Everything is in Motion – Stream of Consciousness

Today is the sixth time I participate in Linda Hill’s streams of consciousness. To read about the rules and participate click here. To read my five previous entries click here “Prediction Failures and My Lucky Day from Hell”, or here “The Review Wars on Amazon”, or here, “Reindeer Hide Memories”, or here “25 Sweet Leonberger and Dog Photos”, or here “Bad Travel Memories”. I put this post on my Super-factful blog because it is factual and not related to Leonbergers. “Everything is in Motion” could be a super fact, but a super-fact post requires editing, looking up facts, or verifying facts, and lots of links, so that is for another post. This post is just my musings.

The badge features a twig with rain drops and it says Stream of consciousness Saturday #SoCS
2019-2020 SoCS Badge by Shelley!

Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday September 5, 2026, is “Motion”. Use it anyway you’d like. The first rule is: there should be minimal planning and no editing except typos. I did not edit but I did add a few pictures. I like adding pictures. I just copied the pictures including captions from a few of my other posts.

A photo of planet Earth from space. | Everything is in Motion
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The first thing that came to my mind for this prompt was that Motion is relative and everything is in Motion. You may be sitting in your chair completely still thinking that you are not moving but you are. Earth rotates around its axis at hundreds or thousands of miles per hour and you follow along wherever you are sitting. Sitting at the geographic north Pole won’t help you because Earth is also wobbling and it is rotating around the sun at more than 60 thousand miles per hour, and the sun is rotating around the center of our galaxy the Milky Way at several hundred thousands miles per hour, and our galaxy is moving compared to the Andromeda galaxy at millions of miles per hour, and it moves billions of miles per hour compared to other galaxies.

Photo of the Andromeda Galaxy
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Motion is not absolute. It is always relative to something else. The universe has no center, no ether to compare with, there is no absolute reference point. It is not possible to declare anything as truly standing still. Understanding this is the first step towards understanding the theories of relativity.

The E = mc2 formula | Everything is in Motion
Mass is energy and vice versa, a direct result of the way time and space are related. Stock Photo ID: 2163111377 by Aree_S

You could of course say that; well, compared to my reference frame, my room right here, I am sitting still. I am not in motion compared to my chair. So, in that sense it is possible to say that I am not in motion. Well, I am sorry to disappoint you. You are still moving through time at the speed of light. To bring up relativity again, space and time is a four dimensional continuum, and space can be converted into time and vice versa. The conversion factor between space and time is a constant identical to the speed of light in vacuum. Without explaining the details this means that you when you are sitting absolutely still in space, relative to something like your chair, you are still moving through time, in that reference frame, at the speed of light. You see “Everything is in Motion” is an unescapable fact.

Picture shows a man and his dog sitting in front of a computer. Earth and the sun are in the background.
Man thinking he is sitting still drawn with the help of ChatGPT

A related interesting fact is that nothing that has mass can move through space at the speed of light. Everything that has mass must move slower than the speed of light through space. Conversely, particles that do not have mass, such as light particles (called photons), and gluons, must always move through space at the speed of light, and as a result for them time does not move. Actually, for them time does not exist.

An eye with photons streaming into it. | Everything is in Motion
Billions of photons coming into the eye. For them time does not exist. Shutterstock asset id: 2629068895 by muratart.

There are a couple of obvious objections to the last paragraph. Very far away, beyond the limit of the visible Universe, galaxies can move away from us faster than the speed of light. However, they are not moving faster than the speed of light compared to the space where they are. What is going on is that space and time are stretching fast due to the expansion of the Universe.

Another objection is that light can move slower than the speed of light in vacuum through transparent materials such as glass and water, so how can the claim that all massless particles must always move at exactly the speed of light in vacuum be true? The answer to that is that the light particles (photons) in those materials are being absorbed and re-emitted as new photons by the atoms. However, in between the atoms the photons move exactly at the speed of light in vacuum.

From left to right, an atom absorbs a photon, which excites an electron that jumps into a higher orbit. Then it emits a photon and the electron falls back to the ground state again.
From ground state to excited state, absorption and emission of a photon in an atom. Shutterstock asset id: 2180385419 by rktz.

Anyway, the conclusion is, “Everything is in Motion”, through space, and through time.

To see the Super Facts click here

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Author: thomasstigwikman

My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.

54 thoughts on “Everything is in Motion – Stream of Consciousness”

    1. Thank you so much Robbie. That is a good way of looking at it. Everything is in motion compared to something else and in addition we are all (us that have mass) moving through time at the speed of light.

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  14. Such a beautifully reflective piece. I love the reminder that everything around us and within us is always moving and changing. There’s something both humbling and comforting in that thought. Thank you for sharing this wonderful reflection. ✨

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    1. Yes you are right zumpoems, motion is relative, but I repeated that three times. To quote myself “Motion is not absolute. It is always relative to something else. The universe has no center, no ether to compare with, there is no absolute reference point. It is not possible to declare anything as truly standing still.” – I also explained that everything that has mass is moving through time at the speed of light (in their own frame). This post was a Stream of Consciousness post, which you are not allowed to edit. It’s one of those blogging games. You can join in too, next Saturday. I am going to make another post explaining this better.

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  16. I enjoyed your interesting musings that I partly understood when I read them out loud like I when studying science in college. Let me get this straight: I’m moving through time at the speed of light, but nothing that has mass can move through SPACE at the speed of light. Don’t they talk about lightspeed in Star Trek? Okay, I know Star Trek is fiction, so that’s different. 😉 I often add pictures to my SoCS posts.

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    1. Yes that is exactly right. Light, gravity waves, and gluons are mass-less phenomenon and they move through space at exactly the speed of light, compared to all other observers. Things with mass (us and other matter) can never move at, or faster, then the speed of light (through space). In Star Trek they use stretch space itself so that can violate the speed limit. In Star Trek you are still moving at maximum the speed of light through space, but the space itslef is moving, through stretching / warping, and it stretches faster the speed of light. This warp speed is purely fiction and may be impossible in reality. Like you said, you can be at rest compared to your chair, but if you have mass, which is typical for people, you will move through time at the speed of light. For mass-less particles time does not exist.

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