In 1968, Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking submitted a research essay to the Gravity Research Foundation that would forever alter the path of theoretical physics. Using the mathematical model of general relativity, they were able to prove that time originated from a singularity at some point in the past, confirming one and for all that the universe began at the instance of the big bang. (Hawking, 41) Although many scientists still maintain that Max Plank's quantum mechanics theory is more fundamental than Einstein's theories of relativity, the numerous arguments presented in the paper as well as the results of Hawking's continuous work have set the precedent for researching the existence of distortions in the fabric of spacetime as the direct cause of the presence of force.
Prior to 1915, space and time were believed to be independent and absolute entities that remained unaffected regardless of astronomical body movement as well as the push and pull of observed forces. This idea was overthrown when the theory of general relativity was introduced. Almost overnight, the curvatures of the three spatial and on temporal dimensions became dynamic quantities that were found to be easily affected proportional to the movement of a body or force. In other words, as demonstrated by an experiment conducted using highly precise clocks placed at variable heights of a water tower, light that travels away from the direction of a force field, such as Earth's gravitation, will lose energy and distance from one anti-node to another and thus will seem to an observer that time has slowed down. (Ellis, 67) .
Today, physicists no longer consider the correct definition of time as by the one given by Merriam-Webster: "a nonspatial continuum". Instead, "an entirely new type of symmetry" called supersymmetry formulated in the 1970's provides a mechanism known as Grassmann numbers to describe time as a sheet.