Dora asked:

Can you please explain the view of time in the theory of special relativity? This is part of my
philosophy 101 homework but as you can see I am very confused.

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Think about rock sediments. Zillions of years ago, or whatever, little shells, etc., fell down through the
ocean and built up layers. After that, the ocean dried up and trees grew there, died, and built up a
layer of dead trees. Maybe after that there was a volcano which covered it all with a layer of lava.
Then more trees, and we get dirt on top of all that.

So you cut through and look at those sediments. At the bottom, there are these little shells,
compressed. Over that, there are the fossilized trees and their stuff... and so forth. So we have a
record of time, sort of frozen and extended in space, through the sediments. Ok? Well, that's the view
in special relativity. Ifyou could look at anyobject, down through time, you'd see objects the way they
were, say, an hour ago, overlaid gradually with their changes through that hour up to the present. So
that totalview of the object, includingall those different times, would be like one object, extended
through time. Get it? So if you cut that one object at some point corresponding to an hour ago, a
week ago, or whatever, you'd see it, like the sediments, as it was then.

Well, the idea is that all objects really arelike that... extended in time; we just can't see the "time" part
of them, except bit by bit, because we're stuck in the present (which "moves" forward... never mind
about the problems here...). So if all objects are like that, then everythingis like that, and the whole
universe is a kind of huge brick, but in 4 dimensions (since all the 3-dimensional stuff is extended in
time), floating (roughly speaking), and if you just had the right perspective (a 4th dimensional one)
you could peek into it anywhere and see us, birds, dogs, flying saucers, etc... sort of frozen but
changing along their length (the time length).

That's pretty much it for the metaphysics of special relativity. Time is another dimension, notlike
space, but close enough that the above picture gives you an idea. It is not a very good metaphysics,
as it stands, because of problems with mind and consciousness. There's a sci-fi book, October the
1st is Too Lateby Fred Hoyle, which attempts, unsuccessfully, to deal with the metaphysics. Good
book, though.

Steven Ravett Brown

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