"A timeless universe is hard to imagine, but not because time is a technically complex or philosophically elusive concept. There is a more structural reason: imagining timelessness requires time to pass. Even when you try to imagine its absence, you sense it moving as your thoughts shift, your heart pumps blood to your brain, and images, sounds and smells move around you. The thing that is time never seems to stop. You may even feel woven into its ever-moving fabric as you experience the Universe coming together and apart. But is that how time really works?"

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Authors: 

Sara Walker, an astrobiologist and theoretical physicist at Arizona State University, where she is deputy director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science and professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration. She is also external professor at the Santa Fe Institute and a fellow at the Berggruen Institute.

Lee Cronin is Regius Chair of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and CEO of Chemify.

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