Why does Time slow down as ones acceleration increases

[reign]

Could anyone explain to me why time(Observence of another that is not going the speed of light) slow down as one increases their speed?<br /><br />"Time slows as speed increases. (Only when viewed by another frame of reference)"<br /><br />Wouldn't you think that everyone around you would be going slower than you are?

 

[docm]

Time dilation is manifested in two circumstances:<br /><br />Special relativity: clocks moving with respect to a stationary observer run slower. This effect is most commonly described by inferring the Twin Paradox.<br /><br />General relativity: clocks in gravity wells, such as in close proximity to a planet, star or black hole, run slower. Proven many times over; mathematically and by measurement. GPS requires calculations to account for it.<br /><br />Why does the stationary twin age more than his fast traveling brother?<br /><br />You could look it as the mass of the traveler increasing because of his velocity and this increased gravity well is what 'slows time' locally and causes the paradox.<br /><br />Neither will 'sense' a dilation in their own locale and each will perceive that the other is the one that's been 'dilated.'<br /><br />There are measurable, but very tiny, time dilations all around you; people driving in cars have a slower time reference than pedestrians and race car drivers are slower still. The problem with observing them is that the differences are barely measurable and are certainly not perceivable. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[lukman]

Perhaps it is just like atoms movement which is slower at lower temperature and totally frozen at absolute zero. just like time freeze at speed of light -) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[siarad]

I've been trying over the past week to start a topic about my confusion over this, maybe the writing will sort me out though.<br />I only have limited local library WWW use which doesn't help <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" />

 

[arkady]

Hard question. Not sure if it can be answered at this point in time actually.<br /><br />Funny thing to get your head around. But atleast it provides a reasonable explanation as to why elementary particles are considered eternal, since they move about at lightspeed. I've often wondered if you could experience the end of time if you we're able to accelerate yourself to lightspeed. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "<font color="#0000ff"><em>The choice is the Universe, or nothing</em> ... </font>" - H.G Wells </div>

 

[kelvinzero]

You can deduce the basics of special relativity from the statement that the speed of light is the same for all observers and then applying a little trigonometry. It is wonderfully simple once someone demonstrates it.<br /><br /><b>The twin paradox shows us why special relativity has to be extended with general relativity.</b><br /><br />Special relativity by itself would lead to a paradox. Yes, as your twin is crusing off to another star, their time seems to be moving slower. However from their perspective it is you that is moving, so they observe your time as moving slower. So when you come back together, you must see them as younger than yourself, but they must see you has the younger one: A paradox.<br /><br />So we introduce general relativity which says time also moves slower in an accelerating reference frame. The two twins are not in exactly the same situation because one has undergone acceleration. Not only that, I guess we could start figuring out an equation for it because we assume it must exactly account for the time descrepancy of the twin paradox.

 

[elzzie]

The reason you appear ( to yourself ) to travel into the future as you accelerate toward the speed of light is due to "time dilation". It is explained in the general and special theories of relativity. There are a few ways for "time dilation" to occur; Sitting near the event horizon of a black hole, acceleration toward the speed of light ( you get time dilation from this because you create a "gravity well". The faster an object of mass nears the speed of light, the more mass it gains. Eventually, collapsing into a black hole. ) and being inside a hollow object of very high mass. <br /><br />A clock subjected to higher gravity of a "gravity well" would tick slower than a clock on earth. Therefore ending the "Twin Paradox".

 

[vandivx]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>we introduce general relativity which says time also moves slower in an accelerating reference frame. The two twins are not in exactly the same situation because one has undergone acceleration. Not only that, I guess we could start figuring out an equation for it because we assume it must exactly account for the time discrepancy of the twin paradox.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />I understand this was calculated and the time dilation due to the time periods that are spent accelerating at some rate do not account for all of time dilation but only fairly small part<br /><br />point of the traveling twin example is that the longer he spends traveling the more time dilation difference (relative to the stay at home twin) he accumulates<br /><br />if you accelerate to a given speed you get certain given time dilation and it doesn't matter if that acceleration takes place in short or long time - like you could accelerate only a little but over the whole trip or accelerate hard and spend the trip coasting at uniform velocity, in each case it comes to the same thing as far as time dilation during acceleration goes<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[siarad]

Isn't the added time only seen by the remote observer whereas the one experiencing it sees time passing normally. Surely if this were not so all the stars would be invisibly black, with added time slowing their atomic actions. <br />No time is universal as are the laws of physics.<br />SatNav satellite clocks with added time of 34usec? a day have to be corrected by adding that amount of 'our time' but the satellites orbit exactly the same way irrespective of this i.e. they pass overhead at the same time daily. Further, unless the transmitter/receivers are continuously frequency corrected all our Satnav would be way off tune by now.<br />Isn't the paradox only in the <b>clocks</b> keeping different times, atomic ones at that but time still passing normally.<br />None of this is scientific, just showing my confusuion.

