Radiolab Episode Time

By Author: Sherry Roberts
Total Articles: 153

Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the full hour episode is about time. It’s all about the freezing off, the speeding up of, the slowing down of and the politics of the time. The program starts with a humming song that is claimed to have gotten composed in 1970s but intended it for now. The hosts are set to discuss the topic 'time', helping make deeper discoveries about it. The first twenty minutes unlocks the secrets of time. The first definition of time is that time is essentially that which allows us to see if something has changed. When one observes the hands on the clock changing positions that show time elapsing (Radiolab, 2015).
Within the first few minutes of the episode, the listener gets the opportunity to listen to Oliver Sacks, a neurologist who is much obsessed and fascinated with time. He says that he used photography to get inside the meaning of time since he was a small boy. Later, ones listen to a crying baby by the name Nancy Schwart recorded by the father, Tony Schwart. We experience growth of the baby as the time elapses right from a time she is crying like a toddler, learning how to speak until she is fully grown and educated. Finally, Nancy is doing research at Hawaii. As she grows, we notice that the father is growing old too. The lesson here is that, growth and development get marked by time. No one can defy time. As the time wears off, we become better and older just like 'time'. Moreover, time is a very plastic thing. It’s so swift that we cannot comprehend how much elapsed (Radiolab, 2015).
Time is measured on several bases, as the host puts it; there are many types of clocks. The first mentioned is the parent’s cloak. As the kid grows, one notices you are growing old too. Everything is a cloak. There is also the task time or event time. This time get measured on the basis of events and includes lunch time, milking time sleeping time, supper time and so on. Another kind of time is the birds’ time. The twittering of birds in the morning signifies that it is dawn; wake up time. Their humming at the evening signifies twilight. That tells the children that it’s time for home-going. Another kind of time covered in this episode gets the name 'flower time'. That is signified by some types of flowers. An example is the morning glory. The flower is seen to open and sprout showing its morning time. Later in the day, the flower folds up signifying that it is evening time. Some flowers change their colors at different time of the day. Thus, if one is walking by and see a blush of pink them its morning time, a blush of purple-lunch time, and so on.
The hosts go ahead to tell us that time not universal. They explain this by saying that, if one want to know what time it is and ask three different people at three different places at the same time, one would get three different responses. The reason behind that is because that there is neither official time nor universal time. All we have is clocks/watches time. (Radiolab, 2015)
Another lesson is that, time and speed is directly proportional or coupled. The episode demonstrates this by the use of a slow camera and a fast running horse. Taking photos of the horse in motion would thus result in some photos getting cut off since the camera moves at a different speed from that of the horse. Another demonstration is done using picture flow in a movie. We learn that, one way that movies got initially used was to record film factory workers doing repetitive tasks. If one worker were doing it right, then they would it and use the record to teach everyone else. Here, one learns that speed determines how time elapses. The factory worker working swiftly would thus take less time. Hester’s speed is seen to be too high relative to her counterparts. She catches a ball and throws it back even before her colleague has placed his hand back to the position. Her time is thus running slower. She is seen to work at a reaction speed of tenth of a sec or less (Radiolab, 2015).
Another thing to learn is that, time is all relative. Time is not universal. When two people move relative to each other, our watches tickle at different rates. When they set their watches exactly the same, then move relative to each other and later rejoin, the watches won’t agree. That is demonstrated by placing one watch set at 5.25 in a Jet set at 669 million miles an hour speed. Once landed, the time by the watch in the jet is 5.26 while that which was on the ground reads 5.33 at the same time.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at Melda Research in best research paper writing service. If you need a similar paper you can place your order for a custom research paper from affordable custom research papers services.