It's about time! Ultra-accurate clocks prove time moves faster at your face than your feet - Polidicks

[URL="http://io9.com/5646585/ultra+accurate-clocks-prove-time-moves-faster-at-your-face-than-your-feet"]Source[/URL] [release][IMG]http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/2010/09/custom_1285296461141_nbs-history-476-atomic-clock-photo-1200-scale-1024x878.jpg[/IMG] Einstein's theory of relativity says that time passes more slowly the closer you get to the ground, because you're closer to Earth's gravitational field. It's a tiny difference, but big enough for a pair of laser-powered clocks to actually measure. Time dilation is one of the more famous aspects of Einstein's theory, although most people are only familiar with the special relativity version of this phenomenon. In that case, time moves at different speeds depending on how fast you're moving relative to the speed of light. The classic example is of two observers, one on a speeding train and the other standing on the station platform. Time is moving ever so slightly more slowly for the observer on the train than the observer on the platform. It's an almost imperceptible difference, but it's real - in fact, some astronauts are a few seconds younger than they would have been if they had never left Earth. And time actually doesn't pass at all if you're traveling at the speed of light, which means any sentient photons out there haven't perceived any time elapse since the moment of the Big Bang. So that's the special relativity version of time dilation. The general relativity version is a byproduct of the theory's basic idea, which states gravity is an effect caused by objects warping the fabric of spacetime. More massive objects, like the Earth or the Sun, obviously create a much deeper indentation in spacetime, but everything and everyone is bending spacetime a little to create their own little gravitational field. But as long as you're on this planet, Earth is the overwhelming gravitational force, and the stronger the gravity, the slower the passage of time. Maybe the most famous example of this is with black holes, as any object approaching the event horizon will appear to slow down to a standstill due to the tremendous gravitational forces. But even on Earth, that effect exists, and the difference is about 3 microseconds per kilometer per year. According to my calculations, that means the flags Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay left on the summit of Mount Everest in 1953 are about .0015 seconds younger than if they had stayed at sea level. That's not much of a difference, of course, and it's not like they left a clock on top of Everest to actually demonstrate this effect. However, atomic clocks on jets have been used to prove this effect over a difference of several kilometers, and now researchers at the National Institute of Standard and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, have managed to show a discernible difference between the passage of time on ground level and a few feet above ground level - in other words, on a human scale. Now atomic clocks, which uses the constant frequencies of atoms jumping between energy states to keep time, are generally thought of as the world's most accurate timekeepers. And for most official purposes, atomic clocks are the preferred option - for instance, the international time standard is set atomic clocks with a frequency of 9.2 billion cycles per second. But that isn't nearly precise enough to measure such a subtle relativistic effect. To do that, the NIST researchers had to use optical clocks that cause an aluminum ion to switch energy states even more quickly, changing states over a quadrillion times every second. The actual gain in accuracy isn't quite that dramatic - it's only about forty times more accurate than the best atomic clocks, but that's enough to spot the almost infinitesimal effect relativity has on a human scale. The researchers were able to show a clear time difference between two optical clocks separated by only fifty [I]centimeters[/I]. They were also able to show a special relativity time dilation effect at speeds as slow as four meters per second - that's less than half the speed at which current world's fastest man Usain Bolt runs the 100 meter dash, although admittedly he might be a bit slower if he had to carry a heavy optical clock. Either way, it looks like runners really are keeping themselves younger, even if it's only by a couple billionths of a second. And if you want time to just fly by...well, invest in mountaintop properties. Or just try and grow a couple inches taller. [I][[URL="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/329/5999/1630"]Science[/URL]; pictured up top is the world's very first atomic clock.][/I][/release] It sure takes the phrase "what's the time?" to a whole 'nother level, doesn't it? :science:

What the fuck?

:psyduck: Stuff is crazy.

So stand up during boring lessons? :v:

[QUOTE=Pretiacruento;25023563]It sure takes the phrase "what's the time?" to a whole 'nother level, doesn't it?[/QUOTE] No it doesn't.

Doesn't that mean that time can be manipulated, at specific locations?

So the farther you are from the core of the earth, the slower time passes? Does it mean that on other planets, time will pass slower or faster as well?

[quote]And time actually doesn't pass at all if you're traveling at the speed of light, which means any sentient photons out there haven't perceived any time elapse since the moment of the Big Bang.[/quote] God damnit einstein, some of the stuff you said is either complete bullshit or too much for my brain to handle.

:psypop:

[QUOTE=Agent Cobra;25023627]So stand up during boring lessons? :v:[/QUOTE] No, lay down. (I think?)

