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Universal Time Theory
by Brady Lewis

Time is something that man theoretically invented.  It is something that we defined, that we quantified.  The cynical/pseudophilosophical/liberal college student would say that it is that which we use to keep track of our own decay.  In fact, as something that we supposedly invented, most would say that time isn’t even real. 

Yet, time is very real.  That which happened before now is differentiated from what will happen later.  Instinctively we know this, as it is just how reality is perceived to us.  Other species are aware of time as well, if only on a biological level (mating seasons come to mind, as well as migration). 

History is that part of time which came before.  Everything that has happened before this time interval is history.  Every detail of history is encoded in time.  If time was indeed tangible, it would be almost like a giant memory card, recording all that has happened down to the very last electron movement. 

In the past, time was thought of as a circle.  The seasons changed from summer to fall to winter to spring to summer.  However, a more recent way of thought is that time is a line.  Neither representation is accurate on its own, so perhaps a combination is more appropriate.

Those with knowledge of biology will recognize the resulting shape.  It is a single alpha helix, commonly ascribed to the secondary structure of DNA.

DNA is an interesting structure.  Genetic information stored in an elegant double helix, which is wrapped into an alpha helix and then into more complex structures.  Biological perfection if there is such a thing.

A strand of DNA is much too large to fit into a single cell when at full length, let alone the nucleus.  But since DNA has its structural folding patterns, such as the alpha helix, all that information can be stored in one microscopic nucleus because it is folded up. 

So does all the information encoded in time also fold in such a way? 

Follow this so far?  Time could fold around itself in order to fit into the universe. 

Time travel is theoretically possible in this model, although it would be very specific.  You can only travel to a time that is a set amount of time before or after your current time.  You would simply be "jumping loops" of time. 

Points of time line up, so all you must do is transverse the gap.

Or, alternatively, if one could understand the theoretical "distance" between time loops one could jump from their current "location" (point 1) to another (point 2) by finding the third side of the triangle, A² + B² = C², where A = radius of time loop, while B and C are "lengths" that would have to be determined somehow.  Hopefully one of them is a fixed universal time constant. 

However, the risks would be too high for a human to attempt to do this, even with the proper machinery and calculations.  The slightest miscalculation and you could find yourself off the time loop, presumably into oblivion.  You just no longer exist from that point on.  Most likely, though, you would simply wind up on another time loop (more on this later).  Also, the calculations would be incredibly difficult to determine.  You would have to know not only the radius of your time loop and one of the other constants, but also other more complex equations.  Why?  Consider that if time folds as DNA does, then time must also have a tertiary and perhaps (though not as likely) a quaternary structure.  This means that if you don’t know where your time loop is in the tertiary structure, you could quite literally be “shuffled off the mortal coil.”  In the above examples, the secondary structure is more or less linear.  However, in the tertiary structure, time folds AGAIN, giving you something like this:

So, if you were on a time loop at point A above, and wanted to reach the loop in the past at point B, the simple triangle equation wouldn’t work, as you would totally miss your mark and either be wiped from existence or (more likely) hit another point on an entirely separate loop, perhaps trillions upon trillions of years from where you wish to be. 

Why is landing on another loop more likely than being wiped from existence?  With the incredibly vast amounts of time in the universe, not only is the “distance” between loops so insignificantly small, but the alpha helix would almost inevitably wind around itself so many times that to see the whole of it would be analogous to a white piece of paper covered in black ink due to a pen and a spirograph run over it millions of times:  mostly filled up, but with a few pinpricks of white still visible (diagram not shown due to lack of spirograph).  The chances of randomly hitting one of the small specks of open space would be small, but still there.  Of course, unless you had some sort of time loop blueprint or map, once you hit a random spot it would be next to impossible to calculate your way back.

Because time keeps recording information, more and more space is required to store it all.  This could explain why the universe seems to be expanding, as continually more “space” is required.  If this is the case, then this simple piece of information tells us that the universe expands more the more it expands. 

You read that right.  Think about it.  When the universe started, the first few seconds it existed it was very small.  Very little time existed.  However, it grew the more time accumulated, and each new part of space created meant that time had to encode more information.  So more space was required.  This new area of space also had information to be recorded, so more space was required.  You see how this works?  As more space is created to hold time, continually more and more space will be required to hold it, which will lead to more information that time must encode. 

If we follow THIS bit of information, we can also conjecture that the time strands of time loops could also be continuously becoming wider, or thicker, or just in some way larger than even the segment the second before it.  They could increase in "size" as more information is encoded.  This could help accelerate the growth of the universe immensely, as even more space would be required than initially thought. 

So, under this theory, does the universe just continuously expand?  Is there an end? 

I would say there isn’t so much as an end but rather a return to the beginning.  Eventually, either by random chance or from the universe hitting some barrier and therefore not being able to expand, time will loop back into itself and run into the open end that was started at the beginning.  Then time will become truly cyclical.  Everything will begin again and happen as it already has.  In fact, as corny as it sounds, all of this has probably happened before.  You’ve read this an infinite number of times already, and will always do so at this exact point of time.  I will create this theory the same dumbass way I always have. 

In a sense, we either do or did have free will, on the first trip through time.  But after this first trip, we have fate. 

Another thing to consider is that, in nature, most things move into chaos without some sort of guiding outside force acting on them.  DNA is no exception, as numerous biological and chemical forces cause it to form the alpha helix and all other structures.  There is nothing to suggest that there are such forces acting on time.

A force powerful enough to focus time into folding would be incredibly strong.  We are talking more powerful than any force the human mind could imagine or even think of.  We could never hope to even comprehend such a force, let alone prove its existence.  To believe that a force of this magnitude exists could only be that:  a belief, based on faith, and not an entirely rational one.

There is a name for such a force.

God.