The Shape of Time

Part 8 What is Time?

As with Einstein's Theory of General Relativity rolling out into the world, it is important to see the correlation it has with time and space. As quoted by Charles Lamb, a nineteenth century author, he wrote: "Nothing puzzles me like time and space. And yet nothing troubles me less than time and space, because I never think of them." With that in mind, it is really imperative to grasp an understanding of not only of what we think time is, but also how we came about to the discovery of time. The first scientist to show mathematical models about time was actually none other than Issac Newton himself. He published his book called the Principia Mathematica, in 1687, and according to Newton's understanding, time and space were a background in which events took place but were not affected by them.

As stated within the book, time was separate from space and was considered to be a single line, or to simplify it, a railroad track, that was infinite in both directions. By looking at the picture below, you can observe that one cannot curve space without curving time with it as well. This then means that time itself does have shape, but on the other side of this, it is only a one way direction, as the the locomotives show in the picture.