Space Shuttle experiment with time travel?

Question

I had thought that as you travel faster time goes slower, but only for the observer.

But I remember an experiment ran by NASA several years back, where they took an atomic clock on one of the shuttles, and compared it to an atomic clock on earth when it landed, there was definately a difference.

How is this possible if it's only the observer who notices the slowing of time? Very confused.

Say a person if flying into a blackhole, to the person in the plane heading into the blackhole, time would seem normal, as his plane reaches closer to the speed of light.

But to an observer on earth, he would have appeared to be frozen because to the observer time slows down as the object reaches closer to the speed of light.

Answer 1

I had also read about that experiement. Because that other clock time traveled 1 second. So that's why.

edn.

Answer 2

I don't quite understand who this oberver you are referring to. In relativity, the object that is in motion is the one that experience the slow down of time. So the clock on board the shuttle is moving faster than the clock that is on the ground therefore the clock on the shuttle ran slower than the one on the ground. This effect is well known and is actually taken into account when calculating position while using GPS.

This is sort of like time travel. If you go near the speed of light, you could travel to 100yrs from now while aging only a little. Unfortuntely it is a one way trip. There is no way to go back to the time you started.

Answer 3

Actually you have it backwards. The observer never notices it.

Ok. Let's say your are 18 and your mother is 38 and she take a trip to the nearest star at about half the speed of light. On that trip a year is a year as far as she is concerned inside the ship. Outside a year is several years.

Same with you on Earth. A year is a year to you and you know her trip is going to take 24 years or so.

You both don't notice the time dilation until she return to Earth at the age of 39 or 40 and you are now 42.

Answer 4

Yes they have- and there was indeed a difference. Not much, but there was one. This is because relativity slows time down, and a space shuttle moves fast enough for accurate equipment to notice it. You wouldn't notice it yourslef though, unless you were some sort of cyborg.

Answer 5

omg i don't know if any of the things you said are true but im going to look up the topic. Even if its not, thanks for asking that question, you made me think about some thing i had no clue about and i'll research it. It's defenetly more interesting than some of the things that are asked in this place.

Answer 6

I dont know how that works. are you going back in time or to the future???