What do you think of this explanation of time?

What we really need are more people like her who can further such ideas with scientific approach .

I lost my father to dementia on August 20th 2022. He was several months shy of his 100th birthday. He died in my arms at hospital. I was his full-time carer for 12 years. I had lived with him all my life. During his life, I never heard my father speak of anything spiritual, no mention of Heaven, not until his final days. During the last four days of his month-long stay at hospital, I stayed with him in his room 24/7, never leaving his side. I kept a journal, detailing his final hours. Here are my notes from that journal which I used for my eulogy at his funeral: His voice is veiled as he asks me to help him to stand up, he wants to go home. "Help me stand up" he says, "I want to go home. My mother will be wondering where I am!" Even if I could help him to stand up, he is so physically weak and depleted now, that I think we both would fall. Late yesterday afternoon, when I was about to leave him for the day, I asked him if he minded that I should go, assuring him as I do every day that I will see him again in the morning. "If I am here ..." he replies. "Where else would you be?" I ask him. "In Heaven!" How his broken voice it breaks me and so, I arrange with hospital staff for me to stay with him the night. Several hours earlier he had told me that there were people gathering about us in his room. Looking to either side of me, firstly over my left shoulder and then to my right, they who were there not for me but only him were dressed in white. "Do you recognize any of them?" I ask him. He raises a boney finger and replies: "Just one!" I ask him who the person is that he recognises and he tells me that it is himself. "What age are you?" I ask him. "I am 15!" At the time of writing this, I have been by his side a full thirty-four and a half hours. Inasmuch does his mind meander, I am never not so knowing of what he means. "Lift me up, I want to go home!" he says over and over: "I want to go home!" Holding his hand, I tell him that although I cannot lift him up physically, I can at least lift him up toward Spirit, and I place my other hand at where his heart is and say to him: "Home is where your heart is! If you live within the home that is your heart, you will always have Love; you will always know Love: God's Love!" "I want to go home!" Massaging his chest gently in a clockwise rotation, because the motion of Life is always forward even after Death, yet without actually lifting my hand from his ever weakening heart, I lean forward and whisper into his ear that he can go. "Go home! You do not have to stay, just know that I love you!" "And I love you!" He is even weaker now but not yet gone, and I do not think that I have ever known of a moment so innocent as this, the lingering of a Life as do the Guardians of Love they prepare His way. His doctor visits with me. She is concerned for me that I have stayed the night, telling me I need to look after myself. Squeezing his hand a little tighter in mine I look at her and say: "I Am" Another day passes during whose time he is bathed twice in his bed, first in the morning and then again at night: Bed Bath Lite. The ritual of cleansing a rite of passage now, water, glycerin, gels and fragrant oils, they do not soil the sheets but soothe his skin, tissue-paper thin. He breathes in and breathes out ever more purposefully on the exhale, and I copy the sequence of sighs sorrowfully, that none too cold each pant becomes, nothing so irregular, not just yet. I would bet myself he would live another year but for my fear the end is near we both do know it, and I think to myself how stealthily the dusk does creep before the breaking of each new dawn a waking day, how we live to die and die to live reborn. With his cheek resting softly upon the pillow I lay my head at his side. He places his hand on my head and touches my hair. and I want more than anything for him to keep it there. As his breathing becomes more shallow I chant: "Everything I am is of you; all my love is yours!" "Everything I am is of you; all my love is yours!" but then to add: "If you take my heart with you when you go, my love will be with you and forever more, because of the love I give to you are you a part, two soles, one heart!" I dim the light to dull the play of shadows upon his features that I see only myself in him now. And then, at the eleventh hour of my stay this day he takes his last breath and quietly slips away, into the silent land where there is only Love and Time it has no borders, bound not by night neither lit by day, only Love! Love has sped him away! (Leslie James Wilcher 16.01.1923 - 20.08.2022)

Just watched my grandmother slowly pass away in hospice, she passed on December 23 at 1:15 am, this was also the exact same time my brother was born on this day. I hope she is still somewhere out in the universe she was such a good soul. I don’t think I’ve been more afraid of death than after seeing my grandmother in hospice

I feel like in a way, space time itself is what truly defines the “uniqueness” of an individual. All of us, a product of our environments within all things surrounding us, all things themselves with the potential of influencing us to make specific choices and build certain habits. Something I like to say is that “your perspective is your definition”, meaning your perspective is your reality, it’s what defines your position in space and time. No one else on this planet is within the exact area of space you take up within space time. No one else on this planet has walked the exact same steps you’ve walked in life, and no one has processed those exact thoughts you processed within each specific moment.

