Time dilation related questions

[dorohn]

hi all, I was just thinking about the following scenario :

a spaceship traveling at near speed of light is orbiting around earth, now say the person onboard the spaceship is watching a tv news transmitted from Earth to the spaceship at speed of light.

say if the person on the spaceship watches the tv news for X amount of time related to him, does that mean the transmitter located on Earth have broadcasted the tv news for >X amount of time related to the person on the spaceship? if so, then where has the lost time gone to?

I mean, for example, if the person on spaceship watches current news, at the same time on Earth are they already transmiting news from the future related to the person on spaceship's timeframe? but if the light speed is constant, shouldn't the person on the spaceship be watching tv news related to Earth's timeframe?

sorry I am getting kinda confused. XD, thanks for reading though.

 

[atyy]

Time passes at different rates for different people. There is no need for the duration experienced by the spaceship and the Earth broadcaster to be the same. Suppose they communicate in some sort of morse code, with Earth sending out pulses of blue light and red light. All that matters is that the number of pulses received by the spaceship is the same as the number of pulses broadcasted.

Oh, and the spaceship will also only receive pulses after they have been broadcasted. It's exactly the same as "live broadcasts" on earth. When I watched the Beijing Olympics "live", I was of course not experiencing it simultaneously as the people in Beijing, I was experiencing it later because it took time for light (and the electrical signals) to travel from Beijing to Oregon.

 

[Entropia]

Hi there! Your question is a common one when it comes to understanding time dilation. The answer is yes, the person on the spaceship would experience a time dilation effect when watching the TV news from Earth. This means that for the person on the spaceship, the broadcast would appear to be happening in slow motion. So if they watch for X amount of time, it would seem like the news has been broadcasting for >X amount of time on Earth.

The lost time is not really "gone" anywhere, it's just a result of the time dilation effect. The person on the spaceship is experiencing time at a different rate than someone on Earth due to their high velocity. This is a key concept in Einstein's theory of relativity.

As for your question about the news being from the future, it's important to remember that time is relative. The person on the spaceship is not watching news from the future, they are simply experiencing time at a different rate. So while it may seem like they are watching news from the future, they are actually just watching it in their own timeframe.

I hope this helps to clear up your confusion! Time dilation can be a tricky concept to grasp, but it is a fundamental part of our understanding of the universe. Keep exploring and asking questions!