What is Time?

What is Time? - lecture on physics and philosophy: Tuesday 24 November 2026, 19:00–21:00, Multikulturhuset, Sønderborg. Tickets cost 175 kr.

From everyday experience to Einstein's universe

This lecture begins with time as we know it from daily life - clocks, calendars, circadian rhythms, and our sense of past, present, and future. From there, we move into physics and explore what Einstein changed about our understanding of time. Time is not the same for all observers, and there is no single universal clock that the entire cosmos follows. We examine relativity, time dilation, and simultaneity - without heavy equations.

We also investigate the arrow of time and entropy: why do we experience time as moving in only one direction, when many of physics' fundamental laws don't require any particular direction?

Time, consciousness, and the big questions

Next, we turn our attention to humans. The brain does not register time like a clock, and our experience of the present moment, our memories, and our expectations for the future all shape how we experience time.

Finally, we open up some of the really big questions: what is a block universe, can time travel make physical sense, what paradoxes arise, and what would it mean to be "outside of time"? Throughout, we distinguish clearly between what physics knows, theories being discussed, questions still open, and pure speculation. Science fiction and popular culture are used as illustrations, but the foundation is real physics and the unanswered questions that researchers are still working on.

No prior knowledge is required - neither in physics nor mathematics, and there is no exam. The goal is not to give the final answer to what time is, but for you to go home, look at your watch, and discover that the question has become far more interesting.