The Reluctant Universe: Dialogue I — On Time’s Spatialisation

Characters:

Professor Quillibrace

Mr Blottisham

Miss Elowen Stray

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Blottisham:

Time… as a dimension? You’re telling me I can measure it like a ruler? Across space? Preposterous!

Quillibrace:

Not measure it like a ruler, Mr Blottisham. Treat it as a coordinate in a relational system.

Elowen Stray:

So time becomes “placeable,” in a sense?

Quillibrace:

Exactly. Its ordering is relational, not absolute.

Blottisham:

But seconds tick! Minutes pass! Surely they are universal!

Quillibrace:

Only within a given frame. Move to another frame, and your “ticks” are politely reinterpreted.

Blottisham:

Reinterpreted? My breakfast will arrive late?

Quillibrace:

Your breakfast remains punctual for you. Others may disagree about the simultaneity of your toast.

Elowen Stray:

So simultaneity isn’t universal?

Quillibrace:

Precisely. Two events that are simultaneous here may be sequential there.

Blottisham:

This is madness! My head spins!

Quillibrace:

Madness only if you insist on absolute clocks.

Elowen Stray:

So “spatialising time” is not about stretching hours, but about describing relationships?

Quillibrace:

Yes. Each frame has its own coherent ordering; the theory simply tells you how frames relate.

Blottisham:

Then past and future… are negotiable?

Quillibrace:

Not negotiable. Relational. Defined only when a cut—or frame—is specified.

Blottisham:

I feel the universe sliding sideways.

Quillibrace:

Only your classical intuition.

Elowen Stray:

So the trouble with time as a dimension…

Quillibrace:

…is that we mistakenly treated it as a monologue rather than a dialogue among events.

Blottisham:

And blamed physics for stretching reality?

Quillibrace:

Exactly. Reality is quite restrained—it merely refuses our insistence on absolutes.

(Blottisham rubs his temples; Elowen smiles at the calm economy of relativity.)