Time and Beauty

The following sections are included:

• Acknowledgement
• Contents

Growing up, I realized that time was passing faster and faster. This feeling persisted. I became so curious that in March 2019 I published a physics-based explanation for why this feeling is so common. My article [1] was the most read in the entire world during that month [2]. The obvious message is that aging is of concern to all of us on the planet. This book is my story of the idea and its reflection in the physics of beauty and usefulness in life…

One of the most common human perceptions is that time passes faster as an individual becomes older. The days become shorter, and so do the years. We all have stories of this kind, from the long days of childhood and the never-ending class hours in elementary school, to the days, months, and years that now pass in a blur. The most common sayings capture this impression: Times flies; Where did the time go? Last year was yesterday; Growing up took forever; A watched pot never boils…

Have you noticed that you tend to be attracted to things that look nice and are not confusing? The most famous landscapes are painted and hung that way. If you do not visit art galleries, look at the credit cards and bank notes in your pocket. In fact, you are so attached to those things that you carry them with you, and you make sure that nobody steals them from you…

The images that nature shows us are not like those that people make. They are not even like those that the most gifted artists make. People make images by drawing lines on a uniform background, usually white. This happens in both art and science. Later, if there is need and talent, the image maker fills the areas between the lines with colors and shades. Even later, the best of the artists blur the lines or even paint over them, leaving only the nonuniform color that fills the page. Today, thanks to high-tech photography, experts marvel when they discover the line drawings hidden under the most famous paintings for many centuries…

Shape is form, and the form is chiefly responsible for conveying the idea that is in the image. The word idea comes from the ancient Greek word idein, “seeing” with the eyes of your mind [1]. Form is not everything. Contrast also helps because it delineates the form and facilitates the transmission (Chapter 4). How well the shape of the image fits inside the natural shape of the observer’s field of vision helps as well. The match between the two shapes facilitates the transmission, and for this reason the image feels attractive and beautiful (Chapter 3). Better perception of shape and more changes that are perceived per unit time stimulate the feeling that time slows down and life is longer and more productive (Chapter 2)…

An image conveys an idea to the viewer. Once grasped, the idea is out, like the proverbial cat out of the bag, or horse out of the barn. It cannot go back from the viewer’s mind to the work of art on the page. Later, if the viewer reproduces the idea and presents it as his own, that is a stolen idea. My mother often warned me that “the eyes steal” (oculi furantur in Latin, ochii fură in Romanian), and this expression covers all the forms of the act, from copying during exams in school to peeping Toms and plagiarism in publishing…

Nature is not math, formula, equation or algorithm. Nature is not made of two-dimensional objects, as in the images displayed in the preceding chapters. The objects of nature have four dimensions: the two dimensions of the image on the page, the third-dimension perpendicular to the page, and, as a fourth dimension, the discernible time direction in which the configuration of the object is changing. Nature is human perception and memory of movies on top of movies, all with the same plot…

The history of technology is recorded as a select parade of objects (devices, inventions, designs) aligned with the passing of time. The same can be said of the history of civilization, for which history books show us images of much bigger objects: edifices, roads, bridges, and aqueducts [1–5]. Understandably, in these books there is no room for the multitude of objects that preceded the commemorated few. Perhaps the omitted were not as good, or maybe their inventors were not as powerful to spread their use by trade, conquest, and writing…

In everyone’s life, the mind time began to speed up early. Admit it, when you were very little you thought that the clouds were motionless, just hanging there, as part of the sky. They seemed motionless because your tiny eyes were jiggling at high frequency. Time stood still then, which is why old people say that time is being wasted on the young. Then came a moment when you noticed for the first time that the clouds were moving. If you were surprised by your discovery, then you remember that event today. If you remained curious about the clouds and what their shapes teach you, then you noticed that the clouds have been moving faster as you got older…

The human events recounted in this story are like the spontaneous discoveries that add color and shade to the body of this book. They are simple acts of free movement and thinking, accessible when one is empowered by the view that evolution is physics, i.e., an image that is present in all objects with movement and freedom to change. They are about new mental viewings, drawings, changing images, and moving images, in short, the evolution of useful things called ideas…

The following section is included:

• Index