I have a very good light question.

This question might make you think differ about light speed speeds up time around you. Okay here is the question.

You are standing on one end of a football field and your freind is sitting on the benches. You start walking twords the other end and it takes you about 2 mins, lets say. You and your friend are 2 mins older. Now you travil back to where you started but this time you travil light speed. How old would ur friend be. will he be 1 sec older or 40 years older?

also i have another question.

think of a square this square is thousands of light years big. YOu and you friend start at the bottom right hand corner. You both travil light speed. you head for the bottom left corner to the top left corner . your friend starts the same time going th same spped but he heads for the top right corner to the top left corner. Will both of you be the same age. (keep in mind they both start at the same place and also it is a huge square.)

if anyone could give me some answers and explanation on your answer it would be great. i need to understand more what you guys understand because to me light speed is just speed time has nothing to do with it, thats just my theory.

thatnks agian for your help.

Originally posted by The Parasite
This question might make you think differ about light speed speeds up time around you. Okay here is the question.

You are standing on one end of a football field and your freind is sitting on the benches. You start walking twords the other end and it takes you about 2 mins, lets say. You and your friend are 2 mins older. Now you travil back to where you started but this time you travil light speed. How old would ur friend be. will he be 1 sec older or 40 years older?

He will have aged by however long you took to get back to where you started, light speed isn't any different from traveling at 4mph its just faster.

Originally posted by The Parasite
also i have another question.

think of a square this square is thousands of light years big. YOu and you friend start at the bottom right hand corner. You both travil light speed. you head for the bottom left corner to the top left corner . your friend starts the same time going th same spped but he heads for the top right corner to the top left corner. Will both of you be the same age. (keep in mind they both start at the same place and also it is a huge square.)

You both wont be the same age since it take time to travel no matter what speed you travel at, You will have both aged the same amount however.

You just need to remember light speed is exactly that, the speed of light theres nothing particularly special about it its exactly the same as the speed of sound or the speed of a snail.

The perception of time is a consequence of movement through space.

The rate of travel determines the relative speed of perceived time.

Please review the existing threads on this subject. There is no point in trying to explain relativity here.

Please, try a few Google searches. The average user on these forums will have no idea how to answer you. These are conspiracy forums and most people here don't really have scientific degrees.

en.wikipedia.org...

Do some reading.

Protector is right, the answers given so far are very far from the truth... or just avoid the issues all together.

Edn, you may want to read up on some of einsteins theories. Travelling at the speed of light has some consequences other than simply getting there fast.

So yeah, Parasite, here, I've taken the time to do some searching. I found the best way of searching google for this is with "einstein light speed" in the search field.

But yeah, this is a question you don't want to ask a forum about.

Ey! My answer was spot on! There's just at least a dozen other relativity threads. We seem to be making some wide sweeping generalizations here for so few posts.

Lol, that reminds me of what a friend of mine said.

"If I only have one source for my information, doesnt that make me 100% correct... I mean, nothing has argued against my point."

I am no expert in einsteins relativity theorie but that's how I think it is according to his theorie:
(experts pls correct me if my answer is incorrect)

Originally posted by The Parasite
You are standing on one end of a football field ...

He and the rest of the world will be t = D/c older, where D is the football field length and c the light speed

And you did not age at all during your lightspeed travel. (the footbal field distance D shrinks to zero for you at lightspeed so you get to the other end at no time)

Originally posted by The Parasite
think of a square this square is thousands of light years big. YOu and you friend start at the bottom right hand corner. You both travil light speed.

Both start at same spot, both stop at the same destination and both always travels with lightspeed C in the same reference system.

-> Same as in question 1, if always and instant travel with C you that travels did not need time to get to your destination. Same for your friend here. You both are not a bit older. But your reference system (say earth) is some 1000 years older. Bad if you had family and friends. :/


[edit on 10-12-2006 by g210b]

yup, g210b is right, anything moving at the speed of light will experience no passage of time whatsover, (thats why they say a photon is timless).

instead of "how much would my friend have aged if i was moving at the speed of light?", your question might be better phrased as, "how much would my friend age if i was moving at a substantial fraction of the speed of light?".

i don't know the numbers/ratios to answer that question myself though.

[edit on 10-12-2006 by Urn]

If you're zipping along at light speed you still experience time the same as you would at any other speed. But an external observer will forever see you with your finger on the Warp button.

Originally posted by apc
If you're zipping along at light speed you still experience time the same as you would at any other speed. But an external observer will forever see you with your finger on the Warp button.

oops...ya, thats what i meant, but you could zip to the other side of the universe, and it would seem instantaneous from your perspective.

Originally posted by apc
But an external observer will forever see you with your finger on the Warp button.

I heard and read that often but I dont think that this is really true. First of the ship becomes contracted for an outside obeserver as well (loses 1 dimension) and second to see something it has to emmite or reflect light. If this is really possible from a time-frozzen 2-D object I dont know. And then after all that frozzen 2 dimensional pic/object becomes smeared over the whole way it travels because the time of the observer does not hold and the object indeed travels form A to B .You can measure where it is at every moment. Hmm I think you probabily would see nothing. hard to imagine how a 2-D object emittes and or reflects photon in the 3-D.

