A different approach to Space and Time (A different realization of relativity)

Disclaimer: The following write up is based on my view of the world. I wrote it based on my imagination. I welcome and respect readers view which can be completely different.


“Relativity” is nothing but a complex way describe our simple life. Please don't blame me if you are equally confused before and after reading this blog.

Let me start with a simple example: It’s a law of nature that every living being is approaching towards death. Apply general relativity => “death is approaching to us”. Same thing, but anyone does not like this form of representation of the same statement.

Let’s drive into the discussion little deeper. Call it ‘entropy’, ‘uncertainty’ or ‘information’ - we are pointing to same mystery. “Information” is something which is uncertain or unknown until we receive it. The more unconditional the uncertainty is, the more degree of freedom it has in the space-time fabric. Our visualization of 'future' is an extrapolation of rules we learnt by plotting sample points in space-time fabric. This is called 'expectation'. I see an apple tree fruits every summer for last 3 years, we 'expect' it to fruit next summer.

Generally speaking, everything in the past is settled while everything in future is uncertain. It's funny that (based on experience/rules learnt) we can predict most of the things supposed to happen tomorrow morning and that will actually happen. But, what if, there is a big earthquake tonight? Or if a gamma ray burst from a collision of galaxies hits earth? Fortunately, frequency of catastrophe is surprisingly low.

The ‘present’ is like a ‘zipper lock’ which settles all clusters of uncertainty (future) to a state of rest (past).

Let’s visualize it as the “reverse” of steam coming out from cattle. As if we are on a bus named “present” which is traveling to future of unknowns with a set of rules in it trunk. Now the question is ‘how to look at it?’. Are we traveling to future or ‘future’ is coming back to meet us? Most of us will suggest – “obviously we are traveling to future”.

Hold on, let’s try to take a step back and rethink. If we are to go to the future we should have known where we are going, but does anyone know that? On contrary, we know the present and the past.

Present is a streamlining of future which tells us future is coming to us. 'Future' has more freedom so it knows where to go. But 'past' and 'present' can not. Let's consider a seismograph; the present and past has already been plotted, but do we know what it is going to plot next second? It can be a M9.0 earthquake next second.

What is ‘time’? Let's try to realize it. The far we see in the universe, the past we can see. If we consider ourselves as dot '.' the circle around us is the past. The bigger the circle, the farther the past is. Ourselves, the center of the circle, is the present. So future does not exist so can't be seen! If we try to visualize the future – it is like a starless dark night.

Think the question again: “Do we approach towards death or death is approaching to us?”

This gives me an weird realization. Time starts at present (t = 0) and flows to past (t < 0). Time in future is just a non-existent perception (t > 0 is imaginary).

Again, the flow of time is also a realization. Why would "5 minutes (as we call it)" in the year 1990 has to be same in the year 2014? Say, I can only do same amount of work in 7 minutes today which I could do in 5 mins on a specific day in 1990. We may suggest that magnitudes of earth's rotation in 5 minutes are same on a specific day in 1990 and today. But what about position shift in the universe? Earth rotates on its axis, it rotates around sun, the solar system rotates around the center of Milky Way and moreover the Big Bang theory suggests the ever expanding universe. Moreover, we all felt 1 hour of fairly enjoying time passes faster than 1 hour spent on an average day. How do we know that Dt will always be same on any given day? I would love to see the proof if exists.

Corollary 1: Our destiny (future) is utmost powerful than anything we possibly can think of. So we should accept the destiny unconditionally. 

Corollary 2: Anything other than me is past to myself [even in the fraction of sec as small as 1 / C (speed of light)]. So our inner self is the mightiest in our universe. We should respect, love, thank and keep faith in ourselves the most. Requesting favor from past for a future event is unlikely to reach anywhere and result is undefined.