Volume 16: Pages 355-364, 2003

Time‐Line Relativity: An Alternative Geometry for Special and General Relativity

N. Xavier Sharpnack

P.O. Box 11667, Tucson, AZ 85734‐1667 U.S.A.

The time‐line relativity (TR) model is a powerful tool toward understanding of the physical universe. It is a physical model, compatible with the relativistic mathematics of Einstein and Minkowski. It has certain advantages over the physical models of special and general relativity: (1) It provides an intuitively understandable explanation for the constant speed of light. (2) The rationale for lack of simultaneity, space contraction, and time dilation becomes obvious. (3) It is compatible with the existence of a vibrating ether for the propagation of electromagnetic waves, also giving a rationale for the wave properties of light and matter. The ether is symmetric for all systems regardless of their uniform motion relative to each other. (4) It suggests a possible alternative to the action‐at‐a‐distance supposition for gravity and other forces. (5) It provides a different rationale for the mechanisms of gravity and other forces and for the gravitational curvature of space‐time as defined in general relativity. (6) The mathematical formulations are equivalent to those of special and general relativity, and therefore the inferences drawn from these mathematical models are equally valid in TR. The model replaces the three‐dimensional space‐time of special relativity with three‐dimensional mathematically real spaces moving through a mathematically imaginary hyperspace of more than three dimensions. Solving the relativistic equations yields conditions for the motions and orientations of the real spaces.

Keywords: relativity, special relativity, general relativity, gravitation, unified theory, ether

Received: May 1, 2002; Published online: December 15, 2008