If nothing else convinces you that “time” is a man-made, artificial construction meant to keep people from twiddling their thumbs and staring up at the sun, it should be today. Today is February 29th, which, according to our Gregorian calender, is a Leap Day. What’s a Leap Day? Well, our 24-hour day, 365-day a year calender is off kilter because it actually takes the Earth a bit longer than 365 full days to complete an orbit around the sun. So we have to “add-in” an extra day to the calender every four years so that our calender-year actually matches the Earth’s orbital-year.
I think we should just go ahead and have a calender with 365.25-days a year. Wouldn’t that be cool? The last day of the year could be 6 hours long, which would either mean a very short work day, or one helluva drinking binge.
And while we’re on the subject of time, where the hell is our time machine? Science-fiction has promised us one for decades now, and I’m sick of waiting. And flying cars. Wait, a Flying Car Time Machine!! That’s the ticket. Oh, and teleporters. Oooo, and sociopathic, megalomaniacal, sentient computers!
Okay, I could do without the last one. I guess what I’m trying to say is that real science needs to get a clue and start being as interesting as fake science. What would you rather study: the mathematical reason our solar year is slightly fucked up, or the ways to prevent people from inadvertently telefragging each other?
That’s what I thought.