On the 16th April 2014, Mr. Michael Gulvin talked about the topic “How I met My Wife at the Big Bang: McTaggart, Einstein and the Illusion of Time”. The topic delved into some of the ideas surrounding time and our perception of it. Beginning with the most basic thoughts of the earliest philosophers and their examination of change and permanence, the talked progressed through some of the greatest thinkers of our time. For us, Aristotle dissected time into its component parts and brought forward the first inclinations of a problem in our understanding of time. Hume threw into doubt our understandings of the beginnings of creation and also causality and, J.M.E. McTaggart told us time only existed as an illusion. In the second half of the talk, Mike went back to the beginning of ‘time’ — the big bang – and, brought in the empiricist nature of science in the form of Einsteinian relativity. In so doing, he attempted to show the young audience that not all was as it seemed in the universe; especially time! As the flow of time is questioned, so is the nature of our free will. The lecture was designed to be thought provoking and we certainly hope and feel that this was achieved.
