• Question: Does time run the same way everywhere in the universe or in all parts of the universe?

    Asked by anon-206971 to Zoe, Jose Eliel, Hamid, Claire on 14 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Jose Eliel Camargo Molina

      Jose Eliel Camargo Molina answered on 14 Mar 2019:


      The way the universe works, time does not run the same way everywhere. But it will always run the same way for you though.

      However, how your time runs with respect to some other “person” or “observer”, that thing changes and quite a bit indeed. And that will depend on where they are and how fast they are going, with respect to you.

      So for example, an astronaut spending 11 months in the international space station, both traveling super fast and feeling less gravity (both things affect how time runs for him with respect to us), will come back around 13 milliseconds younger than if he would have stayed on earth.

      But he did not feel it. His clock for him run at the same speed, everything he experienced was the same. But from our perspective, if we would have looked at him with a telescope, his clock would have been running slower!

      It is all a bit wibbly wobbly and takes a while to wrap your head around, but I recommend you start by looking at this:

      Check part 2 and 3 too!

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