what do mean by time dilation in space ?

Answer 1

Length contraction and time dilation are both effects of Special Relativity, which take place when an object is travelling close to the speed of light. It's really not considered time travel, except to the extent that we all travel through time inexorably into the future. Nevertheless, these effects are certainly real. You can indeed travel very near the speed of light for a short time and come back to Earth, where some millions of years have passed. The explanation for this is an entire physics course on its own, and can be found in introductory texts on special relativity. Essentially, it is an immediate consequence of the speed of light being a constant for all observers, no matter what their own speed.

Moving clocks run slow and moving sticks are shortened by a factor

gamma = 1/Sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2).

So, let's say we're thinking about the "twin paradox," and that our intrepid traveller is moving at speed v equal to 0.9 times the speed of light, c. In this case,

gamma = 1/Sqrt( 1 - 0.9^2 ) = 2.29.

So the twin on Earth sees the spaceship's clock running 2.29 times slower than her own, i.e. every 2.29 years on Earth corresponds to one year by the spaceship's clock. The Earthbound twin also observes that the spaceship travelling at a speed 0.9c is 2.29 times shorter than it was before the launch. The faster the spaceship travels, the more pronounced the effect. Cool, eh?

Answer 2

The other answers are correct, but don't really say that it has nothing to do with being in space. Time dilation has to do with speed. The speeds needed to cause significant time dilation are extremely fast, millions of miles or kilometers per hour. At such speeds, even if you started on Earth, you could be half way to the Moon in less than a second. Time dilation has been measured in airplane flights using highly accurate clocks, but the dilation is so small at speeds of only hundreds of miles per hour that you would not really notice it.

Answer 3

You've received a few good answers, but so far none of them are totally correct. Those that talk about time slowing down or speeding up may have left you with the notion that time actually slows or speeds up. This is NOT correct!

Imagine that you rocket away from Earth at near the speed of light and that I remain behind. If I could watch a clock in your spaceship it would appear to me that it's moving slower than my clock. If you could watch my clock it would appear to you to be moving faster. This is the 'time dilation' you asked about in your question. The important point to realize is that neither your clock in the spaceship is correct (..except to you), and that my clock isn't correct either (..except to me). This is because there's no *Cosmic Master Clock* that ticks off the correct time for our universe. A simple example -- right now it's 8:10 am here on the west coast, but on the east coast 11:10 am. Which time is the correct time? Both are! For me on the west coast 8:10 is correct, but for people on the east coast 11:10 am is.

Answer 4

"Time dilation is the phenomenon whereby an observer finds that another's clock which is physically identical to their own is ticking at a slower rate as measured by their own clock. This is often taken to mean that time has "slowed down" for the other clock, but that is only true in the context of the observer's frame of reference. Locally, time is always passing at the same rate. The time dilation phenomenon applies to any process that manifests change over time."

This, and more on time dilation, from Wikipedia, the free, online encyclopedia at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation
Hope this helps!

Answer 5

Yeah, i discover this time dilation factor somewhat puzzling too. no longer lots the elementary theory of it, yet from the actual shown fact that the theory in simple terms proclaims, without justification, that the area traveller won't age as immediately with the aid of fact the observer left on the earth. The confusion comes with the aid of fact the theory does not grant a organic and organic clarification why this could be. right this is what i think of based upon an overly simplified analogy: If an merchandise is vacationing at a relentless 10 m / sec. (30 feet. / sec.) and you enhance its speed, linearly, to a hundred m / sec (3 hundred feet. / sec), the time for the object to cover an analogous distance has in actuality shorten by employing a ingredient of 10. on the better speed, it has taken a million/10 the time to cover an analogous distance in a single 2d. those 2 speeds are in actuality 2 diverse reference frames. An observer vacationing at 10 m / sec. will see the object vacationing at a hundred m / sec. as shifting 10 situations slower than his own speed. this theory is rarely intuitively sparkling at common speeds, even nonetheless it has to do with length contraction (reducing length). of path none of that is obtrusive at popular speeds and lengths, yet as an merchandise methods the linked fee of light, the consequences of time dilation will become obvious. The organic and organic mechanism continues to be uncertain. I ought to have self assurance that a organic and organic gadget vacationing at a relentless speed close to the linked fee of light, a manner or the different the mixture of reducing length and extreme speed (longer relative time) variations the linked fee at which cells undergo mitosis (somatic cellular branch -- frequently 50 doublings before cellular loss of life). Acceleration and de-acceleration could have some yet undetermined result on the linked fee of cellular branch to boot. there's a factor referred to as the 'sq. / cubed' regulation which will come into play in an important way at speeds coming near gentle. The sq. / dice regulation governs whilst a organic and organic cellular has reached its optimum membrane sure section means and ought to the two divide, generating a daughter cellular, or rupture and die. it extremely is my maximum suitable guess on the character of this phenomenon of why the area traveller a while some distance decrease than the observer back on the earth. so some distance as i be attentive to, there's no thank you to attempt in the lab this organic and organic factors of area return and forth at close to gentle speed. maximum suitable regards

Answer 6

Are you referring to the space/time dialation that occurs when traveling at near the speed of light in comparison to a nearly motionless frame of reference. It is part of what is know as a Lorentz contraction

Answer 7

As you travel faster than the speed of light, time behaves differently than if you are traveling slower than the speed of light.

Or as a famous poem states:

There once was a lady named bright, who travels far faster than light.

She went out 1 day, in a relative way, and returned the previous night.

This the theory of relativity, as thought up by Einstein

Answer 8

the difference in the flow of time as observed by two observers moving at different velocities or in the presence of different strengths of gravitational fields. time moves slower the faster you are going or the more powerful of a gravitational field you are within.