speed of light

[SinJin]

The faster you travel, the slower time moves for you. The closer to the speed of light you travel, the more time slows down. But isn't time just the rate of change? I know it can be refered to as a seperate dimension in which to describe events in, but the passing of time is the changing of events. If every particle in the universe stopped moving and changing and interacting, wouldn't that mean time itself would stop too? So as you approach the speed of light, when we say time slows down, isn't that just another way of saying our perception of the rate of change slows down?

[Guille]

yes.

But this is all circular.

Because if we say that when we go "faster", which means to have a rate of change faster, and then, by going faster we are actually going at a rate of change smalller, it is contradictory. But only contradictory if we state that time must change as space does. And here is when Einstien thought, to solve the contradiction, time must be an entity. And then, there can be faster, but still, slower rate of change. That is why time is considered a separate dimension.

[gs_cmans]

Nature seems to be misterious. But SHE works like that only as we know now.

[SinJin]

I'm still having trouble understanding, and was hoping someone might clarify with possibly a non math-heavy explanation. If time is derived from the rate of change we perceive, then why is it that the rate of change we experience slows down the faster we approach the speed of light? Is there an answer? Or is it just one of those things we have to except? I understand that we can never "catch up" to light, no matter how fast we go, and so time seems to slow down for us in order to allow that light beam to maintain it's constant speed, but what exactly makes this happen?

The only way I personal can imagine it is if all particles (in the universe, not just photons in a light beam) are moving at the speed of light, and so when you travel at the speed of light, you're traveling at the same speed as the particles and they appear stationary relative to you, thus they are not interacting with you and so no change is perceived, and time appears to be standing still. But I doubt this is the case... Is there any simple explanation for why time dialation occures that involves the idea that time is merely the passing of events, i.e. the rate of change?

[Guille]

Well, I think I have the one magical answer, we all know about it, we are all suffering it's consequences just now.....It is GRAVITY.


Because of E=mc^2 and the fact that we gain energy when we gain speed, then by going faster and faste,r let's say we acheive to go at 298,000 km/s, then we are gaining mass, and if we gain mass we make a bigger curvature in space-time, and curvature is what makes time slower, you see, by travelling a smaller distance than before, now, you take more time, meters get smaller and seconds get bigger. Not for us, in our mind, space and time is equally legthfull asbefore, and we see ourselves moving as fast as before, but for someone outside our spaceship, someone that has no speed, we are going so slow that it is nearly impossible to determine if we are moving at all.

I had also thought about the idea of particles for space-time, and if these particles exist indeed, then it is possible that they gop at the speed of light (if in any case they are moving), because they would be massless (space or time can't have "mass", and, as it is needed to have no mass to go at the speed of light, then they can go at that speed).

Tell me if you need even more simple explenation, I think this was maybe a bit too much strainghtforward.

[dleviwing]

sijin;
There is a difference between what is "Real Time" and what is needed to measure time. Real time is absolute and invariant; it cannot be duplicated with a physical device (clock). Any physical object is affected by acceleration (uniform motion) and thus will vary in mass and the degree of freedom (thermodynamics) of its atomic structure. Time-dilation corrects for this effect. This is "Relative Time".

Real time is a notion created to communicate motion.
Time becomes a dimension when it becomes a measured term and thus subject to our inability to perform absolute measurements.

Actually your comments of the perception of things at the speed of light is not that far off the mark.

[SinJin]

Well, I think I have the one magical answer, we all know about it, we are all suffering it's consequences just now.....It is GRAVITY.


Because of E=mc^2 and the fact that we gain energy when we gain speed, then by going faster and faste,r let's say we acheive to go at 298,000 km/s, then we are gaining mass, and if we gain mass we make a bigger curvature in space-time, and curvature is what makes time slower, you see, by travelling a smaller distance than before, now, you take more time, meters get smaller and seconds get bigger. Not for us, in our mind, space and time is equally legthfull asbefore, and we see ourselves moving as fast as before, but for someone outside our spaceship, someone that has no speed, we are going so slow that it is nearly impossible to determine if we are moving at all.

I had also thought about the idea of particles for space-time, and if these particles exist indeed, then it is possible that they gop at the speed of light (if in any case they are moving), because they would be massless (space or time can't have "mass", and, as it is needed to have no mass to go at the speed of light, then they can go at that speed).

Tell me if you need even more simple explenation, I think this was maybe a bit too much strainghtforward.

I think I understand that explanation. If you're speeding along from point A to point B, the faster you go, the more energy you have, and hence more mass. More mass means space becomes more warped with greater curvature, and as you said curvature is what makes time slower. But that last part doesn't explain much. Saying curvature slows down time is fine, but I'm asking why. I'm also asking why it slows down time, with the idea that time is the passing of moments and changing of events.

Maybe I need to be more detailed in my question. If you're in a spaceship, and you start going faster and closer to the speed of light, time will slow down for you. Let's say your spaceship consists of a room with a super-powerful rocket attached to it. You're sitting in the room, travel near the speed of light, but you notice time moving as normal (you have a clock in the room). As far as you're concerned, all of the particles in your body, along with all the particles that make up the room, are interacting with eachother at the usual pace. You blink and breathe and have thought processes all at the normal rate. In other words, all the normal actions and events that make up the passing of moments (i.e. time) are being carried out at the pace you are used to. However, outside the spaceshipthings are happening faster than normal. People are walking and working and aging faster. On a subatomic level you would have to assume that all the normal processes, all the atoms and particles interacting with eachother, are going at a faster pace outside the spaceship. But since things are relative, everyone outside the spaceship is experiencing all these things at a normal pace, and see you go through them at an exteremly slow pace.

