Why does time slow down as one goes faster

[plastick]

I was watching some videos on this stuff where the traveler flies away from his twin at the speed of light and then returns only to be younger than his twin. I understood a lot of the material, but I still wasn't clear on exactly how time slows down as you go faster relative to something else that is sitting still.

So I was hoping someone could help me better understand.

 

[Modelworks]

From the man himself :
"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity."

 

[plastick]

Thats not at all the answer I was looking for and it doesn't help me understand the concept.

 

[QuantumPion]

This page has a good explanation: http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/sr/time.html

 

[imported_Baloo]

Time itself does not change, rather, it's ones perception of time that changes. Imagine if you were moving thru space near the speed of light, but not at the speed of light nor faster, and you could look behind you to observe. The light leaving objects behind you moves at light speed, but due to your speed, it takes a while to catch up to you so everything would appear to be moving in slow motion. Whereas in front of you, it's all fast-forward. At the speed of light, everything behind you would appear to be standing still, still fast forward in front of you. Exceed the speed of light, and everything behind you appears to move backwards. Nothing is actually slowing or moving backwards or moving fast forward, it just your perception of it because of the way light travels - it's all about light.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: plastick
Thats not at all the answer I was looking for and it doesn't help me understand the concept.

The quote has more depth than it appears.
Think about what he is saying and it really does apply to understanding the subject.

 

[plastick]

Baloo: I had originally figured that much, but the video that I was watching mentioned something confusing to me: that if the twin came back from his far away trip at light speed, he would not have aged as much, but his brother would be older. So if that is true, each person would have experienced different amounts of relative time in the same amount of actual time? I'm having trouble differentiating all the factors here.

 

[f95toli]

Originally posted by: Baloo
Time itself does not change, rather, it's ones perception of time that changes.

NO, time DOES slow down by a factor is sqrt(1-v^2/c^2). This is real effect, not a percieved one. A rather fun (but pointless) experiment is to take two atomic clocks, leave one at home and then fly with the other around the world in a fast plane. When you come home and compare the clocks you will find that the clock you took with you is "running behind" compared to the one that wasn't moving.
This has actually been tested and the effect is large enought to be measured.

 

[firewolfsm]

As f95toli said, time warps with space (which both warp due to gravity) and the effect can be measured, this is the special theory of relativity. What Baloo explained is the theory of relativity. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[DrPizza]

It's not really appropriate to say "time slows down." Regardless of what speed you're traveling, 1 second is one second long. Don't forget, we're buzzing along at a pretty good clip here on Earth as Earth orbits the sun. So, our clocks are "running slower" compared to the clock of someone stationary in our solar system. (just a very very small amount slower, as we're no where near the speed of light, see f95toli's equation.) There is no universal frame of reference.

Probably the easiest way to think about his is (allegedly) the same way Einstein began thinking about this. What would happen if you were traveling in a car at 99% the speed of light? We already knew at that point that no matter which direction we were going on earth, the speed of light was always the same. Thus, if we measured the speed of light reaching the earth from some star that the Earth is heading away from, it was the same 6 months later when the earth was headed toward that star. (as we go around the sun)

The speed of light is irrelevant to how fast you're traveling. If you can accept that last sentence, then it causes some problems. So, what if you are traveling at .99 the speed of light and turn on the headlights? Well, then you'll see light traveling away from you at the speed of light. Ahhhh, then someone on earth watching you turn your headlights on would therefore see light move away from you at faster than the speed of light - old style of thought: the speeds are additive. That leads to a contradiction, because we'll see it at the speed of light as well. The thing that reconciled this problem was that the rate of time was able to differ, relative to each observer. But, each observer perceives one second as being one second long.

 

[Gannon]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
It's not really appropriate to say "time slows down." Regardless of what speed you're traveling, 1 second is one second long. Don't forget, we're buzzing along at a pretty good clip here on Earth as Earth orbits the sun. So, our clocks are "running slower" compared to the clock of someone stationary in our solar system. (just a very very small amount slower, as we're no where near the speed of light, see f95toli's equation.) There is no universal frame of reference.

