David C. Brown

David C. Brown, Aug. 8, 2008:
"Why 108? - Part Eight, Of Mass & Energy Transform - the accelerator problem" - specifically, age of a proton

Miles Mathis Wrote: “However, current theory based on gamma is clearly wrong, since the proton cannot be as young as 600 million years. That would make protons younger than many physical objects we have dated by reliable methods.”

I don’t know much about particle physics, but this statement is at the heart of a question that’s been nagging at me for years – pretty much ever since I learned about “time dilation” during the Relativity portion of college physics. If time slows down as velocity increases, then doesn’t that unavoidably imply that subatomic particles should be drastically younger than the age of macro-scale matter? After all, these particles – especially electrons - are vibrating/orbiting at extraordinarily high speeds, and even “heavy” particles such as protons and neutrons are made of successively smaller particles which in turn are made of smaller particles, which due to their decreasing mass, must also be vibrating/orbiting faster & faster.

What then, does it mean, that “age” is probably a transcendent property that emerges somehow from the condensed energy we call “matter”, if matter at the level of its smallest detectable particles should, according to relativity, age radically slower than the macro-universe, and furthermore, if energy itself ultimately does not age? Of course, I could be missing some major piece of the puzzle here – like I said, I am by no means a particle physics scholar.

Miles Mathis: Aug. 10, 2008
The sentence you quote from my 108 paper has nothing to do with your question, really, although I can see how it might move you in that direction. Anyway, in my opinion you misunderstand relativity. You are not alone, since every one else does too, even the top professionals. Relativity is a theory of measurement, not of existence. Things don't age at different rates depending on their velocity. That is sci-fi, straight out of Planet of the Apes, although it is now also a common belief among mainstream science writers, physicists who claim to understand relativity but really don't. They are just repeating something they learned, and learned wrong.

One, the twin paradox is false. But beyond that, speed does not affect age, nor does acceleration. Speed may affect APPARENT age, if you are measuring age from a distance, say. DIstant clocks may LOOK slow or fast, and therefore you will calculate time to be passing in strange ways. But locally, all time is equivalent. I prove this in a myriad of ways in my papers.

So, relativity is true, but it has been misinterpreted in some cases, or many cases. YOu are correct that if the standard model interpretation were right, quanta of all sorts would have to be aging differently than we think. The answer, though, is that the standard model is wrong about aging. Relativity doesn't work like that, because the particle only has to be concerned with its own clock. That clock is local, cannot be dilated, and therefore is the same as your clock or mine.

In particle accelerators, we are not measuring the particles, we are measuring data coming from the particles, and that data is affected by relativity, giving us APPARENT time dilation and APPARENT aging discrepancies. But all you have to do is work the equations backwards to find that the particles themselves are aging normally.

So, the problem is not with your logic, which is correct. The problem is with what you have been taught. Your postulates are false.