Introduction
“The distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
– Albert Einstein, 1955
In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle described infinity not as a number, but as a process without end, something that could be approached but never completed. For nearly two millennia, the concept remained philosophical rather than mathematical. In 1655, the mathematician John Wallis introduced the symbol ∞ to represent an infinite quantity. The symbol has helped humanity entertain the concept of infinity, accepting it with little resistance when applied to things such as distance. Space presents no boundary condition, no terminal surface where something ends and nothing begins, and despite the human mind’s inability to visualise such scale, the idea is still broadly accepted.
Time, however, is treated differently. It is assumed to possess a beginning, a fixed point of origin, most commonly defined as the Big Bang, approximately 4.35×10¹⁷ seconds ago, subject to revision depending on model accuracy and observational limits. The contradiction between space and time is rarely examined. A universe expanding into infinite space is accepted without difficulty, and yet the notion that time may conform to a similar expansion is dismissed.
In 1922, the mathematician Alexander Friedmann became the first to solve Einstein's field equations for an expanding universe, revealing a boundary beyond which the equations cease to describe reality. Every attempt to calculate time's origin drives the equations toward singularity, where density tends toward infinity, volume approaches zero, and the theory itself ceases to produce physically meaningful predictions. In 2008, Stephen Hawking summarised the problem plainly: "The equations of General Relativity would break down at the singularity. Thus Einstein's theory cannot predict how the universe will begin, but only how it will evolve once it has begun."
No equivalent consensus exists regarding an end state. There is no widely accepted terminal condition for time, no definitive boundary beyond which it ceases.
The asymmetry between origin and termination is typically ignored, despite its implications. If time cannot be meaningfully defined at its beginning, and no end can be demonstrated, then the assumption that it began at all becomes increasingly tenuous. It is, at best, a simplification imposed for the sake of comprehension.
A more consistent interpretation is that time does not begin or end, but exists as a continuous structure within which observers occupy a limited position. Not at an origin point, and not at a conclusion, but somewhere within the middle of the unbounded system.
There is no edge to reach, no wall to press a hand against. It is not that we are confined within something vast, but that vastness itself is the mechanism of our confinement.
Whether by accident or intention, whether by nature or by something that prefers not to be noticed, the result remains unchanged. We are not explorers of an open expanse, but occupants of a structure so complete it requires no bars to contain us. If such a construct were deliberate, it would require only one final condition: that those within it never recognise it for what it really is, naming it universe, or reality, or existence.
