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Time is Elastic - The 'Time Dilation Effect'

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posted on Jan, 6 2020 @ 12:43 AM
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Link to Article: BigThink

Why time passes faster atop a mountain than at sea level



The idea of 'absolute time' is an illusion. Physics and subjective experience reveal why.
Since Einstein posited his theory of general relativity, we've understood that gravity has the power to warp space and time. This "time dilation" effect occurs at the smallest of levels. Outside of physics, we experience distortions in how we perceive time — sometimes to a startling extent.


Place one clock at the top of a mountain. Place another on the beach. Eventually, you'll see that each clock tells a different time. Why? Time moves slower as you get closer to Earth, because, as Einstein posited in his theory of general relativity, the gravity of a large mass, like Earth, warps the space and time around it.

Scientists first observed this "time dilation" effect on the cosmic scale, such as when a star passes near a black hole. Then, in 2010, researchers observed the same effect on a much smaller scale , using two extremely precise atomic clocks, one placed 33 centimeters higher than the other. Again, time moved slower for the clock closer to Earth.


The differences were tiny, but the implications were massive: absolute time does not exist. For each clock in the world, and for each of us, time passes slightly differently. But even if time is passing at ever-fluctuating speeds throughout the universe, time is still passing in some kind of objective sense, right? Maybe not.



Physics without time

Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli suggests that our perception of time — our sense that time is forever flowing forward — could be a highly subjective projection. After all, when you look at reality on the smallest scale (using equations of quantum gravity, at least), time vanishes.

"If I observe the microscopic state of things," writes Rovelli, "then the difference between past and future vanishes … in the elementary grammar of things, there is no distinction between 'cause' and 'effect.'"

Rovelli notes that, although time disappears on extremely small scales, we still obviously perceive events occur sequentially in reality. In other words, we observe entropy: Order changing into disorder; an egg cracking and getting scrambled.

Rovelli says key aspects of time are described by the second law of thermodynamics, which states that heat always passes from hot to cold. This is a one-way street. For example, an ice cube melts into a hot cup of tea, never the reverse. Rovelli suggests a similar phenomenon might explain why we're only able to perceive the past and not the future.

"Any time the future is definitely distinguishable from the past, there is something like heat involved," Rovelli wrote for the Financial Times. "Thermodynamics traces the direction of time to something called the 'low entropy of the past', a still mysterious phenomenon on which discussions rage."



"Entropy growth orients time and permits the existence of traces of the past, and these permit the possibility of memories, which hold together our sense of identity. I suspect that what we call the "flowing" of time has to be understood by studying the structure of our brain rather than by studying physics: evolution has shaped our brain into a machine that feeds off memory in order to anticipate the future. This is what we are listening to when we listen to the passing of time. Understanding the "flowing" of time is therefore something that may pertain to neuroscience more than to fundamental physics. Searching for the explanation of the feeling of flow in physics might be a mistake."



The strange subjectivity of time

Time moves differently atop a mountain than it does on a beach. But you don't need to travel any distance at all to experience strange distortions in your perception of time. In moments of life-or-death fear, for example, your brain would release large amounts of adrenaline, which would speed up your internal clock, causing you to perceive the outside world as moving slowly.

Another common distortion occurs when we focus our attention in particular ways.

"If you're thinking about how time is currently passing by, the biggest factor influencing your time perception is attention," Aaron Sackett, associate professor of marketing at the University of St. Thomas, told Gizmodo. "The more attention you give to the passage of time, the slower it tends to go. As you become distracted from time's passing—perhaps by something interesting happening nearby, or a good daydreaming session—you're more likely to lose track of time, giving you the feeling that it's slipping by more quickly than before. "Time flies when you're having fun," they say, but really, it's more like "time flies when you're thinking about other things." That's why time will also often fly by when you're definitely not having fun—like when you're having a heated argument or are terrified about an upcoming presentation."

One of the most mysterious ways people experience time-perception distortions is through psychedelic drugs. In an interview with The Guardian, Rovelli described a time he experimented with '___'.

