Thread: Theory of relativety

Sorry, can someone explain to me this space time and theory of relativity to me in lamens terms? Even the wikipedia article was too high brow for me to get a complete and full understanding of it.

Also, i made this because there are 666 threads and someone might get shanked by a dead something.

Relativity

Choose your destiny

there are alot of implications to the theory of relativity. One of the most popular is the fact that Time is experienced in relation to the speed you are travelling. That is to say that the faster you are traveling, time passes slower for you than it does elsewhere.

A common example is a man leaves earth in a spaceship, travels near the speed of light for nearly 40 years, comes back to find while he is only 40 years older, everyone he knew back home had long since died

Another implication is that no matter how fast you are travelling, light is costantly traveling the same speed it was when you were going slower. That is to say, if you shined a laser into space from your spaceship, then almost instantaneously chased after it at near the speed it was traveling when you shined it from your flashlight, The light would still be going as fast away from you as it was when you were sitting still. This is because the faster you go, the slower time is for you. The rest of the universe would appear to be speeding up, including the beam of light. This is why you could never go faster than light because the faster you go, the faster the universe appears to be going from your point of view. The light apears to be going faster as you go faster because time moves slower for you.

relativity is based on the observation that, even though we know that the earth is moving, when we measure the speed of light it seems to be the same in all directions. to explain this requires that moving objects shrink and slow down and that there is a loss of simultaneity.

i can answer this!

objects traveling near light speed the object will move slower and! from the observers point of veaw will be shorter in length einstin made the famouse equation e=mc^2 which reveals the relationship of mass and energy.
enstine latter used his theroy on gravitational fields he conjerd the time space continumm which shows the demention of space and time as a 2 demetinal serface
(ill go no ferther cus i know not eny more. )

Originally Posted by numb3rs

i can answer this!

objects traveling near light speed the object will move slower and! from the observers point of veaw will be shorter in length einstin made the famouse equation e=mc^2 which reveals the relationship of mass and energy.
enstine latter used his theroy on gravitational fields he conjerd the time space continumm which shows the demention of space and time as a 2 demetinal serface
(ill go no ferther cus i know not eny more. )

Actually he showed space-time is 3 dimensional

argg i tryed my best

That is fine numb3rs, you are getting there, it took me a few years to get to the point where I think I know a little bit of what einstein was saying...Took me forever to get around the whole time slowing down thing until I saw a helpfull graph somewhere on wikipedia...I think it is still there somewhere.

Anyway, say you wan to go to a star 40 light years away, Your civilization somehow got smart enough to travel near lightspeed but not smart enough to figure out relativity...pretty unlikely but anywho...you go as fast as you can, say 99.999% the speed of light, yo prepare enough food and water and air for 100+ years. Anyway, you start out. Well, since time is slowing down for you, and the universe seems like it is going faster, it seems to have taken you less time to get to the star than you thought it would have, looks like the star was kind of heading your way while you were heading toward it. Then you head home and realize that back home over 80 years has passed to your 20 or something like that. I don't have the mathematical background to know what the actually time difference here but you get my point.

we can define motion using three variables, speed, distance and time. if its true to say speed at C velocity slows down time, is it possible to think to manipulate the other variables to accomplish different results. modifying distance via the theorized "worm hole" allows travel over great distance in less time. Would it also be true to say slowing down time would increase speed or would it shorten distance? If spacetime is a dimension, would it be possible to modify it, to slow it down?)

Originally Posted by SuperNatendo

That is fine numb3rs, you are getting there, it took me a few years to get to the point where I think I know a little bit of what einstein was saying...Took me forever to get around the whole time slowing down thing until I saw a helpfull graph somewhere on wikipedia...I think it is still there somewhere.

Anyway, say you wan to go to a star 40 light years away, Your civilization somehow got smart enough to travel near lightspeed but not smart enough to figure out relativity...pretty unlikely but anywho...you go as fast as you can, say 99.999% the speed of light, yo prepare enough food and water and air for 100+ years. Anyway, you start out. Well, since time is slowing down for you, and the universe seems like it is going faster, it seems to have taken you less time to get to the star than you thought it would have, looks like the star was kind of heading your way while you were heading toward it. Then you head home and realize that back home over 80 years has passed to your 20 or something like that. I don't have the mathematical background to know what the actually time difference here but you get my point.

Slow down!


why does time slow down when travelling near light speed!? I can't imagine anything but time being constant :?

Theory of relativity holds that time slows down regardless of how fast you go. Time actually slows down by simply walking. It is basically imperceptable at slower speeds but it still slows down. Theoretically, if you spent your entire life travlling on an airplane at say 300 mph, you could conceivably extend your life, relatively, by about a minute.

It is only when you reach speeds that approach the speed of light that you can have a measurable effect in regard to time.

Supposedly, the speed of light is an absolute. In other words you cannot exceed that speed. For example, if you could ride on a train that traveled at the speed of light, if you were to fire a gun, the bullet would never leave the chamber.

If you could build a spaceship that could somehow exceed the speed of light, you could take off and return and watch yourself take off. If you traveled fast enough (in excess of the speed of light), you could watch the Battle of Gettysburg or even observe the dinosaurs.

