View of the Future

摘要

I've always found stories about time, and human perception of it, endlessly fascinating, but also somewhat unnerving. Einstein held that time is just another dimension of the universe and that its passage is an illusion, that past, present and future coexist simultaneously. Which I suppose would mean that Einstein didn't really come up with this idea 110 years ago - he's coming up with it at the same time that I'm writing about it, and at the same time that George Ellis, a conscientious cosmologist, is disputing that selfsame view of the universe. Specifically, Ellis holds that the future is not set and that it's dangerous to suppose that it is. He explains why in our cover story, "Tomorrow Never Was," beginning on page 38.