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“The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality.” –Hermann Minkowski, 1908
Meaning, an event cannot happen without space and/or time.
The concept of spacetime and special relativity is something I feel strongly about. Not that I’m a physics genius; just that space and time are 2 concepts that never fail to amaze me; philosophically, personally and whatever-ly. It’s kinda similar to 天時地利人和.
Let’s put it this way… I want to surpass spacetime. Run away from it. Overcome it. Whatever you call it. But technically, I can never do that because nothing would happen in the absence of it. And therefore, I also have to bear the consequences of special relativity and spacetime since it is almost omnipresent.
Of course, what I understand is only the mere surface of Einstein’s theory of relativity, which was expanded on and from many other great scientists’ works. I don’t think what I write here will ever do justice to the depth and ingenuity of Einstein. Besides, I only took combined sciences in secondary school and I scored a C5 for that subject. If only I had put in this much effort in the past huh?
Spacetime always reminds me that really, in a different space and/or time, very different things can happen. I was watching Elegy with Yuting and was once again reminded of this. Where David (leading character) said something along the lines of how a book may evoke different emotions when read 10 years later. And it just struck me ONCE AGAIN how how much difference time and space makes in our lives and we are just passing by it everyday, like it doesn’t exist.
Overwhelmed. That’s how I feel when I talk about spacetime. I get lost for words because it seems like nothing I say is able to aptly describe its value. But yet, this concept makes me feel strangely at ease with everything because somehow, it provides some kinda explanation for all the odd events that are happening.
I hope I do make sense. At least I do to me.
Night world.
