Absolute

”Absolute”. What do you make of it? As for me, I first came in contact with this word, may be when I was in Class 3 or 4. Actually, it was in connection to “Truth”, that is, “Absolute Truth”. Many examples were provided. But I remember one, “Sun rises in the East”. It was quite all right. I never thought about it for a long time.

As I grew older though, with a more mature thought process at my disposal, I started questioning many a things, which I had taken for granted earlier. So one fine day I start thinking about this “Absolute Truth” about the sun rising in the east. What is “Sun”? We, mankind, have defined a “Ball of Fire” as “Sun”. We could have named it as Moon or any other name. So, what is absolute about it? Similarly, “East” and “Rising”. In fact, “Rising of Sun on Earth” concept, with the earth seemingly at the centre of the universe, was summarily disproved by Copernicus and then by Galileo in the 1600s, who placed the sun at the centre of the universe and not vice versa. (And today, of course, we know the universe is so much bigger than the sun and our solar system, but let us not even get into that). Yet, our language hadn’t evolved to reflect that change in “Truth”. So, my more mature thought process told me that this “Absolute Truth” was “Absolute Bogus”.

Later on in college days, I came to know of another Absolut(e), but that is a premium Vodka. This is not a place to discuss that.  

Much later in life, after completing the trials of a busy family and working life, when I finally had the time and energy to unfetter my thoughts, I realised that “Time” is also a factor in ”Absolute Truth”. Let us forget about the above definitions and other things, but after a very long period of time, maybe many billions of years later, the Sun will lose the energy and heat that it is radiating now. Slowly everything will cool down to such an extent that first there will be no existence of life form in Earth or who knows, the Universe. So, the Sun will eventually become extinct. At that time, there will again be no “Absolute Truth” of “Sun rising in the East”. So, “Time” is a defining factor for any “Absolute Truth”. What may be true now may not be true in another era.

That is the Fourth Dimension. Time will eventually affect all other dimensions.

And that is how I, a layman, came to understand the concept of the Fourth Dimension, having started with the “Absolute Truth”.

Amen.

Sujit Sarkar

25^th May, 2020.