time dilatation wrongly interpreted ?

[jessez13]

<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>I read soooo many text and looked at soooo many animations about relativity.... I understand it, but i would like to clarify something. In all the examples (the train and embarquement, the clock etc...) they always state very clearly that the observer would SEE the time slow down. I don't refute this, in fact i agree 100%, a fast moving away clock would APPEAR to slow. And that is what tickles my neurons, all the text books i read use the words "appears to slow", "perceived time is slower", "see".....&nbsp;All the serious works on this says "time appears to slow", i never saw an explanation of the theory where they say "time does slow". Are we just mis-interpreting and taking what we see as the absolute reality ? Light takes time to travel, so all that we see is in the past. When we finally "see" the (fast moving away) clock, it is already farther in reality.Let's do some common math:Suppose we send a clock at 150,000 km/s (half light speed, let's round the numbers...). After 5 seconds, the clock shows 5 seconds and is at 750,000 km away.&nbsp;Light going at 300,000km/s will take (750,000/300,000) 2.5 seconds to come back to you. So 7.5 seconds after you sent the clock, you read it showing 5 seconds. time appeared to slow.now faster:Suppose we send a clock at 250,000 km/s (83% light speed, let's round the numbers...). After 5 seconds, the clock show 5 seconds and is at 1,250,000 km away.&nbsp;Light going at 300,000km/s will take (1,250,000/300,000)&nbsp;4.2 seconds to come back to you. So&nbsp;9.2 seconds after you sent the clock, you read it showing 5 seconds. time appeared to slow even more.The faster it goes, the more&nbsp;you see it slowing, which is what the theory says, i'm not arguing this, and even agree that laboratories experiments showed that.... but does the clock really slow ?&nbsp; </p><p>Posted by killium</DIV></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><font size="2">First of all clocks moving relative to you always appear slow to you as long you remain in an inertial frame, even the ones moving towards you or passing off in the distance.&nbsp; This is after taking into account that you know that a signal from the clock will take a finite amount of time to reach you.&nbsp; In the twin paradox all inertial frames of references will agree that the traveling twin will have aged less than the earth twin. </font></p><p><font size="2">&nbsp;</font></p>