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Carl Sagan once described time in terms of shapes of two dimensional objects. One was a triangle the other a rectangle and still another a circle (for example). He gave life to them by describing from their perspective what they would see if they viewed each other. In their two dimensional world all that would be visible to them would be a line of a particular size. The circle could dance but because the circle is uniformly the same dimension no matter which side is presented for viewing in the plane, the rectangle and triangle would notice nothing but a line of the same size as he danced. If the rectangle did the same thing then a line of changing dimensions would present itself depending upon which side or corner was visible to the other two as he danced. The same thing for the triangle as it turned. Let's now suppose that a sphere or ball passed through the plane of their world. The ball would first appear to them as a single point on their plane appearing from nowhere as if by magic which increased in size forming a larger line until the maximum diameter of the ball was present in the plane. Then the line would shrink in size until as the ball continued passing through their plane it would again become a single point and then it would disappear just as suddenly and magically as it appeared. This ball, Carl said, represents time. Time is another dimension added to height, depth and width to give meaning to the physical principle that two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. If another being of any intelligence were to have the capability of traveling within a fifth dimension, then that being would have the capability of time travel and would appear to us just as suddenly and magically as the ball appeared to the two dimensional geometric shapes. Einstein said that time is a part of the space/time continuum. It has no meaning in and of itself but must be part of the physical universe in order to have any meaning and thus to be real. To say that scientists can predict when comets come to view or when lunar and solar eclipses will occur or to say that birds fly south at the same time every year or that any of a host of natural events are seemingly on a time schedule that is in concordance with natural order and use this as proof that time is real, misses the point. It misses the point of how time works and even more profoundly it misses the point of what time is. Time is as real as the universe is real but it cannot exist without the

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