enridp Posted July 13, 2007 Posted July 13, 2007 Hello ! I'm having troubles with the causes of time dilation. I will to appeal to the twin paradox because it is known for everybody. A = Earth twin. B = traveller twin. We know B is younger than A when he returns. Now, why? I mean... from the viewpoint of A, he is younger because his time was dilated during his inertial trip (we can neglect the effect of acceleration here). But from the viewpoint of B, A was under the effect of "time dilation" too, but during the acceleration, B sees a uniform pseudo-gravitational field fill the universe. And this field is the cause of the final difference between B and A's clocks. We have 2 very different "causes" for the same effect. What is the correct? bye !
someguy Posted July 14, 2007 Posted July 14, 2007 this is what i posted once in another thread about the same subject. it's how i look at it. I like to think of it like this. the faster you move the more ground you take up in space compared to a slower moving object. the faster you move in space also the more ground you make in time. so, while you in your spaceship are not moving compared to other objects in it, and thus not aging at a different rate than those objects, compared to here on earth you are moving much faster and therefore you and everything in your spaceship are making great time in... time. so when you arrive back on earth you will have aged less than everything on earth. i find this way of thinking helps because it helps you think of time not as a linear thing, like we grew up to believe, but more like a 4th axis of the 3 dimensions of space. imagining time slows down for the fast moving spaceship promotes thinking of time in the conventional sense but that it gets warped or changed dependent on your speed which i have come to believe is sort of an imprecise, or misleading, way of looking at it, though it's not really wrong to talk about it in this way. sort of like saying that if the door of plane opens in flight everyone gets sucked out, when technically, they are blown out. if nothing moved at all there would be no time at all right? everything would be on pause. so you can see right away that time and motion are very closely related. in fact, they are co-dependent. this part at least is more obvious as just a natural rule of the way the universe "must" be. when you start thinking about how the faster you move in relation to something else the more different you experience time, it gets more unconventional and weird, but it's the same kind of "must" be.
Sayonara Posted July 14, 2007 Posted July 14, 2007 There are several threads on the twins paradox. Please use the search tool.
enridp Posted July 14, 2007 Author Posted July 14, 2007 I know many solutions for the twin paradox, and I'm not disputing these solutions, they are great, I know the traveller is younger at the end. And the importat thing is that the traveller knows it too! but the traveller explains it in a different way. I mean, for the "Earth twin" time dilation occurs during both legs of the trip and that's all, from the traveller's viewpoint this is truth too (but backwards), and the important thing: from the traveller's viewpoint the Earth's time is contracted during his acceleration (at really, the traveller can't see an acceleration, he sees a pseudo-gravitational field). They agree with the final effect, but they don't agree with the causes... So, causes are relative? PS: I's nice to see it like a movemente at constant speed © in 4D (spacetime), but anyway, I can't solve the "relativity of the causes", is that another SR consequence?
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now