The faster you go, the slower you age, but...

Hi guys,
I was just wondering if anyone knows this: It's been said that astronauts stop aging for a few seconds when they fly out into space (or at least their aging slows down).

So, the faster you go the slower you age.

Now, the earth is traveling at a certain speed as it orbits the sun. Also, our planet is spinning on its axis at a certain speed. If either of these speeds were to slow down, would we start aging faster?

Doesn't it go hand in hand that if the faster you go - the slower you age, and the slower you go - the faster you age?

Yes.

I believe: Our speed orbiting the sun does effect our aging, if the earth was to sling its way out to Pluto (while keeping the thermal radiation for survival and hypothetical purposes) we would age slower.

Whats very interesting about this question is: according to Einstein, speed is relative, so to what point is our speed relevant? Perhaps the sun, perhaps the center of the galaxy perhaps the center of the universe.

I propose that its speed vs the effective gravity is what really effects the observed effects of aging. Perhaps going 200 km/s near earth slows our clocks down due to the sun and earths local gravity, what about open space? That im totally confused about.

I'd imagine that its all relative so its like looking at a train while driving a car when both of you are doing 50mph then no one gets there any faster so you both age at the same rate but these sort of numbers are the sort of things that it takes a lot of speed to keep you alive for even a single second longer, theres all sorts of things to consider solar speeds and gravity pulls followed by local star cluster pulls and then even inter galaxy pulls which will all give a slight change to the time

Great question and I've always been fascinated with this but know nothing about space or math so I'm looking forward to see what more knowledgable people have to say.

I've heard on a WNYC Radiolab episode that if twins are born and one moves to the equator and the other moves to the North Pole, then after twenty years, they meet up... The one that moved to the North Pole would be younger by...
...
a couple of minutes.

It's a great episode, 'Time' I believe. There is a great story in there of a gal who has ~in her own head~ time sped up so fast that she speaks ten times faster than anyone else, and when she sits in a room with a circle of people around her throwing a ball back and forth to her, the people can barely react in enough time to catch it, they're to slow to see her catch and throw it back. As well there are a couple of guys who are so slow that it takes them two hours to wipe their nose.

In both cases, the people with the warped time had no idea until someone else told them.

reply to post by Maxatoria


you are correct, but the perception of the time shift isnt what we are talking about, its the psychical and measurable effects.

If 'we' as a solar system are already hurtling around a galaxy at far greater speed than the earth round the sun, or the spaceship round the earth yet can measure the difference on a local level, if we stopped the solar system moving through the universe and the earth round the sun, might we all grow old and die near instantly? Or is it all still perceived as normal in our awareness of time?

reply to post by jiggerj



I always liked the Time Dilation thing about Astronauts travelling in space, very fast.

Time dilation would make it possible for passengers in a fast-moving vehicle to travel further into the future while aging very little, in that their great speed slows down the rate of passage of on-board time. That is, the ship's clock (and according to relativity, any human traveling with it) shows less elapsed time than the clocks of observers on earth.

For sufficiently high speeds the effect is dramatic. For example, one year of travel might correspond to ten years at home. Indeed, a constant 1 g acceleration would permit humans to travel through the entire known Universe in one human lifetime.The space travelers could return to Earth billions of years in the future. A scenario based on this idea was presented in the novel Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle.

If you could get close to the speed of light, then wow.... just imagine how many years would have elapsed when you come back to earth.


www.fourmilab.ch...

Originally posted by Maxatoria
I'd imagine that its all relative so its like looking at a train while driving a car when both of you are doing 50mph then no one gets there any faster so you both age at the same rate but these sort of numbers are the sort of things that it takes a lot of speed to keep you alive for even a single second longer, theres all sorts of things to consider solar speeds and gravity pulls followed by local star cluster pulls and then even inter galaxy pulls which will all give a slight change to the time

So, everything else would speed up if the earth moved slower. I guess that means we wouldn't be able to look at a clock and say, Hey! I was 21 an hour ago, now I'm 35!

Scary part is if we aged 80 years in ten seconds, we STILL wouldn't know it.

Maybe we're dead already!

reply to post by Biigs


It's relative to whoever or whatever is experiencing it I guess. To a mouse an elephant moves very very slowly.

Another interesting fact. almost all living creatures on earth live for an average of one billion heartbeats. The one exception is humans, we can live for up to two billion heartbeats. Now that is an interesting thought.

The fact comes to mind reading your question about relativity.

reply to post by Biigs


wasn't the timed experiments using atomic clocks and planes done to prove that its all relative as even hitting a plane from new york to london could gain you or lose you xth of a second, so really we live for so long and the speed we move at just is a multiplier so we may live for 10 years at zero galactic mph but at our normal 10 mph we could like to 100 years

Originally posted by jiggerj
Hi guys,
I was just wondering if anyone knows this: It's been said that astronauts stop aging for a few seconds when they fly out into space (or at least their aging slows down).

So, the faster you go the slower you age.

Now, the earth is traveling at a certain speed as it orbits the sun. Also, our planet is spinning on its axis at a certain speed. If either of these speeds were to slow down, would we start aging faster?

Doesn't it go hand in hand that if the faster you go - the slower you age, and the slower you go - the faster you age?

I think it is all relative to Earth for the first comparison. If the Earth slowed down would we know if we were aging faster? Time would still go on so unless it was so great that it would throw us off the planet, I don't think we would even notice.

reply to post by jiggerj


But if the earth stopped rotating we are still rotating around the sun. If we stopped rotating around the sun we are still rotating around the center of the galaxy. If we stopped rotating around the center of the galaxy the galaxy is still rotating around...and on and on

i think that relative time effects mass more than speed.

if i go round Jupiter at half light speed, i feel the same, everyone else slows down 50%, if i go round Jupiter at 99% light speed, people go 99% slower - i remain the same as my perception agrees.

its not my speed that effects my time, its my speed that effects theirs!

Originally posted by Biigs


its not my speed that effects my time, its my speed that effects theirs!

Yes, but if you wear a watch and 'they' do as well...

I think that time is malleable, neither is effected. In other words, it's in the eye of the beholder.

Originally posted by blupblup
reply to post by jiggerj

 

If you could get close to the speed of light, then wow.... just imagine how many years would have elapsed when you come back to earth.


www.fourmilab.ch...

And imagine if you were the first to leave planet earth and stopped only briefly from time to time to read the news. You could theoretically move on forever watching the future play out before you and make it literally ALMOST to the end of time....

reply to post by Quauhtli



Exactly, as they said in the snippet I posted, you could travel through the whole of The entire known universe in one human lifetime so yes, you could for sure watch the earth pretty much die out.

Insane really.

reply to post by jiggerj


I don't believe in such faster-you-go/slower-you'll-age nonsense. It is derived from Einstein's Relativity thought experiment... But I tend to strongly oppose it.

Naturally, my mainstream physicists friends will disagree with me, and say, "oh, john, you just don't understand it enough". The truth is, I understand it VERY WELL - and I still disagree with it nonetheless.

Originally posted by Biigs
i think that relative time effects mass more than speed.

if i go round Jupiter at half light speed, i feel the same, everyone else slows down 50%, if i go round Jupiter at 99% light speed, people go 99% slower - i remain the same as my perception agrees.

its not my speed that effects my time, its my speed that effects theirs!

If it affects theirs, it affects yours too.

It's inversely relative.

You fast, them slow, them fast, you slow. No matter, they are both changing relative to each other.

so it is it a question of the point of view that matters more than the effects from any observers, that seems rather self centered.

screw you slow aging guys, im going 50% the speed of light and i will remain young, till i slow down and conform to your perception

- How would a astronaut notise that he is aging slower when he travels very fast?

-Would he have to travel back to earth to notice?

-Is it the clock onboard that slows down or is it the physical aging of the body?