Albert Einstein theorized that distance and time are relative depending upon one’s speed. In everyday life we rarely notice this because of a little-known tenet of General Relativity that says, “Whenever one attempts to approach the speed  of light, there will be an octogenarian in the left-hand lane.”

Since the early 20th century, physicists have thought they were this close (author holds up hand with thumb and index fingers about 3/4 of a centimeter apart) to being able to explain the whole shebang. Figure out why very small things behave differently from very big things, and, Bob’s your uncle, we’ve got your Eureka moment.

I, however, think physicists will find that they have yet another hurdle to solve (mixed metaphor intended, smartypants.) This has to do with certain zones in which conventional measurements of space and time break down even when one is only moving at the speed the planet is revolving (24 hours/day, I think, no that sounds wrong somehow.)

I don’t think physics is quite prepared to explain why an hour in a mechanic’s shop is equal to about 4.33 hours on the outside. We’ve all experienced the inverted time-dilation effect of the Department of Motor Vehicles. According to Einsteinian relativity, time slows as one approaches the speed of light. However, time slows even more when one is in the slowest state of movement possible, the DMV line.

I won’t go into the distance contraction effects localized to the crotch region of men who wear wife-beaters and gold hood ornaments around their necks.

Are these just zones in which bistromathics trump mathematics (Sorry only readers of Douglas Adams’s Life, the Universe, and Everything will get that reference.)

Any Unified Field Theory must explain these phenomenon before I can accept it.