Time Dilation

ok, so that's the premise.

the part i have trouble with is that a "year" is the amount of time it takes Earth to travel around our star. it doesn't really matter how fast you are going, a year is still a year. your speed has no direct influence on the Earth's rotation.

so you leave, travel for "thousands of years" (or thousands of earth rotations) and the static observer only perceives mere minutes.

IMO, these are mutually exclusive. I think, really though, it is a matter of semantics on how we measure and state "one year" and by extension, thousands.

I think if we can work on using more precise words (?), it may help us understand the implications of what we are attempting to discuss better.

:-/


In a separate way of thinking, when we look through a telescope and see the stars, we are seeing the reflection of light that bounced off what you are looking at a long time ago... longer ago the further away it is. The Universe of Star Wars is a long long way away bc it happened in a galaxy a long long time ago. was that dorky to say? :

So what you are seeing is an image of how what you are looking at looked then not today. And is why scientists say things like "peeking back in time".

So time does not travel through the light, it has to catch up (but we have 0 control of the distance or speed, so we have 0 control of what point in time's past we can peek).

 

My mind has gone cross-eyed on this now. I think I need some sleep. I see your points Peredhil. Time is time. It seems more like what were talking about is people living longer because they're moving faster.

 

;DI feel the same way;D

 

Peredhil has a point - if the sun explodes we would not see it until 9 minutes after it had occured I recall (probably wrong , but its not real time I know that much)

and that if thats happens we are going to have to go to orange alert
but that will mean someone has to change the little flashing lamp?


Steve

 

I think you have this reversed. Say you have two tin brothers. One twin brother gets on a spacecraft that travels at near light speeds for what he perceives to be a year. The other stays on earth. When the space traveler gets home is twin will be much older if not already dead of old age.

It's been a long time since I studied this in college physics so I don't remember the details anymore. What I do remember is that the laws of physics, as we know them anyway, won't allow travel at such high speeds. As speed is increased the mass of the object actually increases making it too difficult to continue accelerating.

 

so i took ottys statement as advice *cough* *cough*... then thought about this for quite some time... till finally the lava lamp in the room took over my attention. ill go with this as my final answer "its too complicated for me to fathom"

 

Don't forget to lay on the floor and watch the ceiling fan rotate for hours..

 

Is there somthing worng with this act ? Man pink floyd or Tom waits and a ceiling fan all have wasted a few hrs of my life ;D
And in the end we all die ! times up LOL

 

That's the best and most common analogy of it. I've just been trying to understand why better.

I read on NASA's site that they have tested this theory and to date show it to be accurate.

They are definitely no where near being able to approach the speed of light with a spacecraft, and even if they were there is still skeptics that say the cosmic radiation you would face long term in space would completely nullify the affects of time dilation.

 

There is no such thing as time. Man invented the concept.