is our perception of time wrong?

[iglak]

the thought experiment of time slowing down for a spaceship traveling the solar system says that the person on the spaceship will age the amount of time observed by him, and the person on the planet will age the amount of time observed by him. the person on the spaceship's reference frame is invalid, because inconsistant acceleration defies SR and GR, while the person on the planet's reference frame remains valid. the person on the planet views time slowing down for the person moving near the speed of light.

there are a few problems with this, however.

first, time is not the only thing of which the measurement decreases. length also decreases. so, by this experiment, the guy on the spaceship (and the spaceship) would also be crushed (in the length of the observer's reference frame).

also, by slowing time down for the traveler, the traveler goes slower than the desired speed. so much slower that it makes traveling that fast pointless, and it makes the maximum speed from rest frame much slower than the speed of light.

 

 

but further the thought experiment in this way. because time and length decrease for other frames as the reference frame approaches the speed of light from rest frame, time and length are then measurements of the speed of light.

the speed of light is point 0 on the linear graph, and the speed of the reference frame is the free end of the line. the line itself is the meterstick for speed of time and length of objects. as the reference frame approaches the speed of light, point 0, the length of the line decreases, and the meterstick decreases in length. all objects are still the same length in meters, but the length of the meter (as observed by the reference frame) has decreased. same applies for time and the measurement of a second. but as the reference frame slows down, away from the speed of light, the measurements return to normal. objects appear to lengthen as the length of the meter increases. similarly, the speed of time increases to make up for the lost time. objects are still the same length in meters, and never changed. similarly, the same amount of time, in seconds, passed for all frames.

 

 

 

but wait, that's not how we percieve time.

if time were as we percieve it, as evidenced in the original thought experiment, then time would slow down and speed up, leaving the reference frame ahead of the other frames in time. but in special and general relativity that doesn't happen. time is observed as slower from the reference frame for other frames, but there's no explanation for how time remains the same speed also.

 

but in my changed thought experiment, time isn't how we percieve it. in my changed thought experiment, the second acts like the meter, instead of it's own seperate system. i can't quite percieve how this would work, but i can percieve it a lot better than i can percieve the empty space created by the difference in times from the original thought experiment.

 

i guess the deceleration of the speed of the reference frame, and thus the velocity of the measurement of the second, causes time to be observed as "catching up"?

but that still leaves 2 empty spaces. the empty space when the observed speed of time increases from a slow speed to a speed faster than a rest frame second; and the empty space when the observed speed of time decreases from a fast speed to a rest frame second. maybe those can be explained using the jerk (derivative of acceleration) of the reference frame?

 

but then that still doesn't exactly work, because those actions aren't observed in the changing length of the meter.

perhaps, because speed of time is a velocity, only acceleration of the reference frame causes the speed of time to change, and the velocity of the reference frame means nothing to the speed of time?

 

does GR explain anything beyond allowing for constant acceleration within the terms of SR's constant velocity?

 

if the original thought experiment is true, why is that? why does inconsistant acceleration make a reference frame invalid? why can't the equation for GR and SR be split into multiple portions, splitting the different accelerations and velocities, and calculating them individually before calculating the combination? why does the invalid reference frame still follow the rules of relativity when in motion? why isn't jerk (derivative of acceleration) accomodated in relativity, and why not distance? what about subsequent derivatives and integrals? changing from rest to a consistant acceleration is a form of inconsistant acceleration, but is required to start all trips; but why is that still a valid reference frame?

 

 

wow... lots of questions. can anyone answer them all? ^^;

[Davros]

by slowing time down for the traveler, the traveler goes slower than the desired speed. so much slower that it makes traveling that fast pointless, and it makes the maximum speed from rest frame much slower than the speed of light.

 

Hey, this would not be pointless at all, in fact an artificial way to travel faster than light!

 

If someone were to travel at 95% speed of light towards a planet 10 light years away, time dilation means that the traveller ages less than 10 years instead of more than 10 years during the travel ... this is clearly not pointless.

 

During the above +/- 10 years time would have been constant in all respects, simply the traveller aged less and maybe convinced he traveled faster than light (when in fact he did not really do so).