What is einsteins theory of past, present & future happening all at once?

Question

My tiny brain cannot wrap around the idea of past present and future happening all at once. Is there lay terms for this theory and was it disproven?

Answer 1

The theory of relativity denies that two events will occur simultaneously in different frames of reference.

To explain, time flows at different rates for different people. If you were flying at 86% of the speed of light away from me, we would each see our own watches ticking away, while we would see eachother's watches ticking away at half rate. For example, after you experienced 8 seconds, you would notice me having experienced 4. Likewise, when I experience 8, I see you experiencing 4 seconds.

We can break that down by establishing a light cone for a frame of reference. We can only tell for certain if an event occurs in the past or future of another if they are within eachother's light cones. If so, they are considered to have timelike separation - that is, you can measure the time between them.

If they are not, their separation is spacelike.

Because of the phenomenon I described earlier, you actually can't have a 'true' ordering of events. Depending on someone's relative velocity, Someone might see a sequence of events:

A -> B -> C

While another would see

B -> C -> A

What this means is
1: There is no such thing as universal simultaneity
2: The progression of time is also relative.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

I think you may be referring to the "world line" concept. This comes from the result of the special theory that the universe is a four-dimensional entity. If you could visualize that four-dimensional structure, you would see every object in spatial coordinates and time coordinate all "at once". The history of an object would be a path in space-time: The orbiting earth would look like a spiral. There is nothing in relativity that limits the view to the negative (past) time axis only, so in theory the future may also be mapped out. This is not really all happening at the same "time" because time is one of the axes of the four dimensions; it is only observable from a fifth dimensional aspect at one instance in that fifth dimension, whatever that may be, but it is not time.

Answer 3

the theory of relativity.