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E S S A Y S
By the Number
Fig. 1. Stars like grains of sand.
e52
TIME TRAVEL
On the Relative Meaninglessness of Cosmic Speedometers
To begin, one needn't be an astrophysicist to grasp the idea I have in mind. Indeed, I barely passed simple algebra in school. Nor does a potential reader need to be all that familiar with the principals involved, largely adapted from meager readings of Einstein’s theories on General and Special Relativity. As is typical with such fare, namely time travel, nobody ever really understands (or can grasp) the full import of this particular topic. Films such as The Terminator series, Back to the Future, and a hundred others play fast and loose with concepts of pasts, presents, and futures, and my story is certainly in keeping with the half-logical, half-incredulous nature of all such tales.
To continue, much has been said about the proven fact that time slows down for things (and people) who speed up (accelerate). The faster something goes, the slower time "ticks" for the something doing the traveling. Most school kids nowadays, are familiar with this well known Einsteinian axiom.
This is all part of the idea that nothing can travel faster than light; you know, more of that whole Relativity business we sometimes hear bandied about over coffee and Danishes. Nobody really gets it, but it's fun to think about. Until you get a headache. And when we see it in movies or read about it in stories, we almost feel like we’re following the plot. Which we rarely ever do -- not really.
Virtually nothing has been said or written, however, about the opposite circumstances related to velocity and motion. The concept of deceleration is never discussed as part of the typical time and Relativity stuff routinely served-up by the science and entertainment industries. This is to say that the slower something goes, the faster time ticks for that something -- be it an object or a person.
The question then immediately arises as to why this is true. Not so much about why time goes faster, but why no one ever writes about this equal but opposite reaction (thank you Issac Newton) that would certainly take place were we to slow things down – instead of always speeding them up. Fortunately there is a relatively easy answer to this question. Less easily resolved, is why this hidden side to time travel is so ignored by everyone who should know better.
Were this essay to form the basis of serious science fiction novel, much of what is outlined here could well serve as a rationale, a basis for the story that could be written. Just as we might have an authentic disease at the heart of a ghost story, so do we also need to establish the rudimentary science for a story that portends to take us where no writer (or film) has gone before – with apologies to Star Trek.
Back to the question of why such an obvious omission? Why are there no lengthy scientific essays or exciting screenplays about a world where things slow down and time speeds up? On the contrary, I can show you a thousand references to all kinds of theories, sci-fi stories, and serious intellectual excursions into the many ramifications of what happens when objects go faster, are accelerated, and time slows down. Most of these eventually end with inevitable and fanciful notions about approaching the speed of light, a dead-end speed-limit according to the presumed physics of our universe. On and on, all about the same topic, surrounded by thousands of wild, speculative tales, both fiction and non-fiction, all to do with time slowing when our velocity through space is accelerated.
And yet, not a peep about this opposite approach. I've checked. Not a peep. Believe me. Not a peep. It might be out there, but if it is, it's so rare as to be nonexistent. In a word, peepless. So what gives? Am I the only one asking this question? It would seem so. Or among the very, very few who are. I can't find any. None. Nada. Zilch. This is good news for someone who wants to create something really original in the much crowded sci-fi realm.
The answer may surprise you, and it took me some time before I was able to understand the reason. As with so many similar situations, the solution is ridiculously easy once you hear it. It is so easy in fact, that it defies belief that virtually no one else has dealt with it. Until now that is. And I'm handing it to my readers on a meteoritic platter, so to speak. I’ll never live long enough to write such a story, but somebody should.
Anyway here goes; fasten your seat belt and keep your arms and hands inside the capsule at all times.
The reason scientists and writers like to work with speeding things up and subsequently note the predictable slowing-down of time, is because everything in the universe, every speck of matter, no matter how small or big, whether a micro-meteoroid or an entire galaxy, is in motion; it is already moving through open space at a clip that, in most cases, can’t even be measured. Nor measured against all other things that are also moving along through space, happily whizzing along at thousands, sometimes millions of miles per hour -- or per second.
It is not incorrect to assert that nothing in the universe is motionless -- is not moving. How's that for a multiple-negative sentence? Put another way, nothing in the universe (from what we can tell) is in or at what might be called a state of "absolute rest". Meaning a particle or body of matter that is not moving, not going anywhere -- just sitting there with no velocity and no ticket to any destination. There just ain't no such animal. Everything we see or can think about, is making a beeline to somewhere.
The most obvious reason why this is true is because the Big Bang imparted tremendous velocities upon all matter, flinging it outward in all directions and with no air to slow things down, matter just keeps on going, either alone or interacting with chunks of other matter, and/or with the various gravity fields that get involved in one form or another. And don't forget to toss in both Dark Energy and Dark Matter, whatever they are. Suffice it to say that everything in the universe is making like a bat-out-of-hell, heading out ever farther, ever faster, with no end in sight. Okay so far. No revelations yet, about anything.
So scientists, theoreticians, philosophers, authors and screenwriters are always dealing with stuff that's already moving through space. They don’t even question it. Fine. More power to them. Strangely, though, it's seemingly never occurred to any of these folks that just because everything in space is speeding around like spooked chickens (forgive the example), that does not in any way preclude someone from raising their hand and asking what might happen, what might be the repercussions if something already in motion…could be slowed down. Sounds like a simple question doesn't it? Yet it goes not only unanswered, but ignored from what I can tell. If true, how odd is that?
One more basic premise needs to be understood in order for all of this to start making sense. Oh, sure, like that's gonna happen. It is a well established premise that time is intimately associated with a body's motion/velocity through space. Clocks on Earth tick at a certain rate, beat with a specific interval in-between beats, based on how fast we are traveling through open space. Clocks in orbit, traveling much faster than their Earthbound counterparts, lose time, and when returned to Earth are some fractions of a second behind their ground-based cousins. Pretty weird, huh? Also pretty cool. Then again, I'm easily amused. Obviously.
But for now, put aside preconceived premises and the like and let's go for a fun ride -- as passengers on planet Earth as if it were a spaceship, which it has been likened to many times. Earth rotates on its axis at about 1000 mph at the equator. Earth also revolves around the Sun at a given speed. So that's two simultaneous motions, and remember that these movements (and the ones to come) are cumulative, and will continue to aggregate as we continue our journey.
Okay, so the Sun also revolves around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. We're in one of those arm things, remember? So that's three separate motions thus far, and you haven't even left your armchair yet. To recap, we're going around the center of the Earth itself as it rotates. For the sake of this essay, it is assumed that the definitions and literal differences between rotating and revolving are fully understood. To wit, rotation is when a body itself is spinning on its own axis, and revolving is when the body, spinning or not, is moving around something else -- usually around what's called a center-of-gravity. This gravitational center can involve a star, another planet, or an invisible point when two bodies (or objects) are revolving around each other. Are we clear? I didn't think so, but let's forge ahead anyway. This gets to be fun, honest.
The nature of this discussion is such that quick reviews are helpful -- if not totally necessary. Thus here we are, both going around the Sun and also following the Sun as it goes around the center of the galaxy. The Sun itself, by the way, is not only revolving around the center of the galaxy, but is moving in at least one additional, separate direction as well -- and taking the whole solar system with it as it goes. For example, some stars (and their planets if they have any) are believed to be headed outward, away from their home galaxy and into open space. So far so good? Great. It gets a lot better from here on out. Not necessarily easier, just better.
The Milky Way galaxy is, of course, also rotating. It is part of (a member of) what is called The Local Group. The "Group" part refers to a collection of galaxies that are all revolving around a common center-of-gravity, meaning they are all revolving around each other, but as a group. If I'm losing you (or lost you), don't worry about it. This just means that a bunch of galaxies are acting like a huge version of our own solar system, where the galaxies are like planets all revolving around the Sun, except there's no Sun, and just a center point where the Sun would be if it existed on this large a scale. Don't quote me, but it works something like that.
