Why does Time slow down as ones acceleration increases

[derekmcd]

I don't think the discussion of time dilation should be relegated to phenomena. Although this thread does have potential to go that direction, I wouldn't have a problem with letting it mature a bit.<br /><br />Only <i><b>time</b></i> will tell <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <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>

 

[arkady]

3488:<br /><br />Well it is a phenomenon isn't it, but then I suppose everything is. I don't understand the fuzz, a perfectly reasonable question was asked: What is the cause of time dilation. If the answer is unknown, why not just post so? <br /><br />And is it prohibited to speculate about the unknowns? Seems a little counterproductive to me on an internet forum. Also the troll filter isn't invented yet I'm afraid. Why can't you just ignore silly posts like the rest of us. Heck you don't even have to follow the thread, as you couldn't muster any contribution except a whine post. Thanks for the bumps though.<br /><br />Don't care what section this goes btw. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "<font color="#0000ff"><em>The choice is the Universe, or nothing</em> ... </font>" - H.G Wells </div>

 

[kyle_baron]

<font color="yellow"><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. </font><br /><br />Isn't traveling at the speed of light, where mass increases infinitly, the same as a gravity well of a blackhole? Isn't it just the Equivalence Principle (of acceleration) at work here?<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_equivalence#The_Einstein_equivalence_principle<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="4"><strong></strong></font></p> </div>

 

[elzzie]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p> Isn't traveling at the speed of light, where mass increases infinitly, the same as a gravity well of a blackhole? Isn't it just the Equivalence Principle (of acceleration) at work here? <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Yes. Thats what I was trying to explain in my reply earlier in this thread.

 

[derekmcd]

Keep in mind that nothing with mass can be accelerated to the speed of light. Really no point in comparing the two.<br /><br />Another point I'd like to make is the definition of acceleration in the context of this discussion. It's not simply moving forward at an increased speed. Speaking in the context of time dilation, acceleration is nothing more than a force... a change in velocity. Wether it is continued increase in speed, slowing down, changing direction or gravitational effects... they all have the same effect. <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>

 

[trumptor]

"acceleration is nothing more than a force... a change in velocity."<br /><br />This had me wonder....for planets to orbit their stars requires constant acceleration doesn't it, to balance the centrifugal force? So, are we aging slower and slower in comparison to the sun, and the moon in comparison to us? <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>

 

[trumptor]

"Why we allow Pseudoscientific nonsense likle this in a science forum, beats me."<br /><br />I think more people believe time dilation is real than believe it is pseudoscientific nonsense. And why do so many people want to throw all the interesting topics into phenomena? If you started saying that witches use a method of time dilation to stay young, I'd figure that should be in phenomena, but time dilation???<br /><br />Relax people, way toooo many people are wayyyyy too uptight. I thought with increased intelligence comes increased acceptance and tolerance, but I guess the two may actually be inversely linked in some instances. <br /><br />Anyone willing to leave the board because there is ONE thread referring to time dilation with some bizarre brainstorming ideas in the thread should be reminded that in the real world there are people starving to death every day because they have no food to eat while they're busy whining about the horrors of a thread because they have a problem with openminded discussions of a widely accepted theory. Some people need to stop reading this board when their blood-pressure starts rising and go find themselves a girlfriend. <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]

"for planets to orbit their stars requires constant acceleration doesn't it, to balance the centrifugal force? So, are we aging slower and slower in comparison to the sun, and the moon in comparison to us?"<br />------<br /><br />not so, on Mercury you would age slower relative to aging on Earth and if you could live on the Sun's surface you would be aging slowest relative to everywhere in the solar system (due to the effect of gravitational acceleration induced slowdown of aging - general relativistic phenomenon - that we talk about)<br /><br />it helps to consider part of the Sun's surface matter equivalent say to that of the Earth as being in orbit around the Sun at that distance... and conversely you could view the Earth for example as just a part of Sun except that it moves around it at differing rate and is at some distance above its surface - in fact you could think of all the planets of the solar system as being part of one huge system, one planet that has huge caverns (interplanetary space) with planets forming extension of the Sun's distant surface matter<br /><br />thus if we lived suspended in space outside the solar system, we would age fastest<br />given we live on Earth we age a bit slower due to its local gravitational acceleration and to that is added the acceleration due to the Sun's matter which further increases this slowdown of aging<br /><br />however such slowdown due to gravitational acceleration is really negligible and while I think it would be measurable if someone did experimental measuring of it, it is really too small to make any practical difference - point is the gravitation within solar system is way too weak as far as special relativistic effects go<br /><br />I think that if you lived on Jupiter you might be aging slower than living on Earth due to its huge mass even though Jupiter is much farther from Sun, in this case the local effect might override the general rule that if one is closer to the Sun one ages slower (not sure if that is so, it <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[derekmcd]

"<i>I think that if you lived on Jupiter you might be aging slower than living on Earth due to its huge mass even though Jupiter is much farther from Sun, in this case the local effect might override the general rule that if one is closer to the Sun one ages slower (not sure if that is so, it would have to be calculated)"</i><br /><br />I would say this is correct. If you apply the inverse square law to the sun, the gravitational effects are almost negligible compared to the gravitational effects of the planet. Even as close as mercury is, the gravitational effects of the sun are far less at the mean distance of mercury's orbit than the effects of mercury itself.<br /><br /> <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>

 

[arkady]

