3 ms·
If two spacecraft start going fast enough in different directions, they can disagree about what order two different events happened in. At that point, it's not
by oconnor663 8y ago
If two spacecraft start going fast enough in different directions, they can disagree about what order two different events happened in. At that point, it's not enough to give an event a single time coordinate in some reference frame; you also need to know its position in space.
- cryptonector 8y agoIf you can compute time dilation, then you can map back to Earth time (UTC) or whatever, and use that in your communications. Otherwise you give up and use only local time in your communications. And if ever our interpid travelers meet again they can compare their clocks and determine dilation (which will not change the fact that they'll have observed events in different orders, but they'll understand this, hopefully).
- dalore 8y agoSo you would need to know both the position and momentum? Good luck with that.
- thaumasiotes 8y agoAt the scale of a spaceship, it's easy.