Traveling at light speed: would you percieve slower time or just be effected by it?

originally posted by: Vector99

originally posted by: Leonidas
Accelerating up to Light Speed would either turn you into a raspberry jam stain... or you would die of old age getting up to speed.

Accelerating to light speed is impossible, the mass will overcome the velocity.

I disagree...

Accelerating to light speed is possible for a spacecraft that has magnetic shields surrounding the starship.

originally posted by: Leonidas
Accelerating up to Light Speed would either turn you into a raspberry jam stain... or you would die of old age getting up to speed.

This is more a theoretical discussion than one of our present capabilities. Let's try to frame it a little differently:

IF you were able to achieve close to light speed, your PERCEPTION of time would not change. A minute would still feel like a minute; an hour would still feel like an hour. You and your clock would both agree that "time" was perfectly normal. It's only when you returned to Earth and stopped traveling at close to light speed that you would see a difference. That difference would be a very aged twin or maybe his descendants where you had aged very little.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Erno86
If you think that time works differently for humans than for other things, I guess you're right. We'll have to wait for those long distance travelers to go there and back.

I agree with your post Phage. I know I'm just hedging my bets on a wish and a prayer --- But I feel that I'm correct in my assumption...that a starship is incapable of time travel as we know it, as in relation to people on Earth having aged more, compared to craft that is orbiting at the same time or even a starship that has travelled to another star system and back.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Erno86

time dilation might work on an atomic clock, but it is sure as heck not going to have an effect on any living organism in our universe --- Space traveler or not!!!

Why not? Every process (atomic or chemical) occurs in time.

time doesn't equal motion nor does life

originally posted by: Erno86

originally posted by: Vector99

originally posted by: Leonidas
Accelerating up to Light Speed would either turn you into a raspberry jam stain... or you would die of old age getting up to speed.

Accelerating to light speed is impossible, the mass will overcome the velocity.

I disagree...

Accelerating to light speed is possible for a spacecraft that has magnetic shields surrounding the starship.

Disagree all you want but physics as we know it prevents us from ever ACCELERATING to light speed. The mass of the object will become more than the resistance. We have shown this with the LHC. We can accelerate particles to 99.9% light speed.

originally posted by: Erno86
I still disagree...time dilation might work on an atomic clock, but it is sure as heck not going to have an effect on any living organism in our universe --- Space traveler or not!!!

What's so special about a biological organism that its atoms are not affected in the same way by time dilation as the atoms in an atomic clock?

originally posted by: Vector99

originally posted by: Erno86

originally posted by: Vector99

originally posted by: Leonidas
Accelerating up to Light Speed would either turn you into a raspberry jam stain... or you would die of old age getting up to speed.

Accelerating to light speed is impossible, the mass will overcome the velocity.

I disagree...

Accelerating to light speed is possible for a spacecraft that has magnetic shields surrounding the starship.

Disagree all you want but physics as we know it prevents us from ever ACCELERATING to light speed. The mass of the object will become more than the resistance. We have shown this with the LHC. We can accelerate particles to 99.9% light speed.

You are being unnecessarily pedantic here. 99.9% is quite sufficient to show time dilation. So is 80% or 50%. That's the original topic here, not whether or not you can achieve EXCACTLY the speed of light.

a reply to: schuyler

I was responding specifically to accelerating to light speed. It can't be done.

Traveling at light speed: would you percieve slower time or just be effected by it?

Is the title. I don't see travelling at 50%, 80% etc, It's asking about light speed, something you cannot accelerate to.

originally posted by: Erno86

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Xeven

I think there could be a difference and it might just feel like 10 years even though I age slower

It would feel like ten years. You would not age slower.
Time is relative, for you time would pass at a normal rate but you would "see" time passing faster on Earth. If you never returned to Earth, you would never know the difference.

I agree to disagree...on the theory that a space traveler travelling at any speed [below or at the speed of light or even in the superluminal realm] will "see time passing faster on Earth" or anywhere else --- Time is time for everyone in the universe --- Nobody is going to get around it --- IMHO --- or at least not until this questionable theory is proven as fact or fiction.

It has been proven and is being used right now.

GPS works by having extremely accurate clocks, they all send a signal to you at the exact same time, since the speed of light is static, it will take variable times for that signal reach to reach you depending on the distance from each satellite. This is how your GPS knows where you are on the earth.

Because the satellites are farther from the earth, thus farther from its gravity well than we are on the ground, and they are moving much faster than we are, their clocks so not count time at the same rate as ours on earth.

If they did, those fractions of a second difference would add up until they were seconds then minutes then hours days years off from ours on the ground.

So the clocks on the satellites were designed to not be accurate on earth, but are perfectly accurate when in their orbits.

Thus we have GPS.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Erno86

or at least not until this questionable theory is proven as fact or fiction.

It has been proven. One example:
en.wikipedia.org...

I has been proven now many times, Einstein was the man!!!

originally posted by: Vector99
a reply to: schuyler

I was responding specifically to accelerating to light speed. It can't be done.

Traveling at light speed: would you percieve slower time or just be effected by it?

Is the title. I don't see travelling at 50%, 80% etc, It's asking about light speed, something you cannot accelerate to.

