PHYSICS and Light-Speed Ramblings

In 1905, Albert Einstein introduced his theory of relativity—special and general—and somewhere along the line, humanity began to obsess not with the science itself but with what it could mean if taken far enough: time travel, wormholes, bending space, escaping consequences. The concept of a space-time continuum didn’t just revolutionize physics; it gave cinema an infinite playground. Back to the Future, Jumper, Time Stoppers, Interstellar—maybe we're not really chasing science, but a loophole.

At this very moment, I'm mid-marathon, swimming through sci-fi timelines and parallel dimensions, wondering if I, too, can somehow slow down time by simply not participating in it. Maybe that’s what movie marathons are—a refusal to acknowledge the clock. Not a break from reality, but a deliberate skewing of it. It’s not time travel, but it feels like it. And feelings—though unquantifiable—sometimes govern the way we understand laws we cannot rewrite.

Einstein’s theory is brilliant, no argument there. But the “relativity” in Special Relativity opens the door to more than physics. In fact, maybe it's less about the mathematics and more about the metaphysics.

Three things keep bouncing in my head:

a) Theory – Science loves certainty, but it walks on probabilities. A theory, by definition, is an approximation—a story that fits until it doesn’t. Maybe we trust it too much. Or maybe we just need it to feel safe.

b) Special – Physics is supposed to explain the world. Ironically, most people barely survive their high school physics class without hating it. Maybe the problem isn’t the complexity of the universe, but the way we try to narrate it. Why should the physical world belong only to physicists?

c) Relativity – Not objectivity, but perspective. Maybe that’s the philosophical bridge. The theory says your frame of reference shapes how you experience space and time. Isn’t that a metaphor for everything?

Maybe this is why I sometimes find Einstein more poetic than Newton. Newton explained how apples fall. Einstein wondered what falling feels like when you're moving with the apple. It’s like asking, what does time feel like when you’re not in sync with everyone else?

Movies exaggerate. In Time Stoppers, speed blurs into near-invisibility; mass disappears. Objects approaching light-speed begin to distort, blur, fragment—until the laws of physics give up trying to hold them down. Scientifically flawed? Absolutely. But conceptually? Strangely profound.

Because when science says nothing can move faster than the speed of light, it’s also saying that only nothingness can. That’s not just physics—it’s philosophy. Emptiness, as in the vacuum of space, expands. Energy fills the void. The Big Bang happened because "nothing" stretched its own limits. Maybe emptiness is the only thing fast enough to start creation.

Mass increases as speed increases. We know this. Inertial mass, locked-up energy. Newton’s ghost nods in approval—resistance, inertia, F=ma. The more mass, the more force required to move. But in films, speed leads to weightlessness. It's not science. It’s symbolism. Maybe what we’re watching isn’t mass reduction, but detachment.

And yet… back to reality: you’ll never reach light speed with a physical body. Infinite mass would require infinite energy. And last time I checked, we’re still rationing electricity.

Still, maybe the idea isn’t about actual light-speed. Maybe it’s about our obsession with escape—fast enough to outrun memory, regret, responsibility. Maybe the appeal of time travel isn’t about visiting the past but unmaking it. Or editing it.

But if you ask me—none of this is about clocks or particles. It’s about perception. The faster we go, the more everything blurs, and suddenly we’re unsure: is this the present? Or just an echo?

Maybe relativity was never about physics alone. Maybe it's an existential condition.

Or maybe I just need to turn off the screen and go for a walk.