Probably the easiest way to think about his is (allegedly) the same way Einstein began thinking about this. What would happen if you were traveling in a car at 99% the speed of light? We already knew at that point that no matter which direction we were going on earth, the speed of light was always the same. Thus, if we measured the speed of light reaching the earth from some star that the Earth is heading away from, it was the same 6 months later when the earth was headed toward that star. (as we go around the sun)

The speed of light is irrelevant to how fast you're traveling. If you can accept that last sentence, then it causes some problems. So, what if you are traveling at .99 the speed of light and turn on the headlights? Well, then you'll see light traveling away from you at the speed of light. Ahhhh, then someone on earth watching you turn your headlights on would therefore see light move away from you at faster than the speed of light - old style of thought: the speeds are additive. That leads to a contradiction, because we'll see it at the speed of light as well. The thing that reconciled this problem was that the rate of time was able to differ, relative to each observer. But, each observer perceives one second as being one second long.

Would it be safe to say that DECAY slows down? i.e. say if you were measuring the decay of a dead body or an atom/molecule moving at light speed? It seems to me that the natural dissipation of energy cannot move as fast through you (all atoms, etc) as one speeds up.

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: Baloo
Time itself does not change, rather, it's ones perception of time that changes.

Then explain this experiment:

The experiment:

Physicists got on the top of a mountain and measured the amount of mesons there at high altitude. Then, they went to the bottom of the mountain and measured the number of mesons there. Some mesons disintegrate on their way from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the mountain. But, remember, the physicists already knew at what rate the mesons disintegrated in the lab. Knowing how many of them are at the top of the mountain, how many of them go "puf" in each unit of time (the disintegration rate) and how fast they fly towards the bottom of the mountain you can compute how many mesons should be at the bottom of the mountain. But the physicists could also measure the actual number of mesons reaching the bottom of the mountain. The result is that the actual number of mesons at the bottom of the mountain (determined experimentally) is far greater than the calculated number.

 

[TuxDave]

Originally posted by: Gannon
Would it be safe to say that DECAY slows down? i.e. say if you were measuring the decay of a dead body or an atom/molecule moving at light speed? It seems to me that the natural dissipation of energy cannot move as fast through you (all atoms, etc) as one speeds up.

Outside of using relativity as an argument, why would that be?

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
It's not really appropriate to say "time slows down." Regardless of what speed you're traveling, 1 second is one second long. Don't forget, we're buzzing along at a pretty good clip here on Earth as Earth orbits the sun. So, our clocks are "running slower" compared to the clock of someone stationary in our solar system. (just a very very small amount slower, as we're no where near the speed of light, see f95toli's equation.) There is no universal frame of reference.

Actually there is

It's the frame of motion in which the dipole term in the cosmic microwave background anisotropy is zero.

 

[bullbert]

Originally posted by: plastick
Baloo: I had originally figured that much, but the video that I was watching mentioned something confusing to me: that if the twin came back from his far away trip at light speed, he would not have aged as much, but his brother would be older. So if that is true, each person would have experienced different amounts of relative time in the same amount of actual time? I'm having trouble differentiating all the factors here.

Actually the twin that came back from his far away trip at light speed, would be nothing but goey jello, or maybe, pudding. Yeah, pudding.

His brother, who would be older, opens the space capsule, and would be reminded of Homer Simpon. "Hmm. Jello Pudding Pops. Arggggggggh [drools]."

 

[SsupernovaE]

The way I have thought about it is that you are "borrowing speed" from the time vector to traverse a geodesic (in special relativity). The closer a massive object approaches the speed of light, the more "motion" is being taken from dimension t to traverse xyz.

Whether or not this implies that time is a real substance, I do not know.

 

[firewolfsm]

Spacetime warps due to gravity so yes, time itself can change, along with perception of time.

And supernova kinda has it.

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: DrPizza
It's not really appropriate to say "time slows down." Regardless of what speed you're traveling, 1 second is one second long. Don't forget, we're buzzing along at a pretty good clip here on Earth as Earth orbits the sun. So, our clocks are "running slower" compared to the clock of someone stationary in our solar system. (just a very very small amount slower, as we're no where near the speed of light, see f95toli's equation.) There is no universal frame of reference.

Actually there is

It's the frame of motion in which the dipole term in the cosmic microwave background anisotropy is zero.

Thanks, I didn't know that.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: DrPizza

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: DrPizza
It's not really appropriate to say "time slows down." Regardless of what speed you're traveling, 1 second is one second long. Don't forget, we're buzzing along at a pretty good clip here on Earth as Earth orbits the sun. So, our clocks are "running slower" compared to the clock of someone stationary in our solar system. (just a very very small amount slower, as we're no where near the speed of light, see f95toli's equation.) There is no universal frame of reference.

