NYSportsGuy

Okay here it goes again. Special relativity is nothing more than a perception. IT basic fundamental idea is that if two things are moving away from each other in constant speed.....they can be said to be either standing still or one is moving relavtive to the other no matter which is is ACTUALLY moving or NOT. But this is only for a constant speed. Now the effects of this motion is that an oberserver from earth observing his twin moving at .8c lets say, sees the clock on the ship of his twin moving slower than his own clock oN Earth. This is ONLY because the angle and the distance at which he can record the clock on the spaceship is growing farther and wider all the time. It doesnt mean neccesarily that the twon on the spaceship is ACTUALLY moving slower....it is just a perception and vice versa. The General Theory of Relativity explains why this phenomena happens even further by adding the fact that accelerating object cause the same effects that gravity does...in essence because acceleration = gravity. As of now, Einstein says four things: time, space, gravity and acceleration are ALL RELATIVE. And as an object accelerates towards you it will appear to move faster, as it acclerates away from you it appears to be slower because the rays of light which allow you to see it (which are ALWAYS constant) will take either longer or faster to reach your senses or your eyes in this case. Thus gravity, accleration and moving uniformly really really fast (ie- .3c or faster) all cause time to slow down.And if time slows down, according to the formula space must shorten or be faster. Time can change, space can change....but timespace together MUST ALWAYS BE CONSTANT!

For question #1, if gravity can bend light why can't it pull it down with a higher velocity? Doesn't light have mass? I just can't see something moving as fast as 186,000 miles pers second with no acceleration force behind it....even if that acceleration is for a nanosecond. I think this may be proven wrong in the future. Question #3 relates to E=MC*2 because of the fact that mass is relative. According to Einstein, and I may be interpreting him wrong, but he says that since space and time are linked and when multiplied are always equal.....by increasing one you always decrease the other. Thus anything with mass, has an inertial force which increases as you increase the velocity or speed of the mass. Unless something is moving at "c" itself, he states the objects in our universe will always have some sort of motion in time....not ALL motion in space like photons in light do. But according to this principle then, photons have no inertial mass and thus no mass. However then how can light bend and be attracted by gravity if this is the case? Thus the speed of light is not the ABOSLUTE fastest something can travel because it still contains some minute amount of inertial mass.

God questions JohnfromAus. We have already established that (according to Einstein and the "special theory of relativity") when two bodies are in constant uniform motion with respect to each other or one is standing still and the other is in constant uniform motion....both can be considered either "moving" or "standing still". Why? Because in both cases, the laws of physics and gravity stay the same. But in the "general theory of relativity", Einstein says that in essence, accelerating upwards or downwards in space is the same thing as standing still and having gravity pull on you....or acceleration = gravity. It is this gravity or acceleration that supposedly causes time to slow down somehow. I personally think it is the distance away frm the observer of the time that has to do with time slowing down. Still no one on this website has concretely proved me wrong. But accroding to Einstein I'm sorry, its BOTH the constant motion and the acceleration that supposedly leads to "being younger". Afterall, it is acceleration that LEADS to constant motion. Check out this website to further understand how confusing and how "fragile" Einstein's theories on time dialtion really are: http://www.geocities.com/rainforest/6039/jd2.html The Doppler Effect has a lot to do with time dilation. They are apparently inter-related. As you accelerate away from a beam of light or a light wave; that light wave takes "longer" to reach you. Thus time appears slower as a result. The opposite is true if you are acclerating towards a light beam or a flash of some sort, it hit you more frequently and thus time is "speeding up". The one closest to gravity or the stronger of the two gravitational forces will see a decrease in time becasue they are accelrating away from the light source. Therefore it is the acceleration (which equals gravity) that causes time dilation or a "slowing down".

So far it seems no one on this website really know or understands if Einstein's theories on time dilation are actually true. Ninety years later we are still debating and arguing these concepts today. After reading Einstein and his theories from the early 1900's....I have three really important questions I'd like answered to see who really knows what. 1) Can gravity affect the speed of light? If no, why? Have experiments ACTUALLY been done to prove this? If you shine a light beam down to the gorund and measure it's velocity will it be the same as when the same beam is shone upwards away from gravity? Remeber, gravity can bend light....so why can it not accelerate or slow it down? 2) Does light actually accelerate before reaching it's constant speed of 186,000 miles per second? If not, how do we know.....can it be proven? 3) According to E=MC*2, the general theory of relativiity and the inertial mass law, it takes infinitely more energy to to accelerate a small mass from .9c to c. Such an enormous amount of energy is not found or capable of being created by us on Earth according to scientists, therefore we cannot travel the speed of light. If this is the case, how come the sun can create enough energy to move photon masses of light particles the speed of c? Doesn't the Sun have to accelerate those particles first? 4) If we shone a beam of light into empty space how far would it go? Would it theoretically go on travelling at c (speed of light) forever?

