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Facing the Future - Notes - e-flux

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In 1955, Albert Einstein sent a letter to the family of his friend, Michele Besso, who had recently died. Einstein had known Besso since they were both in college, and Besso was the only person Einstein thanked by name in his 1905 paper on special relativity. In his condolence letter, Einstein wrote, “Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” He wasn’t speaking metaphorically; he was referring to a discovery he had made when developing his theory of special relativity. Before Einstein, people assumed that there was a clear distinction between past, present, and future: the past was fixed, the future was yet to be determined, and the present was the line that separated the two. Moreover, people assumed that at any given moment, everyone could agree on what category any specific event belonged to, no m

September 12, 2023 Facing the Future Ted Chiang Film still from Arrival , dir. Denis Villeneuve, 2016. In 1955, Albert Einstein sent a letter to the family of his friend, Michele Besso, who had recently died. Einstein had known Besso since they were both in college, and Besso was the only person Einstein thanked by name in his 1905 paper on special relativity. In his condolence letter, Einstein wrote, “Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is onl

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