 

[kelvinzero]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><br />point of the traveling twin example is that the longer he spends traveling the more time dilation difference (relative to the stay at home twin) he accumulates <br /><p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />If I understand what you are saying, that is an interesting point that I had not considered properly.. but your wording could confuse people. Applying special relativity does create this paradox. Both twins must observe the other to be slowed (by identical factors) during the periods where neither is accelerating. Whatever resolves this paradox must appear during the period when the situation is not symetrical, ie one is accelerating.<br /><br />The section "Resolution of the paradox in general relativity" within this link pretty much says what i was trying to say, except presumably they actually understand it. I was only stating the obvious part that except while one is accelerating, the situation is symetrical.<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox

 

[arkady]

Yes yes, but why?<br /><br />I've been pondering time dilation myself for years and years, and although I'm fairly confident I understand the nature of this phenomenon, I haven't been able to get my head around as to what is the cause. Thats what I meant in the post further up, when I said I wasn't sure there were a valid answer to that particular question. At least I haven't encountered one yet. (and understood it <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />)<br /><br />.. So please try cut it out in cardboard for me if you feel this has allready been answered elsewhere in this thread.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "<font color="#0000ff"><em>The choice is the Universe, or nothing</em> ... </font>" - H.G Wells </div>

 

[lukman]

Maybe string theory can answer the question, else this is just the way it should be. -) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[3488]

Would this be better of in Phenomena or Sci Fi.<br /><br />Sounds too much like people getting ideas from Star Trek & Doctor Who.<br /><br />Andrew Brown. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>

 

[elzzie]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p> Would this be better of in Phenomena or Sci Fi.<br /><br />Sounds too much like people getting ideas from Star Trek & Doctor Who. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Not at all. The statement "time slows down for one as they accelerate" is proven in modern physics. Its not science fiction at all. Its science fact.<br /><br />Just explaining it sounds like science fiction. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[trumptor]

"There are a few ways for "time dilation" to occur; Sitting near the event horizon of a black hole, acceleration toward the speed of light ( you get time dilation from this because you create a "gravity well". The faster an object of mass nears the speed of light, the more mass it gains. Eventually, collapsing into a black hole. )...A clock subjected to higher gravity of a "gravity well" would tick slower than a clock on earth."<br /><br />Relativity always gets me confused and makes me feel borderline ********. Sorry, but true. The difficulty I have is considering where to make the spectator point when looking at the universe and thinking through the effects.<br /><br />Considering that we know there are millions of galaxies out there travelling at a huge variety of speeds away from us, or a few towards us (Andromeda), how does it all fit together? There are galaxies moving away from us at speeds approaching c that we can see, and assuming there are beings of some sort there, they can see us too. And with the recent findings that the rate of expansion is increasing, we are accelerating away from each other. How does our time compare to other galaxies? Should it vary widely? Wouldn't beings on some galaxies be looking and saying that the universe is only 5by old and others say its 20by old? If we are all accelerating from a common center wouldn't we all be growing more massive?<br /><br />If we as a galaxy were slingshot by other galaxys' gravity assists throughout the universe considerably enough times to where we had undergone far more acceleration than other galaxies, would we be looking at nearby galaxies that have aged considerably more than ours? And the same goes the other way. Are there young galaxies out there that look at ours as ancient because they were flung around the universe? And galaxies that we will never see because they are already travelling away from us at faster than c, will they be on verge of becoming black holes from our perspective? I'm sure the <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em><font color="#0000ff">______________</font></em></p><p><em><font color="#0000ff">Caution, I may not know what I'm talking about.</font></em></p> </div>

 

