George Ellis is not afraid to rock the establishment. In his youth in South Africa, his target was a recognizably corrupt and racist government. Now a cosmologist at the University of Cape Town, Ellis has set his sights on something more abstract: the flow of time itself. First developed by Albert Einstein early in the 20th century, the orthodox view holds that the passage of time is an illusion. There is no difference between the past and the future - both are set in stone. Yet for Ellis, the philosophical implications of this mainstream theory do not simply run counter to our intuitions; he considers them dangerous because they rob us of free will and moral accountability. Ellis' scientific goal, motivated by his ethical views, is to put time back into physics, allowing the cosmos to create its fate and giving us the ability to change our destiny.
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