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Minkowski introduced the relativity concept of proper time, the actual elapsed time between two events as measured by a clock that passes through both events. It was Hermann Minkowski, Einstein’s one-time teacher and colleague, who gave us the classic interpretation of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity.
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With this insight, time effectively becomes just part of a coordinate specifying an object’s position in space-time. One aspect of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity is that we now understand that space and time are merged inextricably into four-dimensional space-time, rather than the three dimensions of space and a totally separate time dimension envisaged by Descartes in the 17 th Century and taken for granted by all classical physicists after him. In relativity, time is certainly an integral part of the very fabric of the universe and cannot exist apart from the universe, but, if the speed of light is invariable and absolute, Einstein realized, both space and time must be flexible and relative to accommodate this.Īlthough much of Einstein’s work is often considered “difficult” or “counter-intuitive”, his theories have proved (both in laboratory experiments and in astronomical observations) to be a remarkably accurate model of reality, indeed much more accurate than Newtonian physics, and applicable in a much wider range of circumstances and conditions. It was Einstein’s genius to realize that the speed of light is absolute, invariable and cannot be exceeded (and indeed that the speed of light is actually more fundamental than either time or space). Since Albert Einstein published his Theory of Relativity (the Special Theory in 1905, and the General Theory in 1916), our understanding of time has changed dramatically, and the traditional Newtonian idea of absolute time and space has been superseded by the notion of time as one dimension of space-time in special relativity, and of dynamically curved space-time in general relativity. The idea of relativistic time is a direct result of Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity