Einstein was a genius among the genius class.

Time dilation is from the special theory of relativity. The general theory is much deeper.

My head hurts now. Not enough coffee yet……

Why does distance traveled matter in relation to "time".

Who decided that the two are relevant together ?

Unless you live in Phoenix in July and you have just purchased ice cream.


Is this guy saying that relocating faster will actually slow down time and people will live longer ?

Or relocating faster will shorten lives ?

I think that more coffee and a lot more Bourbon as a fuel source, will help me to understand What this guy is talking about.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
Why does distance traveled matter in relation to "time".

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Is this guy saying that relocating faster will actually slow down time and people will live longer ?

Or relocating faster will shorten lives ?

It is speed that matters in relation to time, not distance.

To you, time always seems the same. If you count 60 seconds out loud it will "feel" the same to you at any speed. But to outsiders observing you, the faster you go the slower your time appears to go. That 60 seconds you count out loud still feels like 1 minute to you, but to observers it appears to them that it took you much longer.

At very high speeds you appear to age slower than others moving more slowly. Or, when you are moving very fast, others appear to you to age very quickly, but you feel that you are aging normally.

Atomic clocks in earth orbit run slower than atomic clocks stationary on the ground. Adjustments have to be made to calculations because of it.

Whoa, thats heavy.

Skip to 2:07 for an easy to understand explanation of time dilation.


JP

The "relativity" part is about your speed/position in relation to a reference object. Im that if you are traveling towards another object at, say, 50 MPH, from its perspective it is traveling towards you at the same speed. This holds true for high speeds as well, say 99.99999% the speed of light. So each of you would experience the exact same time and distance contraction in relation to the other. It is an observational effect, not something you can measure with a ruler or a watch.

Another interesting consequence of the theory is that only massless particles (e.g. photons and neutrons can attain light speed, in fact that is the only speed at which they can travel, they can't slow down. Any particle that has mass cannot attain light speed. So observing photons is pretty much the only way we can explore objects over a certain distance.

I'm afraid physical travel to "distant galaxies" is not possible in the universe as we understand it at this time no matter how much time and distance contraction might seem to make it so.

Mother Nature is truly a mad scientist!

"It is speed that matters in relation to time, not distance." -fly sig


To me the word speed indicates travel and whenever travel is mentioned I think distance.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
<snip>
Another interesting consequence of the theory is that only massless particles (e.g. photons and neutrons can attain light speed, in fact that is the only speed at which they can travel, they can't slow down. Any particle that has mass cannot attain light speed. So observing photons is pretty much the only way we can explore objects over a certain distance.
<snip>

Neutrons have mass. They’re slightly heavier than a proton. Maybe you’re thinking of neutrinos, but even neutrinos have mass;

“Neutrinos are subatomic particles with almost no mass that are named for their lack of electrical charge. They are one of the most abundant particles in the universe, but are sometimes called “ghost particles” because they rarely interact with other matter.”

quote:

Why does distance traveled matter in relation to "time".

Who decided that the two are relevant together ?

Mostly it was a guy named Albert Einstein who came up with space-time continuum, mainly from his general theory of relativity as mentioned.

quote:

Is this guy saying that relocating faster will actually slow down time and people will live longer ?

Or relocating faster will shorten lives ?

If you travel, then yes time, from an outside perspective, does slow down. From your point of view, however, time elapses at a normal rate.

If you were to fly completely around the earth in a fast jet, you would in fact age a tiny fraction of a second less than someone who stayed on the ground. They've actually done this experiment with very sensitive instruments.

I remember seeing a cartoon of sorts when I was a kid explaining this.

In essence, if you traveled at near light speed for a split second and returned to Earth a split second later, your infant child would be a grand parent or great grandparent when you returned and, you would have aged but a couple seconds.

I think it's about time to see Interstellar again.

I’m just gonna sit here with my box of crayons.

quote:

I'm afraid physical travel to "distant galaxies" is not possible in the universe as we understand it at this time no matter how much time and distance contraction might seem to make it so.

I've always wondered about that...
Travel approaching the speed of light seems theoretically possible, but certainly not in our lifetime.

But wait - there's more!

Special Relativity says nothing can move faster than the speed of light; but Special Relativity only governs local space.
General Relativity calculates that portions of the extremely distant universe are moving away faster than the speed of light.
It's allowed because it's dealing with the expansion of the fabric of spacetime itself.

You have to fold space. But you need the spice. When you return with the spice, it will be... Nevermind.