It came from German mathematician Hermann Minkowski, who was Einstein's former professor. There is very important idea that came out of Einstein's theory, that Einstein himself did not first come up with. Namely, the laws of physics, and the speed of light remain the same for everyone. But the key to understanding this theory is that some things do not change. It means that measurements of space and time are relative to the person measuring them. This is the meaning of the “Relative” in Relativity theory. In other words, they will experience space and time differently. Einstein showed that observers moving at different speeds will disagree about the distance and time between two events. He determined that the speed of light does not change in any reference frame, and worked out the crazy implications of this idea. Einstein suggested that it was not Maxwell's equations that needed to be changed, but Newton's near-sacred laws of motion. Henri Poincare came close to solving it, but it was not until Albert Einstein came along and proposed a pretty radical idea at the time, that we got a full resolution. A resolution of this unexpected result remained a mystery for over a decade. This is one of the most consequential experiments of the last 200 years. They found that the speed of light does not vary one iota, due to the motion of the earth. What they found shocked scientists of the time, because it was totally unexpected. So, the expectation was that the speed would be measured to be ‘c’, PLUS the speed of rotation of the earth. In 1887, two American scientists by the name of Michelson and Morley devised a highly sensitive experiment that could measure the speed of light in the direction of motion of the earth. Almost every scientist at the time, including Maxwell himself, presumed that Newton was correct, and that Maxwell's equations were incomplete and needed to be modified. There was no accounting for a speed of light that was any different than what his equation predicted. But Maxwell's equations seemed to indicate that light has just one speed, c. The measured speed should be the speed of the person, PLUS the speed of light. What would the speed of light be then? According to Newton, this moving observer should measure a different speed, than someone who was not moving. The question was what would be the measured speed of light, if the person measuring it was moving, for example, a person moving with the spin of the earth. And his theory predicted what the speed of this wave is, so it predicted the speed of light, which is about 300,000 km/s or 300 million meters per second. Maxwell had shown that light was a propagating wave - a disturbance in the electromagnetic field - a changing electric field continually giving rise to a changing magnetic field which in turn gives rise to a changing electric field again, leading to a self-propagating electromagnetic wave. In the late 1800’s, scientists had recognized that there was an inconsistency between two theories Newton's laws of motion, and Maxwell's equations describing electricity and magnetism. Let’s Discuss…!!! How did the idea of time as a dimension come about? What really happens when space and time start doing seemingly weird things when two objects move relative to each other?.How can we best visualize these 4 dimensions? And.How did the idea of time as a dimension come about?. ![]() Here are some of the questions to be asked, by a curious mind: That's why physicists refer to the geometry of the universe, not as space, but as spacetime. In fact, time is an inseparable component of space. Yet it appears to be a fundamental component of the universe in which we live, as fundamental as the other spatial dimensions. It doesn't seem to fit with the other three. It seems like an odd thing because time is not measured in meters or inches, like the other spatial dimensions. In fact, these 4 dimensions can describe any event in the universe.īut how did time become a dimension. ![]() With these 4 coordinates, you could rendezvous with anyone anywhere in the universe. These are the 4 dimensions of the universe - three spatial dimensions and one time dimension. He or she would have to know what time they were to meet you at that precise location. Why? because you did not give him one more crucial piece of information - the time. Would this be enough information for two people to meet? Well, if you showed up at that location, there is no guarantee that you would meet your friend. If you wanted to meet a friend at any possible location on earth, you would need them to give you a precise longitude, latitude, and altitude.
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