After leaving the ancient civilization of Atlantis in seven disk-shaped
craft, Aylan's people developed self-sustaining craft that function independently of any planet. They are from the same genetic root as humans. Aylan contacted Dan Fry while Fry was working at the White Sands Proving Ground on July 4, 1950.
The ideas discussed by Aylan and Dan Fry are offered as alternative interpretations of sciences existing in 1954, and not as absolutes. The sine curve nature of physical law that Aylan discussed with Dan Fry has been useful for interpreting the TimeStar.
Time
Dan Fry & Aylan, April 21, 1954
"In his examination of the natural laws or facts of the Universe," said Aylan, "Earth man is greatly handicapped by the fact that in so far as Time is concerned, he has never progressed beyond an unidimensional perception. If you are familiar with the analogies used to explain some portions of the theory of relativity, you will recall that in attempting to achieve a concept of a four-dimensional continuum, the student is asked first to imagine a man who is conscious of only one dimension in Space. His entire Universe consists of a single line. If a dot were placed on the line in front of him, and one behind, he would be completely imprisoned, since he would not be able to conceive of going over or around them. As his intelligence and consciousness developed, he would eventually become aware of a second dimension, and to imprison him then, it would be necessary to enclose him in a circle. With further development, he would become aware of a third dimension in which a sphere would be a prison, and so on.
"Earth men are now conscious of three dimensions of Space, and have done considerable mathematical reasoning in regard to a fourth. Unfortunately, in so far as Time is concerned, your consciousness has never progressed beyond the first dimension, of lateral motion, nor can you even turn around upon that line. You can only go forward. Many of the difficulties which you encounter in your attempt to understand the operation of the natural laws arise because of your severely restricted concept of the nature of Time.
"Time has often been referred to as the 'fourth dimension' by those who attempt to explain our present concept of relativity. It is usually pointed out that, since all known bodies of matter in the Universe are constantly in motion with respect to each other, if you wish to describe the position of any body, it is necessary to give a point in Time as well as spatial relationship to any other body or bodies. There is, however, a more convincing method of demonstrating that Time is a dimension, although I believe it would be more precise to consider it as the first dimension rather than the fourth since it is the one dimension in which all motion must take place. Earth men are, at the present, conscious of three dimensions of Space, and you know that motion can take place in any one of the three, but whichever dimension of Space is involved, the motion must also take place in Time. Your term for the rate of motion is the word velocity, which is defined as being the degree of change in location per unit of Time. If an object has a velocity of 1,000 feet per second, with respect to our point of observation, we will see that in one thousandth of a second the object will have moved one foot. In one millionth of a second it will have moved only one thousandth of a foot, and so on. We can easily see that if the Time becomes zero the motion must also become zero.
"The science of photography on Earth has reached a state of development which permits you to take photographs with very short exposure times. By the stroboscopic method of photography, which is now being superseded by an even faster method, you were able to take several hundred thousand consecutive pictures in one second. In these pictures even the fastest projectile seems frozen in immobility. You have taken pictures of a rifle bullet penetrating an ordinary electric light bulb, in which three complete and consecutive pictures have been made between the time the bullet first touched the bulb and the time that the first crack appeared in the glass. In these pictures the bullet appears to be completely motionless. Of course, the taking of the pictures actually did involve a very small elapse of time, and so a very small amount of motion did occur during the taking, but it again illustrates the fact that no motion which we can perceive can take place except within that dimension of Time of which we are conscious.
"Having pointed out the limitations of your consciousness concerning this factor which we call Time, let us now go back and examine it as best we can, with that degree of consciousness and understanding which you have.
"I will again attempt to choose the simplest possible definition. I defined Space as 'that which separates bodies of matter,' so I will define Time as 'that which separates events.' (If there be no discernible separation in this respect, the events are said to be simultaneous.)
"In referring to this problem in the introduction to his first book on relativity, Dr. Einstein pointed out that since your only contact with the world about you is through your senses, and since all of the knowledge which you have concerning the Universe has come to you through them, if you are to formulate mathematical rules based upon your observations you must begin with the assumption that the thing which your senses tell you are true. If you should observe, through a large telescope, the creation of a nova in a remote galaxy, and at the same time observe the eruption of a volcano upon your Earth, you must assume, for the purpose of your mathematics, that the two events are simultaneous. This is an assumption which is difficult to accept because the faculty which we call reason immediately interposes the objection that a separation in Space involves an elapse of time between the events and our perception of it. However, Dr. Einstein points out that if you allow your reason to modify your observations, you will be evolving a concept whose value is based only upon the accuracy of your observations. We must assume that events which are observed simultaneously occur simultaneously in so far as that observed is concerned, and that, therefore, the simultaneity of events is a condition which depends entirely upon the position of the observer with respect to those events.
