Physicists Just Found a Tiny Flaw in Time Itself

Saturday, May 09, 2026

Quantum weirdness may be quietly blurring time itself--offering a tantalizing clue to the universe's deepest laws.

Posted by Dbt2 at 11:32 AM | 17 COMMENTS | permalink

Date: May 3, 2026; Source: Foundational Questions Institute, FQXi Summary: Physicists are rethinking one of quantum mechanics' biggest puzzles: how fuzzy possibilities become definite reality. New research suggests that spontaneous "collapse" processes--possibly linked to gravity--could subtly blur time itself. This wouldn't affect clocks we use today, but it reveals a hidden limit to how precise time can ever be. The findings open a new path toward uniting quantum physics with gravity.

Comments

What is time?

www.youtube.com

#1 | Posted by Corky at 2026-05-08 01:52 PM

What is time?

www.youtube.com</a>" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen>

#2 | Posted by A_Friend at 2026-05-08 02:02 PM

I was thinking this would have been a good kickoff to a music thread.

David Bowie, "Time"

www.youtube.com

It flexes like a whore.

#3 | Posted by Dbt2 at 2026-05-08 03:54 PM

The Chambers Brothers "Time Has Come Today"

www.youtube.com

#4 | Posted by Corky at 2026-05-08 04:37 PM

The immortal David Bowie left us too soon.

Good pick, DBT2.

From a Queens NY girl who insisted this ballad be the second song on her album, not the first where her producer thought it should be.

Sweet Ballad

In this video, you won't see a clock or watch anywhere.

#5 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2026-05-08 04:51 PM

Ok... I'm going to go ahead and say it:

Pink Floyd Official - Time (PULSE Restored & Re-Edited)

Pink Floyd
4.99M subscribers

www.youtube.com

#6 | Posted by Corky at 2026-05-08 06:33 PM

Falls wanking to the floor

It's trick is you and me...boy

#7 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2026-05-08 07:13 PM

But seriously...

Time Doesn't Exist? Scientists Say Reality May Be Very Different

NASA Space News 19 mins ago

www.youtube.com

#8 | Posted by Corky at 2026-05-08 08:04 PM

Time Doesn't Exist? Scientists Say Reality May Be Very Different

Depends.

Time is relative.

At the horizon of a black hole "Time" slows and stops.

Time Space and gravity are all related and part of the same "thing". Your clock on the wall run faster than a clock in the floor. Because of gravity.

Time is really just a way to measure entropy. Tho time is not simply entropy, but entropy defines the "arrow of time," distinguishing the past from the future. While time itself is a fundamental dimension of spacetime, entropy is a thermodynamic measure of disorder that generally increases, giving time its one-way direction.

I consider it a "flow". It's like a wave. We are riding the wave of our flow. We can slow it down by speeding up and speed it up by slowing down. But we cannot make it go backwards. Yet.

Time here on earth is not the same as time on a distant planet. Growing up I had assumed Time is the same everywhere in the Universe. Or basically block Time. It is not. It is relative. Time is relative it is not universal, but depends on an observer's speed and proximity to a gravitational mass, as explained by Einstein's theories of relativity.

"Now" only means something right here. There is no "now" light years from here. Asking what is happening right now in a distant planet is a nonsense question. You can cannot get to "now" light years from here because that is the past because of the distances between us.

Space (Nothing) Time and Matter are all part of the same thing.

And(as I have said before) Nothing Matters!

A lot.

(Without Nothing you could not have Something).

#9 | Posted by donnerboy at 2026-05-09 01:20 PM

If you are into audio books I highly recommend The Order of Time by Carlo Ravelli and read by Benedict Cumberpatch.

It's well written and easy to understand (very little math) and it's read by Benedict Cumberpatch!

#10 | Posted by donnerboy at 2026-05-09 01:28 PM

Marine

Did your buddies call you "Spock" back in the day?

Anyways, I never got a chance to read the book, but I saw the film version about time travel and airline crashes.

Since the movie stars Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd, you might waste a rainy afternoon watching it.

Gratis

BTW: US Army Major Hugh Thompson lived with PTSD the rest of his life and died young, in his early sixties.

#11 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2026-05-09 04:56 PM

The biggest, perhaps only theoretical argument against the possibility of time travel is conservation of energy.

Because E=mc^2, to make a 100 kg mass exist where, or if you prefer when, it didn't used to exist, represents about 9 exajoules or 2,000 megatons of TNT. All of the nuclear bombs in the world is only about 1500 megatons.

#12 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-05-09 07:07 PM

12. Miller explains it all in Repo Man.

"Where'd all those people go to?"

Spontaneous generation also a winner.

#13 | Posted by Dbt2 at 2026-05-09 08:18 PM

"There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time.

He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil " this is the gift of God.

I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will respect him.

Whatever is has already been,
and what will be has been before;
and God will call the past to account.

- the prophet Ezekiel ben-Buzi, a priest living in exile in Babylon during the 6th century B.C.. Written between roughly 593 and 571 B.C.

(also a Byrds song!)

NEW " Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season) - The Byrds {Stereo} #1 Dec. 1965

Smurfstools Oldies Music Time Machine

www.youtube.com

#14 | Posted by Corky at 2026-05-09 08:57 PM

Hurry up and create a way to reverse time...I want to go back in line and do this living thing again, and this time raise hell rather than being the good kid. Imagine being in junior high and knowing what you know today...okay, maybe not junior high, that would be miserable no matter the conditions.

#15 | Posted by Hughmass at 2026-05-10 07:43 AM

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

As long as there is Time Enough for Love.

(Another great book and story by Robert Heinlein)

#16 | Posted by donnerboy at 2026-05-10 12:57 PM

Did your buddies call you "Spock" back in the day?

Back then they just spelled it "Nerd".

#17 | Posted by donnerboy at 2026-05-10 01:15 PM

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