Okay, now hold on, because The Local Group, as a collective of galaxies bound by the gravitational pull each has on the other, does itself revolve around yet another "gravitional center" and does so as a Super Group, which is nothing more than a bunch of Local Groups all revolving around another midpoint center-of-gravity. So if a Local Group were composed of a dozen galaxies, a Super Group might be a collection of a dozen Local Groups or more. It's not rocket science, although a rocket would come in handy about now.
At this level of magnitude, it is unimportant whether a Super-Super Group exists. The point is hopefully made and hopefully understood. The point being that we, as people on this one planet, are traveling through space in a dizzying multitude of simultaneous directions, all cumulative and probably in the form of one big, single spiral whose path through space spans some unimaginable breadth and scope.
Here's the important part: Our final, ultimate and combined speed through space is directly related to the-rate of-time (elapsation) we experience. Further, that time for us is as unique as is our specifically unique motion through space. The full meaning of this statement is both stunning and mostly impossible to fathom. It's one of those things that can be put into words and makes perfect sense. And still is largely incomprehensible.
Try this: Imagine that we were passengers in a moving vehicle, but plodding along on a road that was also moving. Let me repeat that the road itself is also moving, in the same or in an entirely different direction from that of our vehicle, which continues along as if whatever changes in direction take place, go virtually unnoticed. Now imagine that the road is separate from the ground, and that the ground is in motion, too. Thus the ground terrain upon which the road and our vehicle are connected, is moving in the same or in an entirely different direction from that of the road and/or the vehicle. Put another way, we have a two-tiered lazy Susan, of sorts, where each level moves independently of the other. Our vehicle moves along the top tier and heads down the road in no particular direction, let's say. Meanwhile, the road itself rotates, but also in no particular direction. So much for the top tier. The bottom level -- the ground -- also rotates and again, in no particular direction. So we have three things moving simultaneously -- the car, the road, the ground -- none of them physically connected, but each bound, one to the other, and each traveling along its own path. The three as a whole, however, are moving along the surface of the Earth, collectively tracing out some single path as they go.
This is a highly simplified, metaphorical example of the real deal, but it does illustrate how our one, single conveyance (our car or truck) can be moving in at least three different directions -- all at the same time. In reality, of course, we're still only moving in one direction, but our singular trajectory is the result of the cumulative "effect" of three other motions. It sounds confusing, but it really isn't. We're just not used to thinking of things in such a strange, unfamiliar manner.
Interestingly, as passengers inside the vehicle, we're just following the road and we don't detect anything unusual except how the scenery appears to be going every which way. Kinda crazy, I know. But if we stick to the road, as we would anyway, we shouldn't sense that anything is particularly "wrong". Especially as long as our watches run on time, which they do. Were we to exit the vehicle, however, and jump to a different road, even onto the stationary surface beneath the road and ground, our watches will immediately run differently from those of our friends we just left behind, back in the vehicle. If you had a cellphone and called one of those friends, and then checked your watches, they'd no longer show the same time. One of you will have lost time, the other gained. And without a frame of reference, we wouldn't know whose watch had done what. Keep in mind that in this or any other world (or dimension) there is no such thing as the "correct" time. There is only the time, which is always your time. I told you this would be fun. Isn't it a hoot?!
In reality, however, as regards the total number of separate directions (trajectories) being simultaneously traveled, there are roads upon roads and grounds upon grounds. All of them separate, all moving independently one from the another. You'll be relieved to hear, though, that things inside our vehicle always remain the same; regardless of how many "layers" of ground (how many different motions) our particular road is stacked upon, we're seemingly unaffected as we speed along. Provided we don't try anything fancy, like taking an off-ramp onto a different road entirely, we simply continue to travel the highway as if it belonged to us (which it does -- and only to us). In this case, looks can definitely be deceiving.
Here's a fun fact to break the tension as you ponder, What the hell is he talking about? The clock on the vehicle dashboard ticks at a time-rate that is based upon not just the speed of our vehicle, but also on its combined (cumulative) collection of all the different directions being traversed simultaneously. The reading on the clock is an expression of a single trajectory through open territory (upon the Earth or out in space). For instance, when you ascend or descend a spiral stairway, you're twisting along one path as you move upward or downward along a separate path. This dual motion is, of course, a single motion that describes an "arc" through an open area of space. This sounds far more complex than it is and the more you think about it, the more clearly the scene becomes. Just think of yourself as going up the stairs, but doing so in a spiral instead of a straight line. Even this extra-added spiraling which doesn't seem like a big deal in this example, would have a profound impact on the speed of time if the velocities involved were moving at interstellar clips.
In case you haven't already, you are now free to throw up (your hands preferably) and run away. In a novel or a movie, this could all be demonstrated in much simpler terms than I'm providing here. But since Spielberg wasn't interested, you're stuck with me, and our story now continues.
We have thus far done nothing more than establish the idea that we're rushing around, and that our watches are running in-sync with all that rushing around we're doing. And for those rushing around elsewhere, all on different paths (roads) hurtling along in different directions from our own, well, just don't ask for the correct time, you'll be very late for your appointment. Or early.
What we seek to accomplish, if you haven't already guessed by now, is to put the brakes on. Not slam them on, just initiate some kind of process by which we start to slow things down. A condition where we start canceling some of those different and simultaneous directions we're moving in. And when we do, if we could, it won't be long before our clocks start being affected accordingly. They ought to start speeding up according to Einstein, yet no one has apparently ever proposed what would happen under these circumstances. It's always been assumed, one can only presume, that slowing down was such an impossible concept that it was dismissed out-of-hand. Or that nothing fancy or fascinating would result or compete with a seemingly more dramatic, albeit opposite twin effect. That of time itself accelerating ever faster. Our on-board dash clock gained an hour just while writing this paragraph.
Please note that this last point cannot be emphasized enough. Except for a provocateur like me, the whole idea of anything in the universe just sitting still, motionless, while most everything else is buzzing along like "normal", represents a concept that for whatever reason is simply never or rarely discussed. Until now, thank you.
Before going forward, no pun intended, the most logical reason why the topic of non-motion is overlooked or ignored, is likely because the subject is far less sexy (until now) than all the really cool stuff that happens when we go faster. Akin to real life, no one ever wants to think about slowing down, let alone stopping altogether. It's just not in our nature, literally or figuratively.
Einstein told us that if we could travel at the speed of light, time would continue to slow as we got ever nearer the "ultimate" velocity. And time would stop altogether were such a speed ever attained. But Albert also said we could never even get near the speed of light, let alone surpass it. Such theories have all been demonstrated to one degree or another as being factual, and the scientific community is generally of one mind in support of these Relativity concepts.
As a brief aside, the chief limitation on the speed of light is its inherent mass. That mass bogs down as we go faster; it get heavier and heavier until the sheer weight of it keeps us from accelerating beyond a certain point. When a particle such as a neutrino, for example -- which is thought to possess little or no mass -- approaches the speed of light, its lack of mass likely allows it to exceed the limits placed on heavier objects. But I digress.
If time slows down as a result of acceleration (meaning to go faster than you're already going) then it seems a no-brainer that time would quicken as a result of a body (or our vehicle) slowing down -- where we force a decrease in the speed we are already traveling. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well, guess what? It is. At least the idea of it. To take things to their logical conclusion, we must imagine not just slowing down, but gradually coming to a state of what might be called, "absolute rest." Or stated differently, the exact opposite of traveling at the (absolute) speed of light.
By definition, this state of total rest would mean that all our previous movements and motions through space were somehow cancelled, neutralized, and that a body or object, whether Earth or a speck of dust, had come to a dead-stop, had halted completely, unequivocally, utterly and absolutely. That's a long sentence that if read carefully, will make sense -- trust me.
