Does the Past Still Exist?

Time feels universal in everyday life, but physics shows it is relative and observer-dependent. This video explains how Albert Einstein and Hermann Minkowski reframed time as a dimension within spacetime, how the speed of light sets a universal limit and shapes our notion of "now" through the relativity of simultaneity, and how the concept of a block universe arises when considering all observers. It also discusses how quantum mechanics fits within this relativistic framework without requiring a universal present. The result is a thought-provoking tour from spacetime diagrams to the nature of existence itself, highlighting why time is not what it seems and how our understanding of reality evolves with physics.

Time, Spacetime and the Relativity of Now

The video begins by contrasting our everyday sense of time with the insights of physics. Time is not a universal parameter shared by all observers as we intuit it; instead, Albert Einstein and Hermann Minkowski showed that time is a dimension embedded in spacetime. A space-time diagram helps visualize how motion through spacetime depends on velocity: standing still is a vertical line, moving at a constant velocity tilts the worldline, and the speed of light marks a 45-degree boundary. This framing explains why Maxwell's equations exhibit a symmetry built into the structure of space and time themselves, not merely electricity or magnetism.

"Time is a dimension, it's just a label for coordinates" - Albert Einstein

The Gap Experiment and the Four Postulates of Special Relativity

Einstein’s postulates include a finite, invariant speed of light and the idea that all inertial frames of reference are equally valid for describing physical reality. The video uses a thought experiment with mirrors and photons to show how you can operationally define “now” by looking for simultaneity in a symmetric setup, but this definition becomes frame-dependent when another observer (Alice) moves relative to you. The speed of light remains constant for all observers, leading to disagreements about which event happens first and when a signal returns.

"The speed of light is always the same, and observers are equally valid" - Albert Einstein

Relativity of Simultaneity: The Moving Observer and the Midpoint

When Alice zips by in a spaceship, she experiences a different sequence of events than you do. In your frame, the left mirror may emit a photon that returns after the right, while in Alice’s frame the reversed timing occurs because the mirrors themselves are moving during the light’s travel. The conclusion: now is not universal; it depends on the observer. This radical idea—the relativity of simultaneity—is tiny in everyday life but becomes crucial at relativistic speeds, altering how we synchronize clocks and define events across frames.

"The viewpoints of all observers are equally valid, so you're both right" - Albert Einstein

Block Universe and the Question of Existence

Beyond the operational debates about now, the video discusses two ways to think about existence in a relativistic world. One is the block universe idea, in which all times exist together in a four-dimensional spacetime block and nothing “becomes” in the sense of becoming new. An alternative is to adopt slicings of spacetime to define a moving “now,” but such slicings cannot have observable consequences and thus clash with the core postulates of relativity. The video also notes that quantum mechanics, with its measurement updates, does not by itself force a preferred present or a breakdown of the block universe, since its nonlocal aspects cannot be observed to yield a definite simultaneity.

"All times exist in the same way; the block universe is just there" - Albert Einstein

Quantum Mechanics and Relativity: Compatibility and Takeaways

Although quantum mechanics introduces indeterminism and measurement updates, these do not undermine the compatibility with special relativity. The wavefunction collapse or measurement effects cannot be observed to define simultaneity, so there is no operational contradiction with the four Einsteinian postulates. The video emphasizes that the future may be read as existing in a relativistic sense, not as a single, universal coming into being, and that the past is likewise present in the same formal sense. The discussion closes by connecting these ideas to broader questions about how we understand time, existence, and the nature of reality within modern physics.

"Quantum mechanics doesn't change anything about the block universe because it's still compatible with special relativity" - Narrator