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Is time dilation a fallacy?
Astronaut A picks up the May 1, 2014 New York Times on his way through the airport. He says goodbye to his twin and boards his meta - spaceship. He travels ten times the speed of light to station X for 37 days. Station X has a telescope that is able to see a newspaper being read on a Grand Central Park bench one light year away. Astronaut A arrives at Station X June 7, 2014. He looks through the Station X telescope and sees an old man reading a June 7, 2013 NYT. Astronaut A gets back on his ship and his twin picks him up 37 days later July14, 2014. Both twins are 74 days older.
2 Answers
- Randy PLv 77 years ago
" He travels ten times the speed of light"
You just left relativity and the known laws of physics. So you are now commenting on a science-fiction scenario about which we have no theory.
If you confine yourself to allowed speeds, Astronaut A might have traveled at 0.99963 of the speed of light, in which case he experiences one day while his twin experiences about 37. So he is 2 days older when he returns and his twin is 74 days older. He only got 37 light-days out though, about 0.1 light year. In his telescope, because he traveled almost as fast as light, the earth he sees is from slightly later than when he launched (not earlier).
He can't outrace light, so the light he sees is always light that left Earth later than he left Earth. Never before.
- John WLv 77 years ago
No, it's simply non-intuitive.
It's been proven and calculations for it are required by our GPS system.