Originally posted by Urn
oops...ya, thats what i meant, but you could zip to the other side of the universe, and it would seem instantaneous from your perspective.

Yup. But it cost you about 1 yearh or so to accelerate to light speed if you accelerate with 1g. And 1 year to stop after. And then hmm the univerese alters extrem. Maybe you never get to the end, when it always expanse with c too or, maybe you catch the other end when the universe is slowing in expansion ot contracting again. (in a cyclic universe)

Originally posted by Urn
oops...ya, thats what i meant, but you could zip to the other side of the universe, and it would seem instantaneous from your perspective.

It would only seem instantaneous if you were going way, way faster than C. Otherwise, to you it would take just as long as it does for light to travel the same distance.

g210b
I heard and read that often but I dont think that this is really true.

Yeah I was being more sarcastic than literal. Just saying that the perception of time is entirely relative to the speed of the observer when compared to the speed of another observer.

hmm ... how to explain...

the phisicist Brian Greene, in his book "The Elegant Universe" gives a very good explination of this phenomenon.

the way he explains it, is that everything is essentially moving at the speed of light through four dimential space (the fourth dimention being time).

the more of the "C" limit that an object uses when traveling through 3d space, the less is used traveling through time, and so, the object experiences less time relative to whatever else. (hense time dialation)

and the less of the "C" limit that an object uses travelining through 3d space, the more it uses traveling through time...

so...since a photon moves at the speed of light, its using all of it's "C" limit traversing three dimential space, and none of its "C" limit traversing time, therfore it never actually experiences the passage of time.... see what i mean?

(if that made any sort of sence whatsoever)

[edit on 16-1-2007 by Urn]

[edit on 16-1-2007 by Urn]

Originally posted by g210b First of the ship becomes contracted for an outside obeserver as well (loses 1 dimension)

lorentz contraction!!!! holy crap... i completly forgot about that...

the closer you aprouch the speed of light, the more your length contracts (in the direction your moving)

so... if you were to actually move at the speed of light, then ya...you would literally lose that dimention completley...

wow... cool thought dude!!!...


[edit on 16-1-2007 by Urn]

[edit on 16-1-2007 by Urn]

Hallo all, I'm not an expert by any means but I do know a little bit about einsteins theory of relativity.

First of all, it is impossible to go the speed of light. unless your mass is zero, or negative if could ever be possible. So like someone else mentioned a better question would be how much would one person age in comparison with the other after going one light year distance at speed say .75c (.75 the speed of light)

The short answer. THe person traveling at .75c would age less than the person standing still. Mind you there is really no "standing still". There is no absolute reference point so it would have to be "standing still" with respect to the traveler.

The formula for this time dilation is T = T'(Y) where Y=1/(Root(1-(v^2/c^2))).(this is contained in the lorentz transformations if you're interested) where T is the time experienced by the guy standing still and t is the time experienced by the guy moving.

As for your second question. Yes they would be the same age, as long as they did not come close to any large gravity wells as they also effect the perception of time.

The question of time is very fascinating and yours were very good questions. I love these kind of thoughts thanks for bringing them up.

JB

To be honest some of the above are right in one sense...I would as advised do some googling or maybe buy some books on this...its a deep and very difficult to conseptulise subject. However I can prove that no matter what the answer to your question is... or if its posssible to travel at the speed of C is possible or not... none of these matter unless you ascertain what C actually is in this case...

Many many mnay people fall over here on this subject and in relativistic terms...IMHO it explains lost such as some of the incongruities of dark matter or the changing velocity that seems to be observed for the universe from any original starting point.... its this

C IS NOT A CONSTANT. Most people are under the opinion that C (speed of light is constant) and unchangeacle and umutable its not, it is subject to the environment it finds itself in.

Therefore its all a bit of a "fuzzy" answer based on speculation if anyone gives you a reply without first asking you what the speed of C is...or other information first.... for example this ffotball field is it on the surface of a neutron star? or even close to the event horizon of a singularity...or maybe traversing a period of space very very empty with little cosmic bacround radiation and therefore has a mean temprature that is close to absolute zero? all of these things actually affect the velocity we can measure for C.

Hope this confuses ayou a bit more but opens your eyes to the reality or relativity!!

do some googles on the einstein Bose condesate and C and also singularities etc. There is no hard and fast answers at all its all subjective.

Kind Regards

Elf

This is true that the speed of light is not constant, it does slow down in a medium and yes gravity and electromagnetic fields will also have an effect on the way light behaves but that is all irrelevant to the question posed. The original post asked if time slows down for one person that is traveling at or close to the speed of light.

well its all subjective and relativistic isnt it, from the point of view of the person travelling at close to or at C for example their watch and cells, and bio rythyms would if observed or recorded by a person or equiptment also travelling at the same speed may show for example 1 hour passing, however if you then were to observe this event at a distance e,g, from the earth where the velocity is a lot lower then maybe 10 or 20 years could have passed, the person would come back to find their 5 year old daughter when left now 15 yrs, but their watchs just said 1 hour.

Thats the whole thing with special relativity it depends on the observer and where you measure from, which links in nicely infact with modern quantum theory, (the observer or state of the observation affeting the outcome, further reinforcing the relativistic nature of reality first proposed by einstein).


Kind Regards

Elf.