And just as time would, in theory, stop completely if the speed of light were attained, time ought to run infinitely fast for a body at total rest. Okay, I may have really lost you, now. So let's back up and try again. You'll feel better knowing that just as we can't even get near the speed of light, we would be faced with perhaps even more difficulty trying to counteract and eliminate all those different directions and speeds we've got going for ourselves. In other words, it would be tough making all the calculations required in order for us to even begin braking. But we might get close; just as we might find ways to go really fast, we might find ways to really slow down.
But why? you ask. To what end? We've been told that there's lots of advantages to going fast, but no one's talking about going slower, let alone what benefits might be derived from a conceptual reversal of thinking that stands Relativity on its head, so to say. To repeat, however, because it's a great question: what's the big deal? What could possibly be gained by slowing yourself down? And if time speeds up accordingly, what good could possibly come of that? Wouldn't we grow older faster -- wouldn't everything? And doesn't life go by fast enough as it is?
Before we go down that and other roads, let us first consider whether time is qualitative to any degree. By this it is meant to suggest that there is no universal yardstick by which a given rate-of-time, such as our own, can be judged as running either faster or slower (than whose?). And whether fast is better than slow or vice versa -- whether slower is in some way superior to faster.
There are only places where (and when) time runs faster than it does on Earth, and places where it runs slower. There appears to be no correct time. If God wears a wristwatch and was asked for the correct time, He would first have to ask where you're located, and how fast are you going.
Here's a thought that will send you stomping out the door, if you haven't already done so long ago. While one is "immersed" in one's personal time zone, so to speak, and as long as one is locked into a stable trajectory through space (which we all are, of course) then one will judge their time as being the norm, and give little or no thought to whether time is running either fast or slow. We simply don't care, nor should we -- nor can we. Time is what it is. In point-of-fact, any proposed deviation from "our" flow-of-time, whether real or theoretical, is (inappropriately) considered an aberration of the norm. And this, of course, is a completely chauvinistic approach to any objective analysis of what time is, or isn't.
Let me now give you a little something that will help close the door on your way out: Whatever time really is, and we can bandy about any variety of descriptions -- few of which would be wrong -- time affects, impacts, and is inextricable from the sub-atomic level of existence. From our sub-atomic existence. This means that your molecules, the atoms, and the constituent components of your atoms are all regulated, governed, and influenced by the "time-zone" in which you exist. And as if this wasn't peculiar enough, the Earth's overall time-zone (which includes you) is based on (you guessed it if you've been listening) -- drum-roll, please -- and the answer is: our unique speed, motion, velocity, and trajectory through open space. Ta-da! How cool is that?
It should be noted that any discussion that includes Relativity concepts involving the Big Picture, with ideas of how the sub-atomic world is itself involved or affected, runs precariously close to the unresolved conflict between the laws of Quantum Mechanics (really small stuff) and Einstein's universe of gravity and really big stuff. Any investigation into that arena is way above my pay grade and I won't even attempt to go there. This topic concerns unification theory where all four forces of the cosmos are connected via a single formulaic equation. How's that for something to chew on? It may well be, however, that relevant to time considerations, some of my conclusions or suspicions are still valid. Don't forget, these are the same people who have apparently never given a second's thought to the ramifications of slowing stuff down.
So not only does your time to belong exclusively to you, as an Earthling, but the cells in your body (and brain) right down to the atomic level -- and more -- are all ticking along at a definitive rate, all pre-determined by how fast those little cells are jetting along -- and taking you with them.
If you haven't guessed a rather obvious conclusion as yet, try asking this question: If our time is based on our speed and location in space, then do "people" who live in other parts of the Milky Way galaxy (where their speeds, momentums, and trajectories are considerably different from our own) live according to a flow-rate of time that is significantly different from our own?
That's a mouthful and needs a bit more clarification. So try this on for size: We know we're on the outskirts of our galaxy. A long ways from the center areas, from galactic-central. These suburbs are traveling slower than some places, faster than others. As we get nearer the center of the galaxy, however, where the condensation of matter, stars, planets, and likely black-holes become increasingly concentrated, things are a lot different downtown than they are in the boondocks. It's likely that everything near galactic-central, even mid-central, probably zooms along like horses on a rocket-propelled merry-go-round. What might that hint-at in terms of time-zones based on speed and location?
Across the routinely immense expanse of any galaxy, from the center to its farthest, most distant star, a near-infinite range of time-zones must span the galactic breadth like a gigantic phonebook filled with unique times (and addresses) instead of phone numbers. What can only be guessed at, are the degrees to which times and speeds differ as we traverse the vast distances involved, whether from the outside inward, or outward from the center.
How much faster does the center of a galaxy rotate than do the outer areas? And what might this translate into with respect to time-rates? The simple answer, sometimes the best one, is that the nearer the center of a galaxy one resides, the faster objects tend to move, and consequently the slower that time ticks for them -- just as we would expect to be the case. An important point can be made, however, and needs to be as regards this particular matter: Supposing for the sake of argument that the exact reverse were true, meaning that the nearer the center, the slower that matter moved, while farther out, the faster, then it is relevant to note that the same rules apply. The faster we go, the slower the time. The slower we go, the faster the rate-of-time progresses.
On a solid platter or disk that has a center hole and spins, a speck of dust near the center moves much slower in terms of real speed, than does another speck that is located near the outer edge of the disk. The reason for this is easily explained via two basic principles that are involved:
01. The disk is a solid.
02. The merry-go-round idea, which is to say that the nearer the center of the machine, the slower one moves (less dizzying) and the fastest traveling are those riding the outermost horses of the carousel. Another kids' plaything found in parks was the circular platform to which were attached railings that spoked outward, from the center of the apparatus to its edge. Anyone familiar with this device soon learned how much easier it was to move around and stay balanced when in the center, and how centrifugal force and a faster speed made riding the peripheral edges far more difficult.
If a galaxy were a solid platter, it would be easy to see the difference in speed between the revolving "inner" stars and planets, and those at the very outside edges. It would be identical to the merry-go-round example mentioned earlier. In this same example, the time rates for the center areas would be considerably faster than those along the periphery of the galaxy. But this is where our analogy ends, because real galaxies are far different from a rigid anything. They are dynamically "fluid" in nature, in which the central zones -- the nucleus -- travel much faster than the more distant, more remote regions far removed from galactic central.
Galaxies, therefore, which come in many shapes and sizes, are not subject to the same rules that apply to those reserved for a solid mass. Galaxies are also an illusion in terms of how densely or loosely packed they appear to be with stars, planets, dust and gas, and so forth. The distances between and among individual constituents of a galaxy are so vast, so immense, that it is a misnomer of sorts, to think of a galaxy as a singular thing at all. We know now that the material called Dark Matter "fills" much of the otherwise empty space between the stars of galaxies. Add to this the accompanying Dark Energy that exists, and an entire potpourri of material forces is also in-play. While I certainly can't even speculate as to what effect any of this might have on time, I think it can be safely postulated that there is nonetheless some impact as relates to time. And time-related matters.
That being said, galaxies are similar to a liquid that rotates as it goes down a sink or bathtub drain. We've all seen the last of the soapy water as it spins around the drain, going faster and faster, the nearer the bubbles get to the actual opening . In this analogy, the soap bubbles are not unlike the stars and other stuff that revolve about a center drain. And the metaphor may be closer to reality than we might imagine.
Super-giant "black holes" are now believed to reside in the center of most, if not all galaxies, and the concept of a drain into which the surrounding material draws ever nearer, its speed ever increasing before it disappears altogether is, to a degree, a fairly accurate description.
