This result could change physics forever

In other words I guess you could say the muons reaching farther down than expected is like Einstein’s thought experiment of a stationary vs a moving clock to represent the discrepancy between different reference frames since one happens to travel farther in the same amount of time.

Although, it seems to kinda make a little more immediate intuitive sense to think about it in this particular instance, much more so than with Einstein’s clocks, in terms of space dilation rather than time dilation, since I don’t think it’s necessarily immediately obvious that as a result of 1) the reference frame of an incoming muon experiencing time at a normal rate relative to the particle itself yet also 2) experiencing time around it (normal time from our reference frame measuring it) moving relatively slowly that that ultimately means it would also travel a greater distance as a result of that time dilation*, despite that being one way of describing, practically defining, the exact mechanism behind space dilation itself.

The result here is being presented in terms of distance though, despite the decay rate causing it being a product of time. We’re not looking at the time dilation of the decay rate though, we’re looking at the space dilation of the distance travelled vs what might be expected. The connections do make sense when you think about them, but logical doesn’t always mean immediately intuitive (in fact often the opposite, especially in theoretical physics) and the concept of spacetime dilation and its ramifications already gives people an infamous amount of trouble, both in terms of trying to reach a more intuitive grasp of it and in accepting in the first place




*I know that in the theory of relativity spacetime is actually conceived as a single thing, not just space + time, which is because it’s founded on the idea of the speed of light being equal in all reference frames no matter what and that is actually the natural consequence of that, hence the relationship between time dilation and space dilation itself, which is essentially a practical example of the theory being described in the video itself and also in this very comment