Musing on Time

What if time actually speeds up and slows down, but we don’t know it because we are inside time?

For example, suppose you and I are standing in the back yard and I toss a basketball to you. It goes up in the air and comes down in your hands.

Now suppose that time slowed *way* down as I tossed it, and suppose that time then zoomed like lightning just as you caught the ball. But because you and I are both inside the same time, we just saw the ball go up and come down at the usual speed, because you and I with all our perceptions were slowing down and speeding up inside the same time span.

How can we know this is not happening?

I mean, perhaps right this minute! time might be slowing to a standstill, and you will never, ever reach the end of this paragraph! But you will never know it, because you are inside the time and so you think you’re moving forward as always.

Or what if the entire Universe is right now suddenly vanishing in the flash of an eye! But you and I think we’re living all the rest of our lives, seeing movies, driving the car, growing older, making a sandwich, laughing at a joke, making an appointment to visit the dentist, watching a sunset that seems to take forever.

And yet, really, it’s all over already.

Next week: How a refrigerator works.