Assuming that galaxies do indeed behave like a liquid spining about an open drain, then the farther away one is from the center of a galaxy, the slower that one tends to travel -- with a faster time-rate accordingly. Sound familiar? Hey, you can't make this stuff up. Complain to those astrophysicist people if you think all this is just too damn complicated. Which it isn't really. Especially since it's yours truly who figured all this out.
This essay has now established the essential premises that underlie and propel the story to come. The foregoing contextual truths are intended to be self-evident, and are provided here as background material only. In terms of how a fictional story might deal with all the available information, it would need to be written in such a way that a reader is both entertained and brought up-to-speed, so to speak, as concerns a highly unusual approach to the popular subjects of time-travel and the most rudimentary principles of Relativity. While stories of this type abound in the literary and film industries, the version under discussion here, is more original than most and may, in fact, be entirely unique among its kind.
Up until now, llittle more than the kernel, only the germ of an idea, has been presented. Discussed are the core concepts of an imaginative chronicle where a machine or system is somehow devised that is capable of analyzing, then computing and describing our many movements through space -- in precise and exacting detail. Once configured, some kind of countermeasures are invented and initiated -- with profound and amazing results.
Readers may note that some similarities will exist between my account of time-travel and the movie Contact based on Carl Sagan's novel of the same name. In my story, however, the machine itself is the main focus of attention. As well as a more detailed exploration of the role time might play in such a scenario, whereby the machine is capable of manipulating "local" time versus "non-local" time.
Before we can implement our machine in the story-to-come, it might be helpful to briefly run through another example of the sort of thing we were dealing with earlier. Namely a vehicle traveling down the highway. Thus imagine that you're again driving a car on a road that runs exactly east and west, and is located directly on the Earth's equator. Your vehicle is traveling west at exactly 1000 miles-per-hour (it's a fast car). The Earth itself is rotating at the equator in an easterly direction, also at 1000 mph. In this staging, it doesn't matter whether the Earth actually turns in a westerly direction, the results are still the same. They are points of reference only, based on the ability (or lack of same) of the English language to properly explain things in as succinct a manner as possible.
Now then, while traveling counter to the Earth's rotation, both you and the car you're riding in, have virtually and effectively reduced your forward motion to zero, despite the fact that the speedometer still reads 1000 mph and you still think your driving along at 1000 mph. In truth, your car's forward, westerly velocity has cancelled-out -- has neutralized -- the 1000 mph you were already moving in an easterly direction, even when the auto was parked on the road and not in motion at all. If moving in the opposite direction, where the car and the Earth were heading in the same direction, the vehicle would actually be traveling at 2000 mph -- the car's speed plus the rotational speed of the Earth. 1000+1000=2000. This seems simple enough on its face so I won't belabor the point.
Worth repeating is how the parked car, which was pointed (headed) in a westerly direction as it sat on the road, was nonetheless already moving at 1000 mph in an easterly direction, being carried along by the Earth's rotation, right?
But as you sit on the road, aimed counter to that rotation, you're essentially traveling backward at 1000 mph. Thus when you push on the accelerator and the car starts to speed up and pull away in a westerly direction, it is actually your easterly motion only, that begins slowing down. Your movement in an easterly direction immediately dropped (decelerated) to 980 mph when the speedometer hit 20 mph, then 950 mph when you reached 50 mph, so on and so forth. Really kinda crazy if you think about it. But interesting. Then again I'm one of the few thinking about it. So there you go.
Once the car speedometer hits 1000 mph, your easterly direction is effectively zero mph. And you never did achieve a westerly direction, well, almost never. At one point, you momentarily sped up to 1001 mph, and your westerly velocity was, just for a moment, one mph. What could be easier to understand than that?
Okay, Zippy, let's hold steady at driving the car at 1000 mph in our westerly direction. Still counter to the Earth's easterly rotation. Except we've established that you're going nowhere, fast. Or, slow, rather. Airplanes in the sky above you, that are flying exactly west at say, 750 mph, are actually only traveling west at 250 mph. The plane has knocked 750 mph off its airport-based, standing-still speed of 1000 mph heading east. Anyone or any thing standing-still along the equator is moving @ 1000 mph east. Standing still elsewhere, of course, other than the equator, reduces the 1000 mph speed accordingly.
But let's keep things simple (in case that horse already left the barn). Driving north (or south) along another road that is exactly 180 degrees contrary to the equator, imparts no change whatsoever in one's easterly momentum, whereby the Earth is still carrying you along as a passenger while it rotates at roughly 1000 mph east, at the equator. Deviate even one degree, or any fraction of a degree in any other direction, while driving or flying, walking or running, and your body will either accelerate a little, or decelerate a little. For now, this particular lesson is over. That wasn't all that confusing, was it?
You want difficult? Okay, you asked for it. Well, none of this is really that hard, per se. Some people would wonder what the big deal was supposed to be; this was all very simple and straightforward stuff. Others not so much. Regardless, you just have to stay on your toes and watch where you're going. Our example left you in the car, both traveling at zero mph along the equator (assuming you're still zooming west at 1000 mph). In this one respect, you've effectively cancelled out the rotation of the Earth. You and the car, the road and everything else, however, are still revolving around the sun at whatever speed that is. And the sun is still circling the center of the Milky Way. And the Milky Way is still...well, you already know where that's going.
Now hold on to your hat because things are going to get really weird. If you've stayed with me so far, though, you should handle this, no problem. Okay, so while you are sitting at a relative standstill as far as Earth's rotation is concerned, your speedometer still reads 1000 mph. In theory, a geosynchronous satellite hovering directly overhead of our car would see the ground passing by, things coming and going, but the car would stay put, seemingly going nowhere, and keeping pace with the satellite itself. This is because the solid road beneath the car's tires is still traveling at 1000 mph! If you swerved off the road and ran into a tree, you didn't really do either. All you did do was turn the wheel and the tree came up and ran into you -- at 1000 mph! The tree (and everything else around you) is, of course, still being carried along by the Earth's rotation. I hope you got this because it's really important to the discussion.
If you recall, our investigation originally dealt with the speeding up and slowing down of time. I hypothesized that just as time slows when a body accelerates, it ticks faster when we slow ourselves down. In the example of the car riding the equator in the opposite direction of Earth's rotation, thus cancelling out at least one small component of the vehicle's overall motion through space, it could be argued that the dashboard clock runs a bit faster than its truckstop twin we just flew past. Granted the discrepancy between the two timepieces would be infinitesimal. If we imagine things are a much larger, much more grand and glorious scale, however, the difference between the clocks might be profound indeed. I can immediately think of one such example: Galaxies.
Across the relatively flat expanse of any galaxy, from the center to its farthest, most distant star, a near-infinite range of time-zones must span the galactic breadth like a gigantic phonebook filled with unique times (and addresses) instead of phone numbers. What can only be guessed at, are the degrees to which times and speeds differ as we traverse the vast distances involved, whether from the outside, in, or from the center, out. How much faster does the center of the galaxy rotate, than do the outer areas? And what might this translate into with respect to time-rates? The answers to such questions are well beyond the scope of the essay begun here. I have written separate compositions that deal solely with some of the more interesting aspects of motion, velocity, and time, all of which are interconnected, inseparable terms. When time permits, no pun intended, I'll present my thoughts that delve deeper into this business of how different the world is, depending on whether you're inside the car, or hitchhiking off to the side as we whiz by and leave you standing in a cloud of dust.
Be that as it may, we still haven't really answered the basic question of what good is any of this? Who really cares enough to dig into and actually comprehend what it is I claim to have discovered? All of this is little more than tantamount to a sci-fi thriller based on a seemingly presumptuous reading and interpretation of Einstein’s Relativity principles. I do want to leave you with this final idea, though: Any conclusion that the level of complexity involved is unwieldy or incomprehensible is, in my opinion, a misreading of the multitude of explanations provided. And likely no more complex than my inability to describe things in plain enough English.
