Einstein shows us that time is a dimension. This means that it is a length that one measures, like depth or height. And time becomes more important for our lives when we measure it more precisely. In the ancient world, the day was divided into eight hours, or watches, but now we can have a meeting at 7:45 or determine the fastest runner in the world in the hundredths of a second.
But time is not always so precise. It has been measured that time moves slightly slower on an airplane than on the earth. Of course, this has been explained by Einstein's theory of relativity. But what isn't explained is how time is so different in our minds.
Is time really slower when we are in a desperate emergency? Certainly, we experience a lot more in a shorter period of time. Why do some events take so long and other events so quick, but the same period of time is measured? How is it that as we grow older, time goes quicker, so the years pile up?
How does our mind play with time? Now that we can measure time we can determine it by the ticks of a clock, but why does it vary so much in our mind? Which is more important, the time in our minds or the time of a clock? Is personal time less significant than objective time? Can we communicate something about ourselves by how our mind measures time?
And do different experiences of time change how we relate to others? Oliver Sacks observed people who's personal time frame is so slow that they can no longer meaningfully participate in society. Do we all experience such time differences? Do "A" type personalities experience time at a different rate than "B" types? And what about the significance of objective time? Should we consider people "rude" because they do not have as much of a grasp of objective time and so always run late? And what about different cultures that treat time differently? Is our relation to time primarily a cultural, societal experience?
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