There is a good summary of phrases to use when writing journal papers. 

English for writing research papers (.pdf file) can be downloaded from this Springer site.

Time - What is it?

Intriguing question related to time are

• What really time is?
• Was there time before the Big Bang event?
• We use motion to measure time. Thus intution says that there won't be time without motion (zero-point vibration protected by the Heizenberg's uncertanty principle). Is it possible to create something called no time
• It is found that the particles/waves moving at the speed of light does not experience time. How far it is true? 
• Apart from photons (e-m waves), what are the other particles that has such property (no time) 

Recently, I happen to read the article by Prof.  Gabriele Veneziano (the father of String theory) titled String Theory Predicts a Time Before the Big Bang". I remember that there was debated during the big bang theory discussion like "the question about before the big bang is stupid" because time itself starts after the big bang. But, Prof. Veneziano has written article on "Time before the bigbang".