Let me begin by explaining that I'm a complete lunkhead when it comes to science, which is why this question is going to be really lunkhead-ish.

Now, the lunkhead is going to ask a question about something Einstein discovered.

I understand that time is a dimension. Is that correct? If not, what exactly did Einstein learn about time, other than the fact that it is relative?

If that is correct, does this mean that on some level, if we had the ability to "see" this dimension, everything that has ever happened still exists somewhere, in some "real" way?

here is a great explination of time as a dimension. better than i could try to explain it anyways:http://www.howstuffworks.com/relativity.htm
the time section is on the second page.
hope this helps
-chris

Here is a site that may answer your question CLICK HERE

You asked if everything that ever happened still exists somewhere. Well, it could be way more complicated than that.

Take this exact moment. In the next moment, the possibilities of what could happen are many. You might take your hands off the keyboard. You might type. If you type, you could strike any character, etc. All of these are valid choices, so they are valid possibilities for your immediate future.

One you have made a choice (say you typed the letter "a"), then you have a whole new set of choices. You type another letter. You stop typing. You look out the window. You close a program.

Once you've made that choice, you go to the next choice.

Meanwhile, go back to that frozen moment. At that moment, all possibilites exist. You might have chosen to type a "b", for example. And that leaves you with another huge set of possibilities. The same would be the case if you typed a "c", or turned off the computer, or whatever.

The further into the future you imagine, the more rapidly the number of possibilities grows. Every new choice could be followed by any set of events.

It's your continuing series of choices that creates your actual personal path through spacetime.

Look at this site. There's a drawing of two cones, joined at their tips.

The place where they are joined is This Moment. Moving upward represents moving forward in time. The top cone fans out to represent the increasing number of possible choices as you move forward in time.

Think of the cone as a tree trunk with branches. It gets wider as you move upward. There are a few branches. These have smaller branches (and there are more of the smaller branches). The smaller branches have even more, even smaller branches, etc. You can see how fast the number of branches (choices) can grow.

And the bottom cone represents all the varied events that combined to create the situation that makes This Moment have the characteristics that it has.

(I know all this sounds insane, but the more physics you think about, the weirder it gets.)

So, in one sense, yes: all things that ever happened and/or will happen can be represented in the cone, though you can't really see each individual event.

I know this all may not be 100% accurate, so maybe someone else can correct my errors and fill in the blanks.

P.S. It's terrific that you are asking questions like this! They're great for your (and my) brain.

[This message was edited by anguilla on 07-15-02 at 03:54 PM.]

[This message was edited by anguilla on 07-15-02 at 03:55 PM.]

More on the bottom cone:

The wide part represents all the things going on in the universe. Some of them interact in ways that cause others to interact. The cone narrows to show that these interactions (which cause other interactions) are focusing toward causing one ultimate situation. And that situation is Your Moment.

A very loosely thought-out example: At some point in his life, one of your grandfathers moved to a town where he met your grandmother. They hadn't had a baby who became your mother.

Meanwhile your other grandparents experienced situations that caused them to meet and get married and have your father.

Out of a ton of possibilities, your mother and father experienced situations and made choices that led them to marry and have you.

The first choices involved 4 people (2 sets of grandparents). As you move upward in time, the next choices involve only 2 people (your parents). And finally the choices involve only one person -- you.

This is a really simple example, but you can see how situations, events and choices (all of which only existed as possibilities at one point) merged, creating limits for future choices, and eventually ending in one result: your Current Moment.

I really hope this helps explain the cone theory and the idea of all possibilities existing simultaneously throughout time, with you at the focal point of your own, personal spacetime pair of cones.

If this makes absolutely no sense, don't give up. Someone will be able to explain it.

Thank you for reading...

Cool! (pronounced: coo-wull)



Thanks, everyone. This is fascinating stuff... and may I say that if they had even mentioned the interesting things that science leads to when I was young, I might have done something other than doodle in science class. They should at least *bait* the students in public schools with relativity and quantum physics, even if you can't really study them until you're getting your PhD. Talk to the board of education in your town, will ya?

The tree is a good analogy. Roots are past and the future is going out on a branch (choice). The problem that leaves me with in trying to understand the multiverse theory of quantum physics is that since we can't go back in time (yet) does not making a choice to follow branch A instead of branch B cause branch B to cease existing? Eventually each one of us go out on a limb so far we die and leave the rest of the Saps" to follow and make further choices.

Personally, I love this branch of physics and science. One would think that there is a simple explanation to something we all know of and can relate to by our daily personal experience...that of time.

But when you try to explain what time is, it gets complicated quickly!

If you are really interested in understanding all of this stuff in English (layman's terms as much as possible with lots of pretty pictures to help you understand the concepts), I would heartily recommend this book The Illustrated and Expanded Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. Makes a great coffee-table book and a great conversation starter. What's best is that there are no equations used in the book.

And no, I'm not on Hawking's nor Amazon's payroll. :-) But this book helped me put alot of these thoughts into a perspective that I could relate to...and I still continue to refer to it frequently.

How cool is a branch of science that constantly brushes up against trying to understand the nature of God? Sarai's got it right....Cool!...WAY coo-wull!