- #1
kamikaze762
- 24
- 0
There is a nuance of special relativity that I cannot seem to grasp. This may be very similar to the twin paradox, so I am trying to find out what the critical points are.
If I hop into my spaceship and orbit Earth at 0.995C for, say, 100 years, I will see Earth's clock progress at an extremely slow rate, correct? By the same measure, an observer from Earth would notice the same about me.
So what happens if I negate all acceleration effects and snap immediately back into Earth's inertial reference frame at the end of the 100 years? Will Earth's clock read what I read it to read while in flight or will it "catch up" in that sudden stop? Does the twin paradox actually resolve? Does stopping in Earth's frame make me subject to its time?
I heard the statement that going faster than light would violate causality, and I accept that, but I also heard that traveling faster than light would hypothetically cause the traveler to move backwards in time... WHAT? I do not understand this statement.
If the traveler goes backwards through time, does this mean that the universe around him will move backwards, and that he, upon stopping, would find himself in the past... or would the universe hurtle itself at an impossible speed beyond conceptual infinity into the future?
The reason I ask such a strange question is because I cannot seem to be able to tell the difference between the rocket jock and the rest of the cosmos.
To go backwards in time in the classical sci-fi novel sense generally meant that the traveler found himself in a world that went backwards... My reference frames seem to be intertwined.
I am sorry if none of this makes sense, but this how confused I am when trying to deal with the time discrepancies.
If I hop into my spaceship and orbit Earth at 0.995C for, say, 100 years, I will see Earth's clock progress at an extremely slow rate, correct? By the same measure, an observer from Earth would notice the same about me.
So what happens if I negate all acceleration effects and snap immediately back into Earth's inertial reference frame at the end of the 100 years? Will Earth's clock read what I read it to read while in flight or will it "catch up" in that sudden stop? Does the twin paradox actually resolve? Does stopping in Earth's frame make me subject to its time?
I heard the statement that going faster than light would violate causality, and I accept that, but I also heard that traveling faster than light would hypothetically cause the traveler to move backwards in time... WHAT? I do not understand this statement.
If the traveler goes backwards through time, does this mean that the universe around him will move backwards, and that he, upon stopping, would find himself in the past... or would the universe hurtle itself at an impossible speed beyond conceptual infinity into the future?
The reason I ask such a strange question is because I cannot seem to be able to tell the difference between the rocket jock and the rest of the cosmos.
To go backwards in time in the classical sci-fi novel sense generally meant that the traveler found himself in a world that went backwards... My reference frames seem to be intertwined.
I am sorry if none of this makes sense, but this how confused I am when trying to deal with the time discrepancies.