Similarly, as an object approaches closer to the speed of light, time
slows down (dilates), per the t’ equation in Figure 1, shrinking
asymptotically to zero, from the perspective of a stationary observer.
There is an empirical basis for SR that is an important part of its
history: the 1872 Michelson-Morley experiments found a null result in
trying to detect a difference in the speed of light through the ether,
as measured from different velocities of our planet during its orbit.
However, Lorentz created his theory of relativity specifically to
explain these empirical data, a decade before Einstein’s alternative
approach, and Lorentz suggested that Michelson-Morley’s null result
occurred because of interaction between moving objects and the ether.
That is, as objects move through apparently empty space, which is better
conceived of in Lorentz’s theory as the ether field and not truly empty,
there is a drag effect that causes matter to contract as it moves closer
to the speed of light. Similar to how a bar of iron will expand or
contract based on its temperature, the same bar will expand or contract
based on its velocity through the ether.
Lorentz viewed time dilation as a “mathematical fiction” or
“coordinate effect,” not a real physical effect like length
contraction. A coordinate effect is, for example, like changing time
zones when traveling (Galison 2004). When we change time zones there is
no real loss or gain of time. Time passes continuously no matter what
time zone we’re in and we don’t literally gain or lose an hour as we
change time zones. Rather, each time zone is just a different convention
for keeping track of the same shared passage of time. Just so with the
time dilation of the Lorentz transformations: the “local time” of each
frame of reference is a way to keep track of time between different
frames of reference, but global time proceeds independently of the
conventions used for measuring the local time. Galison writes:
Lorentz called tlocal “local time” (Ortszeit),
the same word used in everyday life to describe the
(longitude-dependent) time of Leiden, Amsterdam, or Djakarta. The
crucial point was this: Lorentz’s local time was purely a mathematical
fiction used to simplify an equation.
In SR, however, there is no global time and the apparent passage of time
itself is rendered an illusion. This is the case because if time is
malleable and the speed of light absolute, then there is no privileged
time and no universal “now.” We can slice the universe into an
infinite number of possible “nows” depending on the speed at which we
move in relation to the distribution of matter and energy in our
universe. The sum of these infinite slices of “now” is known as the
“block universe.” Its name is clear enough as to its consequences: all
nows exist in some manner concurrently (“at the same time,” which
itself is paradoxical) in the block universe. There is no privileged
past, present or future. And this is why there is no true change in SR,
no passage of time. This is the basis for Einstein’s assertion that the
passage of time is an illusion.
If this is the case, why do we see nothing but evidence of change, of
the passage of time, all around us? Bardon 2013 highlights this conflict
between theory and experience: “This is the core challenge in the
contemporary philosophy of time: how to reconcile the seeming
ineliminability of the experience of the passage of time (manifest time)
with the cold, hard conclusions of logic and physics (scientific
time).”
The present paper is an attempt at a solution to this core challenge.
The solution I suggest is, based on the accumulated empirical evidence,
a return to either the Lorentzian interpretation of the Lorentz
transformations or a variant thereof (one of the various extant
neo-Lorentzian approaches). In sum, we have enough evidence now to make
a strong empirical case for preferring Lorentz’s relativity over
Einstein’s relativity, or at least one of the various neo-Lorentzian
versions of relativity theory. I review this evidence in the following
sections.
3. Has cosmology rendered Special Relativity out of date?
We have learned a great deal about the universe since Lorentz and
Einstein created their theories. In 1905, we had little inkling that our
galaxy was just one of literally hundreds of billions of other galaxies
(or maybe even trillions, based on the most recent analysis in 2016). We
had no idea that there was a cosmic microwave background. We didn’t
realize that the cosmological principle was not accurate. And we had no
idea about quantum entanglement or the Higgs field.
But we did have knowledge of the “cosmic frame” of reference,
consisting at that time of the fixed stars. In practice, in cosmology,
astronomy and in space exploration, there is always a background frame
of reference, and this has serious implications for SR. I will go
through the various lines of evidence in favor of a preferred frame of
reference above and beyond the fixed stars frame of reference.