Theory of Relatives

I have been reading up on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity lately. It is in response to my overall love for science and especially physics. As I was going through a course on “Theory of Everything” I had a question that I could not answer---something to do with what is called Twin Paradox---and so I decided to revisit this topic.

In a nutshell, a crucial fact discovered by Einstein was that light has the same speed in the vacuum of space, irrespective of frame of reference of the observer. That leads to several weird consequences. For example if a person is travelling close to the speed of light, his time goes slower than that of a person observing him from earth. His space is also compressed, so he travels a shorter distance to reach a destination than what the observer on earth would expect. Space and time are thus dependent on your frame of reference.

That means that everyone experiences reality differently.

“Aha,” I said. That explains why my (fictitious) uncle Joe has a different version of reality than I do. While I think Trump is a liar and a cheat, he thinks of him as a great leader hounded by evil media.

I call this my Theory of Relatives: Your relatives (and for that matter anyone else) experiences reality differently than you do. I am sure you find it hard to imagine that given the evidence in front of you, someone can come to such a different conclusion. What world is uncle Joe living in, you may wonder. If you do, just consider the poor slobs in the example I mentioned above to explain Theory of Relativity. They cannot agree even on a simple fact of what time it is!

Einstein discovered something else. In his General Theory of Relativity he outlines the role that gravity plays on time and space. It distorts space so that the travelling fellow going through a gravity field has even more disagreement with his earthbound companion on what time it is, because gravity slows down time.

Translate that into Theory of Relatives. If uncle Joe goes though an experience related to his beliefs, he will disagree with you even more. May be he goes to a Trump rally or shake his hands. This will have a major impact on uncle Joe, just like the traveller passing through a gravitational field.

Now, according to Einstein: “While measurements of space and time may be independently differ for different observers, the spacetime is same for everyone.” Yes, there is something called spacetime, and it gets into fourth dimension and such. The point I am making is that even if our space traveller and his earthbound friend don’t agree even on the most fundamental facts, such as time, there is something absolute out there. It is just that there is no way to experience it.

Same it is in Theory of Relatives. There is absolute truth out there but we experience everything based on our frame of reference. There is no escape. Theory of Relativity and Theory of Relatives bind us all.

Facebooking it

I recently read on Facebook a response from a person reacting to a picture my friend had posted from Vienna. He said that, “I was in the same area last week but did not Facebook it.” Besides creating a verb out of posting on Facebook, he seemed to be implying that he had indeed taken the trip and should have advertised it in order to make it real. That made me think of an old philosophic adage "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

I suppose the new adage would be, “If you took a trip and did not Facebook it, did you really travel?”

I am as guilty as the rest, if not more, but a trip is not complete until pictures are posted on Facebook and we receive a bunch of accolades in terms of “Likes” and comments. In fact, it is interesting to observe the entire dynamics of posting and responding to travel pictures on Facebook. So here goes…

The traveller posts 100 pictures of his trip to, say, Warsaw. He says, “Having a wonderful time in Warsaw.” What he really wants to say, “I want you to know that I am a world traveller. I go to places few people have gone to. Yes, a part of the experience was miserable, but I cannot show that to you. I want to share with you only happy smiley faces. I know, I am spoiling the pictures by putting us in the middle of everyone of them, but how else can I prove that we were there and we had fun. How else can I make you jealous?”

The respondent, if he has not gone to Warsaw would say, “Looking good. I wish I could do what you are doing.” What he really wants to say, “OK, stop bragging. We know you can afford it. Stop showing off. Besides, why do we need to see your faces 100 times? We know what you look like.”

Real fun begins when the respondent has gone to Warsaw. Then there are a variety of responses. One is, “When I went there in 1984, it was very different.” What he really wants to say, “Hey, travel to exotic places is my territory.  Stop invading it. I was doing that when you were still in diapers, so stop bragging about it.”

Another response is, “Good. Do check out that little café in the plaza. They serve killer goulashes.” The real intent of the comment is: “I am such a sophisticated foodie that I remember good meals even thirty years afterwards. I know that in all likelihood the café is gone but how else can I exhibit by sophistication?”

Yet another response is: “When we were there, we hiked up a mountain nearby.” The objective of the comment is to convey, “You wimp, you just take some conducted tour, unlike me, a real athlete with an independent streak. I don’t want to tell you that the hike was miserable and destroy the image I have created.”

It is all fun and games, driven by our ego.

We post on Facebook to boost our ego, and respond in order to prevent it from deflating.

Get rid of our egos and Facebook will take a major hit.