It has always been difficult for the philosopher or scientists to fit time into his view o

f the universe. Prior to Einsteinian physics, there was no truly adequate formulation of the relationship of time to the other forces in the universe, even though some empirical equations included time qualities. However, even the Einsteinian formulation is not perhaps totally adequate to the job of fitting time into the proper relationship with the other dimensions, as they are called, of space. The primary problem arises in relation to things that might be going faster than the speed of light, or have other strange properties,

Examination of the Lorentz-Fitsgerald formulas yields the interesting speculation that if something did actually exceed the speed of light it would have its mass expressed as an imaginary number and would seem to be going backwards in time. The barrier to exceeding the speed of light is the apparent need to have an infinite quantity of mass moved at exactly the speed of light. If this situation could be leaped over in a large quantum jump--which seems highly unlikely for masses that are large in normal circumstances--then the other side may he achievable.

The idea of going backward in time is derived from the existence of a time vector that is negative, although just what this might mean to our senses in the unlikely circumstance of our experiencing this state cannot be conjectured.

There have been, in fact, some observations of particle chambers which have led some scientists to speculate that a particle called the tachyon may exist with the trans-light properties we have just discussed.

The difficulties of imagining and coping with these potential implications of our mathematical models points out the importance of studying alternative methods of notation for advanced physics. Professor Zuckerandl, in his book Sound and Symbol, hypothesized that it might be better to express the relationships bund in quantum mechanics through the use of a notation derived from musical notations. To oversimplify greatly, he argues that music has always given time a special relationship to other factors or parameters or dimensions. Therefore, it might be a more useful language in which to express the relationships in physics where time again has a special role to play, and cannot be treated as just another dimension.

The point of this, or any other alternative to the current methods of describing basic physical processes, is that time does not appear--either by common experience or sophisticated scientific understanding--to be the same sort of dimension or parameter as physical dimensions, as is deserving of completely special treatment, in a system of notation designed to accomplish that goal.

One approach would be to consider time to be a field effect governed by the application of energy to mass that is to say, by the interaction of different forms of energy, if you wish to keep in mind the equivalence of mass and energy. The movement of any normal sort of mass is bound to produce a field effect that we call positive time. An imaginary mass would produce a negative time field effect. This is not at variance with Einstein's theories, since the "faster" a given mass moves the more energy was applies to it and the greater would be the field effect The time effects predicted by Einstein and confirm by experience are, it seems, consonant with this concept. (565)

The passage supports the inference that ______.

A．Einstein's theory of relativity is wrong

B．the Lorentz-Fitzgerald formulas contradict Einstein's theories

C．time travel is dearly possible

D．it is impossible to travel at precisely the speed of light