Saturday, December 10

the space-time continuum

A few weeks ago (when daylight saving time ended) I set all my clocks to the same time.

Now, I noticed that the clock on my microwave is slower than the one on my toaster oven, which is slower than the one on the built-in oven. All of these clocks are within one meter of each other. I suspect a time rift is forming, and I've grown afraid of walking from one side of my kitchen to another, for fear of being sucked into this "rip in time" and never being able to emerge.

1 comment:

William Bob said...

Are the clocks on these three devices at different altitudes? Or perhaps over / under / beside objects of differing densities?

If you'll remember, the fabric of time is warped by dense objects, much like a rock placed on a spongy surface dents that surface.

The deeper you are into the warp, the slower time moves. So simply elevating a clock will speed it up (it is further from the earth and therefore from the warp induced in time by the earth). Similarly, placing a clock on top of a big hunk of lead should slow it down.

Tomorrow we'll discuss the cardinality of the continuum.