What Is a Space-Time Continuum?

Video Transcript

"Hello my name is Remy Dou, I am a science teacher here at Miami Christian School in Miami, Florida. Let's talk a little bit about what is a space time continuum. Most people have heard that word when watching Star Trek or maybe reading some science fiction novel. And a space time continuum is simply the dimensions of space combined with the dimension of time. When we think of space we usually think of three dimensions, length, width, and height. And these three dimensions are intertwined, you cannot separate them. That's what we refer to as 3D. When we go watch a 3D movie it is not really 3D it is only an illusion of 3D, because the movie itself is in two dimensions, which is just width and height. But reality is in three dimensions, and most people don't understand that time is also intrinsically embedded into those three dimensions. In other words, the three dimensions of space, and the dimension of time come together to form one dimension called basically a space time continuum. Believe it or not Albert Einstein's teacher learned from Albert Einstein's work, and it was he that really developed a lot of the theories, or behind what a space time continuum really is. And some experiments have shown that space and time are related. When objects are traveling at really high velocities through space the time literally slows down. If you were traveling in space at nearly the speed of light on a space ship, let's say, you would age slower than someone on earth. This is actually due to the fact that space and time are inter-related."