Time and Clock Specifics

[claforet]

Does that really imply an acceleration? I'm not sure that's true. There is no curvature in the spacetime, it is just a closed gedoesic (there would no way to 'feel' that the spacetime is closed, the only indication that it is closed is that you can return to the point where you started without accelerating (which is what makes it closed)). The implication that the geometry is 'curved' as in GR would mean that the spacetime I'm talking about is embedded in a higher dimensional space which is curved as a result of some energy, which is not the case in my scenario. Spacetime can be both flat and closed (though it would be non-Euclidian).

[Purephysics]

1) I can slow my watch/clock or whatever, but it has no effect on time. Likewise, speeding my clock up does not accelerate me into the future- so I feel there is some disconnection between how we measure time, and time itself as a fabric of our universe.

 

2) (Also, specifically noting reason 1) If time was to noticeably slow down at a particular location would this actually slow my clock? I would have thought that mathematically speaking my clock should actually move ahead of time (i.e. it is now ticking more than once for every real second).

 

Slowing your watch indeed doesn't not affect time. It only affects your measuring device (your clock/watch). Clocks are simply measuring devices; like a ruler measures length clocks (ideal or otherwise) measure change in the physical world. Instead of meauring the distance between two points, they measure the distance between two events.

 

The distance between the two events does not alter even if your measuring device does. So when we talk about the slowing of time we mean the slowing of the distance between two events. Thus, any clock within that time frame (ideal or otherwise), will also be running slower (to an outside observer). If you are within the same time frame then you will notice no difference (time is relative to your position). 

 

If time was slower in one location relative to you, then your watch/clock would not be affected unless you were within that time frame, in which case you would not notice the change in the passage of time anyway. 

[mindless]

The universe is a four dimensional spacetime. Each point has its own location and time. Objects that are moving along with us share our clock readings. Other objects do not.

 

If you want to understand this you need to understand relativistic phase. Phase is far more important than time dilation and length contraction and until it is understood there is no understanding of relativity. See:

 

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Special_Relativity/Simultaneity,_time_dilation_and_length_contraction#The_relativity_of_simultaneity_and_the_Andromeda_paradox