the space-time continuum

Apparently the space-time continuum exists. I thought it just a Doctor Who sort-of figment of a sci-fi writer’s imagination, something like the fourth dimension or warp speed. But the continuum is, and warp speed and the fourth dimension are related to it. Lord Wiki devotes plenty of space to explaining space-time, completely unintelligible to non-scientific me.

Mr Einstein postulated that space and time are relative, and that an object in motion experiences time at a slower rate than one at rest. We humans travel far too slowly to notice. Scientists have affirmed Einstein’s theory of relativity by shooting atomic clocks into space in high‑speed rockets and the clocks come down behind clocks rooted to the Earth.

Fascinating stuff … not. But I digress. What I’ve observed about space-time is that in real life time and space are relative only in that the more you have of one, the less you have of the other. The bigger the backyard a person has, the less time said person will have for anything other than tidying up that yard. Hence the attraction for time-poor people of apartment living.

My good woman is a case in point. She works full-time, cooks and ministers to her children full-time, co-ordinates the lives of every Serb in Melbourne’s east, and wonders why her garden is always three weeks ahead of her. Weeds grow at warp speed, shrubs and trees strangle paths, and lawns turn into breeze-rippled grass overnight.

Your average free-standing house surrounded by urban wilderness has perpetually clogged gutters, paint peeling off fascia-boards, mould growing in wardrobes, three cars dripping oil on the driveway, and dog droppings on the nature strip germinating a horde of deadly fungi. There’s just no time to do anything other than chase your hundreds of tails. This is modern suburban life with children.

On the other hand most apartments have one facing wall with a couple of windows. The time saving is obvious. What is not so obvious about occupying a compact space is the frustration of erecting three-tiered bunks for the children and their guests, attaching Ikea gadgetry to every vertical surface, and ducking under the bicycles hanging in the hallway.

The car is in the basement with the garbage tins, the vegetable garden is a parsley pots that falls off the balcony ledge, and pets have nowhere to go but in the shower stall. Edifying stuff.

The space-time continuum must have a mid-point, but where is it?

Rock on.