Twin Paradox

Sumbit To Mrs Doods Home Room A1
Time dilation and the theory of relativity&
Twin Paradox
1. Time Dilation:
Have you ever felt like time moving
very quickly and sometimes very slowly?
Like how the hours fly by when you are
hanging out with a close friend, or how
seconds drag on endlessly when you are
stuck in traffic on a hot day? But do you
seriously think it impossible to speed time
up or slow it down? Do you really think time
always flows at the same rate? You all may
be positive.
But Albert Einstein did not think so. His
idea was that, theoretically, the closer we
come to travelling at the speed of light
(186,000 mps), the more time would appear
to slow down for us from the perspective of
someone who, in relation to us, was not
moving. He called the slowing of time due to
motion time dilation.
Therefore time dilation refers to the
principle that time elapsed is relative to
motion, such that time passes more slowly
for a system in motion than for one at rest
relative to an outside observer. Further, as
predicted by Einstein's special theory of
Made By Umer Waheed Selena Beugard Annabeth Chase Raph Rhodes Piper
McClay and Zaid Younus
relativity, time passes increasingly slowly as

the motion relative to the observer
approaches the speed of light.
2. The speed of Light:
Time and the speed of light are
probably the two subjects most people have
a hard time understanding. They are not
something you can close your eyes and
picture in your mind. Even though we
experience both every day, they usually
happen without us noticing or thinking
about them. So let us begin with the speed of
light first.
Knowing the speed of light helps us in
determining the age of the universe as well
as understanding the great, great distances
to the stars and the galaxies in the universe.
Light also, using telescopes lets us see into
the distance past and shows us what the
universe looked liked billions of years ago.
Yes, using light we can actually see the
universe billions of years ago. Light can be a
time machine into the distant past.
So what is the speed of light and how
fast is it? Actually light photons are perhaps
the fastest thing in existence; there is
probably nothing faster than light. It travels
186,000 miles in a second (light second),
11,160,000 miles (over eleven million) in a

minute (light minute), 669,600,000 miles
(almost seven hundred million) in an hour,
16,070,400,000 miles (over sixteen billion)
in a day (probably light day), and
5,900,000,000,000 miles (almost six trillion)
in a year (light year).
Now when we determine the distances
to the stars within our galaxy or even
further to the 300 billion other galaxies in
the Universe, we are talking about distances
that are very, very hard to visualize and
comprehend. Even trying to picture the
distance to the star closest to us (apart from
sun), Alpha Centuari, which is 4.5 light
years distance away from us is hard to
visualize, as it equals to 25 trillion miles.
And if we cannot visualize 25 trillion miles
how can we possibly visualize a galaxy that
is 13 billion light years away. In case you
would like to figure out the mileage, it is
13,000,000,000 X 6,000,000,000,000. It is
much easier to understand when you say 13
billion light years compared to eighteen
million gazillion, seven hundred forty three
quintillion, nine hundred million quadrillion,
eighty eight trillion, four million billion, fifty
nine million, thirty three thousand, six
hundred and eighty eight miles away. That’s

not easy to say or understand and that is
why we use light years as a measurement.
Now the really cool thing about looking
at stars and galaxies and how many light
years away they are is where “time” comes
in. Time is a weird thing when it comes to
the speed of light because with the speed of
light, the farther something is away from us,
the more time it took those photons of light,
traveling through the universe, to reach us.
When we look at these 10 billion light year
distant galaxies, we are seeing the light that
left these galaxies 10 billion years ago. What
we see is how these galaxies looked 10
billion years ago, about 4 billion years after
the Big bang.
Let’s take example of the star Sirius.
Sirius is 8 light years away. And light
photons from it take 8 years to reach us. So
as we look at Sirius, we actually see how it
looked 8 years ago. Even the Sun is 8 light
minutes away. We see the Sun as it was 8
minutes ago. The deeper we peer into space,
the farther back in time we see. That’s why I
enjoy thinking about it, light is a time
machine.
3. Theory of Relativity:
This is where you have to expand your

thinking somewhat. These are almost like
brain exercises as you try to picture the
concepts.
Let us look at Einstein's theory of
relativity. One of the things this theory states
is that “time” is relative to ones motion and
also to the amount of gravity exerted on one.
I'll explain it with an example:
Suppose there are two people. One
(Sarah), is standing on the platform of a
railroad station waiting for the train to pull
in. The other, Nalah, is on a train coming
towards the train station. Inside the train,
Nalah is sitting on a chair in the center of the
train, against the wall on the side opposite of
the train platform where Sarah is standing
and she is facing the platform side. As she
sits, Nalah is watching two people play ping
pong on a table in the center of the train car.
Looking at the train the player towards the
back of the train is about to serve the ball
towards his opponent on the side of the
table towards the front of the train. He is
serving in the direction the train is moving.
At the same time he makes his first serve,
the train is passing the train station
platform. The train is moving at a speed of
90 miles an hour and traveling past the train

station going to the next station.
Now as the train passes Sarah on the
platform, her eye catches the ping pong
game so both he and Nalah are watching the
player make his first serve. Here comes the
strange part of who, what, where and when.
When the player hits the ball, the ball will be
moving 10 miles an hour in the direction the
train is moving. As Nalah watches the
player hit the ball, she sees the ball move
towards his opponent at a speed of 10 miles
an hour. Because Nalah is traveling inside
the train at the trains speed, she sees the
ball hit and move at 10 miles an hour. As
Sarah watches standing on the platform, the
train is whizzing by her at 90 miles an hour.
When the ball is hit she sees the ball move at
100 miles an hour because she not only sees
the ball move at 10 miles an hour, she also
sees the train moving at 90 miles an hour so
it appears to her that the ball is traveling
100 miles an hour. Which one is right, Nalah
who sees the ball move at 10 miles an hour
or Sarah who sees the ball move at 100
miles an hour. The answer is, they are both
right. How can that be you ask? Good
question.
The answer is relativity. What they see

is relative to where they are.
4. Time Travel and Twin Paradox:

