According to Special Relativity, I should be able to travel to the Andromeda galaxy (2 million light years away) and then return to earth over a period of time that would seem like just a few years to me. But upon my return to earth, I will find that that earth has aged over 4 million years. Now suppose that I have a really, really powerful telescope and I am able to constantly view a large digital clock on the earth's surface that has been set up for my viewing pleasure. My plan is to spend my entire space voyage watching this earth-based clock. If it were not for acceleration, the clock should appear to me to be very slow – at near light speed, the earth-clock should almost seem to be stopped. This is because according to Special Relativity, the earth would appear to be traveling near the speed of light relative to me, so I would see the earth clock slow down. But since I am accelerating, we have to include General Relativity. So my question is…
2007-01-19
04:08:02
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8 answers
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asked by
eroticohio
5
in
Physics