Thread: Explain this whole "Big Bang" thing to me

It's almost as if time is perceived to be a "function" of light?

I don't know what you are referring to here. Is this in reference to the term 'lightyear'?

It's actually almost the otherway around, sort of. You see, the 'faster' an object is moving (with respect to another object) the slower time passes for the object. This is why no matter how fast YOU are moving, light *always* travels at the speed of light *with respect to your frame of reference*. Light travels at 670 million miles per hour with respect to everything. If you are going 100 million miles an hour, and you turn a flashlight on, the photons of light *still* go 670 million miles per hour with respect to you, not 570 million miles per hour, but they also go 670 million miles per hour with respect to an object that is stationary. The reason this happens is because the passage through time depends on the passage through space. As the rate that you pass through space increases, the rate that you pass through time decreases, and the ratio between the two is ALWAYS equal to 670 million miles per hour. You can actually calculate how much time as slowed down if you know how fast you are going. You know that you think light *should* be going 570 million miles per hour with respect to your frame of reference, but that it actually goes 670 million miles per hour, so you can calculate the change in time.

570 million miles / deltatime = 670 million miles per hour

deltatime = 570 / 670

Therefore when you are going 100 million miles per hour, your passage through time is .85 that of your passage through time when you were stationary.

The problem with what I said above is this statement:

"As the rate that you pass through space increases, the rate that you pass through time decreases"

You see, I use the term 'rate', but rate implies that the quantity is changing with respect to some other variable, right? I.e, speed is displacement over time. You cannot measure speed without measuring the change in time, but you cannot measure the change in time accurately because it depends speed, but you cannot accurately know speed, recursive insanity. And, it's because space and time aren't 'absolute' quantities. The absolute quantity is believed to be 'spacetime'.

Obviously we never take the entire universe into account when we talk about it (I'd sell my soul for a camera that could capture everything),

This is exactly what spacetime is, and that's the best explanation for it: a snapshop of everything in the universe at every point in time (in spacetime!). However, there are some severe implications of this, i.e 'future' and 'past' are symmetric, and that the laws of physics cannot tell the difference between past and present. Your entire life is already laid out in spacetime, and the 'moment' you are living in is like somebody looking through a photoalbum, and your moment of reality is the page that is being looked at. However, an object that is moving faster looks at the pages differently, i.e something moving really fast can see a few pictures that are on the next few pages, and can also see a few pictures of the past few pages, and can also see what are you are looking at right now.

EDIT:
oh yeah, when you are going 30 miles per hour, here's what your passage of time looks like:

(670x10^6-30) / 670 x 10^6 = 1 - (30 / 670x10^6) = .999999955

The passage of time for a photon:

0 (ageless)

Originally Posted by Darkness

oh yeah, when you are going 30 miles per hour, here's what your passage of time looks like:

(670x10^6-30) / 670 x 10^6 = 1 - (30 / 670x10^6) = .999999955

No no no.
It is not linear.

If an object travels at speed v, the number you seek will be sqrt(1 - (v/c)^2).

EDIT: This means that for normal speeds, the difference is very small, but when you approach the speed of light, a change of speed of 30 km/h can mean a lot.