It's about time: how sci-fi has described Einstein's universe

A century after the publication of the general theory of relativity, sci-fi is still grappling with its implications, and still trying to explain it to the rest of us

A century after Albert Einstein formulated general relativity, the theory holds a profoundly strange place in modern life. On one hand, it underwrites all the marvels of technology today, from smartphones to space probes. We wouldn't be tweeting from orbit around Mercury without the physics Einstein published in 1915. On the other hand, while a fair number of people can tell you what special relativity's E=MC² stands for, a vanishingly small number can claim to really understand the universe as Einstein's famous equation reveals it to us.

The popular understanding of relativity comes almost entirely from science fiction. A crew of astronauts crash land on a planet populated by apes, where humans are mutes kept as cattle. But it's only when Charlton Heston screams "You maniacs, you blew it up!" at Lady Liberty that the other moon boot drops: we're on Earth after a nuclear apocalypse, transported into the future as a result of time dilation, an effect of relativity predicted by Einstein's theory.