Relativity predicts a number of situations where time will pass more slowly for one person than another. But is there any way to make time go faster?
Sure there is. Just have fun.
I guess it would be to travel slower (more slowly?) than the other guy. Whoever travels closer to the speed of light is ‘aging more slowly’. Of course, the difference in speed has to be pretty huge for the two to notice the time difference when they meet up again. A busybody isn’t going to live (noticeably) longer than a sloth because of Relativity. Cardiovascular fitness, maybe, but not Relativity.
You could accelerate the entire rest of the Universe so that it’s moving and you’re not. Then, by any basis of comparison, time is going faster for you.
By any basis of comparison?? How do you know that?
By anything in the Universe, right? And how do you compare to something that’s not in the Universe? I guess I don’t understand what you’re asking. So, um, what did you have in mind?
Hey, that was my question!
Why does faster-than-light travel violate causality?
I asked this related question a while ago. Check out the linked Web sites from that thread for an explanation of time and relativistic travel.
Here’s what you can do… put your twin in a spaceship, send her off nearly the speed of light for a few years and then have her return. Time went by much “faster” for you than it did for her.
You know, that was my idea too, except you do it with the whole rest of the Universe. I’m still trying to figure out what’s wrong with it.
Achenar
It’s the whole rest of the universe that is causing the problem in the first place. By sending it packing, you’re causing yourself to experience time slower–just as if the universe had stayed put, and sent you packing. The results are the same, no matter how you phrase the problem. Some people say it’s a general relativity thing.
Naw, the “rest of the Universe” thing would work. You just have to arrange for the rest of the Universe to feel the acceleration, and you don’t. It might be a little difficult to get everyone else to cooperate, though.
One thing that you can do is to go into orbit, which will spare you from the gravitational time dilation of the Earth. The Earth’s gravitational field is relatively weak, though, as such things go, so we’re only talking in the range of seconds per year, here.
There’s no known way in Special or General Relativity to do any better than putting yourself in free-fall (i.e., in orbit). I don’t think that it would violate any laws (causality should remain intact, for instance), but we just don’t know how.
So, I can clearly send one person packing and it would work. Two people I assume is the same. Just how much of the Universe would I have to send packing before I’m the one experiencing the dilation?
You should read more deeply into some of the Twin Paradox threads, Achernar. Such time dilation effects occur specifically because something changes its frame of reference. You can ask for as many things as you want to change their frames of reference, but you gotta have a pretty big energy source or a long period of time to do it.
Clarification: the last “you” in my previous post should be a “they”
Thanks I will. I guess I still have a lot to learn about Physics. And thanks for spelling my name right! 