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It's like saying the faster one moves, the slower time appears for them. If this statement is true, than I would expect to age less if i stayed on a jetplane for a yr compared to someone driving a car at 60 MPH. What im trying to get at is whats so special about 186,000 MPS that causes one to age slower??

2007-01-04 08:14:34 · 9 answers · asked by ? 2 in Science & Mathematics Astronomy & Space

9 answers

Well, let's say, just for funnsies that you only have one year to live. :( Now you've heard that time is slower for folks moving close to the speed of light. ( a point here, as I understand it, outside of SF books and movies we can't go either at the speed of light or even very near it as the faster you go the greater your mass so that when you hit light speed you become infineatly massive and that just upsets the univers no end and it slaps you in a black hole)(I may be wrong, but that's what I think would happen)
Where was I?
Oh yeah, you have a year to live and so you find a real live space ship that can go say 50% the speed of light. Yeah! you think that'll expand my life for a long time.
You get on the space ship and sail off to the stars. You happily mark off the day's on the calender you've brought along and then whamo! One year later, by your calender, you go belly up, deader'n an Egytian door nail. Your ghost sits there wondering what the heck happened! After all you were going half the speed of light you shoulda lived longer!
Then ol' Albert's ghost (Einstien) wanders by and he pats you consolingly on your ectoplasmic shoulder and says. "Oh, but you did! You lived ever so much longer than you twin brother! You even outlived your kids! But you see they weren't on the space ship too. They were back home on Earth plodding along at a 'normal' speed. It's only relative to them that you lived longer. For you, it was still just a year. That's why they call it relitivity my friend."
Forgive mis spelling please. Spell checker is on the fritze again!

2007-01-04 08:44:45 · answer #1 · answered by Sulkahlee 3 · 3 0

This is a very good question that I cant seem to get an answer to either. I understand THAT time dilation occurs at high velocities, I just dont understand exactly WHY. I understand THAT it is in relation to the observer but WHY.

I just understood it as I was reading the link from the person below me. Imagine person A and person B are looking at a clock several light years away. They both have a stopwatch in hand and start it at the same time. Person B goes toward the clock at an extremely high velocity. He is going to see the clock change before person A becuase the light waves will reach him first. Eventually person B will see the clock read several minutes ahead of what person A reads it. If they both look at their stopwatches the same amount of time has elapsed. So it seems to person B that the things he observes are moving faster then what person A observes. Time IS relative and not absolute.

2007-01-04 16:27:03 · answer #2 · answered by E 5 · 0 0

186,000 miles per second is the speed of light. Einstein's particle theory stated that time was a tangible thing that in theory could stop or reverse if an object reached or exceeded the speed of light.

I believe traveling at any speed less than the speed of light will not change time, but a recent study on airline travel through multiple time zones (jet lag) suggests that it has an adverse affect on your health. This may have more to do with altitude and fatigue.

2007-01-04 16:23:31 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

Many of the previous answers are correct, but none answer another similar question...why do we not know this without AE's relativity theories? The answer is that light travels at such an extraordinary speed, and these weird time and space events only become apparent (except with very sensitive instruments) at very high speeds. At our daily pace linear time and space is normal, and that is why time dilation is difficult to comprehend. To answer your actual question: because that is the way the universe behaves! By the way, at high velocities your mass increases, too (not as far as you know, but for an outside observer). At the speed of light you would (and anything else would) appear to an outside observer to have infinite mass..another reason you cannot go faster than light.

2007-01-04 17:48:31 · answer #4 · answered by David A 5 · 0 0

Time slows down as you approach the speed of light. You might have to read a layman's version of the theory of relativity to get an answer, but the effect has been proven in cyclotrons, where they accelerate particles to near the speed of light.

One thing people do not realise, especially SF writers - at the speed of light, time stops. This means that from the perspective of light (ie if you could sit on a light beam) you would get anywhere in no time at all.

That is good enough reason to say that you cannot exceed light speed, because why would you want to get anywhere faster than immediately.

2007-01-04 16:24:08 · answer #5 · answered by nick s 6 · 0 0

You are correct in that you age slower when you travel in a plane instead of a car. It only thing special about light is that is the fastest anything can travel. The reason for the changes in aging are because time is relative and not absolute. Time is not the same for everyone and everything it varies. That is white the theory of relativity. Take a look at http://astro.physics.sc.edu/selfpacedunits/Unit56.html

2007-01-04 16:29:14 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

The process is called time dilation. And it has been observed. Atomic clocks on fast moving planes synced to those on the ground actually decay slightly slower. The closer one moves toward the speed of light the slower time passes relative to the fast moving object. Thus you could travel from earth to the next galaxy in a lifetime, but centuries would have elapsed on earth, relative to you.

2007-01-04 16:19:07 · answer #7 · answered by texascrazyhorse 4 · 0 0

It would age at the relative speed . An observer on the outside would say that it seemed timeless , or did not appear to age .Where the person who was travelling at light-speed would see people on the outside aging rapidly .

2007-01-04 16:29:22 · answer #8 · answered by rocknrod04 4 · 2 0

In short, the perception of time is relevant to the observer.

2007-01-04 16:24:32 · answer #9 · answered by Ricky J. 6 · 1 0

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