An objective space has only one type of movement, of the object, but virtual spaces allow two. In Figure 5.7, we can move the car by shifting its pixels one way, or leave the car center-screen and scroll the background behind it. Click on the Figure link to see a video of the car moving, then note that the car stays still as its background moves. To distinguish these two methods, let moving an image across a screen be absolute movement, and moving the background behind a stationary image be relative movement.
If our space is virtual, then movement can be absolute or relative, so Einstein’s claim that light moves absolutely but matter doesn’t could make sense, but how can matter do this?
If matter moves by teleport, the question then is whether it is absolute or relative? A teleport is an entity restart from a new point, and the simplest way to do this is to use the new point’s connections but stay where it is. Processing at a point can’t easily relocate to a new point, but it can easily change its connections to in effect change the space around it.
The space around a quantum entity is its distribution, each point of which is also a source with its own distribution. Matter can then teleport by changing its distribution, or space, but actually stay at the same point, so it moves by changing the space around it just as special relativity says.
The speed of light is the same whatever the speed of matter because it moves absolutely but matter moves relatively. Matter moves by changing the space around it, so light always leaves a moving rocket at the speed of light because in absolute terms, the rocket isn’t moving at all! Light from the sun then also passes rockets going to and from the sun at the same speed (Figure 5.6).
That matter moves by changing space is odd, but no other theory explains special relativity. Particles that move absolutely can’t explain it, and Einstein’s equations don’t say how dead matter can change space and time, but that matter teleports by changing its space does.
To understand this, imagine sitting in a moving car and watching trees and houses scroll by. It feels as if the world is moving around you, and special relativity agrees that space is moving but you aren’t. Hence a ball thrown up in a moving car acts as if the car is still, and the laws of physics on earth are the same throughout the universe.
Why then does time dilate when matter moves, as special relativity says? For matter, time ticks by as cycles complete but if it teleports, the cycle ends with a connection reset not a life event. For example, a muon in space lives for only a millionth of a second, until a neutrino hit decays it, but if it moves faster, it lives longer because a teleport before a neutrino hit dodges the bullet. If a quantum cycle can be a life event or a teleport, matter can live or move but not both at once, so a teleport loses a life event, which dilates its time as predicted.
Equally, when matter restarts at a new point, any measure made that way is reduced, so space contracts in that direction, again as special relativity says.
Relativity gives every bit of matter its own frame of reference, as if it had its own clock and map, and quantum realism agrees. Matter maps the space around it by its distribution, and its time ticks by as life cycles complete, but a teleport changes both. Time then dilates and space contracts as matter moves, but what decides the direction in which it moves?