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Below is an excerpt from my essay, "The Time And Motion
Relationship",copyright 1996, [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]. All comments
are welcome.

CHAPTER TWO
Common Notions Of Varying Time Rates
Part One
It is difficult to figure out time. We cannot get beyond Dr.
Einstein's premise of time-space interdependence because it
bonds time and space as partners absolutely and forever. This has had
the
effect, evidently, of creating a "blind alley" by discouraging any
in-depth consideration of the idea that there may be more relevance to
time other than our usual under-standing of it as simply the Siamese
twin of space and not much else than that. Therefore, when we think
about time, we usually think of it as part of the "continuum" or
"fabric" of time and space in which all things exist equally subject
to the "force" of time's irresistible and un-wavering flow. However,
such a concept requires time to have or to be a force of its own - it
requires that time must be energy or must contain energy.
Subsequently, that viewpoint leads us to another blind alley
where we find that we can't explain certain "loose ends" or, apparent
natural contradictions. For example, how can time possibly have/be
energy or have/be a force? In order to support the idea of the
existence
of a "time and space continuum," scientists have had to come up with
the notion that there must be such things as time and space "warps,"
"curvings," "dilations," etc. For many "hard-thinkers," though,
it is just too hard to be able to really and truly and successfully
imagine the warping or curving of boundless space in any way other
than
as the literary trick we see used quite often in science fiction
stories as a relatively quick and easy way to travel around the
universe. It
is a task too difficult for us because we are unable to reasonably
extend the con-cept of ordinary space far enough to reconcile in our
inquiring minds how it could be that empty space can "do", "act", or
"perform", any physical act.
For scientists to take ideas from science fiction is a risky
adventure as it can too easily become a case of the tail wagging the
dog, as it were. Absolute space is defined as "…physical space
independent of whatever occupies it." Of course, time passes and
matter moves, but can we really bestow to physical space the capacity
to actually "do" something? And if space could do something, how
would we ever know it? Even so, if we wish to (perhaps because of
these questions), we can imagine the concept of time being something
quite separate and independent indeed from the concept of space, and
we shall later
discuss just how this may be done.
Part Two
In a common textbook example of Special Relativity theory, two
observers - one of whom is seated inside a moving passenger train
while the other is standing outside watching the train pass by - take
accurate measurements with their own accurate clocks of the time it
takes light to travel from a ceiling lamp to the floor of the train
car. The experiment proves (in a surprising conclusion), that time
passes slower for the observer riding on the train, but only in
comparison to the rate of the passage of time for the other observer
standing alongside the railroad tracks. That doesn't seem right, how
can an experiment prove such a thing, and why does it apply only
to the two observers? It can do so by having the only relevant
difference between the two observers being that they are not moving at
the same speed.
From the viewpoint of the outside observer who took his measurement
as the train went by, the light traveled "distance x" in moving from
the ceiling to the floor, plus "distance y," which is the distance the
train moved in the time it took for the light to travel to the floor
of the car. A line tracing the path of a single light particle as it
fell would show a diagonal line of travel drawn downward and curving
in the direction of the train's movement. For the observer in the
train, however, the light particle traveled only as far as "distance
x" because the train was not moving past relatively to her, since she
was on the same train as the light she meas-ured. For the train
rider, then, a line drawn based on her observation would be a simple
vertical one because she is moving along inside the train with the
photon as it falls. Thus, there is no "distance y" involved in her
measurement.
In comparing the length of the two lines, the diagonally curved
line is longer, meaning that it had to have taken more time for the
light to reach the floor, as far as the stationary ob-server is
concerned, but less time than that as it pertains to the measurements
of the moving observer. If for the stationary observer the event
took, e.g., two seconds to occur by his clock, and if for the train
passenger it took, say, only one second to occur by her clock, it
means that in this bilateral relationship, time passed for the
stationary observer at twice the rate that the train passenger
underwent, and
therefore he aged faster, or more, than the passenger in the moving
train.
This experiment clearly illustrates the time and motion relationship
of inverse proportionality in that the observer moving relatively
faster than the stationary observer ac-crued and underwent a slower
time rate than the stationary observer.
This is an instance where we have obtained two accurate but different
time measure-ments of the same event; yet, this hardly seems possible.
The speed of light is constant; so it could not be that which changed
and caused the difference in the time measurements, verdad? If the
speed of light did vary in order to accommodate the situation, that
would explain the time differences and we could then say that the
speed of light "warped" or "adjusted" to that particular situation,
since it would hardly seem possible that the rate of the passage of
time could change.
