Clock Dilation: Its cause?

[LaurieAG]

Hi Craig,

 

Hi Laurie :)What’s critical in my derivation is not that any specific event (eg: the light signal being emitted by the emitter, it being received by the target) occur at the same distance from A and B, but that the 2 events defining the entire duration be measured by each observer (the first light signal being emitted, the last one being received by the target) occur at the same position. If having A and B be the same distance from both events is helpful in visualizing them, by all means visualize them that way, but be mindful that both the beginning and ending event of the total measured durations need to be accounted for.

 

I understand what you are saying.

 

If you do a thought exercise based on a spaceship travelling between 2 points A and B (1 light year apart) and use say the first equidistant supernova detected by both points A and B to start your absolute timers and the ship. In this case the only difference between 'relative' time and the 'absolute' time seems to be the lag of the light pulse that triggers the relative timers.

 

It just seems to me that the nature of relative time is a direct result of the lag produced by using the speed of light to trigger the start of the timing (sent from point A to point :naughty:. In cases where you use fractions of light speed and especially where you use > light speed this lag becomes very evident when you compare the relative time with the absolute time.

 

IMHO 'relative' time should be called 'relative to the speed of light' time to correctly identify the triggering mechanism for the timer and the cause of the apparent lag.

[LaurieAG]

Hi Craig,

 

What I attempted with my previous post is the simplest possible derivation of the special relativity’s time dilation, requiring only the postulate that c is constant, and that the square of the length of the longest side of a right triangle is equal to the sum of square of the lengths of the other two sides. My goal is to “demystify” this central feature of relativity. I think a lot of people who object to or deny the validity of relativity do so because they lack an intuitive, “hands on” feel for it due to lack of having seen it derived in an intuitive, simple way.

 

The old KIS law always seems to go for the lowest common denominator.

 

Delving into simultaneity questions in special relativity leads rapidly to a host of mind-bending apparent paradoxes, such as the ladder paradox.

 

I'll see if I make some sense out of it with absolute timers and get back to you (although it seems that the lack of an absolute reference point i.e. like the finish line may cause problems). Even BB theory must have a sole absolute reference point for its beginning.

[The_Right_Stuff]

I am saying that there is a foundation which is responsible for the creation of what is called Special Relativity. Thus the structure of reality itself must be observed, and not just what occurs due to the form of such a structure.

 

Further descriptions are available at.

CONSTANT MOTION

 

The linked-to article (which appears to be present the same material as the previously posted youtube video) seems to me to unnecessarily complicate special relativity and time dilation.

 

:shrug: A complete explanation of Special Relativity does not seem complicated if it is properly understood !

 

If on the other hand one chooses to use mathematics to reach conclusions, then the math itself takes the place of thought processes and thus prevents complete understandings.:eek:

 

Thus the understanding of the structure of reality should be achieved first. Converting this understanding into equations becomes a step two verification process.:doh:

 

The funny thing is that many people feel that " Special Relativity " is complete and thus whish to go no further to find the cause of Special Relativity. :hyper: They are happy with saying that " It just is ", and then proceed to bust their butt to shoot down any complete explanation, and do so by any and all means if necessary.

 

If their is such a thing as a God, then just think about what this means. God supports truths, Satan wants to bury truths. If you have complete understandings, then you see the truth. If you whish to bury(shoot down) any exposure of truths, then who's side would you be on !

 

But most people would not take this statement seriously since seriousness brings one close to truth. Thus they would say that this is another subject altogether. As usual they carry on keeping their eyes on one specific subject at a time such that a complete understanding is never achieved.

 

But anyhow, many many years ago, prior to having completed grade 10, I figured out the basics of the structure of reality, and then I proceeded to convert these understandings into equations. Years later I found out the my equations were identical to those known as ...

 

1) Lorentz Fitzgerald Contraction Equation.

2) Time Dilation Equation.

3) Lorentz Transformation Equations.

4) Velocity Addition equation.

 

.... and then I was shocked to find out that an explanation that produces the equations listed above, is immediately rejected by all with the exception of one person so far.

 

It was kind of weird. I was speaking to a fellow who lived in my old apartment building. We got into talking about physics, and as I explained my understandings step by step, he would say " Yes ", " Correct ", " That's right ", etc., and so I stopped and said that I was surprised to be able to talk to someone who could understand what the heck I was saying.

 

It turned out that this guy was a physicist.

[LaurieAG]

I'll see if I make some sense out of it with absolute timers and get back to you (although it seems that the lack of an absolute reference point i.e. like the finish line may cause problems). Even BB theory must have a sole absolute reference point for its beginning.

 

Hi Craig,

 

The absolute reference point (although moving) is the locked back door of the garage that will not allow the ladder to pass through (i.e. finish point for the ladder).

[HydrogenBond]

Has there ever been experiments placing clocks below sea level to make sure time will slow as we get closer to the center of the earth? We could lower a clock into the deepest sea trenches, within a hardened container so the internal conditions can simulate the space shuttle. We keep another clock at the surface and monitor changes.