"If we examine this concept carefully, we find that Time follows the same curve of natural law which is apparent in the operation of all the basic factors of nature, and again the radius of that curvature is measured by the quantity C. A simple analogy may serve to make this statement more readily understood.
"Suppose you were to start today to build a Space Ship, I will assume that the ship will require one year of your time to build, and that when completed, it will be capable of infinite acceleration. I will assume that a continuous supply of energy is available from an outside source, and that the craft will continue to accelerate so long as this energy acts upon it. During the year which you spend in building the craft, light is being reflected from us into Space, so that an observer with a telescope stationed at some other pointing Space could follow the course of its construction. When you have completed the construction of your craft you will enter it and take off for a destination which I will assume to be a planet circle about Alpha Proxima Centauri, your next nearest suns, about four light years distant. You have a telescope of unlimited power in the rear of the craft pointed toward the Earth which you are leaving, and another telescope at the front, focused upon the planet which is your destination. You will set the field strength for a constant acceleration, and seat yourselves at your telescopes to observe the result. After you have risen a few miles from the surface, you will for the purpose of furnishing an additional reference point, eject from the craft and its field a cannon ball or other sphere of metal which has been specially painted so that it can readily be observed from any distance with the aid of your unlimited telescopes. Since you had not yet reached escape velocity when the ball was ejected, you will observe that it soon begins to fall back to Earth.
"As you continue to accelerate, you will observe that the kinetic energy differential which you are producing between yourself and your points of observation is producing exactly the effect on Time which is predicted by your assumption of the curvature of natural law. Since the distance or degree of separation between yourselves and the Earth is increasing with Time, the energy differential is negative, which means that the natural laws at the observed point will be displaced towards the base or zero line of the sine curve, in so far as our observations are concerned. If you reach a velocity equal to one-half that of light, and then observe a clock on Earth through your telescope, you will see that in ten hours of your time, only five hours have been recorded by the Earth clock. If you observe the test spheres which you ejected during your take off (assuming that it has not yet reached the ground) you will see that it is not falling at the rate predicted by your laws of gravitation, but at a rate only half as great. You will also observe that the sphere is not accelerating at the rate predicted by your laws, not even at half that rate. Since you yourselves are still accelerating, the observed acceleration of the sphere is diminished by a factor which is proportionate to yours. You must remember that you can only observe events through the light which is emitted or reflected by the objects concerned with those events, and if you yourselves have a motion equal to one-half that velocity in the direction in which the light is moving, then a column or sequence of light impulses which were emitted from the Earth during a five-hour period, would require ten hours to pass your point of observation.
"When the velocity of your craft reaches that of light with respect to the Earth, there will be a negative energy differential, equal to the quantity C, existing between you and your point of observation. You will observe that all natural laws upon the Earth have reached zero value with respect to you. All motion and all changes have ceased. If you observe your test sphere you will see that gravity is no longer acting upon it, since it has ceased to fall. All laws of motion are in abeyance and the factor which we call Time has ceased to have any significance.
"To make these observations, of course, you would require one of the new telescopes which operate on the retention of vision principle, where the last image to arrive remains upon the viewing screen until a new light image arrives to change it. When you reach the velocity C, no new light will arrive, hence the picture will not change until you change your velocity. With an ordinary telescope the Earth would disappear from vision.
"Since I said at the beginning of this analogy that your craft was capable of unlimited acceleration, and since the assumed force continues to act, your velocity will continue to increase and you will have between yourselves and the Earth, a rate of increase in the degree of separation which is grater than that specified by the quantity C. You can do this from your point of reference although, as will be explained later, you cannot do it from the point of view of an observer upon the Earth. When you have passed through the velocity C, a startling change occurs in your observations. You no longer observe the Earth from the telescope at the rear of the craft. The Earth now appears in the telescope at the front, and you are no longer leaving the Earth, you are now approaching it. You will see a craft which is identical to yours, and which is indeed your own craft, detach itself from you and move back toward Earth ahead of you at a rate which proportionate to your excess over the velocity C. If we observe the Earth, we discover that all natural laws are operating in reverse. If you observe the test sphere you will see that it is now falling away from the Earth rather than towards it. Gravity between the Earth and the sphere has become negative with respect to your point of reference as have all the natural laws. You observe this through the forward telescope rather than that at the rear, because you are now overtaking the light which had passed you before you had reached the velocity C, and since you are now overtaking it, you encounter first the light which had passed last. All events occur in reverse, just as would the scenes in a motion picture film which is being run backwards.
