Twin Paradox: Can Age Asymmetry be Achieved on Earth?

GRB 080319B
Messages
107
Reaction score
0
I understand if this question sounds juvenile, because I thought of it after seeing a science fiction movie called Clockstoppers. In this film, a device (stopwatch) is used to speed up the molecular motion of an person body so that from their frame of reference, the rest of the world has slowed to a crawl (or stopped altogether). In reference to the Twin paradox, if instead of sending one twin traveling in a spaceship at relativistic speeds while the other remains on Earth, would it be possible to vibrate the particles of one twin so that they oscillate at a frequency close to that of the speed of light to create the same age asymmetry while both twins are located on Earth? Is interstellar travel the only way to achieve the age asymmetry? Would the particles constituting the twin have to be moving coherently (relative to the twin as a whole)? I am not sure how the device works in the movie (I assume deus ex machina) or what the creation of such a device would require. I have no background in physics so please forgive me if this scenario violates a fundamental law or understanding. Thank you.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
The question violates a lot of things... but i still appreciate it.
The entire premise makes absolutely no sense (of the movie).
As to your question, there's really no way to oscillate all of someone's molecules without exploding/imploding/evaporating/eviscerating them. In addition, oscillatory motion is characterized by frequent acceleration which takes a lot of force and energy (difficult to provide). In addition, special relativity becomes a lot more complex in accelerating reference frames... so the frequent accelerations would have a pronounced effect on any time-dilation (what that effect would be, i have no idea).
Cryogenics would be a much more feasible option.
BTW 080319B was def the coolest GRB ever, awesome namesake.
 
lzkelley said:
The question violates a lot of things... but i still appreciate it.
The entire premise makes absolutely no sense (of the movie).
As to your question, there's really no way to oscillate all of someone's molecules without exploding/imploding/evaporating/eviscerating them. In addition, oscillatory motion is characterized by frequent acceleration which takes a lot of force and energy (difficult to provide). In addition, special relativity becomes a lot more complex in accelerating reference frames... so the frequent accelerations would have a pronounced effect on any time-dilation (what that effect would be, i have no idea).
You don't need an acceleted frame to deal with accelerated motion, you can calculate the effects from the perspective of an inertial frame. If an object's speed is varying in a given inertial frame, but you know the speed as a function of time v(t), then if you want to know how much it'll age between two moments in the inertial frame t_0 and t_1, you can integrate \int_{t_0}^{t_1} \sqrt{1 - v(t)^2/c^2} \, dt and get the answer. So, in theory a clock moving in a tiny circle with a constant speed v (though it's direction would be changing as it moved, so this would still qualify as acceleration) would run slower by a factor of \sqrt{1 - v^2/c^2}. However, I think you're correct in the rest of your comments about the extreme impracticality of oscillating all someone's molecules at relativistic speeds in a coordinated way.
 
Thread 'Can this experiment break Lorentz symmetry?'
1. The Big Idea: According to Einstein’s relativity, all motion is relative. You can’t tell if you’re moving at a constant velocity without looking outside. But what if there is a universal “rest frame” (like the old idea of the “ether”)? This experiment tries to find out by looking for tiny, directional differences in how objects move inside a sealed box. 2. How It Works: The Two-Stage Process Imagine a perfectly isolated spacecraft (our lab) moving through space at some unknown speed V...
Does the speed of light change in a gravitational field depending on whether the direction of travel is parallel to the field, or perpendicular to the field? And is it the same in both directions at each orientation? This question could be answered experimentally to some degree of accuracy. Experiment design: Place two identical clocks A and B on the circumference of a wheel at opposite ends of the diameter of length L. The wheel is positioned upright, i.e., perpendicular to the ground...
In Philippe G. Ciarlet's book 'An introduction to differential geometry', He gives the integrability conditions of the differential equations like this: $$ \partial_{i} F_{lj}=L^p_{ij} F_{lp},\,\,\,F_{ij}(x_0)=F^0_{ij}. $$ The integrability conditions for the existence of a global solution ##F_{lj}## is: $$ R^i_{jkl}\equiv\partial_k L^i_{jl}-\partial_l L^i_{jk}+L^h_{jl} L^i_{hk}-L^h_{jk} L^i_{hl}=0 $$ Then from the equation: $$\nabla_b e_a= \Gamma^c_{ab} e_c$$ Using cartesian basis ## e_I...

Similar threads

Replies
4
Views
1K
Replies
31
Views
2K
Replies
7
Views
2K
Replies
36
Views
5K
Back
Top