My point is, whether it's from your point of view inside the ship looking out at the world or those outside the ship looking in, what is seen is a dramatic change in rate of the passing of events, actions, and moments (time), both on the macro and microscopic level. But I think it is the change in the microscopic that puzzles me the most. So my main question is, why does going closer to the speed of light make you perceive these changes differently. I understand that space and time are intertwined. I understand that the faster you go, the increase in curvature slows down time for you. But does the curvature just magically slow or speed up these passing moments as you watch them go by? Does the curvature literally slow down all of the particles that make up your body and the spaceship, as the ones outside interact with eachother at a normal rate? Is there even an answer? Thanks for your input.

[Guille]

I understand now, although I don't have a complete answer, I have a few things.

For you, you are moving normal. For you, the ones outside are moving normal (I'm not sure of this one, I think it might be that for oyu the ones outside are moving fast). And for the ones outside, you are moving very slow.

Now, gravity doesn't only bend space, but it also bend time. If you bend space, you aregoing to take a bigger time space to cover a smaller space of space, and thus, meters are shorter and seconds are longer. That's why you will never come up to c, because you have mass, and thus as you incease your speed, you will increase you rmass, your energy, and the gravity you produce, and, the time will be even longer and meters even shorter.

[gs_cmans]

good explanation to visualise special theory of relativity which is a bit confusing for begginers.

[Ingvar]

I'm still having trouble understanding, and was hoping someone might clarify with possibly a non math-heavy explanation. [...]why is it that the rate of change we experience slows down the faster we approach the speed of light?

The velocity of light is relative to the observer and his velocity. Because an observer's light is the invariant frequency-spectrum of the radiation that his eyes react on as light.

As measurements demonstrate, the velocity of light from a source, as a star, is constant in the space at rest. But it is relative to an observer's velocity, because his eyes light's frequency-spectrum is invariant.
Therefore the observer's speed v is added (+ or -) to the light-speed c.

Light is not a physical phenomenon: Light is a physiological reaction on the eye's retina that the brain interprets as light and colours, depending on the frequencies. Consequently, the frequencies change with the observer's velocity relative to the radiation's source.

The present Pointcare-Lorentz theory that Einstein plagiarized to theoreticize about relativistic velocities is based on an asymptotic transformation equation. It was a thought-experiment about what would happens near the light-speed's limit and a help hypothesis that Einstein used to speculate and manipulate his reviewing friends and colleagues to get rid of the aether and the problematic results from the anomalistic Michelson-Morley experiment that was given a false authority, because it wasn't the experiment that got the Nobel-price: it was the invention of the instrument.

The observer's velocity added to the radiation's c changes according to this formula: f=(c+-v)/l where f is the observers invariant frequency spectrum and v his velocity, and l (lambda) is the velocity-depending variable wavelength.

And as the light-spectrum of the observer in rest (relative to the space) is about 3800-7600 Angstrom, and the frequency-spectrum derived from this is 7.895x10^16Hz to 3.947x10^16Hz.

If the observer moves at 1 % of c towards the radiation-source the relative radiation velocity is 303 000 km/s.

The observer's light has then changed the wave-spectrum from 3800-7600 Angstrom to 3838-7677 Angstrom.

And vice versa in the other direction from the light-source.

The same logical formula is applicable for the light-source in motion.

If a light-source (a galaxy) moves away at 1 % of c it wave-spectrum is elongated 1 % relative the observer. And vice versa.

The only way I personal can imagine […] photons in a light beam […]. Is there any simple explanation for why time dialation occures that involves the idea that time is merely the passing of events, i.e. the rate of change?

The photon is Einstein's vision of Planck's misinterpretation of the measurements of the heat-radiation's fractional difference between the radiated wave-units and/or the radiation's wave-displacement with the covered distance.

The analyses of the measurements have demonstrated that there was a fractional constant increase of the wave-lenghts: from one wave-unit to the next; or this fractional constant multiplied with whichever amount of wave-units length or covered distance.

Also Hubble discovered the same wave-displacement phenomenon from his analysis of the galaxies' redshifted spectral lines but he misinterpreted it as Doppler-velocity and the galaxies' recession and expansion of the universe.

Hubble has written:
"If the recession factor is dropped, if redshift are not primarily velocity shifts, the picture is simple and plausible. There is [then] no evidence of expansion, and no restriction of time-scale, no trecce of spatial curvature and no limitations of spacial dimension."

So photons are just illusions, and length contraction and time dilation are fantasy, and its bizarre consequences are bad and sad science fictions.

The fractional displacement of 6.6x10^34 implies that the radiation (a wave-unit independent of its length) is displaced 1 Angstrom per 16 million light-year (1 Angstrom is 1/10 000 000 000 m).

Read Max Planck's Nobel-lecture at:
http://nobelprize.org/physics/laure...ck-lecture.html
where he wrote that he didn't know how to interpret the measurements.

Planck has written:
"Either the quantum of action was a fictionally quantity, then the whole deduction of the radiation law was in the main illusory and represented nothing more than an empty non-significant play of formula ..."

Ingvar Astrand, Sweden
http://www.theuniphysics.info