5 ms·
It's both actually. But that gives an apparent contradiction - how can both observers see that the other party has slower clocks? Who is 'right'? The answer is
by smallnamespace 7y ago
It's both actually. But that gives an apparent contradiction - how can both observers see that the other party has slower clocks? Who is 'right'?
The answer is that the 'moving' traveler needs to flip the ship around at some point and thrust back towards the starting point. Whoever turns back around will find that it's their clocks that passed more slowly.
- ctdonath 7y agoAnd if the universe is spherical?
- somab 7y agoI think the question you are asking is what if the universe is toroidal. What if you traveled so far you came back around.
- badosu 7y agoYou come back around on a sphere too, e.g. traveling by the equator.
- somab 7y agoIn that case you would be traveling a curved path so there would be acceleration even if your speed remained constant.
- badosu 7y agoIsnt a torus curved? What's the argument?
- somab 7y agoIf you use toroidal boundary conditions then you could remain in an inertial reference frame and return back to the same pont. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_boundary_conditions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_boundary_conditions