"It was an extraordinarily strong experience that touched me also intellectually," he said. "Among the strange phenomena was the sense of time stopping. Things were happening in my mind but the clock was not going ahead; the flow of time was not passing any more. It was a total subversion of the structure of reality."

It seems few scientists or philosophers believe time is completely an illusion.

"What we call time is a rich, stratified concept; it has many layers," Rovelli told Physics Today. "Some of time's layers apply only at limited scales within limited domains. This does not make them illusions."


What is an illusion is the idea that time flows at an absolute rate. The river of time might be flowing forever forward, but it moves at different speeds, between people, and even within your own mind.




edit on 1/6/2020 by LtFluffyCakes96 because: Pizz-az added



posted on Jan, 6 2020 @ 01:39 AM
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a reply to: LtFluffyCakes96

Excellent thread ! Thanks Lt.

Question everything ?


Linky.



Linky.



posted on Jan, 6 2020 @ 02:12 AM
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Time is Elastic

I'm thinking that our sense of time / reality has
something to do with the double helix nature of our DNA.
Sort of like how its possible to create a "time delay"
reverb unit using springs.
Maybe our DNA is the spring.We are living "reverb"
units. What if life as we are experiencing it has a
built in delay , so that the "Gods" ,who are not "delayed",
are always one step ahead of us , and so know what
we are going to do "ahead of time"?



posted on Jan, 6 2020 @ 03:57 AM
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Very interesting articles, thank you LtFluffyCakes96.



posted on Jan, 6 2020 @ 05:10 AM
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We have known this since 1971...
The Hafele–Keating experiment
Actually , before then .
Cause Einstein....

edit on 1/6/20 by Gothmog because: (no reason given)



posted on Jan, 6 2020 @ 06:47 AM
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originally posted by: Gothmog
We have known this since 1971...
The Hafele–Keating experiment
Actually , before then .
Cause Einstein....
Yes, Einstein published general relativity in 1915 but few people believed it until the first experimental confirmation in 1919, after which people started believing it and with each passing experimental confirmation it became more clear that the theory was consistent with observations and experiments. Perhaps one of the most amazing experimental confirmations was this one in 2010 mentioned in the OP article, which didn't require all the variables in the Hafele–Keating experiment:

NIST Clock Experiment Demonstrates That Your Head is Older Than Your Feet
They actually showed that a clock at the level of your head runs faster than a clock at the level of your feet, or the equivalent difference, in a lab.


Now, physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have measured this effect at a more down-to-earth scale of 33 centimeters, or about 1 foot, demonstrating, for instance, that you age faster when you stand a couple of steps higher on a staircase.


edit on 202016 by Arbitrageur because: clarification



posted on Jan, 6 2020 @ 06:53 AM
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originally posted by: Gothmog
We have known this since 1971...
The Hafele–Keating experiment
Actually , before then .
Cause Einstein....


They have even observed this in satellites with atomic clocks. They have to periodically adjust them in order for them to keep the same time as ones on Earth.

And while the difference is marginal, it's an interesting thought..



posted on Jan, 6 2020 @ 07:15 AM
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a reply to: LtFluffyCakes96

Time is like the word God. People who follow the Time religion swear Time is real and eternal but they have no evidence of its existence. Just like God, you can't experience time the same way you and I experience an apple.

There Is No Such Thing As Time

"If you try to get your hands on time, it's always slipping through your fingers," says Barbour. "People are sure time is there, but they can't get hold of it. My feeling is that they can't get hold of it because it isn't there at all." Barbour speaks with a disarming English charm that belies an iron resolve and confidence in his science. His extreme perspective comes from years of looking into the heart of both classical and quantum physics. Isaac Newton thought of time as a river flowing at the same rate everywhere. Einstein changed this picture by unifying space and time into a single 4-D entity. But even Einstein failed to challenge the concept of time as a measure of change. In Barbour's view, the question must be turned on its head. It is change that provides the illusion of time. Channeling the ghost of Parmenides, Barbour sees each individual moment as a whole, complete and existing in its own right. He calls these moments "Nows."


edit on 6-1-2020 by dfnj2015 because: (no reason given)



posted on Jan, 6 2020 @ 08:20 AM
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a reply to: Arbitrageur

Both the NIST Clock Experiments may have been a false test. At a higher altitude , the clock would be receiving more radiation thus throwing the results off.

