My questions upon time discrepencies are these....

[seasnake]

Say it is Monday and you and I want to watch a tv show at my house at 7:00 P.M. on Friday that is said to come on that day at that time in that location. Say also we each wear a watch and we set them to be in perfect synch with each other. Now lets say I stay home from Monday to Friday and do relatively nothing, while you on the other hand fly all over the world so that the time on your watch reads I guess faster than mine? So that when you are at my house at 7:00 P.M. your watch reads 5:00 P.M. Cause your time is two hours sooner than my time, does that mean you will have to wait two hours later to watch the same program as I do? Does it mean that the Earth made less rotations for you than it did for me? Does it mean the way in which we measure time is affected not by time dilution but rather by us having watches that are prone to gravitational or other forces simply making the component parts of your watch run slower than mine? I mean if you had carried your watch in a vaccuum the entire time you were away where that watch floated in the middle of the vaccuum therefore being not at all affected by outside gravity, and at the same time you carried it you wore another watch on your wrist, would the watches read differently if they originally were time synchronized and if they did, when you got to my place at 7:00 p.m on Friday which one of those two watches do you think would best match my time?

 

I've been reading up on time dilation and I read that the faster you travel the slower your clock rate will be in respect to those who remained relatively stationary. Now when I think about that I think wow, so if I were to travel at the speed of light and then communicate with whomever I am traveling to that I am traveling to them and I am X distance away by the time I get to my friends they will have calculated that somehow I managed to reach them faster than light could travel as their time would have moved slower than my time and at my time I traveled at the speed of light.

Edited February 3, 2011 by seasnake

[timo]

Say it is Monday and you and I want to watch a tv show at my house at 7:00 P.M. on Friday that is said to come on that day at that time in that location. Say also we each wear a watch and we set them to be in perfect synch with each other. Now lets say I stay home from Monday to Friday and do relatively nothing, while you on the other hand fly all over the world so that the time on your watch reads I guess faster than mine?

The watch would show less time being passed.

 

So that when you are at my house at 7:00 P.M. your watch reads 5:00 P.M. Cause your time is two hours sooner than my time, does that mean you will have to wait two hours later to watch the same program as I do?

No. The watch merely doesn't show local time.

 

Does it mean that the Earth made less rotations for you than it did for me?

Depends how you count earth rotations and which direction the plane traveled. Non-relativistically: If I travel around the earth four times in 24 hours in a direction anti-parallel to the direction of earth rotation, how many earth rotations do I count in your opinion?

 

Does it mean the way in which we measure time is affected not by time dilution but rather by us having watches that are prone to gravitational or other forces simply making the component parts of your watch run slower than mine? [ I mean if you had carried your watch in a vaccuum the entire time you were away where that watch floated in the middle of the vacuum therefore being not at all affected by outside gravity, and at the same time you carried it you wore another watch on your wrist, would the watches read differently if they originally were time synchronized and if they did, when you got to my place at 7:00 p.m on Friday which one of those two watches do you think would best match my time?

Try to use more than one sentence for that statement/question.

 

I've been reading up on time dilation and I read that the faster you travel the slower your clock rate will be in respect to those who remained relatively stationary. Now when I think about that I think wow, so if I were to travel at the speed of light and then communicate with whomever I am traveling to that I am traveling to them and I am X distance away by the time I get to my friends they will have calculated that somehow I managed to reach them faster than light could travel as their time would have moved slower than my time and at my time I traveled at the speed of light.

If I understand you right, then the answer is "no". Relativity foots on the speed of light (which you cannot travel at, but you could replace your example with sending a message at the speed of light, if I understood it correctly) being constant. For everyone. Getting a different results means that either a calculation error occurred. Or that calculations weren't performed at all, and that some concept was mis-applied.

[swansont]

I mean if you had carried your watch in a vaccuum the entire time you were away where that watch floated in the middle of the vaccuum therefore being not at all affected by outside gravity

 

Why would a watch in a vacuum be unaffected by gravity?

