by T. Scott Randolph

Created on: July 10, 2009   Last Updated: December 17, 2011

Time. To most people it is a clock placed on the wall. It lets you know when you get up, when to go to work, when to run an errand, and when to go bed. That is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

One of the most influential minds of this century came up with an equation that was incomprehensible to most of us common people. Unless you had an advanced degree from MIT you didn't have a chance. Luckily for us, we can now put it into terms that anybody can understand.

When you were still in school and were called to the principle's office, they made you wait outside (just for the record, that was on purpose. It is a tactic that put you on edge and made you nervous). In reality you were setting there for probably less than 10 minutes. To your mind you were there for 2 maybe 3 hours. Of course this isn't possible, if for no other reason a principle of a school wouldn't have that much time to waste on your butt.

Now we look at the other side of the coin. You are sitting on the porch with your sweetheart. Curfew is in one hour. You have a hostile type father (and what father doesn't at least seem hostile when you are sitting with his daughter) watching his watch like a hawk. Even though in "real time" you had an hour, it flies by as if it were a mere 15 minutes.

That is the theory of relativity in a nutshell, minus the super expensive education from MIT. Now before you think that you could take Einstein on Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit, I have to throw a monkey wrench in your works.

There is a field of Physics that is getting more and more attention. It is Quantum Physics. It turns the accepted theories of time on its ear. Now you have time dilation among other things. One of the biggest variables is the observer. Like the principle office and front porch scenario's, how and who observes a situation will control the time.

No one has ever shown that a second is exactly a second. A minute a minute. While you are on planet Earth it is easy to determine what a day is or even a year for that matter. What happens when you leave Terra Firma? Now you don't have the rotation of the Earth to give you the day and night cycle.

The point is, time is not constant. Depending on what your vantage point is, it can change. Two people seeing the exact same event will give you different time-lines for it. For everyday life that Timex on your wrist will work, but when you start to look at the big picture the concept of time doesn't even began to make any kind of sense.

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