In one paragraph?
An imaginative story where a machine or system is somehow devised that is capable of analyzing our movement through space, and then initiating some kind of countermeasures that cancel out most of that object's motion through space -- with profound and amazing results.
To continue, much has been said about the proven fact that time slows down for things (and people) who speed up (accelerate). The faster something goes, the slower time "ticks" for the something doing the traveling. Most school kids nowadays, are familiar with this well known Einsteinian axiom.
This is all part of the idea that nothing can travel faster than light; you know, more of that whole Relativity business we sometimes hear bandied about over coffee and Danishes. Nobody really gets it, but it's fun to think about. Until you get a headache. And when we see it in movies or read about it in stories, we almost feel like we’re following the plot. Which we rarely ever do -- not really.
Virtually nothing has been said or written, however, about the opposite circumstances related to velocity and motion. The concept of deceleration is never discussed as part of the typical time and Relativity stuff routinely served-up by the science and entertainment industries. This is to say that the slower something goes, the faster time ticks for that something -- be it an object or a person.
The question then immediately arises as to why this is true. Not so much about why time goes faster, but why no one ever writes about this equal but opposite reaction (thank you Issac Newton) that would certainly take place were we to slow things down – instead of always speeding them up. Fortunately there is a relatively easy answer to this question. Less easily resolved, is why this hidden side to time travel is so ignored by everyone who should know better.
Were this essay to form the basis of serious science fiction novel, much of what is outlined here could well serve as a rationale, a basis for the story that could be written. Just as we might have an authentic disease at the heart of a ghost story, so do we also need to establish the rudimentary science for a story that portends to take us where no writer (or film) has gone before – with apologies to Star Trek.
Back to the question of why such an obvious omission? Why are there no lengthy scientific essays or exciting screenplays about a world where things slow down and time speeds up? On the contrary, I can show you a thousand references to all kinds of theories, sci-fi stories, and serious intellectual excursions into the many ramifications of what happens when objects go faster, are accelerated, and time slows down. Most of these eventually end with inevitable and fanciful notions about approaching the speed of light, a dead-end speed-limit according to the presumed physics of our universe. On and on, all about the same topic, surrounded by thousands of wild, speculative tales, both fiction and non-fiction, all to do with time slowing when our velocity through space is accelerated.
And yet, not a peep about this opposite approach. I've checked. Not a peep. Believe me. Not a peep. It might be out there, but if it is, it's so rare as to be nonexistent. In a word, peepless. So what gives? Am I the only one asking this question? It would seem so. Or among the very, very few who are. I can't find any. None. Nada. Zilch. This is good news for someone who wants to create something really original in the much crowded sci-fi realm.
The answer may surprise you, and it took me some time before I was able to understand the reason. As with so many similar situations, the solution is ridiculously easy once you hear it. It is so easy in fact, that it defies belief that virtually no one else has dealt with it. Until now that is. And I'm handing it to my readers on a meteoritic platter, so to speak. I’ll never live long enough to write such a story, but somebody should.
Anyway here goes; fasten your seat belt and keep your arms and hands inside the capsule at all times.
The reason scientists and writers like to work with speeding things up and subsequently note the predictable slowing-down of time, is because everything in the universe, every speck of matter, no matter how small or big, whether a micro-meteoroid or an entire galaxy, is in motion; it is already moving through open space at a clip that, in most cases, can’t even be measured. Nor measured against all other things that are also moving along through space, happily whizzing along at thousands, sometimes millions of miles per hour -- or per second.
It is not incorrect to assert that nothing in the universe is motionless -- is not moving. How's that for a multiple-negative sentence? Put another way, nothing in the universe (from what we can tell) is in or at what might be called a state of "absolute rest". Meaning a particle or body of matter that is not moving, not going anywhere -- just sitting there with no velocity and no ticket to any destination. There just ain't no such animal. Everything we see or can think about, is making a beeline to somewhere.
The most obvious reason why this is true is because the Big Bang imparted tremendous velocities upon all matter, flinging it outward in all directions and with no air to slow things down, matter just keeps on going, either alone or interacting with chunks of other matter, and/or with the various gravity fields that get involved in one form or another. And don't forget to toss in both Dark Energy and Dark Matter, whatever they are. Suffice it to say that everything in the universe is making like a bat-out-of-hell, heading out ever farther, ever faster, with no end in sight. Okay so far. No revelations yet, about anything.
So scientists, theoreticians, philosophers, authors and screenwriters are always dealing with stuff that's already moving through space. They don’t even question it. Fine. More power to them. Strangely, though, it's seemingly never occurred to any of these folks that just because everything in space is speeding around like spooked chickens (forgive the example), that does not in any way preclude someone from raising their hand and asking what might happen, what might be the repercussions if something already in motion…could be slowed down. Sounds like a simple question doesn't it? Yet it goes not only unanswered, but ignored from what I can tell. If true, how odd is that?
One more basic premise needs to be understood in order for all of this to start making sense. Oh, sure, like that's gonna happen. It is a well established premise that time is intimately associated with a body's motion/velocity through space. Clocks on Earth tick at a certain rate, beat with a specific interval in-between beats, based on how fast we are traveling through open space. Clocks in orbit, traveling much faster than their Earthbound counterparts, lose time, and when returned to Earth are some fractions of a second behind their ground-based cousins. Pretty weird, huh? Also pretty cool. Then again, I'm easily amused. Obviously.
But for now, put aside preconceived premises and the like and let's go for a fun ride -- as passengers on planet Earth as if it were a spaceship, which it has been likened to many times. Earth rotates on its axis at about 1000 mph at the equator. Earth also revolves around the Sun at a given speed. So that's two simultaneous motions, and remember that these movements (and the ones to come) are cumulative, and will continue to aggregate as we continue our journey.
Okay, so the Sun also revolves around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. We're in one of those arm things, remember? So that's three separate motions thus far, and you haven't even left your armchair yet. To recap, we're going around the center of the Earth itself as it rotates. For the sake of this essay, it is assumed that the definitions and literal differences between rotating and revolving are fully understood. To wit, rotation is when a body itself is spinning on its own axis, and revolving is when the body, spinning or not, is moving around something else -- usually around what's called a center-of-gravity. This gravitational center can involve a star, another planet, or an invisible point when two bodies (or objects) are revolving around each other. Are we clear? I didn't think so, but let's forge ahead anyway. This gets to be fun, honest.
The nature of this discussion is such that quick reviews are helpful -- if not totally necessary. Thus here we are, both going around the Sun and also following the Sun as it goes around the center of the galaxy. The Sun itself, by the way, is not only revolving around the center of the galaxy, but is moving in at least one additional, separate direction as well -- and taking the whole solar system with it as it goes. For example, some stars (and their planets if they have any) are believed to be headed outward, away from their home galaxy and into open space. So far so good? Great. It gets a lot better from here on out. Not necessarily easier, just better.
The Milky Way galaxy is, of course, also rotating. It is part of (a member of) what is called The Local Group. The "Group" part refers to a collection of galaxies that are all revolving around a common center-of-gravity, meaning they are all revolving around each other, but as a group. If I'm losing you (or lost you), don't worry about it. This just means that a bunch of galaxies are acting like a huge version of our own solar system, where the galaxies are like planets all revolving around the Sun, except there's no Sun, and just a center point where the Sun would be if it existed on this large a scale. Don't quote me, but it works something like that.
Okay, now hold on, because The Local Group, as a collective of galaxies bound by the gravitational pull each has on the other, does itself revolve around yet another "gravitional center" and does so as a Super Group, which is nothing more than a bunch of Local Groups all revolving around another midpoint center-of-gravity. So if a Local Group were composed of a dozen galaxies, a Super Group might be a collection of a dozen Local Groups or more. It's not rocket science, although a rocket would come in handy about now.