[vandivx]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Both twins must observe the other to be slowed (by identical factors) during the periods where neither is accelerating. Whatever resolves this paradox must appear during the period when the situation is not symetrical, ie one is accelerating. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />special relativity as Einstein made it and understood it had the twins aging assymetrically - during the constant velocity phase of the trip, plain special relativity implies and demands that<br /><br />for example that observation of muons in cosmic particle showers living much longer due to high velocities which enables them to reach the ground and be captured in detectors (while by all reckoning they should have been converted to other particles when still high up in atmosphere - why, one could say those muons could be considered at rest with the Earth flying towards them and so it should be Earth and its creatures that should suffer time dilation... and it should be symmetric as you say and then the muons should never reach the ground in their flight because all time dilation being symmetric would be only relative (not real) but the point is it is very real and it is assymetric effect, the fact that those muons do reach ground to land in our particle detectors means that the aging happens due to uniform speed and it is assymetric effect<br /><br />it became paradox because it implied the existence of absolute space and that was and is still is unacceptable to modern physics, nobody knows how to deal with absolute space and that's why scientists are pushed into the conclusion that there is a paradox involved but it is only paradox if one refuses the idea of absolute space (ether)<br /><br />twin aging effects is one instance where special relativity lays bare its incompletness and that failure some physicists try to mask by claiming that in this case one needs general relativity to explain it properly, other physicists debunk the idea that all assym <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[derekmcd]

"<i> Wouldn't beings on some galaxies be looking and saying that the universe is only 5by old and others say its 20by old?</i>"<br /><br />According to the cosmological principal in the the universe is isotropic and homogeneous, every galaxy would likely come to the same conclusion as we do.<br /><br />"<i>If we are all accelerating from a common center wouldn't we all be growing more massive?</i>"<br /><br />It is not the actual galaxies themselves physically accelerating. It's the metric expansion of spacetime in between the two galaxies coupled with 'dark energy' accelerating said metric expansion.<br /><br />As for a 'common center', I refer back the nature of the universe being isotropic. Every galaxy could view themselves as the center. If you ascribe the creation of the universe to the big bang theory, there is no center. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div> </div><br /><div><span style="color:#0000ff" class="Apple-style-span">"If something's hard to do, then it's not worth doing." - Homer Simpson</span></div> </div>

 

[kelvinzero]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><br />so we end up with two camps of scientists, one claims (using foggy or obviously forced explanations) that acceleration part of the travel is where all the assymetrical aging happens while the other see that aging during the acceleration alone is not sufficent to explain the effect but they are powerless to offer acceptable (or really any) solution and it is due to this camp that the moniker paradox was coined <br /><p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />Not according to that wiki article or history as it was taught to me.<br /><br />I dont have the mathematical skills to investigate a serious assault on relativity, and I certainly cannot say anything to dent your own opinion if all those proponents of relativity cannot.<br /><br />cya <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[vandivx]

well, all I can say one finds all kinds of positions on this issue and even reputable sources have differing opinion, I suppose most today stick with the acceleration view and downplay rigorous analysis as well as special relativity in the process<br /><br />absolute space is simply impossible to deal with by everybody out there appart from extreme minority and so physicists either talk about paradox or they invent some sort of explanation to do away with the problem<br /><br />and of course paradox cannot be, it is surefire thing that one is doing something wrong, that the conclusion of his thinking is invalid, paradox means admittance that one can't deal with the problem at hand and the hope is that the proper solution will be found one day<br /><br />of course if one could always rely on authorities or majority opinion there would be no need for geniuses in the history of science, authorities would always know and provide final answers, however it has never been like that and one has to use one's own judgement to recognize the situation when 'the king has no clothes' although the authorities and or majority opinion claim how the new cloth is fine...<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[lukman]

I believe this phenomena has got to do with at least one of the 4 fundamental forces. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[alokmohan]

Time travel antimslowindown are not same.

 

[alokmohan]

Time slow down due to theory relativity.

 

[alokmohan]

Timetravel is possible.

 

[3488]

Can we stick this in Phenonema or Sci Fi here it belongs please.<br /><br />Why we allow Pseudoscientific nonsense likle this in a science forum, beats me.<br /><br />No wonder why people leave SDC, why they see rubbish like this <br />masquerading as science.<br /><br />Andrew Brown. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>

 

[lukman]

Very true, but too many other posts also dont belong to where it should be. But i agree, this should be in phenomena -). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>