Time Travel….Speed of Light?
I’m sorry, my fellow geniuses; something does not compute.
I posted a question about a simple explanation of why time "slows up" (supposedly) and all I got were "sound bites" from the different books published purporting to explain the phenomenon.
I can quote verbatim also….that’s not what I was looking for.
(It reminds me of the pre-supersonic flights when there were dire forecasts of absolutely horrible things which would happen to an aircraft passing the sound barrier. Of course all the naysayers turned out to be full of baloney.)
My scenario included a "stationary observer"…..for time comparison purposes. So, one genius writes in that there is no such thing as a stationary platform……duh.
Let me try again:
Using the familiar "spaceship with a big window" that the stationary observer may look in to, we are to understand (while the stationary observer’s clock is marking real time) that those aboard the spaceship are "moving very slowly"..hardly at all……and a 2 year voyage (by the observer’s timepiece) shows just a few minutes on the spaceship’s timepiece.
And THAT is supposed to explain it all?
1. Aside from the light ray anomalies and vision difficulties at the speed of light, why are the spacemen moving slowly? (they APPEAR to be moving slowly)
2. Why is the timepiece onboard the spaceship moving so slowly?
3. Again, the observer is there as a REAL TIME reference…he is the timekeeper at the Indy 500, let’s say…..I’m sure the drivers have their own concept of time, but that doesn’t count much for the checkered flag.
So, anybody out there (aside from the parrots quoting paragraphs from Einstein’s book) care to take
another crack at it?
Attn: Starski
Can you tell me why it is so many Top Contributors are suffering from diarrhea of the mouth?
Quote: "If you’re incapable of understanding answers, don’t ask questions"
Is this what you tell your high school algebra class?
6 Responses
Starski
09 Aug 2010
the seal killer
09 Aug 2010
well for starters…this explains nothing…expect that the ships clock is broken….and every one on board are zombies….
There are only two ways to change time….and that is moving at the speed of light and extreme gravity.
from a stationary observer speed of light looks lke a blur(respectively) and extreme gravity would look like your scenario.
wilde_space
09 Aug 2010
Time is not absolute, so there is no "real time". What you described is relativistic time dilation. Form the point of view of each observer, the other observer’s clock will run slower. Why does it happen? I’m not an expert on Relativity, but I know that time dilation has been confirmed experimentally, so it does happen. See the link below, there’s a better explanation.
I changed my nic
09 Aug 2010
hey genius !! , what is time has to do with clocks ?!! , do you think that if you slowed down or stopped a clock then time will slow down or stop , or even viseversa ?!! lamo
DON’T read this http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Auc53olcyeiDfkLHKnSlsyjty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20100517213157AATpEHS&show=7#profile-info-ejeofLnzaa
it has something to do with your question , understand it , then ask the proper question to get proper answers .
Edit :
-WITH ALL DO RESPECT , again and again and again , time has nothing to do with light speed , or with clocks , or with polar bears , I can say that time is not relative to anything , it is a solid state being/thing , nothing and no one can ever manipulate it .
******and just because of traveling with the speed greater that that of light enables us to travel through time , means we can manipulate time !!!! , no , this doesn’t mean that we can manipulate time ******
- please sir , understand that (time "traveling") has nothing to do with (time "manipulating") , there is a very big difference .
- the theory is LIGHT "not the time !!!" is the cause of us seeing events , so PLEASE READ THIS EXAMPLE :
if Earth moved from point A , to point B , there was some light from the sun that enabled us to see this movement from A to B , now this amount of light is carrying that event and is traveling in the form of layers through the space with the speed of light , the first layer from the top of course is the one that carries the Earth at point A and the last layer from the bottom carries the Earth when it reached point B .
now let’s try to follow "or run after to catch" that amount of light "I mean those layers" , we will need a speed greater than the speed of light , let’s assume we have it , and we are traveling now to catch them , we are close now and we are getting closer and closer , and voilà "behold" :
1- we now finally reached the bottom layer "which carries Earth at B , so we see Earth at B"
2- we now keep moving forward to catch the first layer "which carries Earth at A , so we will pass through all the layers from the bottom to the top , that means we will see that event again but reversed "we will see the Earth moving backward from B to A
3- so that means we " only SAW" events moving backwards , we didn’t force the Earth itself to move backwards , we just saw the event "the actual Earth right now is continuing its course from the very beginning of our example , so that means time is still the same , untouched , we didn’t manipulate time or any other beings , we only manipulated light and events .