Actually there is

It's the frame of motion in which the dipole term in the cosmic microwave background anisotropy is zero.

Thanks, I didn't know that.

I'm not sure it fits all definitions, but it is one which everyone in the universe should be able to agree on... I think.

 

[Gannon]

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: Gannon
Would it be safe to say that DECAY slows down? i.e. say if you were measuring the decay of a dead body or an atom/molecule moving at light speed? It seems to me that the natural dissipation of energy cannot move as fast through you (all atoms, etc) as one speeds up.

Outside of using relativity as an argument, why would that be?

Let me qualify my statement by saying: It's only a hunch I have, and none of the details are worked out, except that I visualize all space and matter as a unified "spacial mesh" in my mind, in which energy is flowing through (which we percieve as time).

The way I see it in my head is that there is a NATURAL energy flow through everything that exists (think of it like electrons through a circuit)... think of time moving forward, and as time moves forward and atoms move, think of those movements as caused by flow of 'electrons' or simply "the fake" electricity you see in the movies, to help you grasp it.

Now when we start to move from a stationary position, we begin to slow down that flow of energy slightly (remember the clock experiment) and as we get faster and faster energy dissipation seems to slow more and more, it seems to me that the more stationary one is in terms of moving through 'empty space' (or simply space) the 'decay rate' speeds up.

As we move our spacial displacement slightly slows down energy dissipation for some reason and the only rational explanation that I can visualize is that what we percieve as "time" is really energy flow (i.e. like electrons in a circuit) and the universe itself is very similar to a circuit.

I was reading "The animate and inanimate" (not sure?) by william james sidis, the child prodigy and he theorized that there is a NEGATIVE universe, where everything runs backwards. And that seems to fit the the theory of the 'universe as similar to a circuit' model.

 

[emfiend]

I think Einstein's original paper on electrodynamics is surprisingly simple to read (this is one of those seminal ones that describes special relativity). The first few paragraphs about clock synchronization says a lot...

English translation of 1905 Annalen der Physik article

If I might be so bold, I think what most have inferred after it has contained equal parts "social philosophy" and "natural philosophy."

 

[Gannon]

Originally posted by: emfiend
I think Einstein's original paper on electrodynamics is surprisingly simple to read (this is one of those seminal ones that describes special relativity). The first few paragraphs about clock synchronization says a lot...

English translation of 1905 Annalen der Physik article

If I might be so bold, I think what most have inferred after it has contained equal parts "social philosophy" and "natural philosophy."

He's basically defining time as flow of matter and energy in space at an arbitrary period of motion (flow). I think it's better to think of "time" the word and concept itself, as an empty concept, and define what we call time "speed of energy distribution and dissipation over a distance"

 

[Nathelion]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: DrPizza
It's not really appropriate to say "time slows down." Regardless of what speed you're traveling, 1 second is one second long. Don't forget, we're buzzing along at a pretty good clip here on Earth as Earth orbits the sun. So, our clocks are "running slower" compared to the clock of someone stationary in our solar system. (just a very very small amount slower, as we're no where near the speed of light, see f95toli's equation.) There is no universal frame of reference.

Actually there is

It's the frame of motion in which the dipole term in the cosmic microwave background anisotropy is zero.

Eh umm. That may be an inertial reference frame that can be found regardless of the reference frame the observer is in (but I'm not sure that's true), however, even if it does hold, there is nothing *special* about it other than that it is maybe the same everywhere. I figure you meant the post more as amusement than anything else, but just to clear things up: Regardless of whether the dipole term of the in the cosmic microwave background anisotropy is zero, your inertial reference frame is still just as relative as it's always been.

 

[herm0016]

just think of your speed and your time as 2 different axis of a graph and you are moving along the 45 degree line ( slope of 1) if you go faster then you will change the slope of the line, making you travel less in the time direction per your speed quantity. or if you slow down you will be going more in the time direction than the speed direction. the vector addition of your point will always be a constant, the speed of light.

 

[firewolfsm]

Well, if information can only travel at the speed of light, then the closer you are to that value, the harder it is for information to reach you.

By information I mean energy and change