Tag: time

Wormwood and The End of The World – Perception and coincidence

Have you ever thought of an old friend who you hadn’t seen in years, and then met them minutes later?

As I was writing this post, I was in conversation with my brother while walking down the road in Dublin, talking about this type of coincidence. As luck would have it, we were midway through this conversation when an old friend who I hadn’t seen in years appeared directly in front of us. Coincidence? Read on.

On April 26, 1986, in northern Kiev Oblast, Ukraine, a fire started in Reactor 4 of a large nuclear power station near the towns of Chernobyl and Pripyat. The Chernobyl power station, which had begun operations nine years earlier, went into crisis as the fire spread and soon a small explosion occurred in the reactor. An evacuation was ordered, and fire services entered to attempt to reduce the damage and the spread of radioactive material into the air. However, it was already too late. Irradiated gas leaked into the local area, and within hours people began to feel nauseous and light-headed. Soon both towns were evacuated, and have never been repopulated to the same extent (although some people live there, in a fascinating story uncovered by Holly Morris).

A photograph of rain falling down a window with a red light distorted in the blur of the exterior

In weeks to come the devastation of the Chernobyl disaster became widespread. Continue reading “Wormwood and The End of The World – Perception and coincidence”

Fadó, Fadó – An adventure through space and time

Fadó, fadó in a world not unlike our own, a group of people embarked on an amazing journey through the stars.

Our journey, as Homo Sapiens, started approximately 400,000 years ago. Like all stories, there is of course a long history to our arrival at the start of this journey, but this story is about our collective selves and how we have travelled. Before the castles and the aqueducts, before we farmed animals or spliced atoms, our collective protagonist (we) was about to embark upon one of the most astounding journeys ever taken through the stars.

A long exposure photograph of stars in the night sky

At a running start our adventurers have swept around the sun 400,000 times, and the vast Milky Way (that the sun is a small part of) has travelled around 16% of the way around the centre of the universe Continue reading “Fadó, Fadó – An adventure through space and time”

To define “Time” in ten words or less

We can all define time. We all understand what it is and how it works, right? The challenge: to define time in ten words or less.

The Oxford English Dictionary summarise time pretty well:

time

Pronunciation: /tʌɪm/ noun 1 [mass noun] the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole

That’s exactly what I would have said.

The concept is straightforward for anyone Continue reading “To define “Time” in ten words or less”