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Vassily Maximov, "Everything is in the past" (1889).

The past is the portion of time that has already occurred;^[1] it is the opposite of the future.

Overview

The past is contrasted with the present. It is also regarded as the conglomerate of events that happened in a certain point in time, within the Space-time continuum. The aforementioned conception is closely related to Albert Einstein's Theory of relativity. The past is the object of such fields as history, archaeology, archaeoastronomy, chronology, geology, (historical geology), historical linguistics, law, paleontology, paleobotany, paleoethnobotany, palaeogeography, paleoclimatology, and cosmology.

Humans have recorded the past since ancient times, and to some extent, one of the defining characteristics of human beings is that they are able to record the past, recall it, remember it and confront it with the current state of affairs, thus enabling them to plan accordingly for the future, and to theorise about it as well.

Philosophy and science

According to presentism, the past does not strictly exist; however, the methods of all sciences study the world's past, through the process of evaluating evidence. Presentism is compatible with Galilean relativity, in which time is independent of space but is probably incompatible with Lorentzian/Einsteinian relativity in conjunction with certain other philosophical theses which many find uncontroversial.

A visualisation of the past light cone (at bottom), the present, and the future light cone in 2D space.

In classical physics the past is just a half of the timeline. In special relativity the past is considered as absolute past or the past cone. In Earth's scale the difference between "classical" and "relativist" past is less than 0.05 s, so it can be neglected in most cases.

In the modern theory of relativity, the conceptual observer is at a geometric point in both space and time at the apex of the 'light cone' which observes events laid out in time as well as space. Different observers can disagree on whether two events at different locations occurred simultaneously depending if the observers are in relative motion (see relativity of simultaneity). This theory depends upon the idea of time as an extended thing and has been confirmed by experiment and has given rise to a philosophical viewpoint known as four dimensionalism. However, although the contents of an observation are time-extended, the conceptual observer, being a geometric point at the origin of the light cone, is not extended in time or space. This analysis contains a paradox in which the conceptual observer contains nothing, even though any real observer would need to be the extended contents of an observation to exist. This paradox is partially resolved in Relativity theory by defining a 'frame of reference' to encompass the measuring instruments used by an observer. This reduces the time separation between instruments to a set of constant intervals.^[2]

See also

• Antiquarian
• Fossil
• Memory
• Past tense
• Retro
• Nostalgia
• Museum
• Artifact
• History
• Historic preservation

References

Time Major concepts Time · Eternity · Arguments for eternity · Immortality Deep time · History · Past · Present · Future · Futurology Time Portal Measurement and Standards Chronometry · UTC · UT · TAI · Second · Minute · Hour · Sidereal time · Solar time · Time zone Clock · Horology · History of timekeeping devices · Astrarium · Marine chronometer · Sundial · Water clock Calendar · Day · Week · Month · Year · Tropical year · Julian · Gregorian · Islamic   Intercalation · Leap second · Leap year Chronology Astronomical chronology · Geologic Time · Geological history · Geochronology · Archaeological dating Calendar era · Regnal year · Chronicle · Timeline · Periodization Religion and Mythology Time and fate deities · Wheel of time · Kāla · Kalachakra · Prophecy · Dreamtime Philosophy Causality · Eternalism · Eternal return · Event · The Unreality of Time · A-series and B-series · B-Theory of time Endurantism · Four dimensionalism · Perdurantism · Presentism · Temporal finitism · Temporal parts Physical Sciences Time in physics · Spacetime · Absolute time and space · T-symmetry Arrow of time · Chronon · Fourth dimension · Planck epoch · Planck time · Time domain Theory of relativity · Time dilation · Gravitational time dilation · Coordinate time · Proper time Biology Chronobiology · Circadian rhythms Psychology Mental chronometry · Reaction time · Sense of time · Specious present Sociology and Anthropology Futures studies · Long Now Foundation · Time discipline · Time use research Economics Newtonian time in economics · Time value of money · Time Banking · Time-based currency Related topics Space · Duration · Time capsule · Time travel · Time signature · System time · Metric time · Hexadecimal time · Carpe diem · Tempus fugit

From Wikiquote

Quotes about the past:

• "The past is utterly indifferent to its worshipers."
  • William Winter

• "Not to know what happened before we were born is always to remain a child; to know, and blindly to adopt that knowledge as an implicit rule of life, is never to be a man."
  • Chatfield

• "No hand can make the clock strike for me the hours that are passed."
  • Lord Byron

• "The present is only intelligible in the light of the past."
  • Trench

• "Study the past if you would divine the future."
  • Confucius

• "The best of prophets of the future is the past."
  • Lord Byron

• "Many classes are always praising the by-gone time, for it is natural that the old should extol the days of their youth; the weak, the area of their strength; the sick, the season of their vigor; and the disappointed, the springtide of their hopes!"
  • C. Bingham

• "Some are so very studious of learning what was done by the ancients that they know not how to live with the moderns."
  • William Penn

• "The past and future are veiled; but the past wears the widow's veil; the future, the virgin's."
  • Richter

• "Do not attempt to change the past, but instead seek to make the future"
  • Gen. Teofisto Gaurano

• "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."
  • L. P. Hartley

• The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here.
  • Finley Peter Dunne (Mr Dooley).

• We are tomorrow's past.
  • Mary Webb

See also

• History

References

Look up past in Wiktionary, the free dictionary

• Klopsch, Louis, 1852-1910 (1896). Many Thoughts of Many Minds.  

From Wikisource

The Past may refer to:

• The Past (Hopper), a short story by Author:James Hopper
• The Past (Shelley), a poem by Author:Percy Bysshe Shelley
• The Past (Whitman), a poem by Author:Sarah Helen Whitman
• The Past (Wilcox), a poem by Author:Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

Wikipedia has an article on:

Past

Wikipedia

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: päst, IPA: /pɑːst/, SAMPA: /pA:st/
• (US) IPA: /pæst/
•  Audio (US)^{help, file}

  Homophones: passed

  Rhymes: -ɑːst

Etymology

From Middle English, past participle of passen (“‘to pass", "to go by’”)

Noun

past (plural pasts)

1. The period of time that has already happened, in contrast to the present and the future.
2. (grammar) The past tense.

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

past (comparative more past, superlative most past)

1. Having already happened; in the past; finished.

   past glories

2. Relating to the past.

   past tense

3. (of a period of time) the one before this one

   during the past year

Translations

Adverb

past (comparative more past, superlative most past)

1. in a direction that passes

   I watched him walk past

Translations

Preposition

past

1. beyond in place, quantity or time

   the room past mine

   count past twenty

   past Midnight

Usage notes

• The preposition past is used to tell the time. The time 5:05 is said as five past five. 5:10 as ten past five. 5:15 as quarter past five. 5:20 as twenty past five. 5:25 as twenty-five past five. 5:30 as half past five. If we are aware of the approximate time, we can just use e.g. five past, ten past etc. See the example below.

  1. I thought it was about six o'clock, but it was actually ten past.

• Compare with to (five to, ten to, quarter to, twenty to, twenty-five to)
• See also: o'clock

Translations

Related terms

• past master
• past it

Anagrams

• Anagrams of apst
• APTS
• pats
• spat
• stap
• taps

Czech

Noun

past f

1. trap

Dutch

Verb

past

1. second person singular present tense of passen
2. third person singular present tense of passen

Slovene

Noun

past f

1. trap