What time is it in Space? (Not the ISS)

[breitlings]

Originally Posted by kulak

Fun fact. A Rolex in orbit would not stay perfectly in sync with earth due to relativity.

It would take a long time at 20k-30k MPH, you need to be closer to the speed of light for it to be out of sync in a noticeably short amount of time if observing from earth. But you are absolutely right, even things like atomic decay slow down the faster you get.


A very interesting question, especially if you consider effects of gravity on C, and potentially wormholes and string theory's ~17 dimensions.

[Roley]

How about a Coordinated Universal Time? (UTC) which is much like GMT.

So if a space craft left earth and entered space, your watch would be set to UTC. This could set a universal standard for all space travel around the world leaving earth from any location.

[kulak]

Originally Posted by breitlings

It would take a long time at 20k-30k MPH, you need to be closer to the speed of light for it to be out of sync in a noticeably short amount of time if observing from earth. But you are absolutely right, even things like atomic decay slow down the faster you get.


A very interesting question, especially if you consider effects of gravity on C, and potentially wormholes and string theory's ~17 dimensions.

Even the clocks on satellites in orbit have to be design with relativity in mind. