The Origin of Time

What is time exactly? Is it possible to go back in time? And how about making time stop ticking? Humans have been debating the concept of time for centuries.

As shown by St. Augustine, who gave it a try in his Confessions around 400 AD: “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know. If I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not.” Sixteen hundred years later we still haven’t figured it out, but physicist Eric Bergshoeff will try to get to the essence of ‘time’ with the help of the laws of physics.

Eric Bergshoeff is Full Professor in Theoretical High-Energy Physics at the University of Groningen. He occupied postdoc positions in Boston (USA), the ICTP in Trieste and at the CERN particle accelerator in Geneva before he came to Groningen. In 2010, he was awarded ‘Akademiehoogleraar’ by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. His main research interests concern different aspects of gravity, both classical, non-relativistic and quantum.