[QUOTE=BurnEmDown;25023637]So the farther you are from the core of the earth, the slower time passes? Does it mean that on other planets, time will pass slower or faster as well?[/QUOTE] The closer you are to a magnetic field around the strength of earths, it'll work. I doubt it's infinitive as einstein's theory says, so you can't just travel at the speed of light and magically stay tuned in time.

I thought this thread was gonna solve my not knowing the time problem...

Why do scientists care?

[QUOTE=Snoops;25023679]Why do scientists care?[/QUOTE] Yeah why do we care about the things in life. All we should do is cultivate potatoes and collect rain water and just roll around in mud.

Normal clocks can do this. They just don't show you they're doing it.

So does that mean that if you entered a strong enough gravitational field, you could slow the passage of time to a near halt? But it isn't actually slowing time, so it would make maybe a minute outside of the field feel like an hour inside? Fucking time how does it work?

Well that's sort of a given. Time probably moves faster for your dick than your balls if you're standing up, but at the microscopic scale it's barely discernible to even to the most accurate clocks. Still a bizarre phenomenon, though. The part about time slowing to a stop near the event horizon of a black hole is cool.

[QUOTE=gamefreek76;25023765]Normal clocks can do this. They just don't show you they're doing it.[/QUOTE] Normal clocks can't

I'll never understand this stuff. I wish I could, it seems so intriguing, but my mind just can't process how this shit works. Time is such an abstract subject.

This is old, like, years old. I hope I'm not the only one to know this.

And from this day forward, I would crawl whereever I needed to be.

[QUOTE=Micr0;25023864]I'll never understand this stuff. I wish I could, it seems so intriguing, but my mind just can't process how this shit works. Time is such an abstract subject.[/QUOTE] It's simple, "Time is relative"

[QUOTE=Micr0;25023771]So does that mean that if you entered a strong enough gravitational field, you could slow the passage of time to a near halt? But it isn't actually slowing time, so it would make maybe a minute outside of the field feel like an hour inside? [/QUOTE] Time is not constant throughout the universe. So it is actually slowing time in that spot just as much as time is speeding up outside of the spot. There's no "normal time" per say, though there does seem to be an average when you're around the more moderate gravity levels. If you're around intense gravitational fields (like a black hole) then time will slow down drastically.

[QUOTE=Micr0;25023864]I'll never understand this stuff. I wish I could, it seems so intriguing, but my mind just can't process how this shit works. Time is such an abstract subject.[/QUOTE] It's actually not that hard to be honest. Here is a picture that explains it really really clear. [img]http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/252/srelwhat_files/image017.gif[/img] [editline]08:37PM[/editline] It of course depends on the persons point of view. If he's travelling with the clock, then it's at rest for him. Time is still "normal". But for an observer, he will see that the photon travels a longer distance, taking more time.

[QUOTE=hypno-toad;25023895]Time is not constant throughout the universe. So it is actually slowing time in that spot just as much as time is speeding up outside of the spot. There's no "normal time" per say, though there does seem to be an average when you're around the more moderate gravity levels. If you're around intense gravitational fields (like a black hole) then time will slow down drastically.[/QUOTE] So if you're near a black hole, you wouldn't feel time get any slower, but if somehow somebody saw you from far away from the black hole, in an normal Earth-like gravitational pull, you would appear to be moving extremely slow? What if somebody video taped themselves getting sucked into a black hole, and miraculously the video survived, would the video be only a few seconds long or would it be more like hours?

I'm not sure, but I think if you were somehow magically able to see everything traveling into the event horizon of a black hole, they may just appear to freeze in your time, but to them it'd feel as they normally would, though everything away from the gravitational field would probably seem to go blaringly fast. But I doubt they'd feel normal in that situation due to the fabric of their existence being obliterated.. I would imagine they wouldn't really "feel" anything, as their brain would be operating just as slowly as ever, so they would probably just perceive it at a normal rate, as they would only be able to comprehend what is happening at the allowed pace of time. Time perception is based on how fast you can think and how fast you can move. Things like flies and birds comprehend things faster than we do, so they will be able to make kneejerk movements and reactions faster and more accurately than we do. We probably seem to be moving fairly slowly to birds, and a 3-4 year lifespan for them could feel as long as 70- years does to us. If the pace of time slows down your thought processes, then I'd imagine you'd still "feel" the same, as your brain is still putting thoughts together at it's normal intervals.

The image makes it a lot easier to understand.

[QUOTE=johan_sm;25023636]Doesn't that mean that time can be manipulated, at specific locations?[/QUOTE] Yes. Good luck finding enough energy or mass to make even a slightly noticeable difference though.

For clarification, whatever is closer to the earth is slower time, and whatever is further away is faster. Gravity effects time, and the farther you are away from a gravity source, the faster time goes theoretically.

[QUOTE=johan_sm;25023815]Normal clocks can't[/QUOTE] They can, as long as they follow laws of the universe.