Dilation Definition and 1000 Threads

Further to the other current thread, I have a different 'don't understand' issue for time dilation. I've thought it over and I might have a slight grasp of 'the answer', but it is still a bit murky for me: Two space ships of the future pass each other in opposite directions, each traveling at...

Hey there, guys. I’m kind of new to the whole physics thing, but I am starting on a quest to try and learn as much about how this universe works as I can. I am currently working on developing a good understanding of special and general relativity. I am not overly math-competent, so I have been...

Newbie question -- Conceptualization of time dilation from matter's perspective I have only a slight familiarity with classical physics, and in trying to conceptualize time dilation in a more intuitive, concrete manner, I attempted to explain time dilation from matter's perspective. What I...

me: layman's understanding of physics and mathmatics My (very basic) understanding for this question is that: a higher rate of (objective) motion = lower rate of time for anything with mass. Is there a working figure for how much motion we experience per a specific time period from such...

a situation of twin paradox one twin alice is moving with 99%C another john is at rest on Earth this means 1 second of alice= 100 secs of john (approx) suppose john runs at the speed of 1 km/s for 100 secs then for alice he is at 100 km/sec as she saw the whole what he did in sec and...

Recently I've watched a few videos and read over some explanations of time dilation and am quite confused by several aspects. In the video I watched, the clock tracked time by a beam of light bouncing between two metal plates, incrementing one second per touch of the bottom plate. The path of...

Homework Statement Alpha Centauri, the closest star to Earth, is 4.3x10^6 m away. How long would it take a spaceship to reach the star if it were traveling at 0.999c? Homework Equations I did get the answer as 0.2a...and the textbook also said it would take about 2 months, I do not...

Before I post this, I want to assure everyone that I am not a conspiracy theorist who doubts Einstein or relativity theory in any aspect. I just don't understand special relativity as well as Id like to and I think having this paradox resolved in my mind will help. The paradoxes that I've...

I understand that the faster one goes the slower time goes but a thought popped into my head recently that I couldn't resolve; Alice and Bob are at rest relative to each other in an otherwise empty universe (i.e no point's of reference). Suddenly Alice observes Bob moving away from her at...

According to general relativity, objects in a strong uniform gravitational field experience time slower that objects in a weak uniform gravitational field. Does this mean that my feet, being closer to the Earth that my head, are younger than my head when I die? If this is correct could someone...

If you send an ultra precise clock circling at a huge speed on a train and leave a clock stationary near the rails and then compare them,there would be a small difference in the time they display,right?But if everything is relative,doesn't that mean that from the point of view of the people in...

If time is slowed for an observer circling the Earth and we put an observer on the earth, sun, center of the milky way and finally the center of the universe then would it be correct to say that time would be moving fastest for the observer at the center of the universe? If so is it possible...

The time dilation formula: \Delta t'=\frac{\Delta t}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v²}{c²}}} says that the closer you come to the speed of light the slower time goes (for the object in movement). That mean if you travel to a distant star in very high speed, there will take shorter time to get there (for the...

Einstein introduced the concept of gravitational time dilation. I get the impression that it was determined to be a consequence of gravitational red-shift. Can anybody tell me the logical reason why gravitational time dilation follows on from gravitational red-shift? Or was the existence of...

Hello ! Can you tell me what's wrong? I suppose two observers. They measure speed of light. One observer is in rocket of length L. Observer in rocket measured speed C'=\frac{L}{t'} and t' is time from observer's view. Second observer is outside. He measured C=\frac{L+vt}{t} where v is...

There are a few things bothering me about time dilation, its derivation, and special relativity. Einstein started with the assumptions that light travels at a constant speed no matter the observer or their frame of reference. He then details the light box experiment in which two observers are...

A problem with time dilation help!? when we move with light our time is slower and when we move against it then it's slower but what if we move at 99%C in a direction and a light ray is move with us and another light ray moves opposite from our direction simultaneously?

New to PF, and while I don't know much about the science behind these things, I do come in peace. I have more a philosophical understanding of special relativity, never having worked out a formula, and can't even understand the language of those physics equations. I do, however, grasp the...

Imagine the following scenario: There is a train, that crosses the entire planet, and has the length of the Earth diameter (has no start or no end, it's like a "ring"). This train has in the floor a treadmill that runs in the opposite direction of the train. Also, the treadmill has the length...

Dear all, I've read the following argumentation for curved spacetime: 1) From the equivalence principle one can derive that time is dilated in gravitational filed.. 2) The velocity of light is constant for all local observers 3) If time dilates, then also space must dilate if one wants the...

In the current mainstream theory of black holes, there exists a singularity of infinite density. However, it seems to me that matter actually could not compress tightly enough to reach this point. As matter coalesces in a black hole, space-time would increasingly curve. As the density...

lets say that there is a triplet at the age of exactly 60 years old.one of them A is in space far away from any gravitational field and not moving , B is on planet earth,and C is near a black hole. C looks at A and see that for every 10 min passes according to his clock(hand and biological) A...

I am simply looking for the formula to work out the time dilation on cylinders with uniform density. Also, any links to arbitrary precision calculators would be appreciated.

"The confusion that arises in problems like Example 26.1 lies in the fact that movement is relative: from the point of view of someone in the pendulum’s rest frame, the pendulum is standing still (except, of course, for the swinging motion), whereas to someone in a frame that is moving with...

...equal to 1/k? Why isn't it just interpreted as k?

[PLAIN]http://www.science27.com/forum/rocketL2.jpg Above the head of observer “A” a mother-ship is moving east 100,000 km/s. and right above the Earth it is launching a small spacecraft moving west with the same speed (100,000 km/s). REFERENCE FRAME A Observer “A” would now (from...