Great answers, thanks! Just spent a few hours on Equivalence Principle and relativistics and actually I think I might just get it. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />The laws of physics is assumed to be the same everywhere, so it's pretty much an extrapolation of what we allready know. Beautifully simple really, although not really an argument an a philosophical sense. So that's why physicists supposedly have nightmares about the EP being wrong. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />Reminds me a little of optics really and how light breaks when entering a prism. I forget the specifics, some clever chap used the same kind of extrapolation of another principle of nature. I call it the Lazy principle, probably known as something else. By applying the knowledge that natural phenomena like light and current is inherently lazy and shall always choose the shortest route possible, the one that takes the least amount of energy, he was able to provide a perfectly reasonable explanition as to how and why light refracts in a prism. <br /><br />It seems physics is a bit more arbitrary than I first presumed. Certainly it seems that Time is.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "<font color="#0000ff"><em>The choice is the Universe, or nothing</em> ... </font>" - H.G Wells </div>

 

[vandivx]

"explaining it sounds like science fiction."<br />---<br /><br />physicists typically establish that it happens (time dilation during acceleration), in theory and in experimental confirmation but they don't have a clue as to WHY or HOW it actually happens, physicists are increasingly incapable to supply a physical picture of the phenomena they work on <br /><br />typically laymen want to know why and how about everything but if they went to school they would soon have their heads cleaned of such hopes<br /><br />IMO those answers do exist but today's physics is mostly monkeys pushing various buttons on a black box without faintest idea what goes on inside, they just know if you do so and so, such and such happens<br /><br />asking as this thread does is really demanding new original physics work from people around here if anybody would be capable of that, I hope the thread poster realizes that and that he doesn't expect to receive any clear and curiosity satisfying answers, thing is no professional physicists would ask anything like that and expect answers<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[alokmohan]

Any one readind theory of relativity would not call all these fiction.Why so few read it?

 

[vandivx]

beats me <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />I should add that special relativity is very well established except that it all rests on the experimentally determined fact that the speed of light is constant regarding which fact nobody knows why it is so - why is it constant, just that it is, thus why I talk about black box and monkeys<br /><br />if scientists had acute minds they should be puzzling over this constancy day in day out because it is on its face like a miracle, perhaps those few who would like to see this thread dumped into the mystical phenomena forum section are aware of this fatal shortcoming at the base of special relativity and in that case I would understand their calls (also I think they are primarily astronomers and so don't have much patience with half baked theories of physics, more precisely with their physical interpretation because that so easily slips into mysticism, public secret is that wise physicists simply don't ask such question, it is only amateur onlookers or benighted 'has been' physicists of yesterday's naive school of science that ask such questions)<br /><br />if it wasn't for some serious wrinkles like that twin paradox and if we had some physical explanation underlying the equations of special relativity (namely why the speed of light is constant in all reference frames), all would be dandy and sown up and Einstein could rest peacefully that the theory is complete and finished, as it is though he should be turning around in his grave I think, I know I would <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[derekmcd]

"<i>typically laymen want to know why and how about everything but if they went to school they would soon have their heads cleaned of such hopes.</i><br /><br />Beautiful statement!!!<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />p.s. I'm one of those 'laymen' <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /> <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>

 

[siarad]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I should add that special relativity is very well established except that it all rests on the experimentally determined fact that the speed of light is constant regarding which fact nobody knows why it is so<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />It's not a <b>mystery</b> it's governed by the <b>media</b> just as the speed of sound is constant, the <b>problem</b> is we have no means of ascertaining a reference as with sound used in the Mach meter.

 

[arkady]

<font color="yellow"><< typically laymen want to know why and how about everything but if they went to school they would soon have their heads cleaned of such hopes >></font><br /><br />And possibly why a lot succesful original theories has been supplied by amateurs throughout science history, hehe. <br /><br />Nah, I definately get what your saying, and really appreciate your posts. Small heureka moment for me the other day. Makes me wonder why this point wasn't made abundantly clear to me much earlier. I mean must've had 7-8 years of physics in school counting grade school and a few electrical engineering courses. Why leave people in the dark, when in fact the whole thing is perfectly reasonable. No wonder some people feel stupid if they think they should know answers that even the professional physicists are still pondering. Wouldn't it be sad if this turned out to deter young people from learning about physics? <br /><br />Might not know a lot about physics, but when it comes to learning I know a thing or two, having spent most my life in school and the last 10 years as a kindergarten teacher. Seems to me that we often approach learning the wrong way. Sometimes you may want to approach the learning pyramid from the top, in order to create a kind of mental framework on which to build an understanding. As opposed to just starting at the bottom and working your way up. At least thats my experience with physics teachers. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "<font color="#0000ff"><em>The choice is the Universe, or nothing</em> ... </font>" - H.G Wells </div>

 

[SpeedFreek]

<font color="yellow"> It's not a mystery it's governed by the media just as the speed of sound is constant, the problem is we have no means of ascertaining a reference as with sound used in the Mach meter. </font><br /><br />Yes, but however fast you are travelling, light travelling in the same direction as you will (in a vacuum) <b>always</b> be travelling 300000 km/sec faster than you. The same effect is of course not true for sound. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000">_______________________________________________<br /></font><font size="2"><em>SpeedFreek</em></font> </p> </div>

 

[siarad]

Surely only the <i>measurement</i> not the <i>actual</i> speed you can't 'bat-on' light any more than sound unlike bullets etc.