Time Dilation

I'm hoping to start a physics conversation. I know I've seen at least one NASA employee on here, so we might be able to have some interesting fun.

Does anyone here understand time dilation? I understand what it does, and I'm on the verge of comprehending why it does it. I think at this point I can go no farther without discussing it.

 

i am not anywhere near an expert on this.

but as I understand it, this is more of a perceived thing than a "real" thing. Not saying it isn't real... just trying to say time itself isn't being adjusted - i.e. nobody is traveling through time any different than we are at this moment when this happens.

speed and distance both play into gravity's effects on things. including the workings of time pieces, be they mechanical or crystal vibrations. Probably on the cells in your body too - and I guess may impact our internal clocks as well... maybe.

gravity is a constant... so when you build things (like a clock or building), you can count on the forces of gravity to be consistent. but they don't take into account if the building or clock is in space or moving really really fast.

just like I would expect a skyscraper to fall apart in space or if it was moving at mach 3 because it is not built to handle those forces, I would expect a clock too would behave differently.

This is just my thinking on it and i have not really studied this. Just a novice opinion that is subject to being corrected.

 

Thank you for the response. I wouldn't consider myself even near expert either. I have far more questions than answers at this point.

That was my first thoughts on it also, but time dilation refers to the laws of special relativity. What this means to me is not to say that you can travel through time by traveling at light speed. If you travel at light speed though and time does indeed slow down for you as it does for light than the perception of the amount of time you had been traveling would be dramatically different from that of perception of time someone else has been standing still. This could mean that you have been traveling for thousands of years but the time that has passed from the perception of the person standing still is that you have been traveling for mere minutes. For example, you leave earth and travel at near light speed for thousands of years. Because of time dilation your aging slows to a near halt. When you return thousands of years have passed, but from the relative view of Earth it has been minutes or hours. You leave earth physically in one state and return thousands of years later in almost the same state.

The thing I'm grappling with most now is, for the person traveling would they have felt those thousands of years during the trip and therefore would not have time traveled at all mentally? Relative to the traveler time on earth standing still would of slowed down due to time dilation, so it could be possible that after knowing they're traveling thousands of years they would be arriving back at their past relative to time on the space ship.

This must be why everyone has to go into suspended animation for space travel on movies.

 

Suspended animation, as in cryogenics? Im not educated in either cryogenics or time dilation, but its all very interesting to me.

I think cryogenics would be required for a trip of that nature. I mean you're saying that you leave earth in a craft of sorts traveling at a speed of light. You're saying that by traveling at the speed of light your body would halt its aging. I cant comprehend how it could. The body is going to age regardless unless every-bit of your body is halted like in cryogenics.

Very interesting topic.

 

time dilation - Bing

And as for time ? we all run out of it sooner or later

 

Sounds like something I used to think of while hitting a bong.

 

That's what the theory says. The reason they believe this is because of the way light reacts to traveling at light speed. As far as I know nothing else has ever traveled at light speed to date, so it can't be fully tested. Theoretically time stops at light speed and slows down all the way up to that point.

If this is right they wouldn't need suspended animation because the body wouldn't age. What they would need is suspended mental activity. I can't imagine the mental rigors of traveling in a space ship for thousands of years. Maybe if your physical aging is suspended this would also suspend mental processes. If physical aging stopped during the trip would this mean your digestive process could be suspended? Would this mean you wouldn't need to breath? From what I've read these theory's are solid enough that NASA is investigating what adjustments they will need to make for a future manned mission to mars.

 

Sounds like something I should do to get my mind off of this

 

I just did some reading on this. Awesome topic man. I suppose if light does stop time itself then if one was moving at the speed of light all activity would be halted. Im not so sure how they'd operate the vessel though. It'd have to be an auto-pilot kind of deal and I wouldnt really trust that at light speed lol

 

These are definitely theory's way beyond our capability of using at this point. Sadly I will probably debate this late at night for the rest of my life and never live to see if it's true