Time. What a slippery concept, eh? Is it a thing? A construct? Some cosmic joke played on us by the universe? For millennia, we bumbled along, convinced one second was the same for everyone, everywhere. Then along came Albert, stage left, hair a glorious white explosion, and with a twinkle in his eye, promptly yanked the rug out from under our feet.
According to Einstein, time isn’t constant. Relative, he called it. The faster you whiz through space – imagine strapping yourself to a photon, if you could – the slower you move through time. Think of it like this: You’re baking a cake. A really, really big cake. If you stay put in your kitchen, it takes, say, an hour. But if you bake that same cake while orbiting the Earth at near-light speed (good luck with the ovens in zero-g!), it might only take you a few minutes, while everyone back on Earth has aged a whole afternoon. It’s mind-bending stuff, I know. It's all thanks to special relativity and the warping of spacetime that mass creates, hence causing differing amounts of time dilation.
Frankly, the wannabe astrophysicist lurking in my brain is practically bursting to launch into explanations of Minkowski space, Lorentz transformations, and the twin paradox. I could bore you senseless with details on gravitational time dilation, where stronger gravity also slows time – you'd age slightly slower at sea level than on top of Mount Everest. But I promised simple, and a promise is a promise... unless, of course, the passage of time makes me forget I made it.
The point is, if Einstein was right – and the sheer volume of experimental evidence suggests he was less “right” and more “incredibly, mind-blowingly correct” – then we all experience time differently. We remember time differently. And I wholeheartedly believe that. The subjective experience of time is as unique as our fingerprints.
I distinctly remember the time I decided I was going to be a scientist. Picture ten-year-old me, perched on a rickety stool in the garage, attempting to build a working fusion reactor out of old toaster parts and tihar lights. (Spoiler alert: all i was able to do was turn the lights on!). I also remember that time when I thought I would be a brilliant novelist, churning out Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpieces. Instead, I wrote a very melodramatic poem about a lonely paperclip. It was a dark time… for my literary aspirations.
I remember being a painfully shy kid, the type who’d hide behind potted plants to avoid human interaction. I'm told thats not too different now, it's just that the plants are digital on zoom calls. I'm making progress and I'm realizing that sometimes something never changes.
Then there was that time my school principal affectionately (I think?) dubbed me the "lazy scientist," probably because my lab reports consistently involved explosions and vaguely resembled abstract art. Another teacher, bless his soul, called me "Mr. Infinity," presumably inspired by my habit of getting lost in thought staring at, well, pretty much anything. To be fair, everything is infinitely fascinating when you really think about it. Observe the way light refracts within a droplet of H2O for instance! that's way more beautiful than a Da Vinci or Van Gogh painting.
I remember the time I had a monumental crush on a girl in high school. I meticulously planned my grand declaration of love. I failed miserably, and got rejected, because I didn't confess at the right
time.. There was also that time I almost became a hood ornament on a passing vehicle. I was contemplating the implications of time travel (again) while crossing the street, and only survived because the driver slammed on the brakes at the perfect time. It was a powerful lesson: theoretical physics is best left to the sidewalk.
And let’s not forget the time I had the brilliant idea to write a book. I proceeded to do… absolutely nothing. Perhaps the cosmic clock simply wasn’t aligned. I am starting now, though! I intend to finish it, even if it takes a long time.
I am no professional writer, but it's about time I started. There will be mistakes, errors, and probably several instances of me using "literally" incorrectly (sorry, grammar police!). What will be the contents of this book? I don’t know. How much time will it take? Your guess is as good as mine. I’m not even sure what to write. The only thing I’m damn sure of is that “It’s all about time”.