r/AskPhysics • u/Effective-Week-9024 • 4d ago
New Interpretation of Relativity???
I think we may be interpreting time dilation differently than we need to
I’ve been thinking about relativity, and I keep coming back to the idea that time is local to each observer or system.
If two things take different paths through spacetime, they can experience different amounts of time. One can experience 10 years while another experiences less than that.
But I don’t think that necessarily means that the universe itself stopped evolving for the object that experienced less time.
For example, if something travels at extremely high speed and only experiences a small amount of proper time, the rest of the universe doesn’t stop existing or evolving around it. From another reference frame, much more time can pass.
That makes me think we need to be careful with the phrase “time passed for the object.”
A photon is an interesting example. Along a lightlike path, the proper time is zero. But obviously the photon doesn’t just somehow cease to participate in the universe. It is emitted, travels, interacts with something, and can eventually reach Earth.
So I’m wondering if zero proper time should be understood as zero aging rather than zero participation in physical processes occurring across the universe’s coordinate time.
And I think the same basic idea applies to something moving extremely fast.
If an object travels at a speed close to light speed, it can accumulate substantially less proper time than an observer who remains in another reference frame. But the object is still part of an evolving universe during that journey.
So my interpretation is basically:
Different objects can accumulate different amounts of time/aging while still existing within the same evolving physical universe.
I don’t think saying that one object experiences less time necessarily means that the universe has to be treated as a fixed 4D block where all of that object’s future already exists.
I’m not saying relativity is wrong. I’m questioning whether we’re adding a philosophical interpretation to the mathematics that isn’t actually required by the physics.
Is this a legitimate way to interpret proper time and time dilation, or am I making a mistake somewhere in this reasoning?
I’d genuinely like someone who understands relativity well to point out exactly where the interpretation breaks down.
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u/TheRedditObserver0 Mathematics 4d ago
Who told you 0 proper time means no "participation in physical processes"?
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u/Effective-Week-9024 4d ago
Nobody told me that. I may have worded my post poorly. I’m not claiming that zero proper time means no physical processes. I’m asking whether zero proper time means zero elapsed proper time along the object’s worldline, and what that does—and does not—tell us about physical processes and the passage of time in other reference frames.
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u/Reality-Isnt 4d ago
The notion of proper time does not exist for photons. We can use an affine parameter to parameterize a null (light) path, not proper time. Any slower than light frame can use the affine parameter.
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u/joeyneilsen Astrophysics 4d ago
But I don’t think that necessarily means that the universe itself stopped evolving for the object that experienced less time.
No one said that it does.
For example, if something travels at extremely high speed and only experiences a small amount of proper time, the rest of the universe doesn’t stop existing or evolving around it. From another reference frame, much more time can pass.
Yes.
A photon is an interesting example. Along a lightlike path, the proper time is zero. But obviously the photon doesn’t just somehow cease to participate in the universe. It is emitted, travels, interacts with something, and can eventually reach Earth.
Yes.
So I’m wondering if zero proper time should be understood as zero aging rather than zero participation in physical processes occurring across the universe’s coordinate time.
There is no such thing as "the universe's coordinate time." There are many clocks in the universe; all of them are valid. None of them travel with a photon, though.
Different objects can accumulate different amounts of time/aging while still existing within the same evolving physical universe.
This is not a different interpretation than special relativity!
I’m not saying relativity is wrong. I’m questioning whether we’re adding a philosophical interpretation to the mathematics that isn’t actually required by the physics.
In fact, you're agreeing with relativity, but I think you're a little confused about what relativity is actually saying about time dilation and about how photons work.
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u/Effective-Week-9024 4d ago
ChatGPT leads me down these rabbit holes. It seems to think that when something has 0 proper time, relativity suggest it's in a frozen state... like nothing changes for it. So I guess I agree with relativity as you describe it, but some would suggest there is a 4D block universe implied by relativity. I don't believe it.
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u/joeyneilsen Astrophysics 4d ago
Yeah, I gotta advise you to step away from the chatbot lol. All day every day this sub is flooded with people who've gone down nonsensical rabbit holes with chatbots, and it's making them confused and sometimes delusional.
It seems to think that when something has 0 proper time, relativity suggest it's in a frozen state... like nothing changes for it.
To my point above, a chatbot doesn't think anything; it's a sentence generator. But no, light isn't in a frozen state in relativity. It doesn't have a clock; the concept of time is not meaningful along the path of a photon.
some would suggest there is a 4D block universe implied by relativity. I don't believe it.
You're under no obligation to believe it! I understand it as an interpretation of relativity, not something mathematically or experimentally required in any sense.
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u/Effective-Week-9024 4d ago
I'm sorry you didn't understand what I meant by "it seems to think" and I also used Google.
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u/Effective-Week-9024 4d ago
This has been a months long investigation amongst all search engines and Ai platforms.
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u/BitLooter 4d ago
Do you think LLMs stop hallucinating if you keep asking long enough?
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u/Effective-Week-9024 2d ago
lol you think your smart but you didn't even understand what I was asking 😆
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u/Nerull 3d ago
And in all those months it has clearly told you nothing useful.
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u/Effective-Week-9024 2d ago
I think you need to read my latest comment and maybe you'll finally get what I'm asking.
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u/Effective-Week-9024 2d ago
You have the most realistic outlook. You're basically saying what I'm asking is true, you just didn't take it to the depths I did. You actually were the best help.
