Tag Archives: Time

Sonic Temporality

Mara Sacof is a music producer, runner, and creative studying Zoology at Queen Mary University of London. Her growing fascination with electronic composition, as well as her interests in philosophy, consciousness, and the natural world, led her to write an essay titled ‘Sonic Temporality’. This piece of text explores the relationship between perception and sound, drawing insights into how the concept of time can be manipulated in a digital world of music. The influence of artistic movements such as surrealism and futurism are also touched upon, offering a reflection into how this led producers to make philosophical enquiries into temporality.

Stephen Hawking and I created his final theory of the cosmos – here’s what it reveals about the origins of time and life

Thomas Hertog is Professor of Physics, KU Leuven.
“I am a cosmologist and was for many years a close collaborator of the late Stephen Hawking. I received my doctorate from the University of Cambridge and am currently professor of theoretical physics at the University of Leuven, where I study the quantum nature of the Big Bang.”

Author of ‘On The Origin of Time’, Torva (6 April 2023)

The Matter of Time

Ariane Koek is a British independent producer, curator and writer recognised internationally for her transdisciplinary work in arts, science, technology and in the creation of new residency programmes. She was the initiator and founder of Arts at CERN (2009 – 2015) – the first officially organised international arts programme by CERN – the world’s leading particle physics laboratory, Geneva, Switzerland. In this article she discusses the work of Montreal-based interdisciplinary artist François Quévillon, who explores the interactions among environmental changes, societal issues, and technological developments.

Ancient Egyptians measured the first hour, and changed how we related to time

Dr Robert Cockcroft is an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at McMaster University. Dr Cockcroft became a faculty member at McMaster in 2020. He completed his undergraduate degree in astrophysics at University College London (UK) and earned his Masters and PhD also in astrophysics at McMaster. He held postdoctoral positions in ancient Eygptian astronomy working with Dr Sarah Symons, and pedagogical research at the MacPherson Institute (then MIIETL). In 2016, he was hired by Western University as an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and as one of the two core faculty members in the then-new Western’s Integrated Science Program (WISc), before ultimately returning to McMaster. Dr Cockcroft’s current work focuses on science education, literacy, and communicating science to the general public.

Dr. Sarah Symons is a Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Science, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Her research in history of astronomy concentrates on interpreting astronomical texts and instruments from ancient Egypt and investigating how the night sky was perceived, explained, and depicted. She is the editor of the ancient Egyptian astronomy database, an online resource for scholars, and co-edited Down to the Hour: Short Time in the Ancient Mediterranean with Kassandra Jackson Miller in 2019.

Why the future might not be where you think it is

Ruth Ogden is Professor of the Psychology of Time, Liverpool John Moores University.

“I have been an academic at Liverpool John Moores University since 2009. My research explores all aspects of how people experience the passage of time. I am particularly interested in understanding why time passes more quickly during some activities and more slowly during others, and how significant changes in life and society affect temporality.”

Antimatter: we cracked how gravity affects it – here’s what it means for our understanding of the universe

William Bertsche is a Reader with the Accelerator Physics group of the University of Manchester Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Cockcroft Institute.

“I work on plasma physics and accelerator topics, as well as measuring fundamental properties of antimatter through atomic physics experiments using Antihydrogen atoms. I am a Deputy Spokesperson for the ALPHA experiment.
The ALPHA experiment at CERN routinely synthesizes and traps antihydrogen atoms. With this unique source of pure antimatter systems, we are able to perform precise measurements of its properties, from its spectral signature in various energies ranges to its behaviour in a gravitational field. This research aims to address the question of observed baryon asymmetry in the universe today: why is antimatter so much more rare than matter.”

The Silent Reverberation of Materiality

Sculptor Dr Gindi is an artist of the elemental, a material thinker who pursues philosophical inquiry through a deep engagement with extra-human sensibility. Attuned to the resonation of material things, she is also a sculptor of words, deploying a distinctive, poetic idiom to elicit the conditions through which something new can be sensed. For Dr Gindi, the artist is a conduit through which the art forces of nature reveal a world in the process of becoming, rendering tangible a thought or sentiment in the process of finding form. Beyond the allure of the enchanting surface she hearkens to the ‘silent reverberation of materiality’ and in sentiments reminiscent of Whitman, speaks in this interview of its utterance. She discusses her ideas and work with Jill Marsden, Professor of Literature and Philosophy, The University of Bolton, UK. She is the author of ‘After Nietzsche: Notes Towards a Philosophy of Ecstasy’ (Palgrave 2002) and assorted essays on Nietzsche, aesthetics, modernism and literary thinking.

Life: modern physics can’t explain it – but our new theory, which says time is fundamental, might

Sara Imari Walker is Professor of Physics, School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University.

She is an astrobiologist and theoretical physicist interested in the origin of life and how to find life on other worlds.
She is most interested in whether or not there are “laws of life’ related to how information structures the physical world that could universally describe life here on Earth and on other planets.
Deputy Director of the pioneering Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, which is devoted to confronting the big questions of science and philosophy. She also co-founded the astrobiology-themed social website SAGANet.org, and is a member of the board of directors of Blue Marble Space.
Sarah is active in public engagement in science, with appearances at the World Science Festival and on “Through the Wormhole” and NPR’s Science Friday.

How could the Big Bang arise from nothing?

Alastair Wilson is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham, working on metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science and philosophy of physics. His doctoral thesis was on the metaphysics of Everettian (many-worlds) quantum mechanics, and this line of thought culminated in his book The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism (OUP, 2020). More recently he has worked on explanation and dependence in physics and metaphysics as part of his ERC-funded project FraMEPhys, on metaphysical explanation in physics. He has also worked on laws of nature, chance, properties, causation, counterfactuals, and the epistemology of disagreement and of self-locating beliefs. He was President of the Society for the Metaphysics of Science in 2017-18 and Honorary Secretary of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science in 2018-19. He remains on the SMS and BSPS committees, and is also a member of the climate task force of the Philosophy of Science Association and a Trustee of the Philosophy of Physics Association. He is PhilPapers editor for the categories ‘Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics’ and ‘Theories of Modality’, and a Managing Editor of the open-access journal Ergo.

Interconnections between memory, time and place

Karey Kessler creates map-paintings that contain ideas about physical, spiritual, internal, and temporal spaces.

“My maps tell the story of an ever changing environment, impermanence, and the immensity of time. They tell stories about the interconnected ecosystems of the world that don’t end where one country’s borders end and another’s begins: how both air and water (and therefore pollution), defy borders. The stories include deep time (before humans were on earth) and the eternal things that will remain once we’re gone.”