I am really happy to see someone who does not blatantly ignore the notion of life after death just because it does not fulfill the scientific approach. We need more people like her to encourage young scientic to think rationally and outside the box

As Einstein wrote in a letter to the family of his close friend Michel Besso after his death: "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future only has the meaning of an illusion, though a persistent one." Einstein himself died a month after.

''But as a physicist, I trust the process of knowledge discovery that comes from using the scientific method and so I take this seriously'' ❤🙌

this made me think of a scenario where if im on a planet lights years away, trying to find myself on earth with a super hyper-advanced telescope, I might be able to see my younger self and my late grandfather who may still be alive. idk how scientifically correct this thought is but thinking about this brought tears to my eyes.

I respect Sabine, not because she validates some preconceived notion of an afterlife, but because she is honest and open about taking physics wherever it leads, regardless of how mysterious, even "unscientific," it might seem.

I love this explanation. My husband lost his father in his early 20's. When I was pregnant, I started doing research on my family and my husband's family because neither of us knew much. I built our family tree, scoured over census archives, old newspapers, obituaries, and found photos! One photo was of my husband's 3rd great grandfather, he was wearing his wife's bonnet as they both stood in a tree smiling from ear to ear. They were on a picnic and climbed a tree. They were having fun. I immediately started laughing and crying at the same time. My husband had the same personality as this man he never even knew about. It was a parallel moment to our life and love...except our picture was taken on a rock at the beach. It made me think maybe we aren't so different from our ancestors, despite all the time that has passed and living in completely different eras. That made me feel closer to all of my ancestors. We are them. They are us. All existing together if you think of it. Like a chain.

I believe in people still existing everywhere all the time after death in a broad sense because I sometimes dream of being with someone in my sleep, without knowing beforehand of their passing or having known it was coming, so the thought that they are everywhere makes sense to me because our brains interpret information they receive, and somehow a person’s essence reached my mind like a frequency I could read. I just believe my brain interprets the information the best way it knows how. I think it’s possible to be everything anywhere all the time, like a drop of ink that fills a clear water up.

She is very nice and despite not knowing the afterlife research and knowing physics very well - she comes to the same conclusion that indeed time doesn't exist in the way that we observe here. I'm a medical doctor and a scientist and I study consciousness on the side, and we observe that there is a continuation of consciousness after death. I encourage everyone to keep studying if they wish, the internet is full of publications and testimonies about the subject. Cheers!

This was very scientifically informative and spiritually comforting. Two things can be true at the same time.

I'm terrible at math, but I do love trying to visualize and wrap my head around physical concepts. Really interesting how our world, our reality is so so strange.

"Every moment could be now for someone and that include moments in your past and it also includes all moments in your future".

Something so complex, beautifully explained in the simplest manner

She gives the best explanation of the eternal now that I have heard so far. Thanks Sabine!

I love Sabine! So cool to see her on another channel besides her own! She is SO intelligent and good at dumbing big things down for the rest of us and making it funny and engaging.

The conservation of intofrmation is one of the big things that's bothered me about death for several years now. It runs contrary to everything I've learned about the laws of the universe. All their experiences, feelings, and thoughts can't just disappear because that's not how physics works. It's kind of reassuring hearing someone far, far smarter than I will ever be echoing similar thoughts

I attended a memorial service for a friend last week, where an unfamiliar individual delivered a speech. During his address, he expressed his hope for an existence beyond this life because he believed that "this certainly couldn't be it." In response, I shared my perspective: "This is it. Life's purpose is companionship, friendship, and love. But confusion and unhappiness arises when we lose sight of this fundamental purpose and expect more than that." There's this quote I like: “In death the many become one; in life the one become many.” - Rabindranath Tagore.