Umm, do you understand the word "pedantic"? Do you REALLY not understand what the poster was asking here?

originally posted by: Erno86

originally posted by: Vector99
a reply to: Erno86

Relativity says you aren't correct. The only way we could observe time dilation is by achieving speeds that would make the dilation noticeable. We can't get that fast yet, well unless you consider atomic clocks on the space station that run at microsecond differences than that of Earth

and Phage,


I still disagree...time dilation might work on an atomic clock, but it is sure as heck not going to have an effect on any living organism in our universe --- Space traveler or not!!!

Why not?

Matter is matter, it doesn't make a difference if it is living or not, in fact the atoms that make up your body are in no way special or extraordinary.

They are the exact same atoms that make up the lifeless elements you are made of.

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: Vector99
a reply to: schuyler

I was responding specifically to accelerating to light speed. It can't be done.

Traveling at light speed: would you percieve slower time or just be effected by it?

Is the title. I don't see travelling at 50%, 80% etc, It's asking about light speed, something you cannot accelerate to.

Umm, do you understand the word "pedantic"? Do you REALLY not understand what the poster was asking here?

When it comes to travelling at and accelerating to light speed, there is no pedantic. There is or isn't. And there isn't.

originally posted by: Erno86

originally posted by: Vector99

originally posted by: Leonidas
Accelerating up to Light Speed would either turn you into a raspberry jam stain... or you would die of old age getting up to speed.

Accelerating to light speed is impossible, the mass will overcome the velocity.

I disagree...

Accelerating to light speed is possible for a spacecraft that has magnetic shields surrounding the starship.

is what I was responding to.

originally posted by: Erno86

originally posted by: Vector99

originally posted by: Leonidas
Accelerating up to Light Speed would either turn you into a raspberry jam stain... or you would die of old age getting up to speed.

Accelerating to light speed is impossible, the mass will overcome the velocity.

I disagree...

Accelerating to light speed is possible for a spacecraft that has magnetic shields surrounding the starship.

How does that stop you from acquiring more energy, thus mass?

E=MC2

Mass and energy are equal, if I take say a 1 pound mass and add energy to it, in this case speed, it acquires mass as it accelerates, until it would take infinite energy to push you up to the speed of light because you would have infinite mass.

That is why it takes 14 tarraelectron volts of power to get protons to the 99% of the speed of light in the LHC before they collide them.

Protons weight nothing by human standards, 1 pound of matter has trillions times trillions of protons in it.

But at a slow velocity, they weigh nothing, but at 99% of C (the speed of light) they weigh a lot.

originally posted by: Vector99
a reply to: schuyler

I was responding specifically to accelerating to light speed. It can't be done.

Traveling at light speed: would you percieve slower time or just be effected by it?

Is the title. I don't see travelling at 50%, 80% etc, It's asking about light speed, something you cannot accelerate to.

What about accelerating towards light speed -- i.e., approaching the limit (such as in calculus) of light speed?

a reply to: Box of Rain

What is the rate of acceleration? Humans are very susceptible to inertia. Particles are another story.

originally posted by: Vector99
a reply to: Box of Rain

What is the rate of acceleration? Humans are very susceptible to inertia. Particles are another story.

It's not the force of inertia on our bodies that causes time dilation.

If we accelerate at 1G toward a limit approaching the speed of light, we would still experience the effect of time dilation relative to a frame of reference that is not accelerating.

a reply to: Phage

Outside of a given frame of reference, time is relative. Not really a paradox though.

Is time perceptive?

fundamentally, Does the 'concept' of time not act as a measurement of photons relative to all other particles that we humans can perceive and 'measure'?

or more simply put, does 'time' exist? or is it our way of explaining our perception of nature and its complexities?

originally posted by: Box of Rain

originally posted by: Vector99
a reply to: Box of Rain

What is the rate of acceleration? Humans are very susceptible to inertia. Particles are another story.

It's not the force of inertia on our bodies that causes time dilation.

If we accelerate towards the limit of the speed of light at 1G, we would still experience the effect of time dilation relative to a frame of reference that is not accelerating.

Inertia is a result of the force of acceleration, or deceleration. That is tied into time dilation, but not directly related. The mean velocity will determine the dilation factor.

originally posted by: Vector99

originally posted by: Box of Rain

originally posted by: Vector99
a reply to: Box of Rain

What is the rate of acceleration? Humans are very susceptible to inertia. Particles are another story.

It's not the force of inertia on our bodies that causes time dilation.

If we accelerate towards the limit of the speed of light at 1G, we would still experience the effect of time dilation relative to a frame of reference that is not accelerating.

Inertia is a result of the force of acceleration, or deceleration. That is tied into time dilation, but not directly related. The mean velocity will determine the dilation factor.

True, but you seemed to be adding more confusion to the issue when you asked:

"What is the rate of acceleration? Humans are very susceptible to inertia. Particles are another story.

Time dilation is fundamental, and has nothing to do with "organisms as a whole" but rather the fundamental particles that make up that organism.

If I compare the atoms in my body before and after putting my entire body through an industrial wood chipper, there would be no difference in those atoms. The fact that they were part of a living organism before I jumped in the wood chipper is not relevant.


EDIT TO ADD:
...Except for the differences in the fundamental particles caused by them accelerating through the chipper, but that's not the point.