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Southwest Fox Conference accepting registrations
Message
From
08/03/2004 09:59:02
Hilmar Zonneveld
Independent Consultant
Cochabamba, Bolivia
 
General information
Forum:
Visual FoxPro
Category:
Conferences & events
Miscellaneous
Thread ID:
00882336
Message ID:
00884060
Views:
14
>Now for the big question. If I were traveling in a spacecraft at the speed of light over a certain time reference, for example, one earth year, would I age more slowly than people on earth? for example, if I took off at the speed of light and travel 1/2 year away from earth, and then reversed course for 1/2 returning to earth, would my traveling at the speed of light effect my age, or would I age 1 earth year during my journal, just like everyone on earth would age 1 year?

According to the Special Theory of Relativity, first of all, a material object would not be able to travel at the speed of light. However, you could approach it, for instance, to 99% or even more.

The closer you go to the speed of light, the slower will your time pass, in comparison to the time on Earth. To put this into numbers, assume you have a super-spaceship that allows you to travel to the closest star system, apart from the Solar system, Toliman (Alpha Centauri), at a speed of 0.99c (c is the speed of light). Also, neglect the time to accelerate at the beginning and at the end of the trip. The time from the POV of a person on Earth would be about 4.3 years. For the traveller, the time that seems to pass would be 4.3 * sqrt(1 - v^2 / c^2), that is, 0.61 years.

In the formula above, v is your velocity, and c is the speed of light.
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
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