Remember , Einstein was in a quandary for 3 years . Even he did not like the time dilation part of the theory . Yet he included it because it was the only thing he could wedge in to his General Theory of Relativity . You know , like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with a sledgehammer.

Question everything
Why ?
Goth said so.


edit on 1/6/20 by Gothmog because: (no reason given)



posted on Jan, 6 2020 @ 08:52 AM
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a reply to: Gothmog
I'm not sure how you think the radiation would affect time but it was done in a lab so there wouldn't be much change in radiation over the height of .5 meter, and even if there is, in which direction would it increase? The ground emits radiation too, some places more than others.



posted on Jan, 6 2020 @ 10:17 AM
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originally posted by: RavenSpeaks



Time is Elastic

I'm thinking that our sense of time / reality has
something to do with the double helix nature of our DNA.
Sort of like how its possible to create a "time delay"
reverb unit using springs.


I'm not sure how DNA would change time as kept by atomic clocks. Experiments show that atomic clocks are affected by gravity exactly in the way time dilation physics predict them to be.



posted on Jan, 6 2020 @ 10:35 AM
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a reply to: LtFluffyCakes96

Ok, so I've "understood" for years the link between time and gravity, but still trying to understand (at a very basic level.) This is how I think it thru (long-winded below.) What fascinates me is the idea of compressed space - could there be space with drastically less than "neutral" space? Or is the potential to "slow time" due to heavy gravity much greater than the potential to "speed time" through a lack of gravity (I believe that is so, but maybe...maybe some day we'll discover some form of compressed space, potentially through a sort of negative gravity.) [Insert shrug emoji here]

So time passes more slowly as gravity increases. I've always understood this best with the image of the fabric of space-time being stretchy and anything with gravity as a marbleon the fabric (a planet stretching the fabric a little bit, the sun more than that, and a super massive black hole as a DEEP impression. Picture the fabric being pulled down a marble's depth by a planet, 6" by the sun, and like a panty hose for a giraffe hanging down by a black hole*

*for illustrative purposes only - relative lengths are in no way scientific or accurate lol

Thinking of the fabric of having a grid pattern, each unit on the grid would be equal size if gravity was the same everywhere, but where it is stretched, those stretched units would be longer, but would still each be "1 unit" of space-time.

So traversing a planet means the space covered in doing so, relative to "gravity-neutral" space would be longer than the 1-unit space it appears to have covered, due to the curvature and stretching of the space. A black hole, much more so. You would still be traversing the same number of units that the mass object covers, but that space being stretched is what makes time "slow down."

Speed isn't changed in the traversing of stretched space, but would appear to relative to neutral space - or really, from any space with lesser gravity (less stretch.) So within that field, everything seems the same (distance traversed, speed of movement) - an inch is still an inch, its just that the measuring tape is stretched the same as the space its in.

Its the idea of a "negative gravity" space, where the "units" of the fabric of space time are smaller that I find fascinating. If it exists, or could be done, perhaps a relative-to-us faster than light speed travel would be possible (as the speed traveled within that space could still be slower than light speed.)



posted on Jan, 6 2020 @ 07:15 PM
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originally posted by: Arbitrageur
a reply to: Gothmog
I'm not sure how you think the radiation would affect time but it was done in a lab so there wouldn't be much change in radiation over the height of .5 meter, and even if there is, in which direction would it increase? The ground emits radiation too, some places more than others.

You do know they used ATOMIC CLOCKS , yes ?



posted on Jan, 6 2020 @ 10:33 PM
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a reply to: dfnj2015

"There are simply the Nows, nothing more, nothing less."

I appreciate you sharing that link.


"The cat that jumps is not the same cat that lands."



posted on Jan, 6 2020 @ 11:16 PM
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a reply to: dfnj2015

Poppycock. Time does exist. We measure it by the moments we change, which is constantly. Is yesterday, today? Are you somehow ever so slightly different from the events of yesterday than you are today? Time is that. We use a clock to measure the change of events.

