if time slows as you aproach the speed of light is that only to the?

Question

observer or is time really slowing to the occupant,and if thats true could you live a lot longer traveling at that speed?

Answer 1

Speed is only as relative to an observer. If you are traveling at the speed of light, it can only be in relation to something you observe or by an observer. If you don't have a fixed reference, there is no way to tell if it is you moving in relation of the observer or vice-versa.
The twins paradox says that if one twin travels near the speed of light in a circle and comes back later, he will find his twin brother much older than him. The question then is: Why is one older than the other and not vice-versa? The answer is: The one who left the earth on a spaceship accelerated very much and decelerated likewise. Speed cannot be measured without a reference but acceleration can. At constant speed in a spaceship outside any reference, you won't feel you're moving. But if you accelerate, you will feel the pull of the acceleration as something similar to gravity. That is the result of your mass.

Answer 2

If you are teh traveller, time passes at the same rate for you - you don't know you are moving near the speed of light. An outside observer sees ally our clocks running slow compared to theirs - they see time passing more slowly for you than they.

But, and here's the tricky part, when you look at the observer's clocks, they all appear to be running more slowly than yours. In effect, you can't tell which of you is in motion.

The famous twin paradox is based on this. One twin gets in a spaceship takes off from earth, travels at near light speed for some time, turns around and comes home. The traveller has aged a few years but his twin has aged many 10's of years. The only reason one twin can be determined to have moved over the other is that the traveller has accelerated 3 times during his trip: take-off, turn around, and landing. Thus, his reference frame is no longer in uniform motion.

Answer 3

You would not live any longer as far as you are concerned. In fact, you would feel perfectly normal, and would age normally. However, when you return all your friends will have died from old age centuries in the past. Time will pass at a different rate for you than it will for them, but only as compared to each other. So you will not notice the difference until you compare yourself to someone who did not travel with you. Sounds sort of lonely.

Answer 4

It is not time that slows, it is motion that slows, your metabolism would slow down, this would prolong your life span. Time is a man made thing. he had to create it in order to be able to calculate speed and distance of motion.