Is Time faster or slower in the absence of gravity?

Question

I read somewhere that clocks on top of sky scrappers experience a deviation from those on the ground, due to less gravity effecting space/time.

Is this true? Is time faster or slower in the absence of gravity?

Also, I read that time stops in a black hole.

Answer 1

oh yes! and it's called gravitational time dilation.

look it up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_time_dilation

interesting question

//edit the clocks'd be a little faster higher up
and in a black hole... who knows?!

Answer 2

time is the fastest where there is no gravity

the more gravity there is, the slower time passes

on the even horizon of a black hole, the person passing through it would see time stop so I guess would never actually get to the stage where they are falling into, at least from their point of view ;-)


one interesting practical application, is the GPS system. The GPS devices compute their location based on time lags between the signals received from the satellites. And to be able to get to a good level of precision, they actually need to take into account the relativistic effects of gravity on the satellites' time!

Answer 3

Untrue, ther is nothing that affects time, seeing as it is not a physical concept. Whether you are in deep space or your living room an hour is an hour. Even if the skyscraper was in space, the non gravity would not have an effect on the clock, since it is a device being moved on a mechanical arm. Now getting the clock itself to not float around would be the trick. Gravity can only affect physical properties.

Answer 4

no, this is untrue. gravity does not affect the passage of time. relative velocity however does, and the relative velocity of the tip of a sky scraper is a very very very small fraction of a precent larger than the velocity of the ground below it because of the difference of radius and the rotation of the earth. i would however doubt you could actually observe this effect unless you were watching over the period of many years.