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by tobiasSoftware 824 days ago
One of the weirdest things Einstein discovered is that time is relative, but cause and effect are absolute.

For example, muons should decay before they hit the ground, but they don't due to time dilation. We see the time dilation when observing the muons, but the muons don't, so you would think that for us, the muons make it to the ground but for the muon it would decay too fast. However, the muons experience length contraction, so they do make it to the ground from their viewpoint as well.

So cause and effect is preserved, even though we would disagree with the muon on the relativistic reason why it is preserved.

2 comments

Time is relative, sure, but “proper time” isn’t relative.
> For example, muons should decay before they hit the ground, but they don't due to time dilation.

Would you mind expanding on this?