According to Einstein's Gravitational Time Dilation, if an oscillating physical system is elevated to a height H above the Earth then it oscillates at a higher frequency than the same system at ground level. According to Planck's relation between energy and frequency this surely means that...

Hello, I don't know if this is the right place to come for my type of question but its the place that made sense to me so here it goes. I know that time stretches out when traveling near c (I am familiar with Einstein's twin paradox), however I remember somewhere I heard that objects with a...

Hello, I was wondering if the following quote by Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-velocity section "Interpretation") makes sense: Cause I would think it doesn't make sense: in this reasoning they're acting as if the norm is something like a^2+b^2+c^2+d^2, so that if...

Homework Statement Hi, I have a problem connected with time dilation symmetry, which is supposed to be explained in a following example: A rocket traveling at 0.8c starts from station P and is directed to station Q 864 million km away. Time taken to travel as measured by space station clocks...

In my class we were doing examples with a current carrying wire and if we moved with a speed v we would see length contraction. And because of this the moving line charge would go up in value and we would see an Electric field. And then we did the same for a solenoid but he said we need to...

Please explain to me what I'm missing: You can't go faster than the speed of light, because of time dilation. The faster you go, the slower time moves for you as compared to objects at rest, and time would stop for you if you ever went the speed of light. That's what makes C the universal...

Length Contraction and Time Dilation Gamma= 1/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2) = 2 (Assumed) We have L=L’/Gamma…………………………………….1 And dT= dT’ * Gamma ………………………………2 Let primed frame is that of Bob and unprimed that of Dave. Let us define identity as an equation in which values on both...

I would like to see some comments on this observation that appears to lead to an ambiguity re: time dilation: The usual definition for time dilation is the expression: t =t'/(1-V^2/c^2)^1/2 where an individual in the unprimed coordinate system "at rest" in empty space, sees a clock in the...

Hi All I whish to know how much longer an atomic clock will run on the moon than it does on the earth. Considering time on Earth for 1 second, I know it will be very slightly longer on the moon. How much longer is my question, or maybe an equation. Don't consider the travel there, start...

So when we derive time dilation, and when we have a train moving and we shoot a light beam from the bottom to the top, to an outside observer not on the train he will see the light leave at an angle. So my question is why don't we factor the horizontal speed of the train in order have the...

Homework Statement When walking on the wet strip on the beach, you notice the sand around your feet becoming dry for a while. Why is this?Homework Equations The Attempt at a Solution Intuition says that the pressure due to your weight should squeeze the water from under your foot to the...

Hi guys and girls. Need some assistance with these problems, not the hardest examples, but I need some help on the way. Homework Statement 1. An astronaut travels at 0.9c across our galaxy, which is 100 000 light years in diameter. How long time will it take (according to the...

Homework Statement If a cosmic ray proton has 15J of energy how long, according to the proton's proper time would it take to travel from the galaxy M31 to our Galaxy, a distance that we mesure as 2.5x106 light-years? Homework Equations K.E = m_{o}c^2 (\gamma -1)The Attempt at a Solution I...

I was wondering, imagine if I had twin brothers who each set off in their space ships at the same time, at a speed of 0.5c. One traveled 20 light years in a straight line, then turned around and traveled 20 light years back to me, the other traveled along a complete circular path, with a...

Okay. A man in a spaceship travels at \beta=\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2} giving him a Lorentz Factor of \gamma=2 and a time dilation of t'=2t Another man sits "stationary" in space. After traveling for one of the stationary observer's seconds the moving observer passes by the stationary...

My first question is the following. Does the radial component of the schwarzchild metric account for just the radius of the body in study or is it the distance between the body and the observer, where the body is treated as a singularity (Point mass particle)? My second question is about how...

Hello. I am trying to gain a more intuitive understanding of relativity, and hopefully someone may be able to help me. Suppose there are two light clocks on two different spaceships - ship A and ship B. If the two ships are moving past one another with a constant velocity, then an observer on...

I have a copy of "Relativity and Early Quantum Theory" by Robert Resnick. On page 78 there is a problem from chapter 2: A, on earth, signals with a flashlight every six minutes. B is on a space station that is stationary with respect to the earth. C is on a rocket traveling from A to B...

Hello all, First let me say that I have been battling with time dilation for years, all the videos seem to drive me more into confusion and reading does the same. The past few weeks I have been really trying to get a grasp on it better. I understand the concepts, theories, and postulates but...

Two spacecraft in inertial motion have relative velocity .5c. The ships have identical "grandfather" clocks very much like earthly grandfather clocks, except that the force of gravity is replaced by Coulomb repulsion. [The clocks have charged plates on either side of a charged pendulum...

I had a big epic discussion on another board after someone stated that "if I were to travel to Betelgeuse at a sufficient velocity I would reduce the distance between myself and Betelgeuse until it is say, 2 light years, which means I would only experience 2 years or so during my journey", this...

The example I have read to show time dilation is that of a light clock on a train. Two mirrors are one metre apart. Light is beamed from the first mirror to the second. An observer on the train sees that it takes the amount of time for light to travel 1m for the light to reach the second mirror...

Hi guys, I am having trouble getting my head around the light clock scenario which demonstrates time dilation. I can't help but intuitively feel that it seems like a fault of the clock, rather than time dilation. I hope you can understand what I'm getting at. If someone could try to give an...

Can someone please clear this up for me? Lets say the distance of Point A from Earth is 10.4 light years. Some spacecraft is traveling 0.95c. So. The person in the spacecraft will see Earth contract but Earth will see the spacecraft contract in length too. The thing I'm confused on is...