ElI5: What Einstein meant by “the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”.

Question

ElI5: What Einstein meant by “the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”.

In: 1101

Answer 1

Imagine a film reel. As you watch the movie, you can only experience each frame of the movie as it happens. However, if you go to the projector and pop out the reel, you can see that each frame exists all at once on the reel. The “past, present, and future” of the movie exists all at once and the way that we watch the movie is the illusion.