an ideal clock — one that ticks with perfect periodicity — would burn an infinite amount of energy and produce infinite entropy, which isn’t possible. Thus, the accuracy of clocks is fundamentally limited. “What we’ve done is to show that even if time is a perfect, classical and smooth parameter governing time evolution of quantum systems, we would only be able to track its passage” imperfectly, through stochastic, irreversible processes. “Could it be that time is an illusion and smooth time is an emergent consequence of us trying to put events into a smooth order? It is certainly an intriguing possibility that is not easily dismissed.”

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