Two Clocks, One Loop: How Quantum Traction Theory Rethinks the Sagnac Effect

Why do beams going around a spinning ring come back at different times – and what does that say about time itself?

1. The Sagnac Effect in One Picture

Imagine you stand on a spinning carousel and build a circular racetrack for light.

You send one light beam with the rotation (clockwise).
You send another beam against the rotation (counter-clockwise).

Even though both beams travel at the same speed, $c$ (the speed of light), they do not return to you at the same time.

The beam going with the rotation has to “chase” the moving mirrors.
The beam going against the rotation meets them sooner.

This tiny difference in arrival time is called the Sagnac effect. It shows up in:

Ring-laser gyroscopes in airplanes and submarines
Fiber-optic gyros in navigation systems
Atom interferometers measuring Earth’s rotation
Even the way GPS is calibrated

Mathematically, for a simple ring, the classic formula is:

$\Delta T_{\circlearrowleft} = \frac{4}{c^{2}}\ \boldsymbol{\Omega}\cdot\mathbf{A}$

Here $\boldsymbol{\Omega}$ is the rotation vector and $\mathbf{A}$ is the area vector of the loop. That formula is incredibly well-verified across many experiments.

2. What’s Hard About This in Einstein’s Picture

In Einstein’s relativity (GR/SR), the Sagnac effect is explained using:

Non-inertial reference frames
Off-diagonal metric terms (the infamous $g_{0i}$ )
Integrals over curved space-time coordinates

It works, mathematically. But for a non-expert, it feels like this:

“Rotation + weird metric + path integrals = Sagnac. Trust the math.”

It’s not obvious why a simple spinning loop should “know” it’s rotating, or why the time difference is independent of the color of the light or the kind of particle you use.

3. Quantum Traction Theory’s Idea: Two Clocks, Not One

Quantum Traction Theory (QTT) starts from a very simple, but radical idea:

There is a single, fastest “heartbeat” of the universe – an Absolute Background Clock, call it $T$ . Every lab clock $\tau$ is a slower, tilted version of this master clock.

So we have:

T = the universe’s ledger time (Absolute Background Clock)
$\tau$ = the local lab time you read on instruments

They are related by a simple rule (in words):

Your lab clock $\tau$ never ticks faster than the background clock $T$ .
Its rate depends on your speed and local gravitational “lapse”.

This two-clock structure is the core of QTT. It automatically reproduces normal time dilation, but it also leaves room for something new: the idea that there is a universal tilt between these two clocks when you project information from the absolute ledger back onto your lab readout.

4. Sagnac in QTT: Holonomy + Projection

4.1 The Holonomy (What Everyone Already Agrees On)

QTT says: the Sagnac time difference is a geometric holonomy – a kind of “winding” of a simple one-form, the clock one-form associated with rotation.

For a rotating lab, you can define a clock one-form

$\vartheta_{\rm clk} = \frac{1}{c^{2}} (\boldsymbol{\Omega}\times\mathbf{r})\cdot d\mathbf{r}$

Integrating this around the loop gives back the same familiar result:

$\Delta T_{\circlearrowleft} = \frac{4}{c^{2}}\ \boldsymbol{\Omega}\cdot\mathbf{A}$

This is the invariant holonomy. QTT agrees: this time difference is:

Purely geometric
Independent of wavelength
Independent of whether you use light or atoms

So far, nothing in QTT changes the standard Sagnac law.

4.2 Where QTT Adds Something New: The Readout

Here is where QTT does something GR does not: it distinguishes between how you measure the same holonomy.

QTT says there are two logical ways to read out the Sagnac loop:

LAB channel (continuous phase): You constantly watch the phase of the interference pattern evolve over time. This is what all existing Sagnac experiments do.
ABS channel (absolute transport + single projection): You let the phase evolve “invisibly” on the background clock $T$ and only look at it once, at the end, with a single amplitude sample. No continuous phase tracking in between.

These two routes, according to QTT, are not equivalent. There is a universal tilt between the background clock T and the lab clock $\tau$ . When you project at the end, you pick up a constant factor:

$I_{\rm clk} = \cos\left(\frac{\pi}{8}\right)\approx 0.923879$

QTT predicts that, if you implement both readouts on the same loop, the ratio of their Sagnac slopes will be:

$R \equiv \frac{S_T}{S_\tau} = \cos\left(\frac{\pi}{8}\right)$

$S_\tau$ : slope from LAB readout (continuous phase)
$S_T$ : slope from ABS readout (absolute transport + one amplitude projection per bundle)

5. What Experiments Have (and Have Not) Done So Far

This is where it gets interesting.

