I may have to concede that I am not going to have time to understand time.
A painful admission, given the forum interest alongside its more serious preoccupations with cars, outlet jackets and investment-grade slippers. In my youthful dalliances with physics the variable
t popped up quite a lot, suggesting
time might be somewhat important. Mrs TT has often added significant weight to this view when I am late for dinner.
But unlike say the variable
m, it remains largely unexplained. Time is aloof. We have a lot of investigation and knowledge of what makes up
m - just ask any schoolchild what "stuff" is made from. But less so
t. Ask anyone what makes up time, and regardless of where they disembarked the learning bus, meaningful answers are hard to find.
Unexplained then, but not unexamined. It has perplexed many a great mind.
McTaggart, Einstein and Hawking from the more recent past. And many
esteemed scientists and Daniel Wellington engineers in the present.
Learned journals post the latest developments. I just don't think it is all going to be resolved before I'm done.
Maybe that's what being alive is: perception of time. In that case, I should be grateful for an extended period of ignorance.