If it was the case that the speed of light varied instead of the rate
of the passage of time (as opposed to just the passage of time), then
time would be a property of the universe, and if that was so, it seems
all objects in the universe should age at the same rate. If it is not
the case that the speed of light varied during the experiment,
however, it seems then that the rea-son for the time differences must
indeed have to do with the fact that the measurements were made while
each observer was in a different state of motion compared to the
other, and so the rate of time varied for each observer
inversely proportional to their particular state of motion. Up to
this
point, many already agree with the latter case, as we shall see below.
Within the context of Einstein's time-space interdependence premise,
(which is a con-clusion adopted to explain the time differences based
on the conviction that the speed of light can not vary) it is said
that both time and space must at some unknown point warp, fold, flex,
bend, dilate, or curve so as to reconcile the differences in the rates
of the passage of time as measured by our two observers. Beyond that
context, however, it is extremely difficult if at all possible to
apply such physical terms to time and space because neither can be as
easily studied as discrete objects. If we think that the rate
of the passage of time (or, the rate of ag-ing) is universal, that is
to say,
if we think that time is, or is part of, a medium or "continuum" in
which all things are held equally "captive" - and are thus held
equally subject to its immuta-ble flow - then it becomes necessary
indeed to invent such terms as time and space "warps" when confronted
with such natural inconsistencies of the type shown in the experiment
above.
On the other hand, if we agree that in our experiment above, the rate
of the passage of time varies for the observers due to the difference
in the states of motion between them, it is easier for us to think
from then on that the reason for the time differences is because each
ob-server measured the event from within a time rate corresponding to
his or her own state of motion. Remember that both measurements in
our train example are accurate and, essentially, the only difference
is that one observer is moving faster than the other at the instant
that they each measure the light traveling from the ceiling to the
floor inside the train car.
In the resolution to the so-called Twin Paradox (another common
textbook example), it is proposed that a twin who goes off in a
spaceship for a few years will return to greet a much older twin
brother or sister because the space traveler has had to have increased
his/her speed relative to the speed of the earth in order to leave the
planet and then return to it, and physical law apparently grants a
slower time rate to the accelerating traveler.
This is another example where there has been for some time now
widespread agreement that the time rates of discrete objects are set
inversely proportional to their states of motion. However, at any
time when it seems that nature simply and freely "grants" us
something, we should be wary of accepting this type of "solution" too
readily because in so doing we may miss a good clue. Greek
philosopher/scientist Aristotle argued that all heavenly objects
trav-eled around the earth because it was in their nature to do
so. That had a ring of logic to it then, and even though apparently no
better argument was offered as to why it was in their na-ture to do
so, many accepted the proposition probably because no exception to it
could be observed then, or perhaps because it suited them to accept
it. We know now that under that "logic," there couldn't have been any
exceptions, as heavenly bodies today still seem to re-volve pell-mell
around the earth. We may have acted too eagerly then, and again more
recently, in accepting nature's "gifts" as if their "why"s are of
little importance to our quests for knowledge concerning real-ity.
Yet, it would be just as nice for us to be able to think that we can
know why nature should choose one observer over another, as in our
examples
above, as it would be for us to be able to imagine the
quite-unimaginable
physical feat of the "warping" or "curving" of time and space.
So, if we agree that an object will have a much longer life-span (due
to a slower time rate) than another similar object moving at a much
lower speed, then we are saying that for any discrete object, time
passes at a rate of inverse proportion to its state of motion. If that
is so, then, the aging rate of the twin and the spaceship would be
slower than on earth at any in-stant whenever the spaceship's speed
would become higher in relation to the earth's state of motion in
space, rather than at some arbitrary or unknown point in time and
space. Thus, upon returning to earth, the traveling twin will
have aged less as far as the earthbound twin and all the rest of the
people on earth are concerned.
Yet another reason why this idea has not been further developed (that
time rates vary as a function of the state of motion of matter in
space) may be that it seems to disagree with the Relativity claim that
there is no absolute motion with respect to space and so motion is
mean-ingful only between two or more bodies moving relatively to each
other. All visible matter in the universe is in motion; therefore, we
cannot locate a stationary point in the universe from which to measure
the motion of a single body. Any and all of our
measurements of motion may only be obtained by comparison to the
relative
motion and position of other objects.
Nevertheless, is not Einstein's other premise (noted in the third
paragraph, page one in the Introduction section) - that time and space
are dependent on the state of motion of an ob-server - simply the one
exception where motion is meaningful to something other than the
relative motion of two bodies? His two premises contradict each
other, yet each can stand alone as inductive reasoning, or as "special
cases". The premise of the paragraph above holds true when we wish to
measure the relative motion of objects in space because that requires
only other bodies to enable us to make comparisons between them.
