On the essence of time and Lorentz transformations

Abstract

The reasons for the emergence and essence of the concept of time are discussed. It is argued that the concept of time in humans arose as a result of observing the movement of material objects and the course of various processes. The repeatability and periodicity of natural processes became the basis for the introduction of a quantitative measure of the duration of any movements and processes. The introduction of a quantitative measure made it possible to measure the duration of any movements and processes in comparison with the duration of stationary periodic processes chosen as units of measurement. The very same measure of the duration of any movement began to be called time. It is argued that the connection of the course of time with the stationary periodic motion of natural objects indicates the invariance of its course with respect to moving frames of reference. It is shown that time dilation and reduction in the size of spatial objects are the result of an incorrect interpretation of the results of Lorentz transformations.