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Volume 6: Pages 540-553, 1993

A New Concept of Time

Hans Montanus ¹

¹Conradstraat 213, 1018 Ne Amsterdam The Netherlands

It is argued that space‐time is absolute and Euclidean. This will be shown by means of a new concept of time. In special relativity the proper time of the observer is taken as the fourth coordinate for all the observed objects including the observer himself. We will show that this is not a canonical way to ascribe a fourth coordinate to an event. We will justify that a fourth coordinate can be ascribed to an event in a more canonical way by means of a new concept of time. In this new concept of time the proper time of the object, instead of the proper time of an observer, is taken as the fourth coordinate for the object. For measurements based on clocks, we will see that with the application of the Einsteinian synchronization procedure, in an absolute Euclidean space‐time the special theory of relativity is recovered. We will also show that other types of experiments can be understood within the concepts of an absolute Euclidean space‐time.

Keywords: time, special relativity, Minkowski geometry, absolute space‐time, Euclidean space‐time, Lorentz transformation, clock synchronization, refraction of light, relativistic action, Fermat's principle

Received: March 24, 1992; Published Online: December 15, 2008