Does radioactivity suffer time dilation?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the effects of time dilation on the decay rates of radioactive materials when subjected to high-speed travel, particularly in the context of special relativity. Participants explore whether the decay rates would differ from those observed on Earth and the implications of various fundamental forces on this phenomenon.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants question whether radioactive materials would decay slower when traveling at high speeds compared to their decay rates on Earth.
  • One participant notes that the half-life of muons, which are affected by time dilation, increases significantly, suggesting that similar effects may apply to other forms of radioactivity.
  • Another participant argues that electromagnetic, weak, and strong nuclear forces are all relativistic and thus should exhibit time dilation effects.
  • There is a discussion about whether a distinction should be made between atomic decay and particle decay in the context of time dilation.
  • Some participants express uncertainty about the implications of time dilation for the decay rates of particles influenced by the strong nuclear force.
  • A separate but related topic emerges regarding whether photons experience time, with participants debating the meaning of "experiencing time" for massless particles.
  • One participant suggests that if a massless clock could follow a photon, it would not tick, implying that photons do not experience time in a conventional sense.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a range of views on the effects of time dilation on radioactive decay, with some agreeing that time dilation applies to all fundamental forces while others remain uncertain about the specifics. The discussion about photons and their relationship to time also highlights differing interpretations, indicating that no consensus exists on these points.

Contextual Notes

Participants acknowledge the complexity of the topic, particularly regarding the definitions and implications of time dilation across different forces and particles. There are unresolved questions about the experimental verification of these concepts and the nuances of how time is perceived by different entities.

Who May Find This Useful

This discussion may be of interest to those studying special relativity, nuclear physics, and the behavior of particles at high velocities, as well as individuals curious about the philosophical implications of time in physics.

singhvi
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I want to know that if one sends a radioactive material in a spaceship at high speed and bring it back, do we find that the radioactive material has decayed slower than it would on Earth or the same rate?

As radioactivity doesn't depend on the Coulombic interaction (photons), rather other particles that are responsible for forces between nucleons, does that make any difference?
 
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singhvi said:
I want to know that if one sends a radioactive material in a spaceship at high speed and bring it back, do we find that the radioactive material has decayed slower than it would on Earth or the same rate?

As radioactivity doesn't depend on the Coulombic interaction (photons), rather other particles that are responsible for forces between nucleons, does that make any difference?

It is affected the same way. I don't know if an experiment such as you describe has been done, but we know that the half life of rapidly moving muons greatly increased. Otherwise very few of the muons created by cosmic rays in the atmosphere would reach the ground. A given muon would have a 50% chance of decaying within 600 meters without time dilation of the decay.
 
We know that EM is time dilated as well as the weak nuclear force and the strong nuclear force. The EM can be seen in the relativistic Doppler shift of a moving laser as well as many emission and absorption experiments. The weak can be seen in muon decay experiments. The strong can be seen in pion decay experiments.
http://www.edu-observatory.org/physics-faq/Relativity/SR/experiments.html
 
Isn't the whole of high energy physics proof enough such time dilation is correct? Or are we making a distinction between atoms decaying and particle decay?
 
singhvi said:
As radioactivity doesn't depend on the Coulombic interaction (photons), rather other particles that are responsible for forces between nucleons, does that make any difference?

No. Our currently-accepted theories of the electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions are all relativistic ones.

When I was in graduate school 30+ years ago, one of my office-mates worked on an experiment that used beams of hyperons (sigmas or xis or both, I don't remember which). If the particle lifetimes hadn't been time-dilated, the experiment would have been impossible because the beams would have decayed before reaching the detector.
 
This is only partially related to the original question, but it struck me from reading this thread.

Can photons be said to experience time at all? Or is the duration of time in the photon's frame of reference between emission and absorption the same regardless of whether it was emitted from a quasar 10 billion light years away and hits our retina compared to if it is emitted from our LCD tv 5 feet away and hits our retina?
 
H2Bro said:
Can photons be said to experience time at all? Or is the duration of time in the photon's frame of reference between emission and absorption the same regardless of whether it was emitted from a quasar 10 billion light years away and hits our retina compared to if it is emitted from our LCD tv 5 feet away and hits our retina?

There's no sensible way of speaking of a "photon's frame of reference"... but if you could construct a massless clock that could follow the lightlike path of a photon through spacetime, the clock wouldn't tick at all. (I am being sloppy here, as this "but if you could..." statement is of the form "IF false THEN foo", and such a statement is true for all values of foo. The non-sloppy statement is more along the lines of "the spacetime interval between any two points on a lightlike path is zero").

So in both cases (quasar ten billion light years away in our frame of reference; and LCD TV five feet away in our frame of reference), not only is the "duration of time experienced by the photon" the same, it is zero.

You could reasonably choose to interpret this as saying that photons do not "experience time" at all... but you might equally reasonably ask what it would mean to say that they do "experience time", or how anything observable would be different if they do or do not "experience time".
 
Pengwuino said:
Isn't the whole of high energy physics proof enough such time dilation is correct? Or are we making a distinction between atoms decaying and particle decay?

I think I was wrong to make a distinction, I realize now, 'coz the weak and the strong nuclear forces are both time dilated.

DaleSpam said:
We know that EM is time dilated as well as the weak nuclear force and the strong nuclear force. The EM can be seen in the relativistic Doppler shift of a moving laser as well as many emission and absorption experiments. The weak can be seen in muon decay experiments. The strong can be seen in pion decay experiments.
http://www.edu-observatory.org/physics-faq/Relativity/SR/experiments.html

That means that they will indeed decay slower as the strong nuclear force is involved?
 
H2Bro said:
This is only partially related to the original question, but it struck me from reading this thread.

Can photons be said to experience time at all? Or is the duration of time in the photon's frame of reference between emission and absorption the same regardless of whether it was emitted from a quasar 10 billion light years away and hits our retina compared to if it is emitted from our LCD tv 5 feet away and hits our retina?

Nugatory said:
There's no sensible way of speaking of a "photon's frame of reference"... but if you could construct a massless clock that could follow the lightlike path of a photon through spacetime, the clock wouldn't tick at all. (I am being sloppy here, as this "but if you could..." statement is of the form "IF false THEN foo", and such a statement is true for all values of foo. The non-sloppy statement is more along the lines of "the spacetime interval between any two points on a lightlike path is zero").

So in both cases (quasar ten billion light years away in our frame of reference; and LCD TV five feet away in our frame of reference), not only is the "duration of time experienced by the photon" the same, it is zero.

You could reasonably choose to interpret this as saying that photons do not "experience time" at all... but you might equally reasonably ask what it would mean to say that they do "experience time", or how anything observable would be different if they do or do not "experience time".

Exactly, what does "experience time" even mean for any elementary particle? I doubt we can give it a meaning, after all it's just a theoretical picture that uses particles to realize forces.
 
  • #10
singhvi said:
That means that they will indeed decay slower as the strong nuclear force is involved?
Yes.
 

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