Elizabeth Feczko

Mr. Yackuboskey
Honors Physics
May 1, 2018
Time Dilation

Almost everything I have learned in physics this year was new to me. I had no

background information on the concepts we were covering, so I was very likely to believe

everything I was taught. It turns out that much of the information I learned is way more

complicated than I thought. One of those topics is time, which was one of the only things I

actually understood at the beginning of the year. I am now learning that it is not as simple as it

seems.

Time dilation is the difference in time for a given situation, depending on the observer’s

point of view. For example, if two people were watching the same event happen, one in motion

and the other still, their time frames would differ slightly. Neither one of the observers is wrong,

their point of view just changes their conception of the situation. The faster one of the observers

is moving, the larger the amount of time dilation. The concept of time dilation was originally

proposed by Einstein. He had previously proven that the speed of light is the same in every

situation. Also, we know the equation for velocity is displacement divided by time. Say one

person is riding on a train, and one person is standing beside the tracks. These two people are in

motion relative to one another. The person on the train shines a flashlight straight up, towards a

mirror on the ceiling. The beam of light bounces straight back down towards the person on the

train. For the person beside the tracks, the displacement of the beam of light is different. They

watch the light travel at an angle towards the mirror, and at an angle back down because relative

to them, the train is moving (Serway and Faughn 68). Since the velocity of the light has to be the
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same no matter who the observer is, and the displacement is different for each viewer, we know

that time has to be different for each point of view. That is a simple example of time dilation.

When we learned the concept of time in the beginning of the year, we learned that every

event has one time, no matter what point of view we were watching from. Time dilation has

taught me that is not the case. For most of the experiments I am conducting, the time dilation

would be so small as to be negligible. This is because no objects in my experiments are traveling

fast enough to change the conception of the situation. When analyzing larger and faster

situations, time dilation becomes too big to ignore. The faster one of the observers is moving, the

more time dilation. It is important that the position of the observer is always accounted for.

Time dilation has showed me that something I assumed to be simple, time, is actually

very hard to understand. Most of the situations I experience on a daily basis have time dilation,

but it is so small that is not worth accounting for. Time dilation is definitely an important concept

to understand, but its affect on my life is minimal. The only time it significantly impacts a

situation is when something is very close to or achieving light speed. My “clock” can see time

differently than someone watching the same event happen from a different place.

In very few situations is it necessary to account for time dilation. Most events are taking

place much too slowly for time dilation to be relevant, but it is still good to recognize that it

exists. Not many people know about it, and even some of those people struggle to understand it.

Time dilation is difficult to fathom, but it is one example of physics proving the impossible

possible.
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Works Cited

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Time Dilation.” Encyclopædia Britannica,

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 5 Jan. 2018, www.britannica.com/science/time-dilation.

“Time Dilation and Length Contraction in Special Relativity.” Time Dilation, Length

Contraction and Simultaneity (from Einstein Light),

newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/einsteinlight/jw/module4_time_dilation.htm.

Serway, Raymond A., and Jerry S. Faughn. Physics. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing

Company, 2016.