Quote: "In a nutshell, the faster your moving through space, the faster you are moving through time"
Ok, I must have overlooked that time is more complicated than I thought. By the way, it's actually the faster you go, the slower you move through time (see the proof below). I've been writing game loops long enough to forget that the real world doesn't stay in time sync with everything.
But I think that still doesn't alter the fact that even though time speed can change, that a NOW still exists for every point in space. Time might be traveling faster in one regin of space, but all that means is physics are happening faster.
I've read about time moving slower when you move faster, but the proof overlooked some very important counter-examples (like turn the train car backwards and you get the opposite effect). Can someone explain it better? What I found confusing is this theory:
Pretend this is a stationary train car:
L = laser
M = mirror
R = reciver
The slash and backslash show the path the light takes.
|----MMMMMMM-------------------------------|
| / |
| / |
| / |
|---L------R-------------------------------|
Lets say the light takes 6 units of time (6 slashes) to travel from the laser to the reciver.
Now imagine the train is moving:
|----MMMMMMM------------------------------|
| / |
| / |
| / |
|---L------R------------------------------|
This is the path the like would have taken, but by the time the light has got to the mirror the train would have moved forward:
|----MMMMMMM------------------------------|
| / |
| / |
| / |
|---L------R------------------------------|
Meaning it doesn't get as close to the reciever, and must make up the distance it loses by the train moving:
|----MMMMMMM------------------------------|
| /\ /\ |
| / \/ \ |
| / \/ \ |
|---LMMMMMMR------------------------------|
And it ends up taking a lot longer to get from the laser to the reciver. A clock tick from this laser-reciver clock takes longer when the train is moving, "proving" that when you speed up, time slows down.
There are problems with this theory:
The light isn't moving any slower, the train is moving the reciver away with it, that's why it takes longer. They forgot to put the reciever and laser on the same side of the train like this to compensate:
|----------------------------------------|
| M
L---------------------------------------\M
R---------------------------------------/M
| |
|----------------------------------------|
Unless someone builds a clock that slows down
while compensating for all 3 dimensions, this theory is wrong.
The light isn't moving any slower, it would only appear to be to an observer
on the train. This leads to a contridtion:
If an observer is on the train, time slows down for them also, right? If your time slows down with the light, you shouldn't see any difference. But you do. If a clock is passing through time at the same speed as your are, a second should feel like a second, no matter how short or long the time period is compared to the rest of the universe. But in this example, a second feels longer.
Wow, that turned into a long post.
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons...for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