I remember the first time I read the "Time Machine" by H.G. Wells, and the question struck me: if you travel into the future, are the people you left behind "dead?" After all, if you can travel "back" to see them, how can you say they are dead? And if you travel into the distant past, how can there still be people "there" if they are "dead?" If the past or future can be travelled to by someone with sufficiently advanced technology, then wouldn't that mean that someone always technically "exists," since you can always just return to the specific time/place where they are?

I've had a very difficult time understanding what relativity was my entire life. I probably still in all sense, have very little idea. I will say though that after watching this video, I feel now that I'm at least at a rudimentary level of understanding it. Before this video, I wouldn't even give myself that. She did a very good job of explaining through demonstration.

Wow! That was the best explanation. I struggled with this concept but she made it so clear so simply. Thank you.

Im really struggling with the sudden death of my dad right now. He was an astrophysist. This is really spirituality and scientifically comforting. I reallt appreciate the usage of "information" instead of "energy"

Really fascinating. I remember as a very young child well before I had heard of Einstein or theories about special relativity, I believed that when someone or animal die they would somehow go back into everything. It was only when I became older and had been taught about Einstein’s ideas that suddenly I realised that I knew this already be it in a very much simpler form.

I'm having the sense that when we die we return to something much bigger and more important that our current lives. So important that our current lives don't really matter. Almost like finishing a good movie before coming back to the real world. Its quite comforting.

Sabine, your ability to break down the complex and esoteric ideas and concepts of science into plain-speak is sublime. You're a gift in our times!

the way she says Einstein is everything

I was lost half way through, but the message I got was that some form of reality/life still exists after the physical body can no longer communicate via conventional means. I remember the saying that goes something like this: “What we do know is so insignificant to what we don’t know.”

So my life is recorded forever as an endless series of eternally living 'moments' in the block universe? Amazing. Wish I wasn't encoding this moment forever of sitting in front of a computer procrastinating some work.

You did a very well job of explaining relativity. Its an incredibly complicated topic to comprehend and I feel like my understanding of it is much higher after watching this single video, we need more people like her

5:00 I love that all the ideas i had as a teenager in the 90s match up with current day studies. 7:12

Sabine has a remarkable YT channel. She does tremendous videos explaining physics for everyone. She’s very good as this.

Thank you for presenting this subject. Many years ago I was dealing with the death of a high school friend. I had no believe in afterlife however I began to question that assumption. I wondered if time could stop for the person that died ? Could we all end up on the other side of space-time at the same time (in a blink of an eye) ? Just one hypothesis of many. I am grateful to share my thoughts.

Beautifully explained 🙏 brings solace to all those who have lost dear ones and torn between science vs spirituality 🙏

When it talks about information not really dying, it makes me think of how people seem to remember past lives.

The fact that he remembers his grandmother means she is still alive in some sense. We know for a fact that our ancestors lived in the past for us to be here in the present, so they are still alive in the same sense. Experiencing firsthand the passage of time is like floating a raft down a winding river. You can't see very far behind or in front of you, but the path down the river continues both ways. Being here, conscious, is like a first-class ticket to the grand show, except you have to watch through a pinhole.

I'm no physicist, but on the KZfaq spectrum of it, she's one of the best current teachers out there of physics for me.

I found her talk, and explanation, intriguing and on some more basic level, more understandable. Thank you for your time.

Sabine is an amazing teacher!

I lost someone I loved deeply some time ago. And after that I stated seeing death as a transformation. As our bodies decompose, our particles become part of other living beings, until one day we become part of the cosmos again. Just like Carl Sagan described it.

Love Sabine ❤️ she's super smart, practical, level headed and great at explaining complex concepts. Could listen to her for hours

Author Alan Lightman has written and spoken about the process by which material from the stars ended up as part of us, our physical bodies, as well as all life and most other substances in our world. She seems to then be describing the opposite, which is that when we die, all the material and information in our brains, the neurons, etc., are dispersed through physical processes into the Earth and eventually the universe. That's pretty profound to me, regardless of whether it's not quite as "exciting" as the prospect of life after death.

