Time and Time again!

How much time does it take???

Hi, Dr Grahame Blackwell here, with an interim post on my Substack channel ‘Beyond Spacetime’. This one’s titled ‘Time, and time again. How much time does it take?

To hear an audio version of this post (4m58s), click on the arrow below.

Ok, so I promised you the inside track on something really important that’s Hidden in Plain Sight. That’s coming soon. But I have another issue, one that’s screaming to be let out, that I need to share with you now. It won’t take more than a few minutes.

I have a question. It’s for anyone who may still be going along with the century-old popular (i.e. don’t-think-too-hard-about-it) view of Special Relativity (SR). It concerns the issue of Time: what exactly causes time effects?

SR tells us that time is a 4th dimension, just like the other three except that we can only travel one way. That’s great. But how does this ‘travelling’ somehow give rise to all the effects of time - what might generally be referred to as ‘ageing’ (of rocks, stars, unstable atoms etc, not just living things)? What are the influences along this route that cause all of those effects?

Well of course, some might say, that’s easy. It’s the interaction with other ‘travellers’ along the way: bumping into other particles, exchanging bits of molecules, trading heat or electric charge - all that sort of stuff.

So far so good - maybe. But how about those that don’t have that sort of interaction? What about the things that show clear evidence of time-based effects totally on their own? Sure, even individual atoms are made up of subatomic particles that interact with each other - but how about the muon, a subatomic particle with absolutely no particulate substructure? That’s noted for its decay rate, lasting typically only a couple of microseconds - what prompts it to fall apart in such a statistically well-defined way, simply by virtue of heading along that time dimension?

Fact is, nothing is going to change state without some sort of energetic action; and the only thing the muon has to interact with is itself: the humble muon is proof positive that even the most basic particle is subject to energy flowing around inside it, acting as the driver for time-based effects. The well-documented time dilation affecting the decay rate of relativistic muons is likewise proof positive that this process is affected by a state of motion, precisely in keeping with the formulation of SR. Not because of any mystical property of spacetime, simply because energy flow around a moving object is bound to be different from that around a static object.

And there we have it. The very fact of time effects in a stand-alone particle leaves no doubt that matter - all matter - is subject to energy flows within it that drive the passage of time. Put that with the obvious fact that energy flow iside a particle on the move will be different from that flow inside a static particle - as evidenced by time dilation in fast-moving muons - and we have all that’s needed to explain all of the effects attributed to Special Relativity. Without any mystical properties of space and time. So why do we continue to believe in that outdated concept?

If I’m wrong, if you can see some other way particles like muons could experience time effects simply by travelling down that time-direction road, please contact me here. Otherwise, please share this thought - and maybe the link to this post - with others you know who might be interested in such things (which includes, potentially, the future of the human race).

Thanks.

And a few thoughts from Enya on the subject. You’re welcome.