4- we saw the Earth , but we couldn’t touch it , because it is not the actual Earth , it is just light !! , and the fact is : we are no longer anywhere near the actual Earth , we are in a different place/location now in the space .
from this example : when we reach the first layer "Earth at point A", let’s reduce our speed to the speed of light now , to travel side by side with this layer , what do we see now ?!!
we will keep seeing the Earth at point A , it is like as if we stopped the time "the Earth doesn’t move in our eyes" , but actually we didn’t stop the time , we are just seeing the same thing over and over because we are moving with it , as if we were part of it , and we don’t want to let go of it , but time is a actually passing , we didn’t stop it at all , we just kept ourselves as prisoners of some certain moment , but time is passing , so .
the truth is it is light/time traveling and not (time manipulating) , so if you want to travel through time , you will find yourself traveling through space as well , it is a very complicated concept , I know , that’s why it hasn’t been applied yet , because no one understands it .
I’m very lost right now that I don’t know what I’ve written , so anyway , I hope you got what I want to say , then you can ask the right question .
Thanks for your time.
Campbell Man
09 Aug 2010
1. The spacemen aren’t moving slowly at all. Their clocks have begun to tick at a slower rate because of the nature of spacetime itself.
2. According to the Lorentz transformations, if there is an observer in the stationary S frame and an observer moving with respect to the observer in the S’ frame, the observer in S will measure a time interval Δt, whereas the moving observer’s clock slows by a factor of γ=1/sqrt[1 - (v/c)^2], where v is the relative velocity of S’ with respect to S, and c is the speed of light. Thus, the faster S’ is moving, the larger γ becomes, and the greater the factor by which time slows for those in traveling in the S’ frame. In other words, for S’, Δt’=Δt/γ.
3. Yes. In fact, those moving in S’ will not notice that their clocks have begun to tick more slowly! — hence "relativity." Their clocks are just ticking more slowly RELATIVE to the speed at which they were ticking prior to the S’ frame beginning to move. Travellers in S’ frame would make the same argument about the clocks in the S frame that those in the S frame make about their clocks. They both think that the clocks in the OTHER frame are the ones slowing down.
Hope this helps.
Quadrillian
09 Aug 2010
The phenomenon of time "slowing down" for moving objects is an inevitable consequence of the simple observation that light is always measured to be moving at the same speed for all observers.
Think about it for awhile. If someone tosses a ball at you you can clock it’s speed with an instrument. If you are running toward the thrower the ball is measured to be moving at the ball speed plus your running speed. Right? No problems.
What happens with light is that whatever instrument is used to measure it’s speed, and no matter how fast you are running in whatever direction, every instrument under creation will always measure the speed of light to be 186000 miles per second, irrespective of the speed of the source of the light, or the speed of the measuring instrument! That is an experimental fact!
How does one explain that? I won’t bore you with details. It turns out that the only explanation is that when things are moving relative to each other:
1) the length of the moving object contracts along the line of sight
2) any indicator whatsoever of time, be it a clock, dripping tap, spinning atom, beating heart; absolutely any measure of time; will slow down.
Unfortunately to prove that this is so requires a little maths (of approximately 4th year secondary school level), usually involving moving barges or airplanes or whatever. Follow it up if you dare, but be warned, you will have to refer to a (wait for it) relativity article!
Cheers!
Sorry, genius. If you’re incapable of understanding answers, don’t ask questions. If you don’t like books, read a comic.
Do you demean your high school algebra teacher when you can’t understand algebra?