Hard on Time

A friend informed me that I was being a little hard on time. Yes, he said, time and space may be different, but space and distance are as equally non-existent and derivative as time is. After all, he said, distance can only be determined by comparison as well. A measurement of something is just a ratio of that and the pole to the equator. Nothing, by itself, has size or distance. There must be something else to compare it to. And on top of that, according to relativity, distance shrinks with speed, but speed is a just distance by time. So, distance is a comparison of objects affected by distance (another comparison of objects in a bit of circular reasoning) and time, which is a ratio of change of distance again (in yet again more circular reasoning).

It all gets cloudy, loopy and non-sensical. So, perhaps I should put it to rest since I can't really grasp it all. And we haven't even touched quantum mechanics.