"If you complete your journey to the planet which is your destination, at an average velocity equal to four times C, you will arrive with an elapsed time of one year as measured by the clocks of your own craft. During the journey, however, you will observe the elapse of five years of time upon the planet which you are approaching, and the elapse of three years of negative time upon the Earth which you are leaving. In other word you will arrive at your destination three years before you left the Earth. If, immediately upon your arrival, you seat yourselves at a telescope of sufficient power to observe the Earth at close range, you will see yourselves going about the daily tasks which you performed two years before you began to build the Space craft in which you made the journey. If you then focus the telescope upon the proper point in Space you will see yourselves in your Space craft, flying backwards toward the Earth.
"You are now in a position from which you can observe the sine curve nature of all natural law, and to measure precisely the radius of the curvature. If you observe the Earth, you see that Time there is positive. That is, it is moving in the direction which we consider normal. Since there is no significant energy differential, the Time rate is essentially the same, but because of the degree of spatial separation there will be a displacement along the Time curve, between the observer and the point which he is observing. According to the theory of the curvature of natural law, this displacement should be equal to D divided by C, where D is the distance and C is our basic factor. In the case of your present observation the distance is equal to 4C years, which if divided by C will equal four years, which is precisely the degree of displacement which you would observe. If you now turn your attention to the Space craft, you find that you are observing it through an energy differential which exceeds the quantity C and therefore the craft is within the negative portion of the curve, and all natural laws will be operating in reverse at that point. You are now in a unique position, in that you now can, from a single point in Time or at least from a single point in the only dimension of Time of which you are conscious, observe yourselves occupying three rather widely separated positions in Space. First, your position at the telescope as the observer. At this point Time is positive. Second, your position on the surface of the Earth. Here Time is also positive but has a negative displacement upon the Time curve which is equal to four years. Third, your position in the Space craft. Here Time is negative, as demonstrated by the fact that you observe it flying backwards toward the Earth, and all actions taking place within it occur in reverse order. This is, of course, due to the fact that the craft had a velocity greater than that of C and so was constantly leaving behind the light which was emitted or reflected from it. As you observe the craft from your new reference point, the last light which is emitted arrives first.
"If you continue to observe for several years, you will eventually see yourselves build the craft and take off into Space. At the same time you can see yourselves in the same craft hurtling backward through Space toward the inevitable meeting point where the past and the future join to become the present. Since you are observing yourselves simultaneously occupying three different positions in Space, we can readily see that you are forced to a concept of Time which includes more than one dimension. If you continue to observe the two craft, you will see that one which is moving away from you is constantly slowing down, while the one coming toward you from the Earth is accelerating. At the instant in which the velocity of the receding craft reaches zero, the approaching craft will reach it, coincide with it, and both craft will disappear completely from your view. Your lateral excursion into Time has completed its curve and you have returned to the starting point of your unidimensional concept.
"There is only one thing left for you to do. You immediately leap into our Space craft and begin your return journey to Earth. As before, you achieve an average or mean velocity equal to 4C. You land your craft near the observatory of an astronomer who is a friend of yours, and rush in to tell him of your return. You find him seated at his telescope observing your landing upon the planet which you had set out to visit. When you inform him that you achieved an average velocity of 4C, his reply is that this is impossible since the laws of relativity clearly that that no object can achieve a velocity in excess of C (with respect to a given reference point). He will also point out that he has been observing you constantly since your take off from the Earth and that only now, today, five years later, were you observed to have reached your destination. Since the journey required five years of Earth time, our average velocity was only fourth-fifths that of light.
"According to the primary postulate of relativity, that for mathematical purposes we must accept the results of our observations as valid, the astronomer is perfectly correct in his statement that you did not, and could not have exceeded the velocity C. The mere fact that you may have returned, be seated at his side, and may perhaps be assisting him in his work, does not in any way affect the validity of his observations nor the mathematics of relativity which he applies thereto. He can only state that that your arrival upon the distant planet, and the moment of your return to Earth were in fact simultaneous.
"We can see that, even if your energy level had been so close to infinite that the outward trip had required only one second, if during the one-second trip you had emitted enough light to make observation possible, the astronomer upon Earth would note that the trip required four hours and one second, and so would have undeniable proof of the mathematics which assume that only infinite energy may the velocity C be achieved.
Excerpted from On Board The Flying Saucers by Gavin Gibbons
