I just read that the clocks on board the space shuttle go more slowly
than the clocks on earth.
does that mean time has speeded up for those on the shutte or slowed
down ?
i reckon it means time has slowed down. if they stayed up for a year
by their clocks then by our clocks more than a year will have passed.

===================
If this is OT to which ng should i post it ?

It just means their clocks ran slower.

" wrote in message . ..
I just read that the clocks on board the space shuttle go more slowly
than the clocks on earth.
does that mean time has speeded up for those on the shutte or slowed
down ?
i reckon it means time has slowed down. if they stayed up for a year
by their clocks then by our clocks more than a year will have passed.

===================
If this is OT to which ng should i post it ?

Yes, time did (does) slow down for them, I think the most well
traveled astronaught has acheived timetravel to the future somewhere
in the order of 5 secs or something, i don't remeber exactly how long
it was but i know it wasn't more then a couple secounds, but thats
alot more signifigant then most people think.

"Ryan McCabe" wrote in message
om...
" wrote in message
. ..
I just read that the clocks on board the space shuttle go more slowly
than the clocks on earth.
does that mean time has speeded up for those on the shutte or slowed
down ?
i reckon it means time has slowed down. if they stayed up for a year
by their clocks then by our clocks more than a year will have passed.

===================
If this is OT to which ng should i post it ?

Yes, time did (does) slow down for them, I think the most well
traveled astronaught has acheived timetravel to the future somewhere
in the order of 5 secs or something, i don't remeber exactly how long
it was but i know it wasn't more then a couple secounds, but thats
alot more signifigant then most people think.

I don't get it. The earth is travelling through space and the shuttle is
orbiting the earth, so for half the orbit, the shuttle goes faster than the
earth and the other half of the time, it would be going slower. Wouldn't the
time effects cancel out?

"QV" wrote in message news:n1fTb.358573$JQ1.104848@pd7tw1no...
"Ryan McCabe" wrote in message
om...
" wrote in message
. ..
I just read that the clocks on board the space shuttle go more slowly
than the clocks on earth.
does that mean time has speeded up for those on the shutte or slowed
down ?
i reckon it means time has slowed down. if they stayed up for a year
by their clocks then by our clocks more than a year will have passed.

===================
If this is OT to which ng should i post it ?

Yes, time did (does) slow down for them, I think the most well
traveled astronaught has acheived timetravel to the future somewhere
in the order of 5 secs or something, i don't remeber exactly how long
it was but i know it wasn't more then a couple secounds, but thats
alot more signifigant then most people think.

First let me apologize for my error, 5 secounds was obviously over
zealous in my estimation, the actual time was 0.02 secounds.

I don't get it. The earth is travelling through space and the shuttle is
orbiting the earth, so for half the orbit, the shuttle goes faster than the
earth and the other half of the time, it would be going slower. Wouldn't the
time effects cancel out?

it has much more to do with the speed of the spacecraft then the
orbiting.

"QV" wrote in message
news:n1fTb.358573$JQ1.104848@pd7tw1no...
"Ryan McCabe" wrote in message
om...
" wrote in message
. ..
I just read that the clocks on board the space shuttle go more slowly
than the clocks on earth.
does that mean time has speeded up for those on the shutte or slowed
down ?
i reckon it means time has slowed down. if they stayed up for a year
by their clocks then by our clocks more than a year will have passed.

===================
If this is OT to which ng should i post it ?

Yes, time did (does) slow down for them, I think the most well
traveled astronaught has acheived timetravel to the future somewhere
in the order of 5 secs or something, i don't remeber exactly how long
it was but i know it wasn't more then a couple secounds, but thats
alot more signifigant then most people think.

I don't get it. The earth is travelling through space and the shuttle is
orbiting the earth, so for half the orbit, the shuttle goes faster than
the
earth and the other half of the time, it would be going slower. Wouldn't
the
time effects cancel out?


Ok, first of all, there's no such thing as "moving slower", except from the
perspective of an object neither in the earth's nor the space shuttle's
perspective. When two objects are moving at different rates, the other
object is always moving faster (from each of their perspectives). The
direction doesn't matter. This causes time to run slower for the other
object from each object's perspective - i.e. on earth time would appear to
be running slower for a fast moving astronaut, and for the astronaut, time
on earth would appear to be running slower.

BUT - there's another effect that you have to take into account. The
astronaut's are higher up in the earth's gravitational field, which means
time is running faster for them. This effect and the effect of their fast
motion around the earth are working against eachother, but I believe the
second effect is greater than the first, in the case of astronauts, which
means, all together, time would be running slightly faster for them.

"QV" wrote in message
news:n1fTb.358573$JQ1.104848@pd7tw1no...
"Ryan McCabe" wrote in message
om...
" wrote in message
. ..
I just read that the clocks on board the space shuttle go more slowly
than the clocks on earth.
does that mean time has speeded up for those on the shutte or slowed
down ?
i reckon it means time has slowed down. if they stayed up for a year
by their clocks then by our clocks more than a year will have passed.

===================
If this is OT to which ng should i post it ?

Yes, time did (does) slow down for them, I think the most well
traveled astronaught has acheived timetravel to the future somewhere
in the order of 5 secs or something, i don't remeber exactly how long
it was but i know it wasn't more then a couple secounds, but thats
alot more signifigant then most people think.

I don't get it. The earth is travelling through space and the shuttle is
orbiting the earth, so for half the orbit, the shuttle goes faster than
the
earth and the other half of the time, it would be going slower. Wouldn't
the
time effects cancel out?

[Zagan]
I'm no expert on relativity theory, but as I understand it, the difference
in the rate of time on the space shuttle relative to earth is due to the
distance of the shuttle from the earth (lesser gravity), and the speed of
the shuttle relative to the earth. In this case the earth is "taken" as a
"non-moving frame of reference." To simplify the discussion, let's leave out
the effect of gravity and deal only with relative motion. We have to use
relative motion between two bodies since there is no absolute point anywhere
in space to use as a reference. To put it another way, there is no point in
space that we could consider "stationary" and thus absolute motion cannot
exist. For this reason, we use "frame of reference."

In the case of the rate of time slowing on the space shuttles, this slowing
is relative to earth as a frame of reference. That is, we consider the earth
as stationary, and measure the rate of time on the space shuttles relative
to a "stationary" earth.

QV, you bring into question the orbit of the earth about the sun. This is a
good point, but doesn't apply in the earth/shuttle frame of reference. If we
could launch a spacecraft that would remain at the earth's current position
at launch time relative to the sun or solar system (a difficult task at best
due the gravity of the solar system), and wait one year for the earth to
return to our "stationary" position then we might indeed notice a difference
in rate of time on the shuttles than what is found by earthbound
instruments.

But in this case we have selected a different frame of reference, our
"stationary" spacecraft. The difference would vary depending on the plane of
the shuttle's orbit relative to our own point of view as the earth and
orbiting shuttle orbits the sun.

But even then we are still dealing with a frame of reference, and our
results depends on that frame of reference. Our so-called "stationary"
position may be such relative to the solar system, but we have to remember
that our solar system in in orbit about our galaxy, and our galaxy is in
orbit about the center of the local cluster of galaxies of which we are a
part, and so on...

My 2 cents,

// Jim
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