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 a 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 our movement can be absolute or relative, so Einstein’s claim that light moves absolutely but matter doesn’t could make sense. Is a matter teleport then absolute or relative? A teleport restarts an entity at a new point, and the simplest way to do this on a network is to reset its connections. A network can’t just swap the processing of two points but can easily swap their links, so quantum tunneling is a connection reset rather than a relocation.
The distribution around a quantum entity is its space, each point of which is also a source with its space. Matter then moves not by changing its network location as light does, but by changing its space, as special relativity suggests. A matter teleport is two network points instantly swapping their distributions, so it is relative movement based on changing its space as defined above.
Like the car in Figure 5.7, matter moves by changing the space around it, not its own location. The speed of light coming towards it then doesn’t change when matter shifts its background because to light, it is stationary. Equally, light always leaves a moving rocket at the speed of light because in absolute terms, the rocket isn’t moving at all! The same photon also passes rockets going to and from the sun at the same speed because again, neither are moving absolutely (Figure 5.6). Special relativity then works because light moves absolutely but matter moves relatively.
The idea that we move by changing our space but stay in the same absolute place is strange, but nothing else explains special relativity. Particles can’t, as they move absolutely, and the equations don’t explain how dead matter can alter space and time. Our senses tell us that the space around us has changed, and it has, but relativity tells us that is because space moved, not us.
For example in a moving car, as trees and houses scroll by, it feels like you are still and the world is moving around you, and relativity agrees that space is moving not you. In effect, space is being pulled towards you, so a ball thrown up in a speeding car acts as if the car is still because it actually is. This keeps the laws of physics the same everywhere, regardless of how matter moves.
Why then does time dilate when matter moves? For matter, time ticks by as life events, but a teleport ends 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. A quantum cycle can end with a life event or a teleport, so matter can live or move, but not both at once. Movement then dilates time as special relativity predicts because a teleport loses a life event. And when matter teleports one way, any measure made that way is less, so space also contracts in that direction.
Relativity gives every bit of matter its own frame of reference, with its own space and time, because its distribution is its space, and a life cycle is a tick of its time. Moving by teleport changes both, to contract space and dilate time, but what decides its movement direction?