to sit around all day and imagine wacky theories about physics—theories that
would soon flip the world on its head. In 1905 he published his theory of
relativity, which launched him to worldwide fame. He left the patent office.
Presidents and heads of state suddenly wanted to hang out with him.
Everything was Gucci.
In his long life, Einstein would go on to revolutionize physics multiple
times, escape the Nazis, warn the United States of the oncoming necessity
(and danger) of nuclear weapons, and be the subject of a very famous photo in
which he’s sticking out his tongue.
But today, we also know him for the many excellent internet quotes that
he never actually said.
Since the time of (real) Newton, physics had been based upon the idea that
everything could be measured in terms of time and space. For example, my
trash can is here next to me now. It has a particular position in space. If I pick
it up and throw it across the room in a drunken rage, we could theoretically
measure its location in space across time, determining all sorts of useful stuff
like its velocity, trajectory, momentum, and how big a dent it will leave in the
wall. These other variables are determined by measuring the trash can’s
movement across both time and space.
Time and space are what we call “universal constants.” They are
immutable. They are the metrics by which everything else is measured. If this
sounds like common sense, it’s because it is.
Then Einstein came along and said, “Fuck your common sense; you know
nothing, Jon Snow,” and changed the world. That’s because Einstein proved
that time and space are not universal constants. In fact, it turns out that our
perceptions of time and space can change depending on the context of our
observations. For example, what I experience as ten seconds, you could
experience as five; and what I experience as a mile, you could theoretically
experience as a few feet.
To anyone who has spent a significant amount of time on LSD, this
conclusion might kind of make sense. But for the physics world at the time, it
sounded like pure craziness.
Einstein demonstrated that space and time change depending on the
observer—that is, they are relative. It is the speed of light that is the universal
constant, the thing by which everything else must be measured. We are all
moving, all the time, and the closer we get to the speed of light, the more time
“slows down” and the more space contracts.
For example, let’s say you have an identical twin. Being twins, obviously