At this level of magnitude, it is unimportant whether a Super-Super Group exists. The point is hopefully made and hopefully understood. The point being that we, as people on this one planet, are traveling through space in a dizzying multitude of simultaneous directions, all cumulative and probably in the form of one big, single spiral whose path through space spans some unimaginable breadth and scope.
Here's the important part: Our final, ultimate and combined speed through space is directly related to the-rate of-time (elapsation) we experience. Further, that time for us is as unique as is our specifically unique motion through space. The full meaning of this statement is both stunning and mostly impossible to fathom. It's one of those things that can be put into words and makes perfect sense. And still is largely incomprehensible.
Try this: Imagine that we were passengers in a moving vehicle, but plodding along on a road that was also moving. Let me repeat that the road itself is also moving, in the same or in an entirely different direction from that of our vehicle, which continues along as if whatever changes in direction take place, go virtually unnoticed. Now imagine that the road is separate from the ground, and that the ground is in motion, too. Thus the ground terrain upon which the road and our vehicle are connected, is moving in the same or in an entirely different direction from that of the road and/or the vehicle. Put another way, we have a two-tiered lazy Susan, of sorts, where each level moves independently of the other. Our vehicle moves along the top tier and heads down the road in no particular direction, let's say. Meanwhile, the road itself rotates, but also in no particular direction. So much for the top tier. The bottom level -- the ground -- also rotates and again, in no particular direction. So we have three things moving simultaneously -- the car, the road, the ground -- none of them physically connected, but each bound, one to the other, and each traveling along its own path. The three as a whole, however, are moving along the surface of the Earth, collectively tracing out some single path as they go.
This is a highly simplified, metaphorical example of the real deal, but it does illustrate how our one, single conveyance (our car or truck) can be moving in at least three different directions -- all at the same time. In reality, of course, we're still only moving in one direction, but our singular trajectory is the result of the cumulative "effect" of three other motions. It sounds confusing, but it really isn't. We're just not used to thinking of things in such a strange, unfamiliar manner.
Interestingly, as passengers inside the vehicle, we're just following the road and we don't detect anything unusual except how the scenery appears to be going every which way. Kinda crazy, I know. But if we stick to the road, as we would anyway, we shouldn't sense that anything is particularly "wrong". Especially as long as our watches run on time, which they do. Were we to exit the vehicle, however, and jump to a different road, even onto the stationary surface beneath the road and ground, our watches will immediately run differently from those of our friends we just left behind, back in the vehicle. If you had a cellphone and called one of those friends, and then checked your watches, they'd no longer show the same time. One of you will have lost time, the other gained. And without a frame of reference, we wouldn't know whose watch had done what. Keep in mind that in this or any other world (or dimension) there is no such thing as the "correct" time. There is only the time, which is always your time. I told you this would be fun. Isn't it a hoot?!
In reality, however, as regards the total number of separate directions (trajectories) being simultaneously traveled, there are roads upon roads and grounds upon grounds. All of them separate, all moving independently one from the another. You'll be relieved to hear, though, that things inside our vehicle always remain the same; regardless of how many "layers" of ground (how many different motions) our particular road is stacked upon, we're seemingly unaffected as we speed along. Provided we don't try anything fancy, like taking an off-ramp onto a different road entirely, we simply continue to travel the highway as if it belonged to us (which it does -- and only to us). In this case, looks can definitely be deceiving.
Here's a fun fact to break the tension as you ponder, What the hell is he talking about? The clock on the vehicle dashboard ticks at a time-rate that is based upon not just the speed of our vehicle, but also on its combined (cumulative) collection of all the different directions being traversed simultaneously. The reading on the clock is an expression of a single trajectory through open territory (upon the Earth or out in space). For instance, when you ascend or descend a spiral stairway, you're twisting along one path as you move upward or downward along a separate path. This dual motion is, of course, a single motion that describes an "arc" through an open area of space. This sounds far more complex than it is and the more you think about it, the more clearly the scene becomes. Just think of yourself as going up the stairs, but doing so in a spiral instead of a straight line. Even this extra-added spiraling which doesn't seem like a big deal in this example, would have a profound impact on the speed of time if the velocities involved were moving at interstellar clips.
In case you haven't already, you are now free to throw up (your hands preferably) and run away. In a novel or a movie, this could all be demonstrated in much simpler terms than I'm providing here. But since Spielberg wasn't interested, you're stuck with me, and our story now continues.
We have thus far done nothing more than establish the idea that we're rushing around, and that our watches are running in-sync with all that rushing around we're doing. And for those rushing around elsewhere, all on different paths (roads) hurtling along in different directions from our own, well, just don't ask for the correct time, you'll be very late for your appointment. Or early.
What we seek to accomplish, if you haven't already guessed by now, is to put the brakes on. Not slam them on, just initiate some kind of process by which we start to slow things down. A condition where we start canceling some of those different and simultaneous directions we're moving in. And when we do, if we could, it won't be long before our clocks start being affected accordingly. They ought to start speeding up according to Einstein, yet no one has apparently ever proposed what would happen under these circumstances. It's always been assumed, one can only presume, that slowing down was such an impossible concept that it was dismissed out-of-hand. Or that nothing fancy or fascinating would result or compete with a seemingly more dramatic, albeit opposite twin effect. That of time itself accelerating ever faster. Our on-board dash clock gained an hour just while writing this paragraph.
Please note that this last point cannot be emphasized enough. Except for a provocateur like me, the whole idea of anything in the universe just sitting still, motionless, while most everything else is buzzing along like "normal", represents a concept that for whatever reason is simply never or rarely discussed. Until now, thank you.
Before going forward, no pun intended, the most logical reason why the topic of non-motion is overlooked or ignored, is likely because the subject is far less sexy (until now) than all the really cool stuff that happens when we go faster. Akin to real life, no one ever wants to think about slowing down, let alone stopping altogether. It's just not in our nature, literally or figuratively.
Einstein told us that if we could travel at the speed of light, time would continue to slow as we got ever nearer the "ultimate" velocity. And time would stop altogether were such a speed ever attained. But Albert also said we could never even get near the speed of light, let alone surpass it. Such theories have all been demonstrated to one degree or another as being factual, and the scientific community is generally of one mind in support of these Relativity concepts.
As a brief aside, the chief limitation on the speed of light is its inherent mass. That mass bogs down as we go faster; it get heavier and heavier until the sheer weight of it keeps us from accelerating beyond a certain point. When a particle such as a neutrino, for example -- which is thought to possess little or no mass -- approaches the speed of light, its lack of mass likely allows it to exceed the limits placed on heavier objects. But I digress.
If time slows down as a result of acceleration (meaning to go faster than you're already going) then it seems a no-brainer that time would quicken as a result of a body (or our vehicle) slowing down -- where we force a decrease in the speed we are already traveling. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well, guess what? It is. At least the idea of it. To take things to their logical conclusion, we must imagine not just slowing down, but gradually coming to a state of what might be called, "absolute rest." Or stated differently, the exact opposite of traveling at the (absolute) speed of light.
By definition, this state of total rest would mean that all our previous movements and motions through space were somehow cancelled, neutralized, and that a body or object, whether Earth or a speck of dust, had come to a dead-stop, had halted completely, unequivocally, utterly and absolutely. That's a long sentence that if read carefully, will make sense -- trust me.
