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Gobbledygook
A common practice among scientifically inclined people
is to mistake nomenclature for understanding. What makes a motor
turn? Electricity. What's electricity? Moving electrons.
What are electrons? Well.... If you ask how the Earth and the
moon reach out to one another through space, the answer might be gravitons
or a warp in "space-time". There's a lot of nomenclature available
but the fact is that giving something a name doesn't necessarily mean that
we understand it. Nobody really understands how the Earth and the
moon stay in orbit.
That term space-time is one of my favorite pieces of nomenclatorial
nonsense, prime gobbledygook. A good way to explain why is the old
standby, analogy. Anybody who's studied Statics and Dynamics will
be familiar with vectors. A vector has two components, magnitude
and direction. Velocity is a good example. Considering velocity,
speed is the magnitude. As with all vectors, it's possible with velocity
to change the magnitude (speed) without changing the direction. It's
possible to change the direction without changing the speed. It's
possible to change them both. Any one of the three changes will change
the velocity but that isn't my point. Part of my point is that the
components of a vector are totally independent of one another. Either
one can be changed without changing the other. Another part of my
point is that the components of a vector are utterly dependent upon one
another. That is, if there isn't any speed then there can't be any
direction. If there isn't any direction, then there isn't any speed.
Without both of its components, a vector can't exist. Thus, either
of the two fundamentally different components of a vector, each independently
variable, will instantly vanish if the other component disappears.
The removal of either component will result in the removal of the entire
vector.
Now, consider the term space-time. Assume that the universe
can be viewed as a vector. If my analogy holds, then space and time
are not the universe. They are the components of the universe.
Space corresponds to the magnitude of the universe. Time corresponds
to the direction of the universe. Saying space-time instead
of saying universe is like saying speed-direction instead
of saying velocity. Magnitude and direction are not the vector.
They are the components of the vector. Speed and direction are not
velocity. They are the components of velocity. Similarly, space
and time are not the universe. They are the components of the universe.
Interestingly, if the universe works like a vector, then it might be
possible to manipulate space without changing time. It might be possible
to manipulate time without changing space. It might be possible to
manipulate them both. Any one of the three manipulations would change
the universe. The removal of either space or time would destroy the
universe. However, the agenda of this essay isn't cosmology but nomenclature.
The lesson of the essay is that the correct nomenclature isn't space-time.
The correct nomenclature is universe.
Like any analogy, the vector-universe analogy might not work perfectly
in every case. However, it's a good explanation of why the term space-time
is gobbledygook. It's a little unsophisticated to substitute gobbledygook
for nomenclature. It's pretentious to substitute nomenclature for
understanding. That sort of thing impedes understanding. Let's
try to get it right. There isn't any such thing as space-time.
There is space, there is time, and there is the universe. To be completely
honest about it, we don't really understand any of them.
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