Time Slows At Light Speed I need help understanding this theory

[wacky_stu 0]

A freind tried to explain to me that the faster someone travels the slower time passes. Also the higher you are the faster time passes. Although what he says is accurate, I am yet to fully understand how this works. But cannot be bothered reading any technical science booksCan any one help me out here?

[Tsunami 0]

well... im pretty sure if your going any where near the speed of light that you wont be able to stay close enough to any one object to notice if time is still going at the same speed, but near as i can figure i would assume that the faster you go time would slow down because you would be going so fast that anything else is hardly moving compared to you.... as for the second one... im not so much sure as time going faster but im sure you could go faster at a higher altitude because the air would be thinner thus decreasing wind resistance...

[ishwar 0]

Well, if you use the distance / speed / time formula : speed = distance / time, and make time the subject of the formula, and when speed increases , obviously the time had to decrease , because to get more speed , you divide by less (time). That means that you are covering more distance per unit of time.A practical example is a video camera, capturing frames at , lets say 30 frames per second , now increase the fps, you will be capturing more detail at less time intervals.Hope this helped.

[kkrizka 0]

Well, if you use the distance / speed / time formula : speed = distance / time, and make time the subject of the formula, and when speed increases , obviously the time had to decrease , because to get more speed , you divide by less (time). That means that you are covering more distance per unit of time.

I don't think that this relates to the original question. Yes if you are moving faster then you cover the same distance in less time (that's common sence after all), but the original question was about how the time you percieve is moving compared to how others percieve this. I think the explanation needs Einstein's theory of relativity instead of simple kinematics. But then I could be wrong.

[ishwar 0]

I don't think that this relates to the original question. Yes if you are moving faster then you cover the same distance in less time (that's common sence after all), but the original question was about how the time you percieve is moving compared to how others percieve this. I think the explanation needs Einstein's theory of relativity instead of simple kinematics.

time / speed / distance formula has evrything to do wth this. You are percieving more detail PER unit of time. Remember that time cannot be given an actual unit. If you use seconds as an unit , there is a micro second , given a microsecond, there is a nano second, and even something smaller than a nanosecond. Thats why I
gave the example of a camera and its fps.

But then I could be wrong.

Yes you are wrong ( sorry for being blunt)

[Shadowcast 0]

As far as I know this is entirely to do with Relativity. The basic principle of relativity is that space and time are linked i.e. space-time. The thing that causes time to slow down is in fact the curvature of space-time (unfortunately I don't really know how travelling faster curves space-time, I do know that it increases energy, and thus mass as mass is proportional to energy, so this might have something to do with it). As well as speed and altitude gravity can also affect time (large bodies which have a high gravitational force can also slow time down, due to the curvature of space-time, I think).The really interesting part however is not that time slows for the person travelling at close to light speed, but that time will also appear to slow down for other people from the point of view of the one travelling close to light speed.Then again my knowledge of advanced physics is very rudimentary (I only barely passed at college, I got an E which is the lowest pass grade. And we only briefly did relativity) so if this is incomplete, confusing or just plain wrong feel free to add or correct (alternately you could just laugh)