The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently exists and will exist can be categorized as either permanent, meaning that it will exist forever, or temporary, meaning that it will end. In the Occidental view, which uses a linear conception of time, the future is the portion of the projected timeline that is anticipated to occur. In special relativity, the future is considered absolute future, or the future light cone.
The Zeitpyramide is an unfinished concrete pyramid. Because a block is only placed every 10 years, it is expected to be completed in 3183.
Project of an orbital colony Stanford torus, painted by Donald E. Davis
Print (c. 1902) by Albert Robida showing a futuristic view of air travel over Paris in the year 2000 as people leave the opera.
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to compare the duration of events or the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change of quantities in material reality or in the conscious experience. Time is often referred to as a fourth dimension, along with three spatial dimensions.
The flow of sand in an hourglass can be used to measure the passage of time. It also concretely represents the present as being between the past and the future.
Horizontal sundial in Canberra
24-hour clock face in Florence
A contemporary quartz watch, 2007
