Time Distortion

Time distortion described by special relativity is only an appearance without being ``real'' in the sense that Einstein taught before 1921. The general relativity environment (acceleration / gravitation) can truly affect the running of clocks which depend on atomic processes for their timekeeping and in that sense the distortion is real; and while all atomic processes would be expected to run slower under increased gravitation fields, biological processes, pendulum-regulated clocks and balance-wheel-regulated clocks would not be affected in the same way; and it seems needlessly abstruse to say that the rate of flow of ``time itself'' is affected by the presence of a gravitational field.