And just as time would, in theory, stop completely if the speed of light were attained, time ought to run infinitely fast for a body at total rest. Okay, I may have really lost you, now. So let's back up and try again. You'll feel better knowing that just as we can't even get near the speed of light, we would be faced with perhaps even more difficulty trying to counteract and eliminate all those different directions and speeds we've got going for ourselves. In other words, it would be tough making all the calculations required in order for us to even begin braking. But we might get close; just as we might find ways to go really fast, we might find ways to really slow down.
But why? you ask. To what end? We've been told that there's lots of advantages to going fast, but no one's talking about going slower, let alone what benefits might be derived from a conceptual reversal of thinking that stands Relativity on its head, so to say. To repeat, however, because it's a great question: what's the big deal? What could possibly be gained by slowing yourself down? And if time speeds up accordingly, what good could possibly come of that? Wouldn't we grow older faster -- wouldn't everything? And doesn't life go by fast enough as it is?
Before we go down that and other roads, let us first consider whether time is qualitative to any degree. By this it is meant to suggest that there is no universal yardstick by which a given rate-of-time, such as our own, can be judged as running either faster or slower (than whose?). And whether fast is better than slow or vice versa -- whether slower is in some way superior to faster.
There are only places where (and when) time runs faster than it does on Earth, and places where it runs slower. There appears to be no correct time. If God wears a wristwatch and was asked for the correct time, He would first have to ask where you're located, and how fast are you going.
Here's a thought that will send you stomping out the door, if you haven't already done so long ago. While one is "immersed" in one's personal time zone, so to speak, and as long as one is locked into a stable trajectory through space (which we all are, of course) then one will judge their time as being the norm, and give little or no thought to whether time is running either fast or slow. We simply don't care, nor should we -- nor can we. Time is what it is. In point-of-fact, any proposed deviation from "our" flow-of-time, whether real or theoretical, is (inappropriately) considered an aberration of the norm. And this, of course, is a completely chauvinistic approach to any objective analysis of what time is, or isn't.
Let me now give you a little something that will help close the door on your way out: Whatever time really is, and we can bandy about any variety of descriptions -- few of which would be wrong -- time affects, impacts, and is inextricable from the sub-atomic level of existence. From our sub-atomic existence. This means that your molecules, the atoms, and the constituent components of your atoms are all regulated, governed, and influenced by the "time-zone" in which you exist. And as if this wasn't peculiar enough, the Earth's overall time-zone (which includes you) is based on (you guessed it if you've been listening) -- drum-roll, please -- and the answer is: our unique speed, motion, velocity, and trajectory through open space. Ta-da! How cool is that?
It should be noted that any discussion that includes Relativity concepts involving the Big Picture, with ideas of how the sub-atomic world is itself involved or affected, runs precariously close to the unresolved conflict between the laws of Quantum Mechanics (really small stuff) and Einstein's universe of gravity and really big stuff. Any investigation into that arena is way above my pay grade and I won't even attempt to go there. This topic concerns unification theory where all four forces of the cosmos are connected via a single formulaic equation. How's that for something to chew on? It may well be, however, that relevant to time considerations, some of my conclusions or suspicions are still valid. Don't forget, these are the same people who have apparently never given a second's thought to the ramifications of slowing stuff down.
So not only does your time to belong exclusively to you, as an Earthling, but the cells in your body (and brain) right down to the atomic level -- and more -- are all ticking along at a definitive rate, all pre-determined by how fast those little cells are jetting along -- and taking you with them.
If you haven't guessed a rather obvious conclusion as yet, try asking this question: If our time is based on our speed and location in space, then do "people" who live in other parts of the Milky Way galaxy (where their speeds, momentums, and trajectories are considerably different from our own) live according to a flow-rate of time that is significantly different from our own?
That's a mouthful and needs a bit more clarification. So try this on for size: We know we're on the outskirts of our galaxy. A long ways from the center areas, from galactic-central. These suburbs are traveling slower than some places, faster than others. As we get nearer the center of the galaxy, however, where the condensation of matter, stars, planets, and likely black-holes become increasingly concentrated, things are a lot different downtown than they are in the boondocks. It's likely that everything near galactic-central, even mid-central, probably zooms along like horses on a rocket-propelled merry-go-round. What might that hint-at in terms of time-zones based on speed and location?
Across the routinely immense expanse of any galaxy, from the center to its farthest, most distant star, a near-infinite range of time-zones must span the galactic breadth like a gigantic phonebook filled with unique times (and addresses) instead of phone numbers. What can only be guessed at, are the degrees to which times and speeds differ as we traverse the vast distances involved, whether from the outside inward, or outward from the center.
How much faster does the center of a galaxy rotate than do the outer areas? And what might this translate into with respect to time-rates? The simple answer, sometimes the best one, is that the nearer the center of a galaxy one resides, the faster objects tend to move, and consequently the slower that time ticks for them -- just as we would expect to be the case. An important point can be made, however, and needs to be as regards this particular matter: Supposing for the sake of argument that the exact reverse were true, meaning that the nearer the center, the slower that matter moved, while farther out, the faster, then it is relevant to note that the same rules apply. The faster we go, the slower the time. The slower we go, the faster the rate-of-time progresses.
On a solid platter or disk that has a center hole and spins, a speck of dust near the center moves much slower in terms of real speed, than does another speck that is located near the outer edge of the disk. The reason for this is easily explained via two basic principles that are involved:
01. The disk is a solid.
02. The merry-go-round idea, which is to say that the nearer the center of the machine, the slower one moves (less dizzying) and the fastest traveling are those riding the outermost horses of the carousel. Another kids' plaything found in parks was the circular platform to which were attached railings that spoked outward, from the center of the apparatus to its edge. Anyone familiar with this device soon learned how much easier it was to move around and stay balanced when in the center, and how centrifugal force and a faster speed made riding the peripheral edges far more difficult.
If a galaxy were a solid platter, it would be easy to see the difference in speed between the revolving "inner" stars and planets, and those at the very outside edges. It would be identical to the merry-go-round example mentioned earlier. In this same example, the time rates for the center areas would be considerably faster than those along the periphery of the galaxy. But this is where our analogy ends, because real galaxies are far different from a rigid anything. They are dynamically "fluid" in nature, in which the central zones -- the nucleus -- travel much faster than the more distant, more remote regions far removed from galactic central.
Galaxies, therefore, which come in many shapes and sizes, are not subject to the same rules that apply to those reserved for a solid mass. Galaxies are also an illusion in terms of how densely or loosely packed they appear to be with stars, planets, dust and gas, and so forth. The distances between and among individual constituents of a galaxy are so vast, so immense, that it is a misnomer of sorts, to think of a galaxy as a singular thing at all. We know now that the material called Dark Matter "fills" much of the otherwise empty space between the stars of galaxies. Add to this the accompanying Dark Energy that exists, and an entire potpourri of material forces is also in-play. While I certainly can't even speculate as to what effect any of this might have on time, I think it can be safely postulated that there is nonetheless some impact as relates to time. And time-related matters.
That being said, galaxies are similar to a liquid that rotates as it goes down a sink or bathtub drain. We've all seen the last of the soapy water as it spins around the drain, going faster and faster, the nearer the bubbles get to the actual opening . In this analogy, the soap bubbles are not unlike the stars and other stuff that revolve about a center drain. And the metaphor may be closer to reality than we might imagine.
Super-giant "black holes" are now believed to reside in the center of most, if not all galaxies, and the concept of a drain into which the surrounding material draws ever nearer, its speed ever increasing before it disappears altogether is, to a degree, a fairly accurate description.
Assuming that galaxies do indeed behave like a liquid spining about an open drain, then the farther away one is from the center of a galaxy, the slower that one tends to travel -- with a faster time-rate accordingly. Sound familiar? Hey, you can't make this stuff up. Complain to those astrophysicist people if you think all this is just too damn complicated. Which it isn't really. Especially since it's yours truly who figured all this out.
