Independence Day, 2019-07-04

【Aiden in English】

        Time is a funky thing. It’s a measurement, it’s an event, and it’s also a mysterious force that flows through us, unexplainable with words at times (pun intended).

        From a mathematical perspective, time serves the fundamental baseline for many real problems. Filling a gas tank takes time. Running from point A to point B takes time. Growing watermelons takes time. Typing words per minute... well, I think you get the point.

        However, I enjoy the great pain that racks my brain every time I dive into more obscure ideas. For example, no human being alive remembers what occurred before birth. Thus, time beforehand seemed meaningless. Humans couldn’t perceive time’s flow before their minds mature, thus resulting in nothing within our memory bank. Similarly, memory is our method of viewing lengths of time. Due to the flexibility of how fast we perceive time in the present based on activity, memories help indicate an estimate of the current time. An example would be playing basketball: NBA players often have a constant 24-second timer to match the shot clock in their minds at all times due to exposure, creating a personal timer within their minds. 

        Whenever humanity faced a mystery, there were those who sought to find a solution. Religion, science, whatever cult that involves cannibalism, all those ideologies embrace the search for answers to the universe’s unknown. Since the beginning, time itself remained a mystery and its perception bamboozling. A well-known perception is the quickening of time as a person ages. An infant will see each year as an entire new half of his life, but an eighty-year-old man will perceive a year around a percent of what he’s experienced. The fluidity of time is captured in literature as something that runs away like a cat or dog that needs to be restrained. The term I wish to use is “understand”, as it would be rather useful to understand time than to be wishful and capture it.

        A step towards uncovering this untimely mystery is measuring it. Humanity bases the measurements of time off of the sun. It is a logical, stable, and convenient method of organization. But the universe does not follow such simple ways. We split time into hours, minutes, seconds, and so forth, but the universe just moves forward without regard to petty measurements. Much like how humanity created the metric system to quantify the physical world, we used physical measurements to quantify the passing of time. Ancient calendars revolved around suns and moons, associating their positions and appearances with moments of a year. Obviously, physical objects are subjects of time’s power; thus, marking time with tangible things will not be very accurate in a long term. Recently, a second was redefined as the time it takes for an atom to oscillate an estimate nine billion times between two energy levels in Cesium 133; however, even atoms have their variation (Cesium’s oscillations varying by twenty or so).

        Time is unquantifiable, at least completely accurate. Has the thought ever crossed your mind that no matter how thin you slice a piece of cheese that you can always slice thinner? Time is similar: no matter how precise you cut time, you can always go a fraction of an atto- or zepto- or yocto-second shorter. 

        I recall a few years ago, the movie Lucy starring Scarlette Johansson and Morgan Freeman explained time to be the only true measure. I agree with that. Under normal circumstances, we create feet and meters to help us understand a vast universe, placing abstract numbers and labels on a blank ruler. We do the same with time, but unlike any physical objects, time marches everywhere without change.

        While thinking of all this, I found myself consistently pondering how small I am in the grand scheme of things. But then again, even galaxies are small compared to the universe. Now there are two ways of approaching this fact. Either believe that no matter what you do, nothing will change, or live to be as big as you can. Life is short, time guarantees that, and if death is anything like the experience before birth, I will enjoy every moment that passes.

【紅霞譯文】

        時間稱得上萬金油，既用作一種度量衡，還表示一個事件，也代表周圍一股神秘力量，有時又僅能意會而無法言傳（雙關語）。

        從數學的角度來看，時間是諸多現實問題的核心基線，給汽缸加油需要時間，從地點A到B需要時間，種植西瓜需要時間，每分鐘打字速度……至此，我想你明白我要表達的意思。

        然而，每當放飛遐想，我特別享受腦袋瓜因交感刺激而誘發的那種劇痛。舉例來說，沒人記得住出生前發生的事情，因此，事先所有一切看似毫無意義，人類在心智成熟之前根本意識不到時間的流逝，記憶庫里沒有留下任何烙印。同樣地，記憶是我們審視時間長短的手段，由於天際風雲瞬息萬變，記憶有助於估算當下時間，打籃球便是例子：美職籃球員往往用固定的24秒計時器來把握進攻節奏，他們內心深處早已對24秒規則形成了條件反射。

