ABSTRACT
The Search for Time Most of us, like the philosopher/theologian St. Augustine, think we know what time is until someone asks us to explain it. Even for contemporary scientists, the nature of time re mains mysterious. In 1905, Albert Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity revealed that commonly held concepts concerning time were not always true. For instance, Newton’s notion that time moved at a constant rate was proved wrong when it was demonstrated that time passes more slowly for rapidly moving objects as compared with slow ones. The conviction that two events separated in space could happen at precisely the same time-simultaneity-was shown to be false. Since whether two events appear to happen at the same time depends on the viewer’s vantage point, no one observer has any intrinsic claim to be the authority.