Just think, every time you stand in front of the microwave waiting for that 2 minutes to expire and for that frozen dinner to be heated to nuclear proportions, that is 2 less minutes you will get to experience something else, or in other words, 2 less minutes in your total time on this earth.

Besides, it is a well known fact that if there is something that does not exist, it is a fish.




posted on Jan, 7 2020 @ 09:33 AM
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a reply to: LtFluffyCakes96

There is no time without space, really the same thing, space is also elastic.



posted on Jan, 7 2020 @ 10:15 AM
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originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
a reply to: Gothmog
I'm not sure how you think the radiation would affect time but it was done in a lab so there wouldn't be much change in radiation over the height of .5 meter, and even if there is, in which direction would it increase? The ground emits radiation too, some places more than others.

You do know they used ATOMIC CLOCKS , yes ?
Technically, the clocks that measured the time difference between your head and your feet are called "Optical Clocks" because they measure vibrations in atoms that occur at optical frequencies (ultraviolet). So if the measurement is made inside a lab and the lab is blocking UV light from outside the lab, it seems illogical to suppose that UV light from outside the lab is affecting the optical clock results. This is about NIST's most accurate optical clock used in the experiment:

NIST's Second 'Quantum Logic Clock' Based on Aluminum Ion is Now World's Most Precise Clock

The logic clock is based on a single aluminum ion (electrically charged atom) trapped by electric fields and vibrating at ultraviolet light frequencies, which are 100,000 times higher than microwave frequencies used in NIST-F1 and other similar time standards around the world. Optical clocks thus divide time into smaller units, and could someday lead to time standards more than 100 times as accurate as today's microwave standards.
So unless you can explain how UV radiation is getting into the lab from outside, I fail to see how you think external radiation will affect the optical UV frequency used by the optical atomic clock.

Even the old clocks used in the Hafele-Keating experiment which were microwave frequency rather than optical, flew the clocks in different directions and got the different results predicted by theory in the different directions, and there's no way to explain that result with some kind of external radiation versus altitude gradient as you suggest.

With the optical clocks, the theory of relativity wasn't only tested with a height difference, it was also tested with a velocity difference where there was no difference in height, and that experiment also matched theoretical predictions, so there's no way your radiation versus height idea could explain that result with the velocity difference.

edit on 202017 by Arbitrageur because: clarification



posted on Jan, 7 2020 @ 11:19 AM
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a reply to: dfnj2015




Time is real and eternal but they have no evidence of its existence.

Particles decay .
There is your proof .

Denying ignorance.
Why ?
It is fun...

edit on 1/7/20 by Gothmog because: (no reason given)



posted on Jan, 11 2020 @ 06:35 PM
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a reply to: dfnj2015

"time is not a thing that can be changed or manipulated or collected or anything can be done to it or with it, because time is a concept, nothing else.
Time, or exactly said time keeping, is what we humans have developed out of need, so we can keep track of things, like the earth's rotation, which is one day, or earth's orbit around the sun, which is a year. We count events that accrue in constant periodic sequences and count them.
This counting is time keeping. Time keeping is needed for us to survive. There is no time as a thing just time keeping, period !"



edit on 11-1-2020 by Bandu because: (no reason given)

edit on 11-1-2020 by Bandu because: (no reason given)



posted on Jan, 12 2020 @ 04:46 AM
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a reply to: Arbitrageur



With the optical clocks, the theory of relativity wasn't only tested with a height difference, it was also tested with a velocity difference where there was no difference in height, and that experiment also matched theoretical predictions, so there's no way your radiation versus height idea could explain that result with the velocity difference.


and here you answer why that is...



Technically, the clocks that measured the time difference between your head and your feet are called "Optical Clocks" because they measure vibrations in atoms that occur at optical frequencies (ultraviolet).


So what exactly is happening here if the "clocks" are moved ??
The vibrations in atoms change, right ??
But you say TIME itself changes it's what ? speed ?
Time is counting events, not comparing positions

The vibrations of atoms change because of gravity or velocity, not because of a concept time !



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