- #1
Physicist1231
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According to what I have researched in Relativity (thanks to you guys) there is no such thing as absolute motion, time, or distance. I had a question about this paradox mentioned.
Paraphrase:
Two people that are exactly 20 years old are on earth. One decides to fly to planetX and some fraction of C. When he comes back he will be older.
This is further explained because the person on Earth could watch the flyers clock and it would be slowing down for the acceleration thus age slower.
With this said here is my question.
Those same two people at the exact age of 20 are in space with no other objects to define a relative speed for. They feel no acceleration so they assume they are at rest.
They fall asleep because it is boring and there is not much to do out there. They wake up to find that the distance between them is increasing dramaticly. They have a rate of separation (according to both observers) of .5C (I am intentionally not saying who is actually moving since speed is relative only). According to each individual they are at rest and the other person is moving.
Again they get bored and fall asleep. When they wake up the find that the distance between them is decreasing at the same rate it was increasing. So now the closing velocity between them is .5c
If there is no "absolute speed, motion, or time" then when they get back together who has aged? Since speed is relative and we assumed the person on the Earth was "motionless" that he did not age as much. But now we could have the same setup but don't have the Earth to compare motion to so we don't know if we are still ot the other person is still. We just have a rate of seperation.
Any Ideas?
Paraphrase:
Two people that are exactly 20 years old are on earth. One decides to fly to planetX and some fraction of C. When he comes back he will be older.
This is further explained because the person on Earth could watch the flyers clock and it would be slowing down for the acceleration thus age slower.
With this said here is my question.
Those same two people at the exact age of 20 are in space with no other objects to define a relative speed for. They feel no acceleration so they assume they are at rest.
They fall asleep because it is boring and there is not much to do out there. They wake up to find that the distance between them is increasing dramaticly. They have a rate of separation (according to both observers) of .5C (I am intentionally not saying who is actually moving since speed is relative only). According to each individual they are at rest and the other person is moving.
Again they get bored and fall asleep. When they wake up the find that the distance between them is decreasing at the same rate it was increasing. So now the closing velocity between them is .5c
If there is no "absolute speed, motion, or time" then when they get back together who has aged? Since speed is relative and we assumed the person on the Earth was "motionless" that he did not age as much. But now we could have the same setup but don't have the Earth to compare motion to so we don't know if we are still ot the other person is still. We just have a rate of seperation.
Any Ideas?