WHEN TIME SPLITS: THE MYSTERY OF THE TWIN PARADOX

IMAGINE two twins standing side by side on Earth.

- HRITHIK KIRAN BAGADE

One of them, let’s call her Maya, boards a spaceship capable of travelling near the speed of light. The other, Arjun, stays behind. For Maya, the journey seems short — perhaps just a few years. But when she returns to Earth, she finds that decades have passed. Her once-younger brother is now much older than she is. How could time have treated them so differently?

This strange outcome is at the heart of what physicists call the Twin Paradox — one of the most fascinating consequences of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Despite its name, it’s not truly a paradox, because it can be resolved within the rules of physics. It simply challenges our everyday understanding of time.