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by awesomeoclock on April 15th, 2009

awesomeoclock

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If time is relative, does that mean that time on other planets may be slower or faster than time on Earth because we're traveling around the sun at different rates? Would we have to take our rotation round galactic central point into consideration aswell?

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  • by Quirkie on April 15th, 2009

    Quirkie

    Yes, time on Earth is different because we travel round the Sun at different rates, but a bigger effect is gravitational time dilation: Time runs slower at the bottom of a gravity well, like we are. The bigger the gravity well, the slower time runs.

    You're only likely to need to know this if you intend to create a GPS system for your new planet. Only very very accurate experiments such as the clocks on a GPS satellite can detect changes due to relativity.

    btw the rotation round the center of gravity of the galaxy is a truely small effect - we can detect that we are moving, but I don't think our instruments are accurate enough to tell that we are turning, even though we know we must be.

    Comments

    • I've always been somewhat confused about how gravity effects time. Would it have the same effect if I were standing on a tower, stationary with respect to the mass (feeling an imaginary acceleration upwards?), or does it require the object/observed (or observer?) in question to orbit the mass (which would seem to give an inertial reference frame)?

      Couchyam

      by Couchyam on August 2nd, 2009

    • In fact time does run faster at the top of a tower. You are feeling slightly less acceleration up there. In an inertial (free falling) frame, you lose the gravity effects.

      Quirkie

      by Quirkie on August 2nd, 2009

    • So does the normal force give a "fake" acceleration indistinguishable from a real one?

      Couchyam

      by Couchyam on August 2nd, 2009

    • Yes, this is the Einsteinian Equivalence Principle: To a passenger inside a spaceship, the effects of gravity and acceleration are indistinguishable.

      Quirkie

      by Quirkie on August 3rd, 2009

    • And I think gravitational time dilation also results from the Sun's gravity, so time on other planets (at different distances from the Sun) would be affected by that also.

      But would that cancel out the effects from different velocities -- since the velocity is adjusted to match the gravity?

      purplecows

      by purplecows on May 16th, 2011

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