On Saturday 17 April 2004 00:05, Erin Sharmahd wrote: > i remember my physics teacher sophomore year in high school explaining why > rapid motion (near the speed of light) causes time to distort... it > involves using two mirrors and a single wave/particle of light as the > clock... as it moves near the speed of light, it has to go longer distances > (diagonal instead of straight up and down), so there is more time between > the particle hitting the top and hitting the bottom), so the clock slows > down...
Perhaps a better way to think of it... The speed of light is measured to be the same speed in all reference frames. To have this hold, time must slow down / speed up (depending on who is asking the question). There are two things you'll see in PS100 and undergraduate physics. Special relativity is where you have things moving at constant velocities. General relativity involves accelerated reference frames, which is where mass and gravity come into the conversation. The math problems you see in say... physics 106 is very simple cases of special relativity. General relativity.... whoa, get ready for hard math. Maybe we need an off topic UUG meeting.... I have a professor in relativistic astrophysics I could ask... ;) -- Jacob Albretsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
