Tuesdaynight, September 11, 2007

I just furiously hit Sudirman street at 100 kmph, drove southward up to Fatmawati and TB.Simatupang, against all those melancholic streetlights, to keep my mind stay clear --with full-blast of Incognito' Still a friend of mine’ from the backdrop.

You see, now we have velocity, lights, time and travel. Yes, right, it sounds like Einstein. He wrote in his book on Theory of Relativity, that in order to develop the notion of simultaneity of an event, one needs to define the idea of 'time' (in physics, as opposed to classical/Newtonian mechanics) by supposedly placing identical clocks at the coordinate system (his example: points in a railway line). By reading the position of those clock's hands which is in immediate vicinity (in space), one understands the 'time' of an event.

And then, he went on:

When two clocks arranged at rest in different places of a reference-body are set in such a manner that a particular position of the pointers of the one clock is simultaneous (in above sense) with the same position of the pointers of other clock, then identical 'settings" are always simultaneous (in the sense of above definition) --on idea of time in physics.

But now, you notice that in a railway line system, there are the train and the embankment. Einstein proceeded:

Events which are simultaneous with reference to the embankment are not simultaneous with respect to the train, and vice versa (relativity of simultaneity). Every reference-body (co-ordinate system) has its own particular time; unless we are told the reference-body to which the statement of time refers, there is no meaning in a statement of the time of an event -- on relativity of simultaneity.

Thus, the statement of time depends on the state of body-reference.

This is such an enlightening argument, let alone, if you compare with the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who wrote:

Not the least of the torments which plague our existence is the constant pressure of 'time', which never lets us so much as draw breath but pursues us all like a taskmaster with a whip

And I stopped by Aksara bookstore at Cilandak Town Square 20 mins before its closing time and brought home with me, TDW’s Financial Revolution, Finance Management, From mind 2 market, Value Added Selling, Kado Pernikahan untuk Istriku, and offcourse my favourite magazine, SWA.

Yeah..Bookstore is always my sanctuary for sanity.