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I understand that special relativity tells us that our perception of the passage of time can change depending on reference frames. But why does time pass the rate at which it does in my reference frame and is this a constant rate?

WireInTheGhost
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    If time passed 'more quickly', would you notice? (Keep in mind that your brain would also think and process information proportionally quickly). – lemon Mar 06 '16 at 10:25
  • The passage of time is the passage of time and it doesn't change, no matter how fast you move relative to something else. How would your clock know how fast it is moving and how would it differentiate between the infinity of relative movements that you can select? – CuriousOne Mar 06 '16 at 10:29
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    What is the "rate at which time passes"? The rate of a time-dependent quantity is its derivative with respect to time. The derivative of time with respect to time is tautologically 1, this question does not make sense. – ACuriousMind Mar 06 '16 at 11:10
  • The question makes perfect sense, if it is restated a bit: Is time quantized, and if so, is there more than one basic quantization unit. As far as I know, physics does not know that for sure, since we do not have a quantum theory of gravitation (which would be entangled with time due to General Relativity), I assume. Maybe (and this is just a thought), the time quantization is connected to the entropy change in your system that you have from zero-point energy fluctuations. – M529 Mar 06 '16 at 11:29
  • @M529: Time won't be quantized. Spacetime might be, but the kind of quantization one might expect based on our current understanding would consist of quantized areas or volumes, so even if we throw unsupported theory at it, it won't result in a naive change of "the rate of time". – CuriousOne Mar 06 '16 at 12:19
  • Related: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/15371/2451 and links therein. – Qmechanic Mar 06 '16 at 12:58
  • Related, and possibly a duplicate: What is time, does it flow, and if so what defines its direction? – John Rennie Mar 06 '16 at 17:40

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Frame of reference dictates the "relative" rate of time passage. Rate of time passage within a frame can not be properly defined because then it becomes a question "rate of passage with respect to what"? Every observer has its own sense of rate of time passage which is always the "normal" rate, or 1 (as ACuriousMind hinted in his comment). There is no way to sense the changed sense, because, sense itself is changed, depending upon frame of reference.

kpv
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