In a different way, space and time – and the perception of them – also moved into the centre of scientific study. In physics, Newton's idea of an absolute space and an absolute time was written off virtually in passing.4 In thermodynamics, with the thermal death of the universe the temporal vector was stringently formulated for the first time. In 1905, Einstein calculated within the framework of the Special Theory of Relativity how time appears slowed down in a system moving away at constant speed. With the General Theory of Relativity in 1916, he extended the theory to accelerated bodies. Since all matter in the universe produces a gravitational field, and since gravity is equally acceleration, every body has its own time. In a later popularization of his theory, Einstein compares the old mechanics, which only recognized a single clock, with his theory, according to which ‘we can imagine as many clocks as we want." With quantum mechanics, that subjectivist element was introduced into physics which led to the abandonment of a realist description. But does not this subjectivist element, the role which was ascribed to the observer, stem from the fact that the vector of time did not really find its way into the theoretical structure of quantum mechanics, but was merely appended to it, with the aid of the concept of the observer?⁶
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The Illusion of Simultaneity