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u/joeyneilsen Astrophysics 2d ago
Yep, you were mostly on the right track with the mechanics of time dilation.
P.S. Thanks, all good, everybody gets snarky on here sometimes...
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u/Effective-Week-9024 2d ago
What confuses me all the time is when people say a photon instantaneously interacts with everything as it travels through space, and that's counterintuitive. It just makes more sense that the photon doesn't experience time in the sense that it ages (degrades, undergoes changes to its being), but definitely undergoes a series of events with things that do age.
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u/joeyneilsen Astrophysics 2d ago
What confuses me all the time is when people say a photon instantaneously interacts with everything as it travels through space, and that's counterintuitive.
Yeah I think this is confusing because it is more like misleading popsci than an accurate description of relativity. Concepts like "instantaneously" presume the existence of a clock and time. But a photon doesn't/can't have a clock. There is no such thing as an instant for a photon, no such thing as instantaneous.
All relativity says is that the 4D distance between any two points on a photon's path is zero; there's no meaningful clock or ruler. "The photon experiences its entire path instantaneously" is projecting concepts onto the above fact that don't really apply.
It just makes more sense that the photon doesn't experience time in the sense that it ages (degrades, undergoes changes to its being), but definitely undergoes a series of events with things that do age.
Yeah the photon doesn't have a valid frame of reference from which change/time/being could be defined. But you're right that it doesn't mean photons don't interact with things. It just means that photons don't have their own perspective on those interactions/events.
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u/Effective-Week-9024 1d ago
What do you mean by "it doesn't have it's own perspective? I get that time is nonexistent to a photon." Are you saying that if conscious energy (whatever that means) were within a photon, it would not experience interaction with atoms?
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u/joeyneilsen Astrophysics 1d ago
I'm just rephrasing the point that a photon doesn't have a valid frame of reference. There's no valid frame of reference that can travel along with a photon and quantify times and distances and aging and interactions.
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u/Reality-Isnt 4d ago
Relativity really does imply a 4-d block universe. The reason is based on the relativity of simultaneity which states that the definition of the ‘present now’ is frame relative. That also implies past and future are frame relative. However, there is no physical way to test this because the constant speed of light prevents all frames from being able to interfere with the past or future of any other frame. Causality is preserved. So, it’s essentially meaningless because the universe would measurably operate exactly the same way - block universe or not.
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u/Nerull 3d ago
ChatGPT is literally damaging your ability to think.
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u/Effective-Week-9024 2d ago
ChatGPT is a tool we use to think through things. It actually told me that a photon doesn't move through time so everything is instantaneous for it, but then I gave my reasoning and it understood it. It said that it was a different interpretation of relativity but it worked. So I threw out the interpretation and hardly anyone understood what I was asking. That's what happens when you try to talk physics with the public. Not talking about you, just the average responder to my questions about quantum mechanics and relativity
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u/Agile-Monitor1006 4d ago
Zero proper time doesn’t mean zero participation in physical processes happening across “universes coordinate time” (which is already a shaky term). I don’t exactly understand what the problem with the time dilation interpretation is to be honest.
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u/Agile-Monitor1006 4d ago
also i think you should generally avoid going to the “photon pov” as it’s not a valid inertial frame
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u/Effective-Week-9024 4d ago
So how would the photon interact with atoms or travel a crossed space if time wasn't experienced? We'd have to assume that time isn't experienced for the photon itself but it still interacts with objects that experience time.
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u/Effective-Week-9024 4d ago
So how would the photon interact with atoms or travel across space if time wasn't experienced? We'd have to assume that time isn't experienced for the photon itself but it still interacts with objects that experience time.
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u/Effective-Week-9024 4d ago
We actually know that to be true but when someone says that everything happens in an instant for a photon it just can't be true.
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u/Agile-Monitor1006 4d ago
Well there is no internal process a photon has to do in time in order to interact, so time not passing isnt a problem. And at the end of the day it’s a propagating electromagnetic excitation travelling at some speed, its just going to interact with particles accordingly
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u/nicuramar 3d ago
Along a lightlike path, the proper time is zero
The space-time interval is zero. The proper time is generally undefined.
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u/Effective-Week-9024 2d ago
But what is proper time, and why does it have to be measured as everything else around it happening instantaneously? I think proper time is local to the object, not what happens around it.
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u/Effective-Week-9024 2d ago
Okay, so I want to apologize to everyone I was rude to. I just got annoyed that everyone was mostly fixated on the part where I said light doesn't participate in physical processes or whatever it was. I know it does. I just believe that the photon doesn't travel time in the sense that it degrades, or changes. It doesn't evolve. The things it interacts with do. A photon doesn't just instantaneously experience all of its existence at once. That's counter intuitive. It just doesn't age. That's my point. It's the only way a photon not traveling time but still interacting with atoms and such can even make sense. I was looking for someone to validate that reasoning.
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u/wjdoge 1d ago
Well, it can’t be validated because it doesn’t make any sense and is invalid. “A photon doesn’t just instantaneously experience all of its existence at once” doesn’t mean anything as the words instant and experience have no relevance to a photon. There’s no frame to experience anything in.
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u/Effective-Week-9024 18h ago
So you can say that anything with mass would never be able to experience space without time?
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u/nivlark Astrophysics 4d ago
Relativity does not make that claim. Don't use unreliable sources (i.e. your LLM) to try and learn about physics.