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unknown_9
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I understand time dilation due to speed, but am confused on why time dilates depending on the distance from a mass. Help?
You can calculate this effect directly from the Schwarzschild metrics; Google will find many explanations including some in threads here.unknown_9 said:I understand time dilation due to speed, but am confused on why time dilates depending on the distance from a mass. Help?
I saw you marked this as intermediate however based on the question I thought you may be looking for a simple association for time dilation, mass and distance. That answer is, your distance to a mass is directly related to the strength you'd experience from it's gravitational field; ergo time dilation is related to the strength of that gravitational field. I hope this helped.unknown_9 said:I understand time dilation due to speed, but am confused on why time dilates depending on the distance from a mass. Help?
This is wrong. Gravitational time dilation is related to the gravitational potential, not to the field.Maxila said:I saw you marked this as intermediate however based on the question I thought you may be looking for a simple association for time dilation, mass and distance. That answer is, your distance to a mass is directly related to the strength you'd experience from it's gravitational field; ergo time dilation is related to the strength of that gravitational field. I hope this helped.
Google is your friend. I went for "clock in a centrifuge" and found http://www.sciforums.com/threads/atomic-clock-in-a-centrifuge.114225/Justin Hunt said:I have seen many experiments proving gravitational time dilation. Some even with only a few feet difference between their heights above sea level. But, have yet to see one proving it is gravitational potential versus the field.
What you are up against is the clock postulate, which says that acceleration does not cause any additional time dilation.
This has been tested to as high as 10^18g. Usually it is done with radioisotopes of known half-lives on high speed centrifuges. As James R has noted, the time dilation always comes out to be equal to that caused by the tangential velocity. This is easily verified by varying the length of the centrifuge radius and its speed. This way you can get a number of different combinations of tangential velocity and g-force.
Justin Hunt said:have yet to see one proving it is gravitational potential versus the field.
That's what the Pound-Rebka experiment does. You send a signal from one height to another. The signal is Doppler-shifted by either climbing against, or falling with the gravity field. In other words, the amount of Doppler-shift is a result of the change in gravitational potential between the two heights. The shift is exactly equal to the gravitational time dilation predicted by GR. Put another way, the quantitative results from real life experiments are consistent with gravitational time dilation being due to gravitational potential, but can't be made consistent with it being due to difference in local field strength.Justin Hunt said:@Orodruin I understand that our theory has it based on gravitational potential as you say, but I was wondering if there have been any experiments to test this versus it being based on the gravitational field.
I have seen many experiments proving gravitational time dilation. Some even with only a few feet difference between their heights above sea level. But, have yet to see one proving it is gravitational potential versus the field.
Most experiments actually suggest that the time dilation factor is ##1 - M/r##, or in conventional Newtonian terms ##1 - GM/rc^2##, so the fractional time dilation between two locations for most purposes is simply the difference in ##-GM/rc^2## at those locations. Given the smallness of ##-GM/rc^2## in normal cases such as the solar system, this is consistent with the General Relativity theoretical prediction of ##\sqrt{1- 2M / r}##. Measurements of the perihelion precession of Mercury (and other planets) confirm that the square root form is more accurate, but this is a very small difference.PeterDonis said:Yes, you have. All of the experimental data show that the time dilation factor is ##\sqrt{1 - 2M / r}##. That means it depends on the gravitational potential. If it depended on the field, the dependence on ##r## would be different.
Jonathan Scott said:Most experiments actually suggest that the time dilation factor is ##1 - M/r##, or in conventional Newtonian terms 1−GM/rc21−GM/rc21 - GM/rc^2, so the fractional time dilation between two locations for most purposes is simply the difference in ##-GM/rc^2## at those locations.
PeterDonis said:This was true of the original Pound-Rebka experiment and similar ones, yes. However, I don't think it's true of GPS, or of the experiment described in this paper:
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.45.2081
I think there is enough altitude difference in those cases that the simple approximation ##1 - M/r## no longer quite holds.
Jonathan Scott said:So even in that case, you would have to measure the fractional difference in the time rate to a few parts in ##10^{10}## to detect the difference
Jonathan Scott said:you would need to measure the time rate itself to a few parts in ##10^{19}## (a few hundredths of a second in the age of the universe) to detect the difference by that means.
unknown_9 said:I understand time dilation due to speed, but am confused on why time dilates depending on the distance from a mass. Help?
PeterDonis said:I don't understand where this number is coming from.
Sorry if I'm not clear, but I was saying that the value of the DIFFERENCE between clock rates (or to put it another way the difference between two ##GM/rc^2## values) has to be measured to a few parts in ##10^{10}## so the overall time rates have to be measured to a few parts in ##10^{19}##.PeterDonis said:Yes, and GPS time measurements are that accurate.
stevendaryl said:The difference between using ##\sqrt{1- \frac{2GM}{c^2 r}}## and using the approximation ##\frac{GM}{c^2 r}## is on the order of ##\frac{GM}{c^2 r})^2##, which is of the order of ##10^{-19}##.
Jonathan Scott said:I was saying that the value of the DIFFERENCE between clock rates (or to put it another way the difference between two ##GM/rc^2## values) has to be measured to a few parts in ##10^{10}##
unknown_9 said:I understand time dilation due to speed, but am confused on why time dilates depending on the distance from a mass. Help?
sweet springs said:Time dilation in SR is rewritten in GR way as ##g_{00}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}} < 1## thus proper time ##d\tau < dt## coordinate time.
sweet springs said:I thought of Rindler system and rotation system that are fully understood by SR and have metric ##g_{00}## not equal to one.
sweet springs said:error in formula was corrected.
sweet springs said:As for rotation system, ##g_{00}=1-\frac{r^2\omega^2}{c^2}## where ##r\omega=v## is tangent velocity of rotation in IFR where center of rotation is at rest.
Gravitational time dilation is the phenomenon where time moves slower in a stronger gravitational field. This means that objects closer to a massive body, such as a planet or star, experience time at a slower rate compared to objects farther away.
According to Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravity is not a force between two objects, but rather a curvature of spacetime caused by massive objects. This curvature affects the flow of time, resulting in gravitational time dilation.
Gravitational time dilation can be measured using atomic clocks. These clocks are extremely precise and can detect minuscule changes in time. By comparing the time recorded by a clock at different altitudes or in different gravitational fields, scientists can measure the effects of gravitational time dilation.
Yes, gravitational time dilation is only significant near massive objects. The strength of the gravitational field decreases as the distance from the object increases, so the effects of time dilation become less noticeable the farther away you are from the object.
Gravitational time dilation can have a significant impact on space travel. For example, astronauts on the International Space Station experience time at a slightly slower rate than people on Earth due to the weaker gravitational field. This means that they age slightly slower, which could be a factor to consider for long-term space missions.