We’re like photons bouncing between two funhouse mirrors, especially as we age. “Get it done,” we say to some. “Be patient,” we say to others. Depending on whether or not the mirrors are concave or convex, we see time distorted one way or another, stretched or foreshortened.
We can’t see time objectively, even when we look at a clock. It’s always in the context of our lives. And we really can’t imagine the long stretches of time that preceded us nor the long stretches that will follow. Living on a planet that is four and a half billion years old in a universe that began its formation 13.8 billion years ago imposes limitations on our imagination. Can you really grasp the passage of billions of years? Can you feel the passage of millions? How about millennia? Got a good grasp on the past century?
Take the formation and destruction of mountain ranges in eastern and southeastern North America as examples of long-term processes that exceed our ability to “feel” the passage of time. About 1.3 billion years ago part of the continent underwent a collision that produced the Grenville Orogeny. That mountain-building lasted 350 million years. Then, mountain-building generally stopped for a while, from 950 million years ago until 500 million years ago, the time when another set of mountains began to rise. Their formation, called the Taconic Orogeny, lasted until 440 million years ago. Getting time-dizzy yet? Another general mountain-building lull was followed by more building about 375 million years ago in the Acadian Orogeny. Another lull, and then the rise of mountains in the Alleghanian Orogeny (also Alleghenian). That event persisted until 260 million years ago.
I don’t know about you, but I find those numbers staggering. Millions of years? For any organism, the process of mountain building is overwhelmingly long. We have lifespans that are comparatively as brief as a muon. Really. Think about it. You, I hope, will live 100 years. If you do, you will have a lifespan that is 2.5 millionths of the time since the end of the Alleghanian Orogeny. A muon lasts about 2.2 millionths of a second.
Sorry, I’m not trying to depress you with the thought that your existence is almost as fleeting as a muon’s, but I am trying to make a point about patience and a secondary point about what we can determine about our physical world. The Great Rift Valley (really two valleys) of Africa will eventually be a narrow sea. Nevada might also become one. You can live in either place and never know that you are living in such a long-term process. Your muon-brief existence doesn’t allow you to experience the duration of a continent’s breakup. Or, you might live in a mountain-building area without experiencing the rise of the landscape.
Continents break apart. Continents collide. Oceans form. Oceans close. It’s not as though you can go out and put a long rock bolt in the ground to stop the movement. If that were so, then civil engineers would place such bolts along the San Andreas and North Anatolian faults.
Back to patience. Have you noticed that people want others to make mountains right away? That some people can’t imagine the long process you went through to build whatever you have built to make the world in which you live? That youth never comprehends the passage to age through experience? That you, yourself, might not comprehend the experience and wisdom of those now long gone, their accomplishments and thoughts having been eroded like some old mountains?
Patience is a relative matter because for everyone personally, time is a relative matter. Be patient with others, my little Muon.
We can’t see time objectively, even when we look at a clock. It’s always in the context of our lives. And we really can’t imagine the long stretches of time that preceded us nor the long stretches that will follow. Living on a planet that is four and a half billion years old in a universe that began its formation 13.8 billion years ago imposes limitations on our imagination. Can you really grasp the passage of billions of years? Can you feel the passage of millions? How about millennia? Got a good grasp on the past century?
Take the formation and destruction of mountain ranges in eastern and southeastern North America as examples of long-term processes that exceed our ability to “feel” the passage of time. About 1.3 billion years ago part of the continent underwent a collision that produced the Grenville Orogeny. That mountain-building lasted 350 million years. Then, mountain-building generally stopped for a while, from 950 million years ago until 500 million years ago, the time when another set of mountains began to rise. Their formation, called the Taconic Orogeny, lasted until 440 million years ago. Getting time-dizzy yet? Another general mountain-building lull was followed by more building about 375 million years ago in the Acadian Orogeny. Another lull, and then the rise of mountains in the Alleghanian Orogeny (also Alleghenian). That event persisted until 260 million years ago.
I don’t know about you, but I find those numbers staggering. Millions of years? For any organism, the process of mountain building is overwhelmingly long. We have lifespans that are comparatively as brief as a muon. Really. Think about it. You, I hope, will live 100 years. If you do, you will have a lifespan that is 2.5 millionths of the time since the end of the Alleghanian Orogeny. A muon lasts about 2.2 millionths of a second.
Sorry, I’m not trying to depress you with the thought that your existence is almost as fleeting as a muon’s, but I am trying to make a point about patience and a secondary point about what we can determine about our physical world. The Great Rift Valley (really two valleys) of Africa will eventually be a narrow sea. Nevada might also become one. You can live in either place and never know that you are living in such a long-term process. Your muon-brief existence doesn’t allow you to experience the duration of a continent’s breakup. Or, you might live in a mountain-building area without experiencing the rise of the landscape.
Continents break apart. Continents collide. Oceans form. Oceans close. It’s not as though you can go out and put a long rock bolt in the ground to stop the movement. If that were so, then civil engineers would place such bolts along the San Andreas and North Anatolian faults.
Back to patience. Have you noticed that people want others to make mountains right away? That some people can’t imagine the long process you went through to build whatever you have built to make the world in which you live? That youth never comprehends the passage to age through experience? That you, yourself, might not comprehend the experience and wisdom of those now long gone, their accomplishments and thoughts having been eroded like some old mountains?
Patience is a relative matter because for everyone personally, time is a relative matter. Be patient with others, my little Muon.
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