beansbaxter
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posted October 16, 2004 12:22 AM
Physics Part 8 - Why does time slow time when matter approahes speed of light?
There was an experiment done that put an atomic clock on a spacestation which confirmed that the time passed by a little more slowly on the spacestation which is travelling at higher speed than on the ground.
Initially I do not believe the result, I simply do not know why such peculliar thing happened. However, I've thought of an explanation to convince myself as follows:
As matter speeds up, the mass also increases. The cause of time dilation is that the objects with higher speed have more inertia due to the more mass and therefore affect the time to perform physical activity. It takes more time for matter to slow down or speed up in microscopic scale, even electrons orbit slower.
The caesium atom in the atomic clock in the space station, by the same anology, has increased mass. The vibration of itself had slowed down a tiny fraction due to the tiny increase in mass, and therefore the clock runs slower.
I am no expert in this, but this seems a promising explanation to convince myself. If anyone has knowledge in this please disapprove me if I am wrong or credit me if I am correct. Thanks.
   
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Ozzy
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posted October 16, 2004 04:45 AM
Time did not slow down, the device that was used to measure time slowed down.
Time as I know it is the measurement of the rotation of the earth in relationship to the sun and this event did not change because someone took a clock into space.
The function of the clock and the matter it consists of slowed down, but "time" marched on at the same speed as always.
IF this was true, the faster you go on your bike, the longer time it would take you to go between those little white strips painted on the shoulder of the road. Go fast enough and you would be stopped because the cop in the plane would not be able to time you because time had stopped! Hmmm, maybe that is what you were trying to do, ROFLOL!!!!
just my uneducated guess :-)
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DaGoose
Parking Attendant
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posted October 16, 2004 07:29 AM
I believe the experiment was to see the difference in time between a clock on the ground (deep in a gravity well) and a clock on the spacestation(not so deep in a gravity well). Time is suppose to move more slowly the deeper in a gravity well.
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rac4it
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Bergie
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posted October 16, 2004 09:16 AM
prove it;
it's all just the the matrix, the wool that's been pulled over your eyes, what you've been told to believe
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frEEk
Administrator
ummm... yeah
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posted October 16, 2004 09:21 AM
tho i'm not sure why this phenomenon happens (not sure that i buy the theory of mass increasing with speed, first time i heard of it anyway), i do agree with ozzy. i think saying that "time slows down" is something of a misnomer. in my mind, time is constant, it's just that the subject's reaction to time has slowed down. i tend to assume that physicists mean it inthe same way as i take it, and that the idea of time actaully slowing down around the object in question is just a coloquialism brought on by the misnomer itself.
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beansbaxter
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posted October 16, 2004 09:50 AM
One fact worth mentioning was there is a type of photon that's maybe half-life is like only 2 seconds, but its origin is like light years away. Ive thought about inertia being the factor. So maybe for a high-speed traveller, thoughts/other human-processes would take a lot longer than without velocity?
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deathpulse
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posted October 16, 2004 10:28 AM
well...ok,here goes some stuff to think about beans. (keep in mind - all this stuff is relative). As the velocity of an object speeds up, its mass increases. It is ever so slight at our normal "newtonian" speeds, but as you approach the speed of light, the mass gets larger at an increasing rate (think of an x/y axis curve as the curve approaches but never quite intersects an axis). As the mass of the object increases... a few "interesting" things happen. First, its "attraction" or gravitational pull increases. This in itself has an interesting effect. Side note - space "warps" around gravity. This "warping" contributes to the "slowing" of time relative to an observer who is moving at a slower rate. Keep in mind - time to the person traveling at such a fast velocity seems to be constant.
One interesting "similar" effect occurs in theory around the event horizion of a black hole. an object that is "falling" into a black hole gets faster and faster and actually slows down to the point that an outside observer that is not falling into the black hole will see the object slow slow slow and eventually appear to stop, never crossing into the black hole.  . There is some crap to think about!
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TurboBlew
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posted October 16, 2004 10:47 AM
Been brushing up on some physics and chemistry for work lately.
Damn how did I get through this shit with a hangover when I was 20?
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Also a BadAss Internet Forum Moderator 4 Hire!! Come at me brah!
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beansbaxter
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posted October 16, 2004 11:00 PM
Objects (atoms and all their parts) pass through space-time at a constant rate ie space-time, where k is a constant. As you increase speed, time must slow down. Another way to look at is this: think of speed + time passage always equaling 186,000 units. The units can be speed (mph in this case (c)) or time. There is not common standard for the speed at which time progresses because we live in a world where the change in physical speed is small enough not to have a noticalbe effect on the passage of time. There is a conversion factor to change physical speed into the passage of time, but I don't know what it is. As physical speed goes to c, then time passage must go to 0. I don't fully understand space-time, but this was the explanation given in the string theory book that I'm reading.
