Burning the Candle at Both Ends: A Relativistic Thought Experiment Bridging Classical Intuitions and Quantum Realities

Quantum mechanics perpetually challenges classical intuitions. Special relativity underpins both classical and quantum frameworks. This preprint introduces a relativistic thought experiment—burning the candle at both ends—to show that special relativity already induces frame-dependent indeterminacy in physical states, echoing quantum uncertainties and superposition without quantum postulates. Lorentzian simultaneity disrupts causal chains (flame propagation), yielding observer-specific outcomes: asymmetric burning rates, non-local ignition, and isolation violations akin to quantum superposition.

We extend analogies to Quantum Field Theory (QFT), likening the flame to cascading domino effects—particle-like excitations propagating relativistically. In curved spacetime via the equivalence principle, geodesic paths emerge as "wicks" channeling otherwise indeterministic domino cascades of field excitations, while artificial obstacles such as diffraction slits act as sharp interruptions that liberate the same indeterminism and produce observable quantum diffraction in a gravitational field.

The work demonstrates that the essential structure of relativistic quantum field theory, far from requiring new interpretational principles, is already latent in Einstein’s original 1905 kinematics once finite-extended causal chains are taken seriously.

Supplementary material:

• Animated Minkowski diagram of two converging 5-link domino cascades (Online Resource 1; animation speed arbitrary)
• Python Jupyter notebook (Minkowski_Domino_Cascade_5steps.ipynb)