Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

Alexandra's Time
"Friedrich," said Alexandra at night, "a few weeks ago I overheard you discuss a new
theory with Niko that postulates a four-dimensional world. I had a curious experience in the
Uffizi today which I will try to explain later provided I can clear my confused mind. It would help
me, if you could describe that theory."
They were having coffee after dinner.
"You ask for an explanation of the latest ideas in physics. Are you sure you want to hear
these esoteric speculations? What happened to you? The theory of Relativity in the Uffizi? You
are not trying to goad me into a Theosophical discussion?"
Alexandra wrinkled her brows. "Don’t mock me, you know that I pay no heed to the
Theosophists. No, I am serious, my question has to do with the concept of time and with what
will happen to our thinking in the future, after we have exhausted the Renaissance idea of
banning a three-dimensional world on a flat canvas."
Friedrich mumbled that theoretical physics was comprehensible only to the initiated.
"The essence of time is the deeper substance of this theory, but in the very limited sense of
theoretical physics, it will not affect you or me in our daily lives."
She refused to give in. "Let’s see about that later. Is this theory so complex that you
could not put its central ideas into a few simple sentences?"
Friedrich cocked his head and smiled condescendingly. "A year ago a certain Albert
Einstein, whom nobody had ever heard of, published a paper in a respectable journal in which
he postulated that the movement of the stars takes place in a four-dimensional world, the
fourth dimension being time."
He paused looking at Alexandra full of doubts. "This would not be so revolutionary, if
Einstein had not shown that the lengths of the spatial and temporal coordinates shrink
depending on how fast the earth—or another celestial body—moves. If the body moves very
slowly, time expands to infinity, but if the body flies at high speeds time shrinks, until near the
speed of light it becomes exceedingly short, and the body explodes in a flash of light, x-rays, or
other electromagnetic radiation. We don’t really understand yet what that means, but Einstein
could explain some very subtle changes in the movement of the planets, which the old
Newtonian physics could not."
He looked expectantly at Alexandra. "Does that help you in any way?"
"If I am honest, it doesn't—except that it encourages me to tell you what moves me
since this morning. Apparently you physicists are also contemplating how to expand our vision
beyond the confined concept of three dimensions and a linear time."
She smiled challenging at Walter, who was absentmindedly lost in his own thoughts.
"As I walked through the galleries of the pre-Renaissance today I was caught by the
early Byzantine panels. Puzzled I sat in that room and asked what these painters knew that I
did not know. An inner voice said, ‘God is timeless.’"
She shrugged. "I am no longer searching for God, but last night, thinking about this
subconscious message, another question came to my mind. Did they conceive of God as
infinite and time standing still, or was He seen as a single point with time expanding to infinity?
In both cases time could be non-finite."
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