        無論什麼時候遇到難題，總有人尋找解決辦法，宗教也好，科學也罷，包括信奉同類相食的狂熱分子，各種意識流都在探索宇宙奧秘。從一開始，時間本身就是謎，時間概念也模糊不清，隨着年齡增長，人的感性認識與時俱進，嬰兒們恨不能把一年視作大半生光景，而80歲老人家反倒當成百分之一歷程，文學作品中記載的時間流動性有點像未加管束而溜之大吉的家貓家狗，但願“心照不宣”能詮釋時間，畢竟時間是想抓而抓不住的東西。

        揭開時間這個神秘面紗的方法就是測量它。人類根據太陽來確定時間，組織方法兼有邏輯性、穩定性和便捷性，但宇宙不會按照如此簡單的方式運作；我們可以按照小時、分鐘、秒數等區分時間，而宇宙只會向前，並非考慮精算問題。正如人類創建公制系統來量化物質世界，實物計測也被用來量化時間流逝。古代曆法均以太陽和月亮為中心，將時處位置和外觀表徵與一年當中的特定瞬間聯繫起來。顯然，物體隨時間長短而變化，因此從長遠來看，用實物標記時間並不準確。最近，時間單位“秒”被重新定義為原子在穩定同位素銫-133兩個超精細結構能階間躍遷頻率大約90億次個周期的持續時間，然而，即使原子也各有變化（銫的振盪差異約為20）。

        時間雖沒法量化，但卻可以達到相當精確的地步，你是否想過不管你切奶酪多薄，永遠都有更細的薄片？時間也是一樣，無論你弄得多准，總有比它短了“阿托（10-18）”、“仄普托（10-21）”或者“幺科托（10-24）”之一秒的東西存在。

        記得幾年前，由斯嘉特·約翰遜和摩根·弗里曼主演的電影《超體》曾將時間比作唯一真正的衡量標準，我同意這個觀點。通常情況下，人們造出“英尺”和“米”新名詞表示浩瀚的宇宙，無非就是把抽象的數字和標籤刻在空白的尺子上。我們對待時間何嘗不是這樣，只不過不像其它任何物體，歲月是把殺豬刀，紫了葡萄，黑了木耳，軟了香蕉。時間是塊磨刀石，平了山峰，蔫了黃瓜，殘了菊花。

        想到這裡，我發覺自己一直周旋於宏觀與微觀之間。其實，即便是天體星系，在宇宙面前依然微不足道。現在有兩種答案擺在面前，要麼相信無論你做什麼，任何事情都不會改變；要麼相信世上無難事，只怕有心人。生命是短暫的，時間可以作保，假若死亡就像出生一樣，無論怎樣努力都無法避免，那麼我將好好珍惜當下每刻時光。

Today in History(歷史上的今天):

2017: Salzburg—Red Bull Hangar-7, AUT(奧地利薩爾茨堡—紅牛公司第七機庫)

2017: Hohenwerfen the Adventure Fort, Austria(奧地利霍亨維爾芬—探險城堡)

2017: Eisriesenwelt—King of Ice Caves, AUT(奧地利世界冰洞之王)

2017: Salzburg—Mirabell Gardens, AUT(奧地利薩爾茨堡—《音樂之聲》花園)

2017: Salzburg—Rome of the North, AUT(奧地利薩爾茨堡—北方的羅馬)

2017: Salzburg the City of Mozart, AUT(奧地利薩爾茨堡—莫扎特城)

2016: Stockholm—Beauty on the Water, SWE(瑞典斯德哥爾摩—水上仙境)

2016: Stockholm—Venice of the North, SWE(瑞典斯德哥爾摩—北方的威尼斯)

2016: Stockholm Palace, Sweden(瑞典斯德哥爾摩皇宮)

2016: Capital Stockholm, Sweden(瑞典首都斯德哥爾摩)

2015: St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican(梵蒂岡聖彼得大教堂)

2015: World's Smallest Country, Holy See(梵蒂岡─世界最小的國家)

2015: Roma―the Eternal City, Italy(意大利羅馬―永恆之城)

2015: All Roads Lead to Rome, Italy(意大利―條條道路通羅馬)

2015: Roman Colosseum, Italy(意大利羅馬角斗場)

2014: July 4th Party(獨立節聚會)

2013: 四年級獨立節(Fourth Grade Patriots)

2012: 三年級獨立節(Third Grade Patriots)

2009: 天生的節拍(Natural Beats)

Crosslink(相關博文):

10th Grade(高中二年級)