Time-Dilation Occurs in Daily Life

[n2doc]

By Rachel Ehrenberg, Science News September 23, 2010 | 9:32 pm | Categories: Physics


Exploring the peculiar effects of Einstein’s relativity is no longer rocket science. Tabletop experiments at a lab in Colorado have illustrated the odd behavior of time, a strangeness typically probed with space travel and jet planes.

Using superprecise atomic clocks, scientists have witnessed time dilation — the bizarre speeding up or slowing down of time described by Einstein’s theories of relativity. The experiments are presented in the Sept. 24 Science.

“Modern technology has gotten so precise you can see these exotic effects in the range of your living room,” says physicist Clifford Will of Washington University in St. Louis. The experiments don’t reveal any new physics, Will says, but “what makes it cute and pretty cool is they have done it on a tabletop.”

Time dilation arises in two situations. In one case, time appears to move slower the closer you are to a massive object, such as the Earth. So a person hovering in a hot-air balloon, for example, actually ages faster than someone standing below.


http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/09/ordinary-relativity/#more-36666

[xchrom]

1. remind me not to get in a hot air balloon -- even for the champagne. nt

[LiberalFighter]

2. Send all the Republicans on a space trip for 2 years.

[xchrom]

3. ...

:fistbump:

[Cobalt-60]

6. Republicans aboard the B Ark, please

We'll send them first to make sure the target destination
sun planet has been politically indoctrinated

[deutsey]

4. As Spock would say, "Fascinating." n/t

[hootinholler]

5. So if McCain were a better pilot...

He'd be even older!

-Hoot

[rayofreason]

7. If you don't use...

...corrections coming from general relativity, then GPS does not work correctly.

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html