Time

In my Chaos blog I touched on Einstein’s great insight that united space and time. Space and Time are integrally related to that ever popular word, “NOW.” With Einstein’s proposal, both time and space behaves like a piece of clay, moulded differently by whoever squeezes it. What this says is that people who are moving with respect to each other will not agree on their perceptions of either time or space. The problem is, we don't really feel that our observations are any different than anyone else's. This is because of the slow speeds at which we travel in relation to the speed of light, and it is exactly this slow speed that makes matter appear solid. If we were capable of travelling at near the speed of light, these differences would be quite noticeable. Light travels at 298,000 kmps, which pans out to be approximately 1.1 billion kmph. Most of us move, when we move at all, at about 5kmph.

Here is an example (modified from Brian Green’s, “Elegant Universe”) to try and help us tie the “facts” of the relativity principle together. It doesn’t serve a useful purpose in ordering our everyday lives, but it does provide a clue to the nature of our little niche of reality. Understanding ourselves and the nature of our reality serves a very big purpose in creating our every day lives. Let's assume we live in an altered universe where everything is the same as in ours except light travels slow enough for us to see it move from its source to its target. This can't exist, of course, but it is useful for this example. You are standing on a train station platform. John and Ellen sit at each end of a rectangular table facing each other on an express train that is approaching the station. At the exact middle of the table is a light that only turns on if the train is cast into darkness. Because it is an express train it does not stop at the platform upon which you stand. Just as the train passes in front of you all the lights go out and the emergency light at the middle of the table at which John and Ellen sit, turns on. John and Ellen's motion is constant with the movement of the train. Relative to each other there is no movement. They notice the lights go out and see the light source, equidistant from them on the table, come on. They see the light beam reach each other at exactly the same time. You, on the platform however, see it entirely differently since their movement relative to yours is not zero. Since John is facing away from the direction of travel, you clearly see the light beam reach Ellen first. She moves toward the light source, while John moves away from it. Who is correct in their perceptions; Ellen and John’s, whose movement relative to each other is 0, or yours, who see John and Ellen travel by you at a high speed. Einstein tells us both are correct, and this was the startling revelation of his theory of relativity. Each reality, yours and John and Ellen’s, are correct.

But, this says that your time and your space are different than my time and my space. Each is equally valid, however. Granted, the differences are minute in this world, but they exist nevertheless. Einstein's theorem says the greater the speed of the observer the more time slows down. At 149,000 kmps, one second will stretch to 1.5 seconds relative to zero speed. At 297,000 kmps that same second becomes 6.2 hours long relative to zero speed.
There are many other things that relativity theory postulates that has not worked its way into our belief system, and the reason I bring it up here is to pry open a small hole in your system of beliefs. It shows that matter distorts space and light. It shows that gravity slows time and bends space. The less the gravity, the faster the time. You will live longer on the first floor of an apartment building than on the tenth, albeit the time difference is hardly worth giving up the view from the tenth floor. In our Newtonian world space and time are separate and independent. Since Einstein, space and time have become as inseparable as teenage lovers. They have become united in an inseparable bond that has made past, present and future nothing more than a psychological construct of this particular reality. The findings of science are putting before us our own inner knowing.

Psychologically we continue to follow the arrow of time. Yesterday we married, today we honeymoon, and tomorrow we start a family. What we now know about time is that it is plastic. The past and the future coexist with the present in what some refer to as the ‘loaf’ of space/time. What are we to make of such a statement that all time coexists in the moment? The coexistence of past and future in the present is called eternity, and it is what our religions have so inadequately been trying to tell us for millennia. They mistakenly tell us we will find eternity, not here, but after here. Here, therefore, becomes a place to endure in order to get to there. Einstein taught us that physical time exists in its entirety at once. Maybe that is why the Buddhists talk so much about the ‘eternal now’ and ‘being in the moment.’ Stay tuned for more to come.
Bill Marshall