How Charging a Battery Explains Time express
Two phones with identical batteries: one charges in a basement with a weak signal, and the process goes slower. The battery percentage here plays the role of a clock hand. Physicists applied the same logic to the quantum world. Their clock is a microscopic battery that stores energy. The charging rate depends on a hidden quantum 'mode'—like a switch. Flip the mode, and charging speeds up or slows down, mimicking time dilation near a black hole or at extreme speeds.
This isn't fantasy. If spacetime is just an illusion woven from quantum threads, then the gap between gravity and the microworld can be stitched together. Astonishingly, such a battery fits in a single atom. It 'charges' by absorbing light particles, and the more light it absorbs, the further the hand of its internal clock moves.
Original abstract
as written by the authors arXiv:2603.11079
Is spacetime fundamental or can it be derived through quantum interactions? We propose here a way to describe time dilation solely from quantum mechanics. First we start by observing that any operational notion of time must imply some sort of regular motion and, crucially, some sort of memory. Thus the clock model we use here is a simple example of a quantum memory: a charging battery. We describe here the charging of such batteries with quantum open dynamics. The expected value of these batteries grow linearly in time like $$\varphi t$$. The open dynamics is dependent on an auxiliar state $$\sigma$$. Therefore, with a different auxiliar state we have a different $$\varphi$$. We can describe time dilation and thus a metric this way. We exemplify with a black hole metric.
A single atom absorbing light particles becomes a clock itself: each gulp of light is a tick, and the accumulated energy is the time that's passed.