A recent meta-review of Sagnac experiments – ring lasers, fiber gyros, atom gyros – went looking for exactly this dual-channel comparison.

They found none.

Optical gyros: All use continuous phase or beat-frequency that is converted to phase via $t_{\rm rt}=P/c$ . That algebra makes them LAB by construction.
Atom gyros: Even though each shot is a “single projection”, experiments typically link the phase across shots (via phase-locked references or scanning), effectively treating the data as continuous.

In other words, every experiment so far has been effectively single-channel LAB. Any “frequency” or “servo” channel has turned out to be just a re-encoding of the same continuous phase. No one has yet built a truly independent ABS channel that:

lets the phase evolve unobserved, locked to an absolute timebase,
and then samples the amplitude once per N loops with no phase tracking in between.

So it is no surprise that all existing results give:

$R \approx 1$

They never actually switched reference; they just re-labeled the same LAB convention.

6. What QTT Explains Easily That GR Cannot Without Gymnastics

General Relativity does not talk about “reference switching” or “one projection vs continuous readout”. Everything is squeezed into the spacetime metric. So:

If all readouts are secretly the same, GR simply says: “Of course they agree.”
But GR has no natural place to ask: “What if we deliberately change how we project the holonomy onto our clock?”

QTT, by contrast, says:

There is a real difference between following the lab clock $\tau$ continuously and allowing the background clock $T$ to run and only projecting once at the end. That difference is a fixed geometric tilt, $\cos(\pi/8)$ .

So QTT gives us a clean, testable claim:

Holonomy (time-lapse itself): always $\Delta T_{\circlearrowleft}=4\,\boldsymbol{\Omega}\cdot\mathbf{A}/c^2$ .
Readout ratio on the same loop: $R = S_T/S_\tau = \cos(\pi/8)$ if the two channels are truly different in the QTT sense.

No tensor gymnastics. Just two clocks and a tilt.

7. A Simple, Concrete Test You Can Do

Here’s the beauty: you don’t need a new universe. You just need a dual-channel Sagnac experiment on the same device.

7.1 The Setup

Take a modern optical gyro (ring laser or fiber-optic), where the geometry and wavelength are well known.

Use the usual readout as your LAB channel:
- Continuous phase demodulation, or
- Beat frequency converted to phase with $t_{\rm rt}=P/c$
Add a second, parallel readout path as your ABS channel:
- Lock the source (laser frequency) to an absolute time/frequency standard (GPSDO, atomic clock).
- Let the beams circulate and accumulate phase over N loops, with the detector blanked in between.
- Open a fast shutter or gate to grab a single intensity sample after those N loops – one amplitude projection per bundle.

7.2 The Measurement

Apply several rotation rates (positive and negative $\Omega$ ).
For each , record:
- $\Delta\phi_\tau$ from the LAB channel (continuous phase),
- $\Delta\phi_T$ from the ABS channel (gated single projection).
Fit two slope lines:
- $S_\tau = (\Delta\phi_\tau/\Omega)_{\tau}$
- $S_T = (\Delta\phi_T/\Omega)_{T}$
Form the ratio:

$R = S_T/S_\tau$

7.3 The QTT Prediction

If QTT is right, and the ABS channel is truly “absolute transport + single projection”, then:

$R = \cos(\pi/8) \approx 0.923879$

If instead you find:

$R \approx 1$

with a carefully implemented ABS channel, then QTT’s claim about the universal tilt is wrong and nature sides with the “no-tilt” picture.

Either way, the result is profound.

8. Why This Test Matters

If $R = 1$ (no tilt), then time holonomy is readout-invariant in a deep way: the universe does not care how you project it.
If , it means:
- There really is an Absolute Background Clock.
- Our lab clocks see only a tilted projection of it.
- The Sagnac effect is our first, direct window into that deeper time.

The surprising fact, highlighted by the recent literature review, is that no one has actually done this two-channel test yet, despite over 100 years of Sagnac physics. The question of whether the tilt is real is, incredibly, still open.

9. Closing Thought

The Sagnac effect was discovered in 1913. It helped shape relativity, navigation, and precision measurement. Quantum Traction Theory doesn’t change the Sagnac effect itself; it changes how we read it.

By recognizing that we have been using only one kind of clock projection for a century, QTT suggests a simple but deep experiment: build a second, truly independent readout on the same loop and see whether the universe hides a constant tilt between its own clock and ours.

Two clocks. One loop. A single ratio.

Will it be 1, or $\cos(\pi/8)$ ?