you are accelerating away from your twin at nearly the speed of light. but relative to you your twin too is accelerating at the speed of light so why should your twin age faster than you and not the reverse.
2006-10-05 04:33:33 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
You can tell if you are accelerating or not, by whether you feel the acceleration. You don't have to look at your other twin. The "moving" twin feels strong acceleration on the trip, the "stay home" twin doesn't. So the situation is not symmetrical.
2006-10-05 04:53:37 · answer #1 · answered by cosmo 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
In the twin paradox defined by Einstein, the twins aren't accelerating, but simply moving away from each other at a speed close to the speed of light. The reason that one of the twins ends up being older than the other, is because the twin that was traveling away from the earth - has to be accelerated in order to return to Earth (he/she has to stop her movement and go the other way). In this sense the total movement of the twins isn't the same, and this explains the difference in age at the return.
If the twins had simply kept on traveling away from each other, they would both see that the other twin wasn't aging as fast as themselves.
2006-10-05 04:47:04 · answer #2 · answered by Jens F 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
But if your acceleration relative to your twin is "nearly the speed of light" how could his acceleration relative to you be at the speed of light? This would not be consistant with physical laws, so it would not be able to happen.
2006-10-05 04:40:45 · answer #3 · answered by Jeffrey S 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This appears to be a paradox if one expects that, according to relativity, either twin may validly claim to be "at rest", and thus each expects that the other twin will age slowly. In this case the twin who turns round pursues two different paths through space-time whereas the other twin has a constant linear path. Either twin could verify this by jettisoning material at intervals (the material would be arranged in a line for one twin and form two lines for the other) or by observing onboard accelerometers.
2006-10-05 04:38:26 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
The apparent motion of an object can only be measured in the local space of a fixed object. Since there are no fixed objects and everything is actually in motion everything is subject to time dialation. Time however is not a real dimension or force. It is the subective way we measure the speed of matter. When you increase the speed of an object sufficently the electrons in the atoms of that object are using part of their energy to keep up with the neucleus of the atom increasing the mass of the atom and slowing down all atomic processes making it appear that time is slowing down. There really is no such thing as time, the only time that exists is this very moment. Opps there it goes, gone forever but here we are in this very moment.
2006-10-05 04:48:05 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
one twin is in regular time, the other gets slowed due to coming close to the speed of light. that's if you buy into non-linear time...
2006-10-05 04:39:58 · answer #6 · answered by shiara_blade 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because you measure acceleration on you, whereas your twin experiences no such acceleration.
2006-10-05 04:55:46 · answer #7 · answered by Morgy 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The difference between your perceived ages is changing at the same rate for both of you.
If he seems to be aging, let's say, 50 years for each one of yours, then to him you seem to be regressing at the same rate.
2006-10-05 04:40:43 · answer #8 · answered by bequalming 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