The Senior Common Room was gathered around the fireplace when Mr Blottisham entered carrying a book.
Professor Quillibrace looked up.
"Another scientific discovery?"
"Not exactly."
"An article?"
"No."
"A question?"
"Yes."
Quillibrace smiled.
"Those are generally the most troublesome."
Blottisham placed the book on the table.
"It says that time does not flow."
Miss Stray looked interested.
"And what did you think?"
"I thought..."
He paused.
"...that it seemed rather unlikely."
Professor Quillibrace raised an eyebrow.
"Why?"
"Because yesterday became today."
"Yes."
"And today will become tomorrow."
"Yes."
"So something is clearly moving."
"Something?"
"Well..."
Blottisham frowned.
"Time."
Professor Quillibrace leaned back.
"An excellent answer."
"Thank you."
"Unfortunately, it may contain the entire problem."
Miss Stray poured tea.
"Perhaps we should ask what we mean by 'flow'."
"Why?"
"Because we use the word constantly."
Professor Quillibrace counted on his fingers.
"Rivers flow."
"Yes."
"Water flows."
"Yes."
"Traffic flows."
"Yes."
"Information flows."
"Yes."
"And time?"
Blottisham smiled.
"Time flows."
"Does it?"
Blottisham looked uncertain.
"It feels as though it does."
"Indeed."
"Isn't that enough?"
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"It is enough for ordinary life."
"And not enough for physics?"
"Precisely."
Miss Stray looked thoughtful.
"Perhaps the difficulty is that a river contains different moments."
"What do you mean?"
"You can stand beside a river and watch water arrive and depart."
"Yes."
"The past water is gone."
"Yes."
"The future water has not arrived."
"Yes."
"But where is the equivalent in time?"
Blottisham frowned.
"Where is yesterday?"
"Exactly."
Professor Quillibrace approached the blackboard.
He wrote:
TIME FLOWS
Then beneath it:
FROM WHERE?
Blottisham looked at the words.
"That is irritating."
"Good."
"Good?"
"Questions that are too comfortable rarely produce discoveries."
Miss Stray smiled.
"The metaphor works beautifully until we ask it to explain itself."
"Like the particle knowing?"
"Exactly."
Blottisham nodded.
"So 'flow' helps us think about time."
"Yes."
"But it also smuggles in assumptions."
"Yes."
"What assumptions?"
Professor Quillibrace wrote:
A thing that flows requires:
- A substance
- A direction
- A place from which it comes
- A place towards which it goes
"Do we have these with time?"
Blottisham considered.
"A substance of time?"
"Unknown."
"A direction?"
"Possibly."
"A place from which it comes?"
"Problematic."
"A destination?"
"Also problematic."
Blottisham sighed.
"So time is a river without water, banks, a source, or an end."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"An excellent description of why the metaphor is troublesome."
Miss Stray looked into the fire.
"I wonder whether the problem is that we treat metaphors as though they were pictures."
"What do you mean?"
"A picture can resemble something."
"Yes."
"But a metaphor is more like a tool."
"A tool?"
"Yes."
"A hammer is useful because of what it lets us do."
"Exactly."
"Not because it resembles the thing it acts upon."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"Very good."
"So metaphors are tools for thinking."
"Yes."
"But tools can become limitations."
"Precisely."
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"Then should we stop saying time flows?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because the metaphor remains extraordinarily useful."
"For what?"
"For living."
Professor Quillibrace sat down again.
"When you say, 'I don't have enough time,' the metaphor helps you understand something important."
"That time is limited?"
"Yes."
"When you say, 'Time heals,' it expresses something meaningful."
"Yes."
"When you say, 'Those days have passed,' everyone understands."
"So the metaphor isn't false."
"No."
"But it isn't a literal description."
"Exactly."
Miss Stray smiled.
"Perhaps the mistake is expecting one metaphor to do every job."
The room became quiet.
Blottisham looked pleased.
"So physics has a different metaphor."
"Perhaps."
"What is it?"
"Physics often treats time as a dimension."
"A place?"
"In a sense."
"Like space?"
"Yes."
Blottisham looked troubled.
"But space doesn't flow."
"No."
"So now we have a problem."
"Indeed."
"We have one metaphor saying time flows."
"Yes."
"And another saying time is like a location."
"Yes."
"And they don't quite agree."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"Now you are asking the interesting questions."
Miss Stray added:
"Perhaps the metaphors are not competing descriptions."
"No?"
"Perhaps each reveals something different."
"The river tells us about experience."
"Yes."
"The dimension tells us about mathematical structure."
"Yes."
"But neither is the whole truth."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"That may be the most important sentence spoken today."
The college clock struck five.
Blottisham gathered his book.
"One last question."
"Naturally."
"If time doesn't flow..."
"Yes?"
"...why does it feel as though it does?"
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"Ah."
"The dangerous question?"
"Indeed."
"Perhaps..."
Miss Stray said quietly,
"...because we are not observers standing outside time."
Nobody spoke.
"We are events within it."
Professor Quillibrace looked at the clock.
For once, he did not immediately correct anyone.
The room remained silent.
The fire burned.
The clock ticked.
And somewhere between one tick and the next, everyone experienced something they could describe only by saying:
time passed.
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