Originally Posted by uncommonman

Theory of relativity holds that time slows down regardless of how fast you go. Time actually slows down by simply walking. It is basically imperceptable at slower speeds but it still slows down. Theoretically, if you spent your entire life travlling on an airplane at say 300 mph, you could conceivably extend your life, relatively, by about a minute. It is only when you reach speeds that approach the speed of light that you can have a measurable effect in regard to time. Supposedly, the speed of light is an absolute. In other words you cannot exceed that speed. For example, if you could ride on a train that traveled at the speed of light, if you were to fire a gun, the bullet would never leave the chamber. If you could build a spaceship that could somehow exceed the speed of light, you could take off and return and watch yourself take off. If you traveled fast enough (in excess of the speed of light), you could watch the Battle of Gettysburg or even observe the dinosaurs.

Time slows down? What does this mean? It's all about frame of reference. When comparing a clock traveling at c to all other clocks, all other clocks slow down.

This phenomenon is referred to as time dialation. In reality, it is not time travel, visa-vi Jules Verne. Jump in your StarBeemer (BMW) sportship at high noon, select Warp speed, iPhone inserted in ear and gun that sucker. You travel out into space cruising at c for 30 minutes taking in the sights and another 30 minutes to return to earth. When you do, you find the earth's atomic clock reads 12:04pm. Only 4 minutes have passesd. slow~~~~~ The clock on your wrist reads 1:00pm. Oh my, how time flies when youre having fun. So now what does it mean? What really happened? You lived an hour of life, your senses observed an hour of information. your heart beat for an hour and you took an hour of deep breaths, you listened to an hour of music on your iPod and your body aged one hour .... and you did it all in 4 minutes. hmmmmmm?

Does that mean everyone else is 0:56 minutes younger than you?

By the way... One could never travel fast enough to reverse a clock's time. It's like dividing a whole number in half, and then its answer in half and on and on....you will never derive at a negative value.

Actually, everyone is older than you. They continued to move forward in time while you were traveling backwards in time (so to speak). You just can't see them. It would take another blast into space to see what you missed.

Originally Posted by uncommonman

Theory of relativity holds that time slows down regardless of how fast you go. Time actually slows down by simply walking. It is basically imperceptable at slower speeds but it still slows down. Theoretically, if you spent your entire life travlling on an airplane at say 300 mph, you could conceivably extend your life, relatively, by about a minute.

It is only when you reach speeds that approach the speed of light that you can have a measurable effect in regard to time.

Supposedly, the speed of light is an absolute. In other words you cannot exceed that speed. For example, if you could ride on a train that traveled at the speed of light, if you were to fire a gun, the bullet would never leave the chamber.

If you could build a spaceship that could somehow exceed the speed of light, you could take off and return and watch yourself take off. If you traveled fast enough (in excess of the speed of light), you could watch the Battle of Gettysburg or even observe the dinosaurs.

The train would only appear to be traveling the speed of light if it was so massive it took up all the space of the universe, so therefore, the train you are thinking of could only be going near the speed of light. The bullet would leave the chamber, but it's perception of time and space are different than the gun it was fired from.

Also, to you, it appears that people not going 300 mph in an airplane their whole life were gaining one minute to their life, since their "speed" is also relative to your "speed"!

At no time are you going backward in time, your perception of time is based on your speed. If you are going "1/2 the speed of light" the planet you left thinks it is sitting still while you are travelling "1/2 the speed of light", But you may start to think you are standing still and the planet is leaving you at "1/2 the speed of light", But really, the speed of light is still the same for both of you, neither of you are really going 1/2 the speed of light, you just see each other aging slower, and that means you look back at the planet and it appears as if they are aging slower than you, they look at you and it appears as if you are aging slower than them!

I didn't grasp this till it was explained to me by mitchell, and even then I am just hoping I'm finally explaining this right!

just goin on what has been said bout travelling in space, could one compare it to jet lag or flying through time zones on earth? In that u travel through times zones say, america to europe, it takes say 7 hours, but wen u get ther your body clock is different to the respective time zone. is dat what happens, on a larger scale obviously, during long distance space travel?
im not questioning anyones theories here, im just trying to understand it all!

has it ever been proven? Can it be proven? When its no longer a theory, what are they gonna call it?

Originally Posted by Orleander

has it ever been proven? Can it be proven? When its no longer a theory, what are they gonna call it?

A scientific theory is different from a theory as being a hunch or a guess

To quote wikipedia:

Originally Posted by Wiki

The word theory has a number of distinct meanings in different fields of knowledge, depending on their methodologies and the context of discussion.

In science, a theory is a mathematical or logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theories commonly used to describe and explain this behavior are Newton's theory of universal gravitation (see also gravitation), and the theory of general relativity.

In common usage, the word theory is often used to signify a conjecture, an opinion, or a speculation. In this usage, a theory is not necessarily based on facts; in other words, it is not required to be consistent with true descriptions of reality. This usage of theory leads to the common incorrect statements. True descriptions of reality are more reflectively understood as statements which would be true independently of what people think about them.

According to the National Academy of Sciences,

"Some scientific explanations are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them. The explanation becomes a scientific theory. In everyday language a theory means a hunch or speculation. Not so in science. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature that is supported by many facts gathered over time. Theories also allow scientists to make predictions about as yet unobserved phenomena."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory

So, you can say that a theory is as good as it gets.

Thanks Obviously. I didn't know that. :-D