[seasnake]

Why would a watch in a vacuum be unaffected by gravity?

 

 

because the watch in the vaccuum in my statement floats in the center of the vaccuum which means that when it is moved closer and further away from the mass of the Earth it is unaffected by the pull of the Earth as the vaccuum container itself adjusts for such elevation changes. The floating watch in the container would be at a lagrangian type of point and would not be subject to outside speed and distance from gravity changes, as such it would be measuring true time. That is to say if everyone had such a watch in such a container all those watches should read the same time as each other no matter where their containers were.

 

If I understand you right, then the answer is "no". Relativity foots on the speed of light (which you cannot travel at, but you could replace your example with sending a message at the speed of light, if I understood it correctly) being constant. For everyone. Getting a different results means that either a calculation error occurred. Or that calculations weren't performed at all, and that some concept was mis-applied.

 

Are you saying that under realtivity I would measure lightspeed as my speed + the difference between lightspeed and my speed? I keep having trouble on that point cause of poorly written and subsequently hard to understand statements in such regard. I also have trouble understanding equations I read about cause the variables aren't well defined and restraints are often not listed. From what I have been reading it sounded more like no matter how fast I travel my speed plus lightspeed would be the the calculated speed of light.

[timo]

I am saying that when a moving object emits light, the light moves with the speed of light. Seen from the perspective of the moving object, the light also moves with the speed of light. That is in one of the assumptions (possibly the assumption) in relativity. This assumptions is completely counterintuitive, because intuitively velocities should add up. But the constant speed of light seems to actually be the case. In nature, velocities do not add up [in this simple manner]. That is, as I said, completely counterintuitive. That's probably why the texts you read on it are so hard to understand. It does not "make sense", it's just a fact.

 

I'm not sure where you read equations in which the variables are not properly defined. But when the problem is only understanding what the variables in an equation mean, you might have rather good chances to get an explanation if you ask in this forum.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

because the watch in the vaccuum in my statement floats in the center of the vaccuum which means that when it is moved closer and further away from the mass of the Earth it is unaffected by the pull of the Earth as the vaccuum container itself adjusts for such elevation changes. The floating watch in the container would be at a lagrangian type of point and would not be subject to outside speed and distance from gravity changes, as such it would be measuring true time. That is to say if everyone had such a watch in such a container all those watches should read the same time as each other no matter where their containers were.

Why should a watch in a vacuum float? Vacuum doesn't protect you from gravity.

[seasnake]

Why should a watch in a vacuum float? Vacuum doesn't protect you from gravity.

 

 

It would float if we constructed the vaccuum so it would float. I know an object in a vaccuum would still fall towards gravity, but I also know that if gravity were equally applied on all areas on the outside of the vaccuum that the object would float in the middle of all the gravital forces, and so that is what I want to happen in my scenerio. If the object did not float as such the clocks would surely all read differently by the exertion of gravitational force.

 

I am saying that when a moving object emits light, the light moves with the speed of light. Seen from the perspective of the moving object, the light also moves with the speed of light. That is in one of the assumptions (possibly the assumption) in relativity. This assumptions is completely counterintuitive, because intuitively velocities should add up. But the constant speed of light seems to actually be the case. In nature, velocities do not add up [in this simple manner]. That is, as I said, completely counterintuitive. That's probably why the texts you read on it are so hard to understand. It does not "make sense", it's just a fact.

 

light doesn't seem to actually have speed at all then, rather it is a medium (or rather a variance or a disturbance) and what we measure the speed of light to be would merely be our speed of observation... keep in mind that impulses to our brains are measured at a constant rate of speed so our observation rate should subsequently also be constant

Edited February 3, 2011 by seasnake

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

It would float if we constructed the vaccuum so it would float. I know an object in a vaccuum would still fall towards gravity, but I also know that if gravity were equally applied on all areas on the outside of the vaccuum that the object would float in the middle of all the gravital forces, and so that is what I want to happen in my scenerio. If the object did not float as such the clocks would surely all read differently by the exertion of gravitational force.

