Time : Special Relativity : What is Time Dilation?

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Time Dilation conjures up in my mind pictures of slow-motion sequences in the Hindi film songs (of the seventies I think.)

Then there is the story of  Revati and 27 CaturYugas from the Srimad Bhagavatham, for which one possible and popular explanation is time dilation.  And the definitions of kalpas, manvantaras, mahayugas, yugas which tell us that each divinity in essence has their own time frame. With 1 Brahma second = 1 Human Year!!!,  I can understand why Arjuni whould rather pray Indra, since  Indra has about a day for every month of our lives. There can be many explanations of why each God has their own time scale.. one of those explanations may be found in relativity.

Galileo thought that if you were moving at a constant velocity v, with respect to me and you were playing with flashlights and mirrors, I would feel that, the light from your flashlight would have a velocity of c + v.

But now we know by theory (Maxwell, Einstein) and experimental proof  that however fast you were travelling with respect to me,  both you and I would measure the speed of light as c = 3*10^8 m/s. (Why should the speed of light be same in all non accelerating frames of reference?)

The only difference is that to me it would look like light traveled further and for more time, maintaining the same ratio of distance to time, ie the same velocity, c.

You would think that your heart was still beating at say 60 beats per your minute, but I would think that your heart beat had slowed down by a bit, your clock was running slow.. in fact that your life was running slow. If you were my twin, you might end up being younger than me when we met again!

Mathematically however, the difference is so tiny  that, both you and I would feel that Galileo was right and Einstein was complex.

(With approx 1 million Indra seconds = 1 Brahma second, I could propose that Brahma was moving with a constant velocity, v, with respect to Indra, that was very close to the speed of light. Since that is close to the rate at which the universe is expanding, that is a very interesting idea. I personally have sought and found the answers in astronomy and not in relativity see How the yugas grew in length, but in these matters people follow their own heart-head combinations, and I am forewarned by Bhartruhari against arguing with pratinivishta… chittas.)

The fun is that there are no inertial non-accelerating preferred frames of reference in nature. And thus the solutions we seek might be found in General Relativity not Special Relativity or the Relativity of Non-Accelerating Frames.

So let’s go after General Relativity.

In the mean-time : please do look at this experimental proof of time dilation : http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/muon.html

Authorship and Copyright Notice : All Rights Reserved : Satya Sarada Kandula

Time

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