QUOTE - Newton's absolute time may feel like an accurate description of the beast that rules our daily lives, but in science the notion was shattered in 1905 by Einstein's special theory of relativity. "Einstein showed that there isn't a universal time," explains Davies. "Your time and my time get out of step with each other if we move differently." In other words, the duration of time between two events can vary depending on how fast you are moving in the period between the events.
Imagine two observers, one on a train and one stationary. The traveller sends a pulse of light from a torch vertically up. The traveller's view is shown on the left: the pulse travels vertically up. The stationary observer's view is shown on the right: the position of the torch and train ceiling at the start and end of the pulse's journey are shown in black and blue respectively. The pulse travels diagonally.
At the root of this strange time warping effect lies Einstein's postulate that the speed of light should be the same for all observers, no matter how fast they are moving.
Imagine two observers, one travelling on a train and the other stationary by the side of the tracks. As the two pass each other the traveller emits a pulse of light from a torch shining vertically up.
The two observers will disagree on the distance the pulse has travelled when it hits the ceiling of the train, because the stationary observer perceives not just the vertical motion of the pulse, but also the horizontal motion of the train.
Since both observers measure the same speed of light, and since speed is distance per time, this implies that they must also disagree on the time it took the pulse to travel that distance.
Time is relative to the observer, or as the physicist Kip Thorne prefers to put it, time is "personal". - UNQUOTE
Text and original graphic courtesy: plusmaths
I would like to open this up a little - to examine it in an extended way.
It is my view that many similar concepts in science, unwittingly revolve around perception, masquerading as objective definition.
They are actually describing apparent anomalies - apparent paradoxes - that lie at the very heart of relative "reality" - ie - the perception of time & space - space/time - from our inescapable perspective of relativity - and it is my belief that, far from describing from an objective scientific method - they demonstrate the inability of abstract imagination to avoid the traps of relative perception.
I have added two more versions of the drawing, originally posted at the above linked site.
The original assumption is presented as an alternative of two perspectives - the travelling observer 1 - and the stationary observer 2.
We however, become the third observer - trying to correlate the ambiguity of observers 1 & 2 - something we cannot do without adopting the defined perspective of one or the other - because, even in the act of imagination - perspective is implied.
Considering that this is an example of a hypothetical situation, with which to challenge notions of space & time - perhaps we could consider removing these unknown quantities from the equation temporarily.
What remains is perception - the acts of observation - and it is perception which can safely be adopted as a starting point - our perception is assured - whereas, whether or not we are perceiving space &/or time, is not assured.
Stated another way, the subjective act of percpetion has to be seen to have a greature assurance of reality than the objective definition of what we may or may not be perceiving.
In example B above - we see the comparison between the two arbitrarily selected points of perception - 1 - travelling with the train - 2 - stationary, observing the horizontal motion of the train.
However, to add more precision to this, we must add all the other, intermediary points of perception that exist hypothetically between 1 & 2 - imagine an infinite array of trains, moving alongside, progressively travelling at slower speeds - until they reach the stationary - as illustrated by the arc in figure C.
It is the sum of these infinite perspectives which will describe the actual events adequately - no more - & no less.
It will, of course, become obvious, that these events cannot be described - without the infinite resources required to do so.
Let us consider another conundrum - a wheel.
It could be suggested that the rim of a rotating wheel travels faster than its hub, as it has more distance to travel in its rotation.
Yet it is a whole wheel - how is it possible for different, arbitrarily ascribed areas, to produce a contradiction - to the behaviour of the whole?
Which has the greater actuality - the imagined divisions - or the whole?
In imagining this conundrum - we adopt a single perspective - either of the rim, the hub, or the whole wheel - however, adopting the perspective of the whole admits to the ambiguous relationship of the parts.
Do we inhabit an ambiguous reality - or a whole reality?
Are we not discovering that relativity is indeed ambiguous - containing an infinite diversity of possible perspectives - every single one of which must be counted - before we can attempt to describe in objective terms, just what that actuality is - or how it behaves.
* * *
The imminence of existence is entirely synchronous, and is radiated by electromagnetism, communicating this existence within itself, allowing infinitely differential perceptions according to perspective.
All electromagnetic radiation therefore conceals this imminence - rendering it permanently invisible and unknowable to any form of perception.
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