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deathpulse
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posted October 18, 2004 04:12 AM
LOL - interesting, the speed of light (in a vacum) is 186,282.xxx miles per hour - looks close to the 186,000 units that are layed out for time passage
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Ra12r
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posted October 18, 2004 05:46 AM
Speed has no relationship with time. Time is an independant entity not defined by variables. However, we may use variables to describe time. Time may be used to define other qualitative values but not in reverse.
Our time is a constant for us, "SO WE THINK". However, time measurment fundamentals are probably different in other dimensions. Our time is determined by whatever controls the vibrational rates of the substance of this dimension. As long as we remain in this dimension, our speed or whatever will not affect our time.
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Bagster
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posted October 18, 2004 06:46 AM
What about the effect of gravity on the speed control of the clock (the hydrogen atom)
They do use hydrogen don't they?
When they are launching the clock into space, those atoms experience lots of G-forces, would that have any possible affect on the "vibration" of the atoms? (temporaily throwing the clock out of whack)
Does zero G have any effect on the speed of atoms compared to earth gravity?
I would think that if we had actual "gravity machines" you might be able to slightly affect the orbit of the electrons by exposing them to extreme gravity.
Then again, maybe not. :-)
A neutron walked into a bar and
asked how much for a drink.
The bartender replied,
"For you, no charge."
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beansbaxter
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posted October 18, 2004 08:33 AM
The above is almost correct except the way space and time interact has an opposing sign, so the effect is that you move more rapidly through a certain reference frame of space and time as you approach c. That is, going at 99%c relative to Earth you travel into Earth's future at 7.089 of their seconds per your second.
Your "4-velocity" is (c,0,0,0) when at rest (this is a "4-vector" where the first [actually "zeroth"] entry is in the time axis and the next 3 are X,Y,Z) in a certain reference frame. If you start going at a speed v in the X direction, it becomes (gamma*c,gamma*v,0,0), where gamma=(1-beta^2)^-0.5 where beta=v/c. The 4-velocity (c*g,k,l,m) always obeys (c*g)^2-k^2-l^2-m^2 = c^2, which is the relation between space and time alluded to above.
Now, this thing determines your rate of progress through spacetime in a certain reference frame. Specifically, if you have 4-velocity (c*g,k,l,m), then in 1 of your seconds, you will travel k metres in the X direction, l in the Y direction, m in the Z direction and g seconds forward in the reference frame's time. Note that g actually equals the 'gamma' above (this is the relativistic time dilation factor).
These effects have nothing significant to do with gravity, FYI. This is 'special relativity' whereas the one including gravity is 'general relativity', which builds in this 4D space time formulation, but does not really have effects backwards into special relativity.
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frEEk
Administrator
ummm... yeah
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posted October 18, 2004 08:46 AM
i'd be careful with saying "you travel into earth's future" cause that's mighty misleading. u'r not skipping time, u have just slowed down relative to the passage of time. of course, as has already been suggested here, we don't know how we would EXPERIENCE that change in rate of passage of time. would the world seem like it were going in fast forward or would we feel like we were in slo-mo? In other words, would our experience of time change as our physical beings slowed down? I'll let y'all know if i ever find out
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Ra12r
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posted October 18, 2004 09:40 AM
You wouldn't experience anything, it would be just like passing a Busa on a round track, You may pass him and catch him again, but you are not in his future or his past.
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beansbaxter
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posted October 18, 2004 09:43 AM
quote:
You wouldn't experience anything, it would be just like passing a Busa on a round track, You may pass him and catch him again, but you are not in his future or his past.
lol too funny!
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beansbaxter
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posted October 18, 2004 11:47 AM
 Edited By: beansbaxter on 18 Oct 2004 12:47
quote:
What about the effect of gravity on the speed control of the clock (the hydrogen atom)
They do use hydrogen don't they?
When they are launching the clock into space, those atoms experience lots of G-forces, would that have any possible affect on the "vibration" of the atoms? (temporaily throwing the clock out of whack)
Does zero G have any effect on the speed of atoms compared to earth gravity?
I would think that if we had actual "gravity machines" you might be able to slightly affect the orbit of the electrons by exposing them to extreme gravity.
Then again, maybe not. :-)
Even if there was an effect by gravity, electromagnetic and nuclear forces are many many orders of magnitude stronger than gravity. 10^thirty something for the electromagnetic. And, since the radioactive decay (cesium is used, isn't it?) is dependent on the nuclear forces, it's even greater than this.
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swft
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posted October 18, 2004 11:53 AM
Time dilation - That's the time waiting for your asshole to expand while you're taking a shit!
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