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, but how?
The key question is whether a matter teleport is absolute or relative? A teleport restarts an entity at a new point, and on a network, the simplest way to do this is to reset its connections. A network can’t instantly swap the processing of two points, but can instantly swap their connections, 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 own distribution space. It then moves not by changing its network location, as light does, but by changing its space, as special relativity says. A matter teleport is two network points instantly exchanging distributions to cause movement.
That matter only changes its own space when it moves then explains why it doesn’t affect the speed of light. 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 also passes rockets going to and from the sun at the same speed (Figure 5.6) for the same reason, that their absolute network position doesn’t change, so special relativity is true because light moves absolutely but matter moves relatively.
That we move by changing our space but stay in the same absolute place is strange, but what other theory explains special relativity? Particles can’t explain it, as they move absolutely, and Einstein’s equations give no hint as to how dead matter alters space and time. Common sense tells us that we move, but relativity tells us that actually, only our space is moving.
For example in a moving car, as trees and houses scroll by, it feels like you are stationary and the world is moving around you, and special relativity agrees that space is moving but you aren’t. In effect, you are pulling space towards yourself, so a ball thrown up in a speeding car acts as if the car is still because it is. Our laws of physics are then the same everywhere because matter maintains a reality bubble as it moves.
Why then does time dilate when matter moves? For matter, time ticks by as physical events, 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. A quantum cycle can be a life event or a teleport, so matter can live or move, but not both at once. A teleport loses a life event, so time dilates as special relativity predicts. Equally, 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 clock and map, because its distribution maps its space, and every life cycle is a tick of its clock. Moving by teleport changes both, to dilate time and contract space, but what decides how it moves?