4 ms·
This is not really an accurate analogy sorry. What is really happening is that everything (atoms etc..) are made of fields in which disturbances/patterns travel
by Ono-Sendai 6y ago
This is not really an accurate analogy sorry.
What is really happening is that everything (atoms etc..) are made of fields in which disturbances/patterns travel at the speed of light. When an object is moving through space, the fields have to move extra far to cover the distance through space, as well as to do the usual oscillations/vibrations/movements that give timing effects. This is where time dilation comes from. It's best understood with the reflecting-mirror-as-clock thought experiment.
- bArray 6y ago> This is not really an accurate analogy sorry. Well of course, it's an analogy, it only needs to be roughly correct. The idea is simply to build a mental model that many people can picture. > It's best understood with the reflecting-mirror-as-clock > thought experiment. It's good, but not something that really resonates with people's first-hand experiences.
- Ono-Sendai 6y agoWell I don't think it's even roughly correct. Time is not friction or resistance.
- Ono-Sendai 6y agoTo add to my comment: If you really want to understand relativistic time dilation, you want to understand the bouncing-light mirror-clock experiment. It's even in the article. And it's not even an analogy, it's really why moving objects run slow. You can derive the exact special relativity time dilation factor from it.
- jjgreen 6y agohttps://xkcd.com/895/ https://xkcd.com/895/
- Ono-Sendai 6y agoThe thing is, in this case, the actual cause of time dilation is reasonably understandable. There's no need to go off and invent some wild analogy. But apparently the average HN reader prefers a wildly inappropriate and ungrounded analogy to putting in a little time to understand the commonly accepted reasoning behind time dilation.