Einstein came up with an example to
show the effects of time dilation that he
called the "twin paradox".
We imagine there are two twins, Sarah
and Nalah, who were born at exactly the
same time ( a biological impossibility ).
Sarah decides to go to a summer camp
in the Alpha-3 star system, which is 25 light-
years away. Nalah refuses to go with Sarah
and stays home on earth. So Sarah sets of on
her own. Wanting to go there as quickly as
possible, she pays extra and travels at
99.99% the speed of light.
While she was travelling at a high
speed, her clocks, including her internal
biological clock, were running slowly
compared to Nalah.
The trip to the star and back takes 50
years. Guess what happens when Sarah
returns. Her twin sister is now 60 years old,
but Sarah is only 10 and a half. How can this
be? Sarah was away for 50 years but only
aged by half a year. Has she just come

through the fountain of youth?
Not at all. Sarah's trip into space lasted
only a half year for her, but on earth 50
years passed. Does this mean Sarah can live
longer? Nope. She may have aged by only
half a year in the time it took 50 years to
pass on earth, but she has also only lived half
a year.
Actually, for both Sarah and Nalah, time
will seem to be passing at the same rate. 50
years passed in what felt like half a year to
Sarah because time is relative to ones
perspective. Relative to Sarah time had
passed only half a year. It just took longer
for that half year to pass for Sarah in her
ship than it did for Nalah on Earth. It so
happened to Sarah because she was
travelling much faster than Nalah on Earth
and time slowed down for Sarah and time
passed faster for Nalah. Time seems like it is
running at the same rate for everyone,
everywhere but it is not. Time itself is an
illusion.
Remember that for those photons of
light traveling at the speed of light, time
stands still. If you start to slow down from
the speed of light, time will begin to move
forward again. The tricky thing here is to

know that as you keep slowing down,
getting farther from the speed of light, time
itself begins to move faster. The slower you
get, the more time speeds up. It is the same
as with gravity. The closer you are to a
gravity force the more time slows down and
the further you get from a gravity source the
more time speeds up. Someone living on the
top of a mountain would age faster than
someone living at the base of the mountain,
even though the time would be minuscule.
You don’t feel it because time is relative.
Time feels the same to everyone
everywhere, just as it is passing to you as
you are listening to me. Time feels like it is
passing at the same rate at every speed. But
now we know that it is not. If Sarah on her
ship looks at her watch at 5 minute
intervals, it will appear that 5 minutes has
passed. If Nalah on Earth looks at her watch
at 5 minutes intervals it will also appear to
her that 5 minutes has passed. Time is
relative to everyone everywhere and seems
to pass at the same rate. In reality, those 5
minutes for Nalah and Sarah passed at
vastly different speeds.
Just for the imagination now, what

would happen if you went faster than the
speed of light? If time moves slower the
closer you get to the speed of light and
stands still at the speed of light, theorists tell
us that if you went faster than the speed of
light, time would go in reverse and that
makes sense. We don’t know of anything
definitely that travels above the speed of
light or that it’s even possible. We can only
make guesses at this point. The slightest
possibilities are there that it could be true.
5. The Ultimate Speed Limit:
But according to Einstein's special theory of
relativity, objects gain mass as they
accelerate to greater and greater speeds.
Now, to get an object to move faster, you
need to give it some sort of push. An object
that has greater mass needs a bigger push
than an object with a lesser mass. If an
object reached the speed of light, it would
have an infinite amount of mass and need an
infinite amount of push, or acceleration, to
keep it moving. No rocket engine, no matter
how powerful, could do this. In fact, as far as
we know, nothing can exceed the speed of
light.
6. An Historic Flight:
There are ways, however, to put the idea of

Twin paradox to the test. How do we know
Einstein had it right? One experiment in the
1970s provided some pretty strong
evidence:
Atomic clocks are extremely accurate
clocks that can measure tiny amounts of
time - billionths of a second. In 1971,
scientists used these clocks to test Einstein's
ideas. One atomic clock was set up on the
ground, while another was sent around the
world on a jet travelling at 600 mph. At the
start, both clocks showed exactly the same
time.
What happened when the clock flown
around the world returned to the same spot
where the other clock was? As Einstein had
predicted in a general way, the clocks no
longer showed the same time-the clock on
the jet was behind by a few billionths of a
second. Why such a small difference? Well,
that was because, 600 mph is fast but still
just the tiniest fraction of the speed of light.
To see any significant difference in time, you
would have to be travelling many millions of
miles an hour faster.

Twin Paradox

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Sumbit To Mrs Doods Home Room A1

Time dilation and the theory of relativity&

relativity, time passes increasingly slowly as

11,160,000 miles (over eleven million) in a

hundred and eighty eight miles away. That’s

This is where you have to expand your

90 miles an hour and traveling past the train

The answer is relativity. What they see

4. Time Travel and Twin Paradox:

aged by half a year. Has she just come

forward again. The tricky thing here is to

Just for the imagination now, what

There are ways, however, to put the idea of

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