah Kavassalis<\/a>.)  Itzhak plays the role of the starry-eyed young researcher &#8212; he opens the video by telling us how he originally went into physics to impress girls, although apparently he has stuck with it for other reasons.  Gross, of course, shared a Nobel Prize for asymptotic freedom, and has become one of the most influential string theorists around.  David plays the role of the avuncular elder statesman (I&#8217;ve seen him be somewhat more acerbic in his criticisms) &#8212; but he&#8217;s one of the smartest people in physics, and his admonitions are well worth listening to.  He gives some practical advice, but also advises young people to think big.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately the video doesn&#8217;t seem to be embeddable, but you can go to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/video\/lindau\/index.html\">the video page<\/a> and click on the &#8220;David Gross&#8221; entry.  (The others are good, too!)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/video\/lindau\/index.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/files\/2009\/11\/davidgross.jpg\" alt=\"davidgross\" width=\"459\" height=\"302\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3303\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>You all know my perspective here &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2008\/11\/24\/what-if-time-really-exists\/\">time probably exists<\/a>, and we should try to understand it rather than replace it.  But I&#8217;ll agree with David &#8212; let&#8217;s not ignore more &#8220;practical&#8221; problems, but not be afraid to tackle the big ideas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You know, other people talk a lot about time, too &#8212; it&#8217;s not just me. Here&#8217;s a great video from Nature, featuring a conversation between David Gross and Itzhak Fouxon about the existence of time. (Via Sarah Kavassalis.) Itzhak plays the role of the starry-eyed young researcher &#8212; he opens the video by telling us [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,28,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice","category-science","category-time"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}