Time on Other Worlds
Do Aliens Watch Different Clocks? Is time just all in your mind? Let's see...
Imagine that an odd alien couple, Littlebem and Bigbem ("bem" is old science fiction fan lingo for "bug-eyed monster") land on Earth and soon suffer from a malaise similar to our familiar time-zone-crossing, hour-compressing "jet lag." But they are suffering for another reason: their days have gone out of whack.
On Littlebem’s world, every second is only 1/3 that of earth’s, and every minute only 1/3 (20 seconds), with every hour only 20 minutes. His day is only 24/3 hours long, or 8 hours. For him, time on earth seems to drag out very long. His little world spins fast compared to Earth.
On Bigbem’s world, every second is 3 seconds of earth’s long, and every minute is 60 x 3= 180 seconds long with every hour 60 x 3= 180 minutes long. His day is 3 x 24= 72 hours long. For him, time on earth seems to rush by far too quickly. His big world spins slowly compared to Earth.
The point of this exercise is that the people of Earth, and my fictional big and little world aliens, experience time differently because each is scaled by evolution to fit the local environment. I maintain that human perception of time is based on local world environmental parameters, such as the length of our days and nights, among other things.
Because the time phenomena we observe to experience time results from motion by matter and/or energy through space, it follows that the rate at which time flows in a sentient being’s mind depends upon its home world environment. The most important environmental factor would be the rate at which a world turns as it spins along its stellar orbit.
Aliens.htm posted 12-7-99, revised 12-10-00, 12-2-01