It is an old argument, and we closed the case long ago. We do not need, what physics call, aether, a strange and hypothetical medium, in ...
It is an old argument, and we closed the case long ago. We do not need, what physics call, aether, a strange and hypothetical medium, in which the light is moving. It was strongly needed earlier, but now the physics can live without it, it is obsolete. Space-time is the answer. But is time really exist as an individual quantity?
There are physical experiments, which are showing that aether does not exist. The most classical is the Michelson-Morley experiment, which demonstrated that the speed of the light is independent of how this aether medium moves or how we move in it. If the light, which is a kind of vibration, moves in the aether, then it would be possible to detect its speed changes when the experimenter moves in different ways in this hypothetical material. However, the experiment showed nothing, the speed of the light does not depend on how we move in this medium, the speed of light is constant, independent of how we move related to the light. This experiment shows us that we cannot recognize movements relative to the aether. We cannot experience it and the conclusion that aether must not exist. However, this experiment is really not a denial, it shows that we cannot experience the aether (this way).
Soon came Einstein's special relativity theory, which declared that the speed of the light does not depend on how we move and the physical laws are the same in any steadily moving physical systems. From these declarations, new physical laws derived which describe the rules of the movements with space and time dilatation and recognize that the speed of the light is a maximum speed in our universe. Special relativity theory explains how the physical quantities change when we measure them depending on our relative movements to the examined system. Minkowski put the special relativity theory into a frame. He showed that it means the space and time can be and must be handled together, universal time does not exist, every system has its own time, and when we want to describe our position, we have to specify not just our space but our time coordinates too.
Special relativity theory does not depend on or need any kind of presumed and hypothetical consistence as aether to exists, but introduce and suppose that time not just exists but a kind of dimension of our universe. It tells us this not without reason. This is not just a consequence of the theory, but it is the heart of that. When we are moving relative to something, our space AND time coordinates are changing according to that.
We may say that the change of the space dimension is a kind of technical phenomenon of the measurement because if the measured and the measuring system get back to the original moving state, the measured system's space dimensions get back its original state too, and we cannot distinguish between the earlier and later states. The time is different. If we had two identical watches showing identical time in the two systems at the starting state, at the ending states when everything gets back to its original moving state, we could have two watches which are measuring the time at the same rate but showing different times. Therefore, the spent time is different. This is a remaining quantity, and we can distinguish the two states based on this. We must move in a differently changing speed to see this effect (as general relativity theory states), but it does not alter the essence of the effect, no difference is space extensions but a difference in time extension after everything is got back to the original state.
So it looks like time actually exists, we even have physical proof of that when the time is going on different rates if we are moving at a relatively different speed.
The special relativity theory does not explain why there is maximum speed. It gives us mathematical formulas how the physical quantities changes when we are moving relative to another system and these equations show us if we are moving faster and faster and closer and closer to the speed of light then the physical quantities tend to be infinite or zero relative to the measuring system. Which are impossible. So we cannot move with the speed of the light, it is a limit for us. However, this is not an explanation. It is a description. Moreover, the question remains: why are these physical quantities tend to be zeroes or infinite, why is there a speed limit?
To understand why such a limit exists we must have a deeper understanding of our physical world and may need to be introduced again to the strange existence of aether, which is solid, but we can move in it without resistance. If we reintroduce it, as a kind of grid, as a grid of particles (do not mix up with the particles what we know of today), which states and interactions create our universe and our time as well.
How this grid would answer our questions and solve the time problem? Some thought about it in the following thoughts.
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