No according to Einstein (and I have it in words here in a book that explains his theories in detail), gravity and acceleration are the same thing as well as uniform motion and standing still because then properties of physics and time behave the same in both cases. This being the case, the special theory of relativity is ONLY CORRECT if one is looking at SOMEONE ELSE in motion relative to themsleves. Only then do they experience a time dilation, but once again as ERIC5 explained so rationally, time can be experienced, but time itself does not experience anything. If I percieve time to be slower on your ship moving at c and you on the ship percieve it be normal......how can we both be correct? If we both are what does that tell us about time? It tells us that time, as a concept, DOESN'T really exist. It is man-made, artificial....therefore why even worry about it? In essence, DISTANCE is what truly affects time.....not motion. Great Quote:Time APPEARS to slow down in a ship that is traveling at or near the speed of light to an observer that is traveling much slower or is at rest relative to the ship. It APPEARS to slow down, but time does not actually slow down. If clocks or any time piece were actually influenced by a thing called time, in effect, driven or motivated by a force called time, than I could see that if you slow time it will in effect slow the meter or device that measures this force called time. But we all know that clocks are not motivated by time nor do clocks have any effect on time, changing a clock does not change time. So if clocks actually have no intimate connection with a thing or force we call time, than accelerating a clock to near the speed of light could effect the clock, it may slow the machine known as a clock, but the motion of a clock, or the position of the clocks hands have no effect on time. If a clock is shown to go slower from extreme velocity, is it time that went slower, or just the clock? If you really want to believe that if a clock that appears to go slower means that time is going slower, than you would also have to believe that time motivates the clock solely and that no other energy is involved in making a clock run or work, which would mean that time alone drives clocks and there really is no need to plug them in, add batteries or wind them up. Before anyone can state truthfully that time dilation actually occurs, they would have to prove that clocks are driven by time, and that extreme velocity on a clock does not hinder or effect in any way the physical workings of a clock to make it mechanically slow down. -Eric5 Why do you say "front/back" and then "left/front" in your example? What does "left/front" mean? Also how do you know for the other person, the ends of the rod are separated by 0.8 meters in the front back direction and 0.6 meters in the left/right direction? You just made it more confusing actually....thanks. Originally posted by Swansont:That's not an accurate representation of what's going on. Anyone can make a clock runs slower or faster by making mechanical or electrical adjustments to it. But that's not what is happening here. The clocks run at different rates despite the fact that no adjustments (purposeful or accidental) are happening. But clocks measure time. Once you eliminate the physical changes to the clock, you are left with changes to time. Wrong Swansont.....that's what I and Eric are TRYING TO TELL YOU. You are NOT left with changes to time after you factor out alterations to the clock itself, you are JUST PERCEIVING TIME TO HAVE CHANGED. It's a PERCEPTION TO THE HUMAN SENSES.

I liked your explanation stating the person North facing East and the pseron South of him facing West and the fact that they are both to the right of each other and would be correct in saying so.....however that is just further validating my general idea of what exactly is Einstein's point? By the way, according to the laws of thermodynamics time doesn't move "left to right" it moves from "hot to cold" and can never be reversed as a result. It's the molecules moving from "hot to cold" that causes all future movement not "left to right" becasue in theory, there is no "left" and no "right". Bascially (assuming Einstein's theory of Relativity is correct) all Einstein is saying is that reality as we know it is all "perception" and "illusion". Time and distance aren't constant for two people anywhere in the universe traveling at different uniform speeds so therefore both time and distance I guess aren't good standards of measurement because they are not consistent. Okay so what? Is he just trying to prove that he is the Neitzche of mathematical phyisicists? What's the whole point?

A lot of what Einstein said about how time slows down as you move faster away is not 100% correct. All the other stuff based on that, as a result, isn't 100% correct either. According what you guys and Einstein says about Relativity: Time is different depending on where you observe certain things happening. So your perception of time is different form the person moving at c and conducting an experiment for instance. Note: This is NOT a Doppler Effect, a Doppler effect measures how far light is away from you without a medium and produces either a blue or red color shift based on their wavelengths as a result. We already know the light you are observing in this scenario is moving AWAY from you....so why is the Doppler shift even needed? So forget the whole Doppler shift concept for a second. Anyhow, whoever is the one percieved to be moving will be percieved by the other observer to be moving SLOWER. That is the basis behind Time Dilation. But why this is becasue the change on motion direction and distance at which you are observing the body in motion that is causing things to hit your eye slower. Thus it makes a perception. To prove this, say your leave the Earth in a spaceship going .9c relative to Earth, rememebr that your heart will continue to beat normally to you and your cells will divide at a normal rate, however to the observer on Earth, your ship's clock runs more slowly thatn theirs, and as a result for every one hour that goes by on your clock, 2 hours may go by on the earth clock. For every one month that goes by on your calendar four months go by on Earth...etc. However accoording to Einstein, motion is relative. So the person moving at .9c away from the earth at constant speed can say that it is the Earth moving at .9c AWAY FROM ME instead and as a result they would have their time slowing down and thus in my four months away it will only be one month for them on Earth. But who is right? Both can't be older or younger at the same time. I see this being a contradiction in what Einstein had proposed in his Time Dilation theory.

Everyone just hold on a second. A lot of what is being said here is because you are just assuming what Einstein said was true. I just read a book describing how time is supposed to "slow down" as you travel faster and faster towards the speed of light but in reality..... that doesn't seem to be the case. Time only "slows" down to the person tracking your time on Earth, but not for the person on the spaceship moving at the speed of light of .5c (whatever) you're on.....the observer's time on earth stays constant but that observer clocks your time on the ship to be slower. However the person on board the space ship's clock ISN'T REALLY SLOWER! It is still going the normal time accorrding to his perception....so therefore time really ISN'T slowing down for the person on board the spaceship going at c or .5c. To REPHRASE: The time it takes for the light or the movements of the person on board the ship traveling at .5c or c to hit the stationary observer's eye on Earth gets longer and longer exponentially as the ship goes farther and farther away form the observer on Earth. So technically, you (the observer) see what they do on spaceship a lot longer than when they ACTAULLY DID IT.....hence time appears "slower" to you on earth, but for the people on the spaceship, time is the same for the person traveling at c.