Somebody posted recently regarding the "interesting questions" post, and he posed some other interesting questions:
What's Time?
What's Space?
What's Time-Space?
Interestingly ;) the Theory of General Relativity is a good way to look for these answers.
General Relativity is basically a theory on gravitation, and how it shapes the universe. It is also an attempt on a description of what was thereafter known as the space-time continuum.
Certainly way beyond Secondary School syllabi :) but nonetheless one of the most exciting fields in Physics.
Coupled with Quatum mechanics (the other great theory of physics) we can get a fair description of the universe from the smallest to the biggest.
Which brings us to the problem that both theories are incompatible... right, too good to be true, huh?
Nowadays the theory with best hopes to explain both things is called Superstring Theory... and that is still beyond many physicists grasp :(
Later we'll go through the historical ideas that attempted to describe time and space... thrilling experience.
Thanks for the post! I look forward to many more.
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Well... since apparently, from what I understood, your not going to explain how these three concepts where tried to be explained, ill just explain briefly what they mean, according to the General Theory or Relativity.
Think space as everyday life. It has 3 dimensions. Just like a cube. A rectangle has only two, but we do not live in a rectangle, do we?
Now... space is a simple concept. Think as time as a "fourth dimension". Imagine those old movie negatives where in each square there was one part of the movie. You could clearly see how the movie advances through time, in the 3 dimensions. Humans don't have this capacity. They can look back at time, due to their memories, but not forward in time.
Because space is everywhere, and time is everywhere too, we reffer to it as Space-Time.
The General Theory of Relativity "describes how objects move through space and time. It shows that time is not a universal q uantity which exists on its own, separate from space. Rather, future and past are just directions, like up and down, left and right, forward and back, in something called space-time. You can only go in the future direction in time, but you can go at a b it of an angle to it. That is why time can pass at different rates." This was extracted from a Stephen Hawkings book.
Now, what does gravity have to do with all of this?
Gravity is a distortion of time-space. Its cause is mass and energy, and how they atract to each other. Things try to go straight, but due to gravity, they curve. This means, that "space-time is curved, wrapped, rather than flat." (Another quote from Hawkings)
In this im also answering the question about general relativy.
correct me if im wrong please.
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