title: Eternity: Our Next Billion Years (Macmillan Science)
author: M. Hanlon
description: MICHAEL HANLON is one of Britain's most successful science writers. He has been Science Editor at the <em>Daily Mail</em> for many years; prior to this he was at the <em>Daily Express</em>, the <em>Independent</em> and <em>Irish News</em>. He contributes regularly to magazines such as the Spectator, New Scientist Standpoint and appears on TV and radio as a science pundit. He has headlined several science festivals and written four critically acclaimed popular science books before this one: <em>Ten Questions Science Can't Answer (Yet)</em> (Macmillan 2007), <em>The Science Of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy</em> (Macmillan, 2005), <em>The Real Mars</em> (Constable, 2004) and <em>The Worlds of Galileo</em> (Constable, 2001)
zlib_text:  
  Aion, Eternity, Duration v. 17.11, www.philaletheians.co.uk, 7 February 2018 
  Page 1 of 6 
  Aion, Eternity, Duration 
  
  CONFUSING WORDS SERIES 
  AION, ETERNITY, DURATION 
  Aion, Eternity, Duration v. 17.11, www.philaletheians.co.uk, 7 February 2018 
  Page 2 of 6 
   
  Quick overview of the terms
  1 
   Eternity and “The Seven Eternities” differ. 
   Cosmic Pralaya differs greatly from deep sleep. 
   Duration is infinite. But time is a finite conception.
  2 
   Duration contains time. But time has no duration. 
   Space and duration are one and the same. 
   One cannot image Space as not being, for Space always is. 
   Aiōn (or Aeon) is no “Eternity,” it is a finite period of time, and an emanation. 
  No philosopher in days of old ever took Eternity to mean beginningless and endless 
  duration. Neither the Aiōns of the Greeks nor the Neroses
  3 convey this meaning. In 
  fact, they had no word to convey this precise sense. 
  The word Aiōn, which in the Bible is translated by Eternity, means not only a fini