Time: the fourth dimension

Dear Js,

There are three dimensions you can see: X, Y and Z. Three coordinates are enough to describe any position in space.

And at two+ years old, you have mastered spatial positioning. It seems even babies are born with a sense of space. We can use words like on your left, right; in front, behind. E.g., the train is behind the wall. It goes from right to left.

But what you’re missing now is the fourth dimension: Time.

You know the train goes on the train tracks in front of you. You are happy to see it come. You wave to it and cover your ears and wave goodbye. But then when it’s gone, you say…

“I WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN.”
“I WANT TO SEE IT NOW.”

So, J, I decided that the most useful thing for me to teach you (before I go insane) is the concept of Time. Yes, the train appears here. But it only appears here sometimes. I don’t drive the train and it’s not mine. So I cannot make it come here all the time. Only sometimes.

It’s amazing because you’re grasping an abstract concept. You can’t sense it, and even if you measure it, you sometimes feel like time speeds up when you’re having fun or slows down when you’re not. That’s because different parts of your brain keeps track of time differently. And also, because reality is even stranger: Time IS relative.

Einstein said, “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.”

But Einstein was more than a comedian. He gave us two theories of Relativity. One of which uses the funny concept of Time Dilation. Time dilation is a phenomenon where moving clocks are measured to tick more slowly than an observer’s stationary clock.

Einstein illustrated this using the “Twin Paradox“. The scenario is, there are two identical twins. one of whom makes a journey into space in a high-speed rocket and returns home to find that the twin who remained on Earth has aged more. How is this so? Shouldn’t each of them (paradoxically) see the other person age more slowly, because the twin on Earth would see the other blast away in a rocket, while the the twin in the rocket would see the other blast away beneath him on Earth?

If you are curious to find out the answer to that paradox, and more about the strange ways our universe work, check out Michio Kaku’s Hyperspace and Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. I think they did a fine job bringing difficult concepts to the casual scientist.

So, back to Earth. As you can see now, Time is not an easy concept to teach. But like all things, the best way to teach something is to introduce the problem, and use that to motivate the search for a solution.

In our case, our need to use the concept of standard Time is similar to how standard Time was invented in the first place. Incidentally, it was because of trains too. Namely, inter-state railways. Before railways crossed large distances, there was no need for time synchronization. You could have one clock tower in town, and everyone can look to the clock tower to see what the time was.

But if a train crosses two towns, and each town had its own clock tower, if a train was scheduled to arrive at 7:05pm, whose time was the train to follow?

And so, today, we have the magic of standard time. Which came from Railway Time. It’s not how time actually behaves, mind you (refer to the above for Physics references). It’s just a useful form of Time. It’s useful because I can look at my watch and remember that two trains pass by our house on our evening walks: One at 6:28 pm, and another at 6:52 pm. From then on I can tell you, there are two “people trains” and one comes at 6:28 and another comes at 6:52. We can rush to wait for it at the End of the Wall, and magically, because the train’s time is the same as ours, it arrives right on time — so you can wave to the conductor and he will wave back through his window.

This relieves much of your anxiety. You no longer have to stress about if you’ll see the train again, or when, or why you can’t see it now. Because I have demonstrated that the trains come at precisely those two times without fail everyday, you have accepted it. That’s when it comes. If we’re there at that time, we can see it. If we’re not, you can’t. Knowledge of Time makes it as simple as that.

And that really is true for Knowledge in general. The more you don’t know (or refuse to know), the more you have to rely on supernatural explanations. And, the more you know…

Natural explanations make supernatural explanations obsolete.

By the way J, I’m also teaching you “minutes” and “seconds”. It’s easier that way, so I can say, “We can only step over through the secret door for 30 seconds.” Or, “The next train will come to that station in 7 minutes” and I’ll count down to zero out loud. You kind of get it, but you’re not quite there yet, because sometimes I say, “Please wait 1 minute.” And you counter with, “2 minutes!” On the other hand, you impressed me again the other day by noticing the shadows on the sidewalk. You noticed that the shade is on the right sidewalk in the morning, and on the left sidewalk in the evening. I explained that it’s because the sun comes up on the “right”, and goes down on the “left”.

J2, you’re 3.5 months old now. You’re so sweet with your big pretty yes. You can look around the room now to observe us and to find us when you hear our voice. In fact, you even look when we say your name now. And you are talking so much! And, drooly Julie squishy juicy thighs: you had your first full tummy to back roll completely unassisted!

This time last year was the first time we were alone with J1 (after I kicked my parents back to Malaysia and after Abu Vicky visited before that). We enjoyed the intimacy of being with just our family again. This time, it’s no longer a quiet house, now that J is talking and there are two of you to drive us up and down the walls. But we’re not as stressed as we were 2 years ago. Mama might tell you, a big reason is we don’t even have time to be stressed.

Mama claimed her Supermama cape last week. It was the first time she spent home alone with both of you. The workers were fixing the roof at J’s school, and indiscriminately wafting tar fumes into the classroom while children were at class. So mama roared and pulled you out. One of your friends who stayed in school had symptoms like stomach ache.