I am glad ppl are thinking at this level....I wish I could grasp it.

I kind of like how she talked about our Radiation dispersing and going off into the universe,. .I felt a sense of calm hearing that

She explained this extremely well to a layman. Which is crazy because my dad just passed last year suddenly, and I have been thinking about all of these topics for years now, pondering the questions of our reality/existence/and universe, and how we perceive it and how it actually happens with our consciousness. So far the most logical conclusion I can come up with is we either cease to exist, or the particles or information that made up our minds/consciousness will one day reform into another persons body and we live again without remembering but will keep going. That’s the best way I can think of resurrecting to another body but with the same soul. I just fear that we become reborn into an animals body, and with how we treat cows and pigs.. maybe it’s luck of the draw and sometimes you come back as a human and other times as a chicken in a factory farm.

Hi. It was a relief to see Sabine discussing this issue without her usual ebullient enthusiasm. The topic is more metaphysics than physics, and Godel's incompleteness theorem must apply here. There are some things we can never know or prove. Cheers, P.R.

Awesome. Great video, perhaps the best and simplest definition of our souls/lives.

That was fascinating. The only issue is that everyone seems to share the same "direction" of time, regardless of how "fast" it passes. So, if you get verification of death or a permanent event, it is always in the past and can't be undone.

Dr. Hossenfelder - this is the most enjoyable video I have watched of yours to date - especially your comments at the end. Einstein was supposedly quoted as saying that "we have forgotten something that the ancients knew". When one considers that the comparable distance within an atom of it's nucleus to its outer orbiting electrons is something akin to a BB in the middle of a baseball stadium, that the atom itself is mostly empty space, it is quite mindboggling to ponder what is holding it all together. The fact that the particles don't "fix" into place until observed has to call into question the relationship of mind and senses and the physical nature surrounding us. When you throw in "Space-Time", even more so. Thank you for sharing your intellect with us.

Brilliant and I truly appreciated Sabine's humbleness.

Deepest and most sensible analysis i ever heard from a physicists about life, the universe and existence.

That's really beautiful. We're all a part of the universe for as long as it (one?) exists. Like "ashes to ashes" or "dust to dust"; We're always "particles to particles"

Fantastic interview, thank you. This explains a few things. We should not dismiss those who say spiritual things exist.

Awareness of existence is inherently tied to one's perspective. When I am alive and experiencing life in the present, that constitutes my unique viewpoint. It's conceivable that others might exist in distant points of the past or the distant future, simultaneously undergoing their life experiences, but each person exists within their distinct timeframe. Thus, the essence of existence is fundamentally rooted in perspective.

The question I ask is time just a residual of motion? Every cell and sub atomic particle in our body is always moving. We live on a planet that is rotating on an axis. That planet rotates around a sun. The solar system rotates around a galaxy. That galaxy rotates around the universe. In theory if you could rewind all motion in the universe you could go back. Using the train analogy in this video. Our grandma got off at a stop that the train will never visit again because it keeps moving forward. As the train keeps moving she eventually moves out of view. She still 'exists' but we are tied to the train moving forward.

The train example is super neat! I like how it makes me think about what now even is. Never thought about it before really.

Science has all the answers we seek. I've always found it difficult to rationalize that a human only exists a certain amount of time and then their whole essence is gone forever. It does not make sense- her explanation of the science is brilliant, relevant and makes a point not often echoed in her field. New hero❤❤❤😊

I love the methodology used in this presentation to explain this question about our eternal existance. I personally have grown to appreciate the concept of time is a human one. One which does not apply to the death of our earthly bodies here. That is why it is important to remember family and pets and friends and all forms of life in this planet changes it's appearance and energy only.

Oh, Sabine, I adore your explanations of phenomena; had I had a teacher like you,, my doc would be in other than art history...

To an observer 10 light years away from us, if they could see the Earth and humans specifically, then they’d be able to see my mom. This was a beautiful explanation of what “now” means. It would be interesting to hear what Echkart Tolle would say about this. His premise is that you only live in the now. The present moment. But each persons’ now is different and meaningless from what I got from this.

Thank you Sabine. It’s absolutely important to question… to think even if it cannot come to a satisfactory conclusion.

I got one problem with the train example: Alice should have the same experience because the initial speed of the left and the right lights in the Drive axis is the speed of the train, its like someone bounces a tennis ball from his hand towards the ceiling of a car in the space of a moving car, the ball will go down straits to his hand because the initial speed of him and the ball is the car speed.

I just watched an interview with Dr Sam Parnia. He is an ICU doctor who has basically studied when are you truly dead. He discovered that there is evidence that consciousness can “live” from minutes to hours after you heart stops beating and your brain waves are gone. His research is fascinating. It gets a bit technical but touches on near death experiences and consciousness.

I'm a Franciscan (who has also studied physics), and I have to say, this notion of timelessness, and the unknowability of whatever ordered it, sits very well with me.

Knowledge is refreshing to come across on youtube. Great video

The Block Universe is how I've been comforting myself about loves lost for years now. I can't remember where I read it but whatever it was said to think of time like the floors of a building being constantly built on top of one another, through which you are always climbing a staircase through the center of. Just because you're at a certain point on that staircase doesn't mean the other points on it don't exist. I don't know why but that resonated with me. Ever since, when the thought of those I've loved and lost comes to mind, I've imagined myself peaking in at them on whatever stair they're on, well and whole, and only out of sight because I've wandered off beyond the next corner.

There are some physicists who love to say that Einstein was wrong or failed as in the case with Sabine Hossenfelder who said that Einstein "failed" at 2:44. These physicists apparently get some sort of ego boost or something from this which is sad.

Things happen at specific times, where you are changes that time, doesn't change the time of the event.

Sabine is always a delight. I enjoy her passion for the truth and I find her explanations in this video fascinating. Bravo!

As a person who believes in science, I find this very useful to give me insights about existential questions that include sole sort of sprituality. All the answers given to humanity is mainly from religious background which doesn’t speak to my brain, but the moment she spoke, even though I’m not a physics freak, I was able to grasp her ideas and feel that it provided some comfort which religious people say they get from religion. Thank you 🙏🏼

I could sit and listen to Sabine talking all night long.. intellect and humanity combined.

I love the expanding of my mind through discussions like this. She is quite brilliant with a succinct way of expressing her knowledge. When my father passed away I kept wondering what had happened to him, where his consciousness went? And one day as clear as a bell I got the answer: He is everywhere.

When she mentioned we see things slightly in the past it reminded me of being a kid and trying to see my the side of my face in the mirror by rapidly spinning my head 😂

Thank you. That was a well-presented, sensible, and concise explanation of "now" according to Einstein.

4:06 No, it is supposed to be the other way around. You would see that lights were not simultanious and Alice would see that they were. From Alice´s point of view the lights are stationary relative to her. She ISN´T moving towards one of the sources, like Sabine claims. The speed of light is the same in all inertial refference frames - Einstein´s principle of relativity. It has to be the same in Alice´s case as well, so she must see that the lights are simultanious. It is crazy to see theoretical physicist like Sabine Hossenfelder make a mistake like that.

I think the diagram of the light flashes inside the train being seen at different times by Alice may be erroneous. They would be seen as arriving at Alice's position at different times by the observer outside the train, but Alice would see them simultaneously, since she is moving in their same frame, all inside the train. If the lights flashed simultaneously relative to themselves but arrived at different times relative to Alice, she would be able to detect her motion by noticing the non-simultaneity. She would not even need to know if they had flashed simultaneously to each other. She would note that the light behind her was red-shifted relative to the blue-shifted light in front of her, and thus able to detect she is in a state of motion. Whereas Relativity is based on the principle that you cannot detect your state of inertial motion inside a closed system. If the lights flashed simultaneously to each other, the wave fronts will reach Alice simultaneously. For them to be non-simultaneous in Alice's frame, they would need to be outside the train, attached to the ground.

There is alot of talk about the light, but experiencing sound is pretty fun too. For example if the lighting strikes, you can coun't how far it hit by measuring seconds how long the time was from the flash. For me it's pretty exciting to guess how big of a bang there is coming.

