posted
So in the stories, it takes one 40-50 years of relativistic space travel to reach the colonies from Earth's orbit, but one can select not to sleep during the trip which will allow one to age two years. So does the voyage feel like 40-50 years or only 2 years? How does one eat on a 40 year voyage? Is that Snickers bar feeling the same affects of relativity or is it actually 20 years old (if eaten midway)?
Posts: 40 | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
It's two years old. Everyone moving at the same speed (i.e. everything inside the ship, including the ship) is moving at a relativistic velocity compared to the outside world; ergo, time moves more slowly for them.
This is not just a matter of perception. That Snickers bar really is just two years old, even if an outside observer has been waiting 40 years for it.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
It's not like relativity is just some trick that's played on one's mind. The ship and everything on it physically experiences only two years, while 40 years pass in the rest of the universe. So no, a snickers bar isn't immune to the effects of relativity. It spends as much (or rather as little) time on the ship as any of the passengers. So if you eat it half way you're eating a year old snickers, even though it was made on Earth 20 years ago.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
And the slowing effect is there even if you just walk across a room, although it would only be large enough to notice for someone or something moving at close to the speed of light. If I recall this effect was measured in the laboratory by spinning radioactive substances in a cyclotron for a while, showing the radioactive half life increased while they were moving rapidly, so more radioactivity was left at the end than would have been expected otherwise. Perhaps someone knows all about this or can find a link. Anyway time distortion does boggle the mind, but it appears to be real.
Posts: 50 | Registered: Nov 2008
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