What Would It Mean for Time to Come to an End? [Video]
By George Musser
This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
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Could time come to an end? What would that even mean? Last month I gave a talk about this strange physics idea at a TEDx event in Trento, Italy, based on a Scientific American article I wrote in 2010. My conceit was that time's end poses a paradox that might be resolved if time is emergent. I don't know whether that's right, and it goes against what Lee Smolin argues in his latest book, but, if nothing else, this idea does provide a loose framework to talk about such physics concepts as the arrow of time and the holographic principle. I'll also be speaking on this general topic at the Empiricist League, an informal monthly science gathering, in Brooklyn on June 11th.
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