This essay has now established the essential premises that underlie and propel the story to come. The foregoing contextual truths are intended to be self-evident, and are provided here as background material only. In terms of how a fictional story might deal with all the available information, it would need to be written in such a way that a reader is both entertained and brought up-to-speed, so to speak, as concerns a highly unusual approach to the popular subjects of time-travel and the most rudimentary principles of Relativity. While stories of this type abound in the literary and film industries, the version under discussion here, is more original than most and may, in fact, be entirely unique among its kind.
Up until now, llittle more than the kernel, only the germ of an idea, has been presented. Discussed are the core concepts of an imaginative chronicle where a machine or system is somehow devised that is capable of analyzing, then computing and describing our many movements through space -- in precise and exacting detail. Once configured, some kind of countermeasures are invented and initiated -- with profound and amazing results.
Readers may note that some similarities will exist between my account of time-travel and the movie Contact based on Carl Sagan's novel of the same name. In my story, however, the machine itself is the main focus of attention. As well as a more detailed exploration of the role time might play in such a scenario, whereby the machine is capable of manipulating "local" time versus "non-local" time.
Before we can implement our machine in the story-to-come, it might be helpful to briefly run through another example of the sort of thing we were dealing with earlier. Namely a vehicle traveling down the highway. Thus imagine that you're again driving a car on a road that runs exactly east and west, and is located directly on the Earth's equator. Your vehicle is traveling west at exactly 1000 miles-per-hour (it's a fast car). The Earth itself is rotating at the equator in an easterly direction, also at 1000 mph. In this staging, it doesn't matter whether the Earth actually turns in a westerly direction, the results are still the same. They are points of reference only, based on the ability (or lack of same) of the English language to properly explain things in as succinct a manner as possible.
Now then, while traveling counter to the Earth's rotation, both you and the car you're riding in, have virtually and effectively reduced your forward motion to zero, despite the fact that the speedometer still reads 1000 mph and you still think your driving along at 1000 mph. In truth, your car's forward, westerly velocity has cancelled-out -- has neutralized -- the 1000 mph you were already moving in an easterly direction, even when the auto was parked on the road and not in motion at all. If moving in the opposite direction, where the car and the Earth were heading in the same direction, the vehicle would actually be traveling at 2000 mph -- the car's speed plus the rotational speed of the Earth. 1000+1000=2000. This seems simple enough on its face so I won't belabor the point.
Worth repeating is how the parked car, which was pointed (headed) in a westerly direction as it sat on the road, was nonetheless already moving at 1000 mph in an easterly direction, being carried along by the Earth's rotation, right?
But as you sit on the road, aimed counter to that rotation, you're essentially traveling backward at 1000 mph. Thus when you push on the accelerator and the car starts to speed up and pull away in a westerly direction, it is actually your easterly motion only, that begins slowing down. Your movement in an easterly direction immediately dropped (decelerated) to 980 mph when the speedometer hit 20 mph, then 950 mph when you reached 50 mph, so on and so forth. Really kinda crazy if you think about it. But interesting. Then again I'm one of the few thinking about it. So there you go.
Once the car speedometer hits 1000 mph, your easterly direction is effectively zero mph. And you never did achieve a westerly direction, well, almost never. At one point, you momentarily sped up to 1001 mph, and your westerly velocity was, just for a moment, one mph. What could be easier to understand than that?
Okay, Zippy, let's hold steady at driving the car at 1000 mph in our westerly direction. Still counter to the Earth's easterly rotation. Except we've established that you're going nowhere, fast. Or, slow, rather. Airplanes in the sky above you, that are flying exactly west at say, 750 mph, are actually only traveling west at 250 mph. The plane has knocked 750 mph off its airport-based, standing-still speed of 1000 mph heading east. Anyone or any thing standing-still along the equator is moving @ 1000 mph east. Standing still elsewhere, of course, other than the equator, reduces the 1000 mph speed accordingly.
But let's keep things simple (in case that horse already left the barn). Driving north (or south) along another road that is exactly 180 degrees contrary to the equator, imparts no change whatsoever in one's easterly momentum, whereby the Earth is still carrying you along as a passenger while it rotates at roughly 1000 mph east, at the equator. Deviate even one degree, or any fraction of a degree in any other direction, while driving or flying, walking or running, and your body will either accelerate a little, or decelerate a little. For now, this particular lesson is over. That wasn't all that confusing, was it?
You want difficult? Okay, you asked for it. Well, none of this is really that hard, per se. Some people would wonder what the big deal was supposed to be; this was all very simple and straightforward stuff. Others not so much. Regardless, you just have to stay on your toes and watch where you're going. Our example left you in the car, both traveling at zero mph along the equator (assuming you're still zooming west at 1000 mph). In this one respect, you've effectively cancelled out the rotation of the Earth. You and the car, the road and everything else, however, are still revolving around the sun at whatever speed that is. And the sun is still circling the center of the Milky Way. And the Milky Way is still...well, you already know where that's going.
Now hold on to your hat because things are going to get really weird. If you've stayed with me so far, though, you should handle this, no problem. Okay, so while you are sitting at a relative standstill as far as Earth's rotation is concerned, your speedometer still reads 1000 mph. In theory, a geosynchronous satellite hovering directly overhead of our car would see the ground passing by, things coming and going, but the car would stay put, seemingly going nowhere, and keeping pace with the satellite itself. This is because the solid road beneath the car's tires is still traveling at 1000 mph! If you swerved off the road and ran into a tree, you didn't really do either. All you did do was turn the wheel and the tree came up and ran into you -- at 1000 mph! The tree (and everything else around you) is, of course, still being carried along by the Earth's rotation. I hope you got this because it's really important to the discussion.
If you recall, our investigation originally dealt with the speeding up and slowing down of time. I hypothesized that just as time slows when a body accelerates, it ticks faster when we slow ourselves down. In the example of the car riding the equator in the opposite direction of Earth's rotation, thus cancelling out at least one small component of the vehicle's overall motion through space, it could be argued that the dashboard clock runs a bit faster than its truckstop twin we just flew past. Granted the discrepancy between the two timepieces would be infinitesimal. If we imagine things are a much larger, much more grand and glorious scale, however, the difference between the clocks might be profound indeed. I can immediately think of one such example: Galaxies.
Across the relatively flat expanse of any galaxy, from the center to its farthest, most distant star, a near-infinite range of time-zones must span the galactic breadth like a gigantic phonebook filled with unique times (and addresses) instead of phone numbers. What can only be guessed at, are the degrees to which times and speeds differ as we traverse the vast distances involved, whether from the outside, in, or from the center, out. How much faster does the center of the galaxy rotate, than do the outer areas? And what might this translate into with respect to time-rates? The answers to such questions are well beyond the scope of the essay begun here. I have written separate compositions that deal solely with some of the more interesting aspects of motion, velocity, and time, all of which are interconnected, inseparable terms. When time permits, no pun intended, I'll present my thoughts that delve deeper into this business of how different the world is, depending on whether you're inside the car, or hitchhiking off to the side as we whiz by and leave you standing in a cloud of dust.
Be that as it may, we still haven't really answered the basic question of what good is any of this? Who really cares enough to dig into and actually comprehend what it is I claim to have discovered? All of this is little more than tantamount to a sci-fi thriller based on a seemingly presumptuous reading and interpretation of Einstein’s Relativity principles. I do want to leave you with this final idea, though: Any conclusion that the level of complexity involved is unwieldy or incomprehensible is, in my opinion, a misreading of the multitude of explanations provided. And likely no more complex than my inability to describe things in plain enough English.
In one paragraph?
An imaginative story where a machine or system is somehow devised that is capable of analyzing our movement through space, and then initiating some kind of countermeasures that cancel out most of that object's motion through space -- with profound and amazing results.
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