[InfiniteNow]

I'm not sure if such a test has yet been performed (someone please share if you know of any), but we know that time dilation is caused by a difference in gravitational potential, so there's little reason to think that the test would fail. The gravitational potential at sea level would be higher than the gravitational potential in the deep sea, so the time measured by the clocks would, in fact, be impacted by dilation effects.

[max4236]

So a day spent on the bottom of the ocean is slightly less than a day spent on the top of Mt. Everest right? And if you were to look back at the Earth from an intergalactic void with a giant telescope everyone would be walking around in slow motion with a slightly redish tint? Are the atoms in a clock at the bottom of the ocean squashed more like a pancake, so a pendulum would have to travel further in it's swing? This is interesting stuff.

[coldcreation]

I'm not sure if such a test has yet been performed (someone please share if you know of any), but we know that time dilation is caused by a difference in gravitational potential, so there's little reason to think that the test would fail. The gravitational potential at sea level would be higher than the gravitational potential in the deep sea, so the time measured by the clocks would, in fact, be impacted by dilation effects.

 

Exactly.

 

This type of test doesn't need to be performed. Why bother, we already know what the answer will be. There are already plenty of experiments that have comfirmed time dilation and gravitational redshift.

 

All you need to do is place the adequate equipment on the top of a tower, and similar equipment on ground level.

 

 

 

CC

[modest]

Also, there's nothing significant about sea level. It just reflects how much liquid water is on the planet. It's certainly not a boundary concerning time dilation or potential. Nevertheless, I'm sure people have used GPS in places like the dead sea that are significantly below sea level without consequence.

 

~modest

[CraigD]

Has there ever been experiments placing clocks below sea level to make sure time will slow as we get closer to the center of the earth? We could lower a clock into the deepest sea trenches, within a hardened container so the internal conditions can simulate the space shuttle. We keep another clock at the surface and monitor changes.

Previous responses to this post have done, I think, a good job of answering it, but I’ve some additional comments to contribute.

 

The best modern atomic clocks, such as the NIST-F1 and others in the TAI collaborative, are already sensitive enough that arithmetic correction must be made to their digital counters when their altitude is changed by an amount as slight as that experienced when they are moved from one floor to another of the same building.

 

Since all of the clocks in the TAI are above sea level, and since it was established as a standard in the 1970s, the TAI is for a clock at mean sea level, all of its clocks must be adjusted using Relativity. A less “geocentric” time standard is BCT, a calculated time that would be measured by a clock infinitely distant from all matter in the universe (ie in truly gravitationally flat space) with exactly the velocity of the barycenter of the solar system.

 

NIST and other labs are putting a lot of effort, with good results, into making small, inexpensive atomic clocks, so the day is likely not far off when a typical high school class could use one to measure time differences between two clocks on different floors of its building and compare them to calculations made from the formulas of Relativity. Once these become commonplace, they’ll likely be so useful that they’re carried by submarines, making the experiment HydrogenBond describes practical.

 

Although you’d have to go considerably deeper than the bottom of the deepest ocean trench to begin to see An interesting question that came up in a string of posts ending with Re: More correct, but more approximate, examples of grav time dilation in and around (these posts are about gravitational time dilation as one approaches the center of the Sun, but the principle is the same as with the Earth) is what gravitational time dilation would be experienced by a clock placed at the bottom of a shaft reaching all the way to the center of the Earth, where the net force of gravity relative to the surface is zero. Although one might expect (as I and an erroneous wikipedia article suggested) that such a clock might actually run faster than one on the surface, this is not the case. Gravitational time dilation is at a local maximum at the center of the Earth. Even at this maximum, the speed of a clock at the center of the earth relative to one at its surface is very nearly an unchanged 1, on the order of [math]1-10^{-12}[/math].

 

To get large gravitational time dilations (and such a thing could be very useful!), you need either much more mass than can be had with a mere Earth-size planet, or even a star, or you need great, black hole or near black hole, density.

[LaurieAG]

Also, there's nothing significant about sea level. It just reflects how much liquid water is on the planet. It's certainly not a boundary concerning time dilation or potential. Nevertheless, I'm sure people have used GPS in places like the dead sea that are significantly below sea level without consequence.

 

~modest

 

Hi Modest,

 

A couple of days ago I read about GPS using the triangulation of 3 satellites times with a further one used to check the answer for +/- 10 metres accuracy. Dilation is only a portion of the solution (that increases in proportion as you seek greater accuracy).

[modest]

Hi Modest,

 

A couple of days ago I read about GPS using the triangulation of 3 satellites times with a further one used to check the answer for +/- 10 metres accuracy. Dilation is only a portion of the solution (that increases in proportion as you seek greater accuracy).

 

On second thought, I do believe you're right. The additional blue shift that GPS receives below sea level would be small enough to not cause anomalies - be it there or not.

 

~modest