Rethinking Momentum: How Time Dilation Explains Motion Without Forces

Have you ever wondered why a spacecraft can speed up by swinging past a planet without using any fuel? Or why objects fall when you drop them? Traditionally, we explain these phenomena with forces and momentum exchanges. Relativity says gravity does not exist, it is just curved space time. But what if relativity just didn't go far enough, what if there’s a simpler, deeper explanation for motion and momentum rooted in the nature of time itself?

The Gravity Assist Mystery

Let’s start with the gravity assist maneuver, a fascinating phenomenon where a spacecraft speeds up by swinging around a planet—all without using any fuel. Remarkably, during the maneuver, the spacecraft is in constant free fall with no applied forces, yet it exits the maneuver going faster than it entered. How is this possible?

Conventional physics explains this with gravitational slingshot effects and momentum exchange with the planet. But relativity says that the space ship is just moving along a path in space time and there are no forces applied. But if no direct forces are involved, could there be a more elegant way to explain this?

Time Dilation: The Key to Understanding Motion

Einstein’s theories of relativity showed us that time doesn’t flow uniformly. Time moves more slowly in stronger gravitational fields (closer to massive objects) and for objects traveling at high velocities. This slowing of time near massive objects or high speeds is called time dilation.

What if, instead of viewing gravity as a pulling force or as a path in space, we saw it as a gradient in the rate of time’s passage? A gradient is a gradual change of the amount of something. This concept is central to relativity, yet thinking of gravity as a time dilation effect can reveal profound insights into motion and momentum.

A New Way to Think About Momentum

Here’s a key insight: what if momentum isn’t something objects “have” or “exchange”? Instead, it might emerge from the interaction between mass and the spacetime it moves through—similar to how a moving electric field generates a magnetic field at a right angle.

Consider these parallels:

• Moving an electric field generates a magnetic field perpendicular to its motion.
• Moving mass through spacetime might create momentum as a perpendicular property, arising from spacetime curvature rather than applied forces. This shows in the formula for total energy E^2 = (pc)^2 +(mc^2 )^2, where momentum is at 90 degree angle to rest mass, a natural consequence of momentum being geometrically caused by motion of rest mass through space time.

This geometric relationship suggests that momentum may be an effect of objects traversing spacetime, rather than the result of direct forces. It further points about that EM is also probably curved space in a space charge dimension as well, but we won't go into that here. 

Explaining Gravity Without Forces

This perspective also provides a natural way to explain gravity itself. When an object falls, it isn’t being “pulled” by a force. Instead:

1. The object exists in a spacetime where time flows at different rates depending on height.
2. The object follows a path through this gradient in time, moving toward slower time regions.
3. This natural path through time’s gradient is what we observe as “falling.”

The object isn’t being pushed or pulled; it’s simply following its natural path through curved spacetime, where time flows at varying rates. So its momentum is an effect of the rest mass moving through space.  

Reinterpreting the Gravity Assist

With this perspective, the gravity assist maneuver becomes much clearer. The spacecraft’s speed increases solely because of how it moves through regions with different rates of time dilation. No forces are necessary—the change in velocity emerges naturally as the spacecraft’s path intersects varying rates of time in the curved spacetime around the planet.

This even suggests a deeper principle: what if the conservation of momentum is really pointing to a conservation of time dilation across systems? When a spacecraft gains speed through a gravity assist, perhaps the planet’s own time dilation shifts ever so slightly to balance the change, though this shift is currently too small to detect.

Forces Change Speed, not Momentum.

If momentum is a result of speed, instead of the reverse, then forces are not communicating momentum, they are changing the time experience of the object they are affecting.  This change in speed then changes the apparent momentum of the object.  So forces are sharing their experiences of time between objects. 

Photons can be seen as not as energy or momentum carriers but as a small part of the emitting particles complete experience of space time across all the dimensions, a much more rich information packet than traditionally seen.  This could explain entanglement: the two objects that shared a photon now share the same experience of space time in some small way.

Why This Matters

Viewing momentum as an emergent property from time dilation gradients offers several advantages:

1. It clarifies how momentum changes without forces, as in gravity assists.
2. It provides a unified way to understand gravitational effects through time dilation.
3. It encourages new ways of thinking about the connections between mass, motion, and time.
4. It could help bridge gaps in physics, offering insights into both relativity and quantum mechanics.
5. It explains that the interactions between ojbects are much richer and complex than traditionally seen.
6. It unifies energy, momentum, inertia, rest mass, and gravity all around time dilation.  Everything just becomes defined as a facet of how this time dilation is expressed in the universe.  

Although this view aligns with Einstein’s relativity, it shifts our primary focus from gravity as a force to time dilation as a driving phenomenon, explaining many aspects of motion and momentum that traditional force-based approaches find puzzling.

Looking Forward

Could this perspective lead to new breakthroughs in physics? Could it improve our understanding of the quantum-gravitational connection? These are open questions, but rethinking momentum as an emergent property of mass moving through time dilation gradients provides an exciting new way to consider some of physics’ most fundamental concepts.

So next time you see something fall or read about a spacecraft’s gravity assist, consider this: maybe what you’re witnessing is simply mass following its natural path through the varying rates of time within our curved spacetime.