Two preliminary conclusions derived from these diagrams can be mentioned:
The speed of light as a limit: If the world-lines of bodies in relative motion are taken as having the same spacetime interval but with varying spatial and temporal components according to their relative spacetime trajectories, the limiting spatial velocity is the interval of a world-line along the space axis measured in terms of the same interval along the corresponding time axis. A vector drawn along the x-axis in figure 1c to represent a ray of light extends as far along the x-axis as time elapses for the observer in the duration of the diagram. There is no vector that can extend further in space than one that has a temporal component of zero.
The speed of light as invariant: Due to the invariance of the observer's and observed spacetime intervals, each observer will measure light as traveling the same distance in space as time elapses in that observer's reference frame, and though the measure of the spatial distance traveled by a beam of light between events will vary between reference frames, the rate will always be agreed upon. We can also infer from the observation of light as projected in figure 1c that distance in time is equivalent to distance in space - that one second in time is the same distance, but in a perpendicular direction, as 300,000 km in space.
The Hypothesis
The fact that the motion of material bodies is relative, and limited below c, while the motion of light is invariant, and an absolute limit c, suggests a fundamental distinction. If motion in time were to be regarded as a correlate of mass, if the clock of a material body is unable to stop entirely, and if in contrast light is massless, and its clock (if it could be said to have one) is invariably motionless, then light could be construed as actually, absolutely, not-moving in time. And if light doesn't move in time, it seems meaningless to say that it moves at all.
The question is: If light is considered to be at absolute rest, if the apparent motion of light is actually the reflection of the motion of mass in time, however absurd the idea may seem at first, then what paradoxes could be resolved, what potential exists for a more comprehensive understanding of other issues and phenomena? What if material (massive) bodies exist in spacetime, but photons are embedded in space? What would be the implications if light is at absolute rest, and if the motion of mass in time - perpendicular to space and yet always in space - is the basis of all motion, real and apparent?
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