I'm curious, is there a mathematical equation that will accurately determine the difference between an astronaut's physical age and his earth age given the exact travel parameters of his flight -- e.g. start earth time, the schedule of changes in acceleration, return earth time, etc.
2007-02-23 11:37:34 · 4 answers · asked by Jed M 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Mathematics
This was going to be easy -- until you mentioned acceleration. That makes it a General Relativity (GR) problem.
Yeah, there a formula -- but you going to need about 4 years of college level math and physics to understand it. The math is not so hard, but the definitions are. One of the main problems, is exactly what does it mean for you and the traveler to be X years apart in age, when you're here and she is far away?
It's even hard to define, in GR, what it means for it to be the "same time" in two different places. It can be done -- but it's hard to understand.
Without the acceleration part, we can use the Special Relativity approximation. This is a good approximation, unless the accelerations are really really large, or you want super accuracy.
time dilation factor = 1 / square root (1 - (v^2 / c^2))
... v = speed of traveler
... c = speed of light in vacuum
Example: for v = 99.999% of speed of light,
time dilation factor = 223.6.
That means 223.6 years on Earth, while the super-fast traveler ages only 1 year.
The time dilation factor is also called Lorentz's coefficient.
2007-02-23 12:06:25 · answer #1 · answered by morningfoxnorth 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Time dilation is governed by a factor called "tau".
Wikipedia to the rescue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation
They can do the fancy scripting that we can't in these text-only answers.
2007-02-23 11:53:24 · answer #2 · answered by davidbgreensmith 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes there is, E=mc2
2007-02-23 11:42:55 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
that's a good question...i hope somebody answers it
2007-02-23 11:43:24 · answer #4 · answered by ? 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