Didymus

It's just the difference between stating that "space moves" vs. "the objects within a space move." One is a rather extraordinary claim that leads to paradoxes and holes in logic... and one is common sense. Likewise, to state that there's an atomic change, moving at relativistic speeds... sure. For some reason, how these atoms behave slows down when moving. Perhaps muons simply can't give off energy in order to decay under the forces of such high rates of speed. Perhaps these high rates add to their stability somehow. The measure by which they're stabilized match the numbers predicted in SR, and this is completely intuitive. But, to say that this material can not be changed under any circumstances... and when we find a circumstance where they appear to have changed... that's just because these immutable objects are traveling through curved time. One assumes time to be a physical, alterable fabric... the other defines time as an abstract idea by which humans describe the order of events. Something that can not be changed because it doesn't exist as some magic fabric. ... just an idea to differentiate what has happened (and how long ago) from what will happen.

Edit for better judgement

So, do you believe that, since more nanoseconds "happened" on earth than on the plane, there were some nanoseconds during the plane's trip where the plane did not exist? It's not that "51 nanoseconds didn't happen" on the planes..." SR states that EVERY nanosecond had a slightly shorter duration. Thus, biological functions happened a bit slower. atomic functions happened a bit slower and thus the clock ticked a bit slower. But the same number of nanoseconds would have passed because both frames of reference could view the other one during each nanosecond.

Basically, he stands on a planet and sees something 7 light years away. He wants to make it to that object 7 lightyears away, so he travels at .99c for about 1 year... traveling about 1 lightyear in about 1 year... stops, and looks back at his starting point 7 lightyears away. While moving, he's only traveling 1 lightyear. When he stops, the entire universe expands around him changing the distance traveled to 7 lightyears. Outside observers would just see him traveling 7 lightyears in 7 years. What makes this concept interesting is the change in reference frames from a single observer. ...now imagine you are the point being travelled to. There is no preferred frame of reference, so, when I begin traveling toward you at .99c, your speed relative to me suddenly increases to that amount. Do you see my trip taking 1 year, or 7?

This traveler doesn't care about anyone else. He picks a point 7 ly away, starts moving at .99C. This 7 instantly shrinks to 1 LY, and it takes him 1 year to get to it. He stops after traveling for 1 year, space grows behind him and he's traveled 7 LY in 1 year. Just a fun paradox.

Was watching an SR lecture and the professor gave an interesting example: Traveling at a speed of .99C, time dilated and space shrinks by a factor of about 7. Therefore, if I pick a point 7 lightyears away and head that way at a speed of .99C... Everyone watching me will see it take a little more than 7 years to make it. However, from my perspective, I'd see something 7 lightyears away, travel for about a year.... Then stop, seeing that I've traveled to a point 7 lightyears away in what was, to me, about 1 year (but was only 1 lightyear away while I was moving at that speed because of space contracting while I move that's way). He left it off here, but, my question is.... Does this not make velocity change relative to itself? I.e. the closer youget to C, the more you accelerate past it. While an outside observer could only detect you going .99999C.... As time and space shrink, one may be able to travel megaparsecs away nearly instantly because of the perceived shrinkage of space. Thus, while light moves at C, because time is stopped, it experiences both being emitted and absorbed as instantaneous even if it were 10 billion lightyears away.

But during each of those nanoseconds, the plane could view the earth and people on the ground could view the plane. The same number of nanoseconds passed on both frames of reference, they just disagree as to the duration of each nano second. Unless you believe that during some nanoseconds, the planes all stopped existing momentarily?

Let's go to one of Einstein's thought experiments... I have this button that changes time. I press it and time is now moving at 1% it's normal rate. In every way, the universe is now moving at 1% it's former rate and all processes (including the revolution and orbit of the earth, atomic processes and biological processes)... How do you detect it? Now I press another button and time is moving at 20times it's former rate.... Because we now think faster and observe everything going faster... We won't notice any difference. Basic as this may seem.... If a cesium clock inalterably tells time.... Were time to change it couldn't be noticed because if time slowed by any factor, the everything down to the atoms would have slowed by that same factor. If X nanoseconds went by relative to the ground clock, the same number of nanoseconds must have passed on the moving clock... Even if this number of nanoseconds seemed longer. Basically... A mechanism can't measure something "more accurately" than the thing it's measuring.

The change in the definition of a second wasn't intended to be the question, but a preface. The question is... when we observe that under certain circumstances, the atoms we use to define time change... why do we prefer to interpret this as the clock being immutable and time itself changing vs. the atomic processes changing. (i.e. the "jets flying around the world with cesium clocks" and "muons observed to last longer at high speed" ... how do we know that the muons are still decaying at their infallible rate and that time is stretching as opposed to "when they move fast, they don't decay as fast,") Functionally, it would make little difference, because the rate at which they slow down would match the math of SR... but the explanation of that math would eliminate a LOT of currently paradoxical variables if we consider it a change in how the moving object behaves, rather than a change in space and time around that moving object. i.e. use the same formula, but define the variables differently.

Preface: A second used to be defined by 1/86,400th of a solar day. This wobbles a bit, so a more stable definition was given as 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom. Fine and dandy. This is presumably because, unlike the earth's rotation, which can wobble and is slowly slowing, cesium always behaves the same, no matter what... it is what it is and it doesn't change. So, my question is mostly a philosophical one. I understand the supporting evidence for the math showing that these atoms slowed down, but why is it preferable to believe that these atoms are incapable of being inaccurate and that time is malleable? Obviously, because the definition of a second is based on the clock, we can logically say that a "second" has slowed down... but with the old definition of a second, if the earth's revolution were to slow, we wouldn't assume time to be slowing, but the earth's rotation (as evidence by the fact that we realized that the earth's rotation altered rather than assuming that time was slowly slowing down). Realistically, it makes little difference, the math stays the same even if you say "time stays the same, but everything (including atomic actions) slow down by a certain factor." ... but I wonder why the definition einstein chose is so preferred.