Random Stew It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Time Waits for No Man

I entered the world on this date 45 years ago, and so I've been thinking a good bit about the nature of time lately. Time is an absolute tyrant in my life and it's my most limited resource. I can always make more money, but I can't make more time. That's why your time is the most important gift you can ever give and why needlessly consuming someone's time is the greatest theft. I jealously guard my time because as my life has matured, my responsibilities and time commitments have naturally grown correspondingly. So, I'm busier than ever yet I have less and less time. The faster I go, the faster time passes.

Albert Einstein thought a lot about time and stunned the world with his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905. The first postulate of his theory states that the speed of light is the same for all observers, regardless of their motion relative to the source of the light. The second postulate is that all observers moving at constant speed (not under acceleration) should observe the same physical laws. Apparently, Einstein was also a great inspiration to rock-and-roller Gene Simmons.

Imagine a spaceship traveling at half the speed of light. If the spaceship turns on its headlights, an observer on the spaceship will measure the speed of that light at 186,000 miles/second. Paradoxically, an observer on Earth will also measure the speed of the spaceship's light at 186,000 miles/second. Since velocity is expressed as distance divided by time (v=d/t), it stands to reason that if the velocity of light is the same for both observers then time and/or distance must vary. This is indeed the case; experiments have proven that both time and distance vary with speed. In fact, the faster you go, the slower time passes.

Ironic, isn't it?