I'm a lover of Sabines channel, she is actually quite funny and always gives science news in an easy to understand way.

This is why I’ve always wondered how there can be a now when everything happens in the future and almost simultaneously becomes the past…

i´ve never been into physics but damn, this is interesting. thanks for sharing your knowledge!

Just fascinating. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. John

These are very much the same thoughts I have on it. We always exist somewhere, somewhen, even though in linear time most of the time we either arent yet born or are already dead.

The problem with physics at this level is difficult to use in mundane life activities like cooking a hamburger. But it’s so very fascinating to follow the logical thinking. I love Sabine’s style of presentation and this was possibly the best of her videos

That was explained very well. And you were easy to listen to ... thank you

You are Amazing Sabine,Great video👏🏽

I think I was about 4 years old, looking down at my feet, I had black plimsolls on, grey sox, and shorts. I started crying in the street near our home as just at that moment had realized that I had been flung into a reality that was alien to me and became self-aware. At age seven I had a bad accident, fell onto a glass bottle and it slashed my face very deeply from my ear to near my mouth, the middle of the cut went through to my jaw. The scar was terrible like a thick red worm across my face, and the children at school mocked me over it. So one day I sat in front of a mirror thinking that if I concentrated on the scar I could make it go away. I stared intently at it willing it to disappear and in the mirror, a face of an old man around 60 years old ish faded into vision and looked back at me. I blinked and shook my head but the man was still there. He had long grey hair blue eyes and a beard, this man had a conversation with me however I do not remember the conversation. I am almost sixty with long grey hair blue eyes and a beard, I look pretty much like the man in the mirror. Maybe I don't remember the conversation as I have not had that conversation yet. I think when or if that day comes, I will be flabbergasted and maybe I should think what the conversation or message should be. I suppose if this happens then the theory you talk of is true and the conversation I have may change everything...

Great talk, Sabine! Truly appreciate your highly practical view of existence. Humans like to ascribe human traits to everything, yet we are clearly pretty non-consequential - even to the point that when zillions of humans died and dispersed it will have zero effect on the underlying mechanics of whatever it is driving this whole thing (if, in fact, it actually exists...). For now, we have each other!

I really enjoyed this video. She is clear concise, even in such a difficult subject. Thank you!

Sabine is so good at explaining science - it is a real gift and no where better than in this video.

That's amazing! I had that exact same thought before I stumbled across this video!

i have definitely explored this concept in my past. I'm not sure if I've been introduced to einstines theory of relativity, but this makes perfect sense to me because of how exstisensial i was in my childhood.

Sabine is a great explainer ❤

She is incredibly articulate.

In the train example, even though the person is moving with the train, wouldn’t the light flashes arrive at the same time at her location? Isn’t the speed of light always the same, relative to the observer, no matter the speed of that observer, according to Einstein’s theory of relativity?

The way I understand what she's saying is this - in space, I occupy a certain place and that is where I presently am. There are many other places that still exist regardless of me being there or not. The present moment is just a certain 'place' in time, and other moments in time still exist whether we are presently there or not. It's an interesting idea.

We are born with amnesia. We trust that those who came before us know "some stuff". Assumptions literally begin at the beginning. How could someone who studies physics not become more spiritual? I'm not referring to the human interpretation of spirituality, but the entirety of the experience. It's beautiful. It's spiritual and at the same time not. We live in a universe where both are true and neighter is true. What a cool place to wander around for 100 years or so. Thank you Sabine Hossenfelder and the Big Think team.

A bit of a different subject but I would argue that since time began or shortly after the ability to travel in time existed. Understanding the fundamentals of Einstein's theories lays this out for us to clearly see. Also in two methods. Motion and Gravity. With motion I firmly believe that mankind will eventually be able to propel himself in half light speed or greater where this can be exploited to our will. With Gravity, existing in one gravity field and travelling to a either lesser or greater field of gravity we would experience extreme time dilation per our perspective. The possibilities are very exciting.

"Present moment has no fundamental significance" but also "Present moment has the essential importance and is all that matters." According to things explained in video, past and future is also included in "now".