Abstract
WHEN the theory of relativity was enlarged so as to cover the facts of astronomy, it became necessary to discard the symmetry between space and time which had hitherto prevailed. Thus time regained a real objective existence, although only on the astronomical scale, and with reference to astronomical phenomena. De Sitter attacked the problem from the other end, and reached the same conclusion. He began by postulating symmetry between space and time, and found that for such symmetry to prevail, the universe must be totally devoid of matter. As the actual universe certainly contains matter, it is clear that de Sitter's postulate must be discarded. In other words, space and time must be intrinsically different in their natures?which is of course precisely what the plain man has believed throughout. This gives us every justification for reverting to our old intuitional belief that past, present and future have real objective meaning, and are not mere hallucinations of our individual minds ?in brief, we are free to believe that time is real.
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Man and the Universe: The Wider Problems of Astronomy. Nature 136, 689–690 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136689a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136689a0