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avevale_intelligencer"Scientists today unveiled a startling new theory about the nature of time, which could go some way to explaining a number of things we find perplexing. Speaking to our reporter, Professor Hilda Gefarr of the Orthodox Research Consortium explained the theory as follows:
"'If we postulate that the universe had a beginning, and furthermore that neither matter nor energy can be created nor destroyed, then every part and particle that makes up the universe began to exist in the same moment, currently estimated to be some four and a half billion years ago. This would include all of space, and all of time; all the matter, and all the energy.
"'Now we think we understand the processes that affect matter, energy and space, but we have hardly begun to explore how time is affected by, in fact, itself. Yet, if you think about it, the time we are experiencing now is some four and a half billion years older than the time around the universe's beginning. It has been around, in the back of the universal refrigerator so to speak, for all that time, waiting to be used. We are experiencing very, very old time.
"'If time has a shelf-life--an age after which it gradually begins to deteriorate--then this time, our present now, is quite probably past it. Indeed, the process of deterioration might have accelerated to the point where it can be observed even by non-scientists. This could explain, among other things, the pervasive sense among humans that present time is merely a pale shadow of a former time which was better. Till now this has been put down to selective memory of the freedom of childhood, but I find this hypothesis quite implausible. It seems to me far more persuasive that our time has, in fact, started to go off.
"'Whether it will last till the postulated entropic collapse of space and matter is a question we are doing our best to answer, while we look for some way of refreshing our time and prolonging its useful life. I should emphasise that at this point we have no idea how long we have before time begins to dry out and sprout blue fur; it could be days, it could be millennia, it could have already started. The only thing we can say with certainty is that the popular truism is correct; the future is definitely not what it used to be.'
"Professor Bernard Quatermass of the British Rocket Group was unavailable for comment."
"'If we postulate that the universe had a beginning, and furthermore that neither matter nor energy can be created nor destroyed, then every part and particle that makes up the universe began to exist in the same moment, currently estimated to be some four and a half billion years ago. This would include all of space, and all of time; all the matter, and all the energy.
"'Now we think we understand the processes that affect matter, energy and space, but we have hardly begun to explore how time is affected by, in fact, itself. Yet, if you think about it, the time we are experiencing now is some four and a half billion years older than the time around the universe's beginning. It has been around, in the back of the universal refrigerator so to speak, for all that time, waiting to be used. We are experiencing very, very old time.
"'If time has a shelf-life--an age after which it gradually begins to deteriorate--then this time, our present now, is quite probably past it. Indeed, the process of deterioration might have accelerated to the point where it can be observed even by non-scientists. This could explain, among other things, the pervasive sense among humans that present time is merely a pale shadow of a former time which was better. Till now this has been put down to selective memory of the freedom of childhood, but I find this hypothesis quite implausible. It seems to me far more persuasive that our time has, in fact, started to go off.
"'Whether it will last till the postulated entropic collapse of space and matter is a question we are doing our best to answer, while we look for some way of refreshing our time and prolonging its useful life. I should emphasise that at this point we have no idea how long we have before time begins to dry out and sprout blue fur; it could be days, it could be millennia, it could have already started. The only thing we can say with certainty is that the popular truism is correct; the future is definitely not what it used to be.'
"Professor Bernard Quatermass of the British Rocket Group was unavailable for comment."