Still, my contention that motion is meaningful to something
other than just the motion of two bodies, where time is de-pendent on
the
state of motion of objects, is also relevant and holds true to
measurements
taken by observers whose states of motion differ, as they do in our
moving-train and space-traveler-twin experiments. We have already
noted above that it is the difference in the states of motion of the
observers that yields consequential outcomes in measurements of time.
The latter premise above, however, may also infer to some that the
time rates of matter vary solely because observers cause them to vary
and so, from there, it is too easy to argue that time rates vary only
when and if there are observers around to measure them. Yet, why
wouldn't the rate of the passage of time simply depend upon the state
of motion of discrete objects, sans observers? The answer is, it
does. If we can agree a priori that the diagonal line in our
moving-train example is a longer line, whether or not we ourselves
actually trace the vertical and curving diagonal fall of the light
particle, then we can agree that the differences in the time
measurements do not occur only because someone is there to make the
measurements, any more than the sunrise depends on someone being there
to observe it.
Can we not also validly deduce from all of the above that the rate of
the passage of time for an object depends on that object's state of
motion, and not simply on the fact that two or more bodies are moving
relatively to each other? This is a relevant argument because, if it
would be true in all cases that motion is important only between two
bodies, it could be argued then that time rates vary only when bodies
in relative proximity move at relatively different speeds, because in
such cases they will affect each other's states of motion and thus
each other's time rates, at certain distances from each other.
That interpretation has to do with the spatial positioning of bodies
and that does indeed require the involvement of both time and space in
an interdependent relationship, as Einstein has correctly noted.
If it is true instead, though, that time alone - sans space - is
dependent on motion, then the rate of the passage of time for an
object depends at any given moment upon the current state of motion in
space of that single object, regardless of the state of motion or
spatial size and position of any other object (except, of course, when
the condition of any nearby body is
such that it may affect our object's state of motion). A small point,
admittedly so, but a rele-vant one nevertheless because if we accept
the latter of the two arguments above as true, and if the reader is in
agreement with my arguments so far in this chapter, then our goal of
freeing the concept of time from its binding ties to the concept of
space is therefore achieved. So now, again if the reader agrees,
space remains a property of the universe, but time must be recog-nized
as an essential property of visible matter, and the rate of the
passage of time for an object depends upon the state of motion of that
particular discrete object or system, and not necessarily upon an
interdependent relationship with space.
We can say, if we wish to, and because we can't prove
otherwise at the moment, that if time rates accrue to objects in
inverse proportion to their states of motion, there must be uni-versal
time rates that apply to the varying levels of motion of similar
discrete objects in space. That is to say, at the speed of planet
Earth in the universe (as it revolves around the Sun, and as the
Sun revolves around the galaxy, and as our galaxy races through
space), there is within the universe a specific time rate which
accrues for the particular state of motion of the earth, and for any
similar object which is in the same state of motion, irrespective of
their location within the universe. As the Sun moves through space
slower or faster than Earth, for example, its time rate varies from
Earth's time rate due to the Sun's particular state of motion in
space. And if another similar star in another similar galaxy far away
moves
through the universe in a state of motion similar to our sun, its time
rate should be about the same as the time rate of our star. Only in
this sense may the property of time be considered a universal
imposition of the so- called "force" of the "fabric" of time and space
upon objects.
If motion is necessary for an object to exist visibly in our
universe, and if time is de-pendent upon motion, and if the time rate
of an object varies in inverse proportion to its state of motion, then
the rate of the passage of time must increase as the object's state of
motion slows. Therefore, as an object's time rate increases, its
"lifetime" is "used up" (relatively) sooner. This means that the
near-absence of motion in matter is likely another natural
bound-ary of our universe, like the near-speed of light and the
near-absolute
zero temperature. These are boundaries set for matter and when matter
reaches a state near those limits, it usually changes into another
form that can exist beyond those limits or it is prevented by some
other way from reaching them in the same form.
It is necessary, I'm sure, to clarify my meaning of the phrase,
"state of motion," as I use it herein so often: When we speak of an
object's state of motion, we usually refer to the ve-locity or
momentum of bodies traveling in space. Yet, there is always motion
within all real objects, including molecular kinetic energy activity
in gases, molecular and atomic vibrations in matter, the motion of
particles through space and matter, and there may also be the
"outward" motion of matter resulting from the continuing
expansion of the universe. Any and all motions of discrete matter are
included in the phrase referred to above. In fact, we may say that
everything
visible in our universe is in motion, which means that as far as we
can tell, there is nothing in our universe that is totally motionless,
except perhaps, space. Yet, it is gen-erally accepted today that
space is still expanding, and that action of expansion may be
considered a type of motion when viewed from a certain perspective.
TomGee 110604