# General Relativity and a clock tower

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-relativity-and-a-clock-tower/222857>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 5, 2004, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-relativity-and-a-clock-tower/222857 "2004-01-05T18:44:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![SlickRoenick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@SlickRoenick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlickRoenick)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-relativity-and-a-clock-tower/222857/1 "2004-01-05T18:44:09Z")

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So i’m reading Hawking’s book A Brief History of Time and he says that time should run slower nearer a larger body of mass (earth). The experiment was done with a clock tower with 2 clocks in it, one at the bottom and one at the top. He explains it, but i just don’t understand why the one at the bottom moved slower than the one at the top.

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2004, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-relativity-and-a-clock-tower/222857/2 "2004-01-05T21:55:48Z")

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[This article](http://www.ram.org/ramblings/science/time_is_relative.html) does a decent job of explaining the effects of gravity on time.