THE ELEMENT OF TIME

In my research and meditations on TIME CAPSULES, it seems impossible to avoid the question of TIME itself. TIME is, after all, the road on which TIME CAPSULES travel and should therefore be principally understood.

The most common thought is that TIME flows in one direction and does so at an absolute rate (according to Einstein's Law of Relativity). The image of the "arrow of time" lends itself to this concept. It is the explanation behind our ability to recollect the past but not the future and in our propensity to grow older and not younger. In this model, TIME could be portrayed as a 2-dimensional line in space.

String Theorists believe that space contains more dimensions than our perceivable 3, and so one might question, could the same be true of TIME? Could TIME exist in additional dimensions that our species cannot detect? And if so, TIME could actually look more like a 3-D shape than a 2-D line.

In "Through the Wormhole With Morgan Freemon (Episode: "Does Time Really Exist?)," this concept is illustrated through the lives of surface water bugs who skim the tops of streams, oblivious to the frogs who lurk beneath them, ready to attack. Are we like these water bugs? Are we oblivious to the dimensions that exist beyond us, leaving us vulnerable to a world we cannot perceive?