We Are Living Through A Remarkably Privileged

Time Allows Change To Take Place And The Very Evolution Of The Universe Is What Requires Some Conception Of Time. Mathematically Can We Write Down A Universe That Doesn't Have Time? Sure. Do We Think That Would Be Realised In The Larger Reality That Is Out There? None Of Us Take That Possibility Seriously.

When You Drive Your Car, E = Mc2 Is At Work. As The Engine Burns Gasoline To Produce Energy In The Form Of Motion, It Does So By Converting Some Of The Gasoline's Mass Into Energy, In Accord With Einstein's Formula.

That Is, You Can Have Nothingness, Absolute Nothingness For Maybe A Tiny Fraction Of A Second, If A Second Can Be Defined In That Arena, But Then It Falls Apart Into A Something And An Anti-something. And That Something Is Then What We Call The Universe. But Can We Really Understand That Or Put Rigorous Mathematics Or Testable Experiments Against That? Not Yet. So One Of The Big Holy Grail Of Physics Is To Understand Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing.

Relativity Challenges Your Basic Intuitions That You've Built Up From Everyday Experience. It Says Your Experience Of Time Is Not What You Think It Is, That Time Is Malleable. Your Experience Of Space Is Not What You Think It Is; It Can Stretch And Shrink.

Over The Centuries, Monumental Upheavals In Science Have Emerged Time And Again From Following The Leads Set Out By Mathematics.