Reversing Backward Time

Remember in history class when studying ancient civilizations you would get confused because some fellow would be getting older as the years became “younger.”  For example, Caesar Augustus was born in 64 BC and 37 years later became emperor in 27 BC?  How did he do that? Reverse time travel?

This reverse time problem is also endemic to anthropology, geology, paleontology, cosmology and all the other studies that look back through time.  Time moves forward, not backwards.  AllTime eliminates this backward thinking and moves time forward, instead.   The years advance as people grow older, and this follows the natural progression.  

Scientists call this "The Arrow of Time."  There is no BC, no Years Ago, and no Before Present. It is so much more precise to say, "The universe is 13.7 Billion years old," rather than, "The universe began 13.7 Billion years ago."  The first statement includes the age of the universe and the time that has elapsed since the beginning of the universe.  The second statement expresses the length of time, but confuses the direction of time.

No one who told you they were born fifty years ago would imagine that you might think they were now zero years old.  The "years ago" statement is meant to be interpreted as moving both ways - you were born fifty years ago and you are fifty years old.  The years ago system actually wants you to believe that the universe began 13.7 billion years ago and that it is now zero.  This is counter-intuitive.

Another conundrum created by Years Ago and BC is the "march-forward-to-fall-back" effect.  Although the year number is annually reduced by one, i.e. 45 BC is followed by 44 BC, the year itself is additive.  Therefore, it takes about 365 days starting with day one to add up to a year - only to lose a year.  If that system were to be consistent, it might count days and months backwards too: i.e., December 31 would be followed by December 30.

How to Get Time Moving Forward

AllTime incorporates the entire expanse of time, not just a couple of miniscule millennia.  It infuses all 13.7 billion years into present-day consciousness, not just 2004 years.

Before we look at this new universe freed from billions of years of backward time, there is one modification of AllTime we need to introduce.  We need to create a more precise definition of AllTime, actually a hybrid of AllTime and the epoch system presently in use.

Here’s how it works; simply take the AllTime number and add whatever epoch system you are presently using, if you are using the Hebrew calendar the date would be 13,700,005,763, if you are using the Gregorian calendar the date would be 13,700,002,004.

We’ll use the AllTime / Gregorian hybrid for the examples that follow. Don’t worry about the length of this hybrid number, you can use the abbreviation 13.7B  2004 .

The reason we use this AllTime – hybrid is that we get the best of both worlds; we get the long view of AllTime linked to the precise historic records scribed in the last 2004 years of the Gregorian system.

For example, if you were born in 1950 Gregorian then you were born in 13.7B 1950 AllTime – hybrid.  The beauty is that all of the dates on your love letters, bank records, etc., remain the same and yet all you have to do is imagine a 13.7B before the date and voila! All these dates are now in AllTime.

Although the link between AllTime and the Gregorian calendar is a relatively painless and simple conceptual shift when dealing with forward moving time, we reap vast rewards when translating Gregorian backward time (BC) or Science’s backward time (Years Ago or Before Present) into AllTime.

Fixing Years Ago

Let’s take a look at the big picture first. Presently scientists would say that the galaxies formed about 11 billion years ago.  AllTime would say the galaxies formed 2.7 billion years after the Big Bang.  Now the emphasis is where it should be, on the bigger picture, on the vast expanse of time and not just the difference between now and then.

It’s comforting to see time move forward, isn’t it? But what AllTime does to the shorter-term timelines is truly fun.

Fixing B C

To show you how to turn BC around, we need to take an example from the BC system, say Sargon's Empire founded in 2234 B C.  What would this date be in AllTime?

To get the AllTime date we subtract the BC date (2234) from the AllTime date (13,700,000,000) so the AllTime – hybrid date would be 13,699,997,766.

This is a big number but we can abbreviate. We don’t need the first seven digits, (13,699,99) because they are always the same if we intend to only consider the time that follows this number.  In other words, all numbers will be 13,699,990,000 or larger until we reach 13,800,000,000, so lets replace the 13,699,99 with a  > symbol.

Now we have a date the same length as the BC date, they are both equally manageable:

>7766 AT

2234 BC

We also get a big gain by using this > symbol because the abbreviation > does not need to stand for 13,699,99.  Instead it could stand for whatever the age of the universe ultimately turns out to be.  It may turn out to be 14,999,99 (7,766) or 12,499,99 (7,766).  Using the abbreviation makes it possible to print an AllTime history book today that would remain valid until the end of time.

Saying Good Bye To BC

Lets now take a look at AllTime compared to BC (Gregorian).

Abbreviating AllTime

The abbreviation system can encompass larger chunks of time just by shortening the abbreviated section; thus, the advent of the modern human around 13,699,900,000 becomes >900,000. (The Years Ago number is equally long: 100,000.)