She took both you to the Children’s Discovery Museum. J2 was in the backpack, and J was a firefighter:

Then, because it was the Labor Day weekend, mama tried undies with J at home. It was a failure. J had wet undies twice and said nothing. So, next time.

Then, she rejoiced at finally getting both of you to nap together, for the first time:

You two slept better. Each of you would wake up and go back down after seeing the other:

More first times: Lean forward to eat. Construction city. Dump truck working every day. Throwing your shirt… and Catching it “before it hits the ground”. Piano potty. And eating a fistful of veggies.

Understanding pulleys (“See mama, when this goes up, that goes down!” — I couldn’t describe it any simpler):

Another first: I watched you sleep for 15 minutes. Sounds creepy when I say it like that. I was just on my way downstairs when I saw you (J2) sprawled across the bed. You spent most of your time with mama, so I thought I needed to go hang out with you for a bit. I touched your forehead. There’s so much collagen in your skin my lips stick to your forehead. Your hands smelled like baby. You wore J’s elephant sleep sack. Since my hands were rough, I touched your fingers with my nose. You jerked your hand back and stretched your arm out like Supergirl. You stretched until your fist shook. And then you relaxed and let your arms fall to your side. You breath out with a girly sigh, unlike your brother. Your cheek was soft like a steamed Chinese dumpling and a little cool. I touched the soft spot on your skull and stroked your hair. You looked peaceful. Then you stirred a little as you drifted deeper into sleep. You twitched, blinked and sighed. A plane flew over. It didn’t bother you. Your chubby cheeks make your jaw look bigger than your forehead. Your chin sticks out of the pillow. Tiny little hands and cute little nose. You made me relaxed and sleepy, I almost fell asleep staring at you.

You know, while I am very pragmatic, mama is what brings superfluous joy to the home. No matter how tired she may be, she loves doing things like baking and gardening. Thanks to her, the garden is going well. J2 will sit in her bouncy chair in the garden and watch. Kimi will lick her feet. She’ll watch water drip from the hanging planter that attracts hummingbirds. Mama was very upset today when she discovered her seedlings were missing. Something took them or ate them. It might have been birds or squirrels. J loves spotting squirrels monkeying in the garden.

Speaking of J, you saw mama pumping the other day. You said, Mama I want to drink that. So mama said okay. You tasted it and said “I like it”, then walked away. From the bottle though. You don’t know how to nurse anymore. I’m not sure if I should be embarrassed to say this. I accidentally drank some the other day too. I was looking for things to wash and found a bottle with milk. It looked like soymilk so I took a sip. I usually drink your leftover almond/coconut/soy/rice/non-diary milk so it won’t go to waste. It was sour so I tossed it. I told Mama the soymilk had gone bad — I tasted it and it didn’t taste good so I got rid of it. She said umm… that was not soymilk. I said it didn’t taste good and walked away.

Anyway, here are examples of what mama made this week:

This week’s family moments:

Js talking to each other:

J lazing with daddy…

… then sitting on my head:

“Do you want to play?”

Comfy sleep sack

Funny conversations…

We went to have a playdate with Anna and her family for Labor Day. After we got home, I noticed you were thinking about her, so I said, “I like Anna”
You said, “I like her balls.” You were referring to the last thing you played with her, which was throwing balls around. You continued, “… and her fire truck.”

I was napping on the couch in the living room when I heard you come downstairs with mama. You called me, I woke up and joked, “WHERE AM I?” You looked at me, unimpressed. You pointed, “There.”

At the farmer’s market, you hung on the fence to watch Caltrains. You said, “That’s a Caltrain. It’s going to Cal.” You made that conclusion from the fact that we call other trains by their destination (the Mountain View train, the Santa Teresa train, the Alum Rock train, etc). I said, “I think it’s going to San Francisco.” You insisted, “No daddy. It’s the Caltrain. It’s going to Cal.”

And the night before, you were kind to mama, who was lying next to you trying to help you sleep: “I’m not going to wake you up any more.” You had been asking her for water and various things to make you feel better. But then she explained that we need to sleep to wake up early to catch the train for the farmer’s market.

And finally, after pulling into the garage and turning the car off, as usual, I was in charge of you. Mama had J2. I said, “Hold on to your book so it won’t fall when I take you out.” In contrast, mama said, “Julia, don’t eat your seatbelt.” She laughed at how different they were.

(Mama just came downstairs to brew a cup of tea. I said what are you doing drinking tea at THIS time? She said she was going to put it beside her bed so she could gulp it the moment she wakes up. J2 – you’ve been waking up almost every hour. J – you’ve been waking up at 6. It’s 12.17 am now. She said, “Gotta wake up somehow.”)

Love,

Dad

P.S. – J is no longer full time at daycare. Mama’s got him part time at home starting September.

P.P.S. No matter what Time means, it is always the heartless villain that only lets you enjoy moments like these only once in your life:

Because time never waits. It never relents. Things change with time and people get older. And then one day we’ll be no more. Things in four dimensions can never be the same. You can be in the same place with the same people for the second time, but because of time, it can never be the same.

So enjoy every moment. Be present and enjoy the journey. Life is not a destination. The journey is life.