A to be young forever! How people have longed for that.
The fountain of youth! The elixir of life! The philosopher’s stone!
Surely somewhere-in the guarded fruit of a forbidden tree, the enchanted waters of a lost well, a secret formula, an occult incantation, the touch of a sorcerer’s wand, the creams and potions from beautician’s vat – there is something to free us from the tyranny of time and keep us young forever!
It is an ancient dream.
Today we are voyaging in space.
One of the dreams of the space age is that as we move at rocket speeds time will but slowly gain upon us. We may be able to move through time as through space, even go backward and become children again.
Time! One of the dimensions in which we live! It winds forward and backward from the present like a scroll, but as it is unrolled before us it is rewound behind us so that no more than one line is ever visible.
Space seems like a room where we can look around us. But time is like an aperture through which we peer at a peep show.
Today scientists write about space-time and speak of time as if it were the fourth dimension. Time is not the fourth dimension. Time is the cross section of the fourth dimension. It is the only way we three-dimensional creatures can experience the fourth dimension.