Right, so you'd have to send your watch up into space to one of the Lagrange points. You can't make gravity balance out inside a box while it sits on Earth, certainly.

 

Whether or not it floats doesn't matter, either. Suppose I put someone in an elevator and cut the cables; as the elevator falls, they will "float" inside of it, despite being pulled down by gravity.

[timo]

I think the jump from "I do not understand basic relativity texts" to "based on this I can explain to you the true nature of light" is a bit radical.

[seasnake]

Right, so you'd have to send your watch up into space to one of the Lagrange points. You can't make gravity balance out inside a box while it sits on Earth, certainly.

 

Whether or not it floats doesn't matter, either. Suppose I put someone in an elevator and cut the cables; as the elevator falls, they will "float" inside of it, despite being pulled down by gravity.

 

 

No, your elevator example is very flawed. When an elevator drops and a person is inside of it they don't float in the middle of it, they either stay on the floor or slam up against the ceiling and remain there until the elevator box crashes. As to not being able to make gravity balance inside of a box, I would not say that is impossible, you can levitate stuff with magnets and so it is at least theoretically possible to create such a situation to a decent extent. The problem with the Lagrange point locations for clocks is that one would have to be able to check them all at the same time using a method that won't dilute their readings. When you move them into position and you remove them from their points to read them all at the same location at the same time, the moving of them likely would be responsible for any deviations they have.

[swansont]

because the watch in the vaccuum in my statement floats in the center of the vaccuum which means that when it is moved closer and further away from the mass of the Earth it is unaffected by the pull of the Earth as the vaccuum container itself adjusts for such elevation changes. The floating watch in the container would be at a lagrangian type of point and would not be subject to outside speed and distance from gravity changes, as such it would be measuring true time. That is to say if everyone had such a watch in such a container all those watches should read the same time as each other no matter where their containers were.

 

Ah, I see. A magical vacuum.

[zapatos]

It would float if we constructed the vaccuum so it would float. I know an object in a vaccuum would still fall towards gravity, but I also know that if gravity were equally applied on all areas on the outside of the vaccuum that the object would float in the middle of all the gravital forces, and so that is what I want to happen in my scenerio. If the object did not float as such the clocks would surely all read differently by the exertion of gravitational force.

If gravity was applied equally on all sides, then what is the purpose of the vacuum? Wouldn't the object float even if there was no vacuum?

 

No, your elevator example is very flawed. When an elevator drops and a person is inside of it they don't float in the middle of it, they either stay on the floor or slam up against the ceiling and remain there until the elevator box crashes.

So how is the elevator different from the Vomit Comet? In this aircraft the people are not on the floor or up against the ceiling.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

No, your elevator example is very flawed. When an elevator drops and a person is inside of it they don't float in the middle of it, they either stay on the floor or slam up against the ceiling and remain there until the elevator box crashes.

Nope. There's no force to pin them either to the floor or ceiling. They float.

 

(I passed PHY 301 with an A, btw)

 

As to not being able to make gravity balance inside of a box, I would not say that is impossible, you can levitate stuff with magnets and so it is at least theoretically possible to create such a situation to a decent extent. The problem with the Lagrange point locations for clocks is that one would have to be able to check them all at the same time using a method that won't dilute their readings. When you move them into position and you remove them from their points to read them all at the same location at the same time, the moving of them likely would be responsible for any deviations they have.

Levitating with a magnet is not the same as levitating with gravity. To levitate with gravity you have to go and get something as massive as the Earth and put it over you. Kinda tricky.

[mississippichem]

Ah, I see. A magical vacuum.

 

You must have finished school before they started offering the magical vacuum dynamics course. You really missed out.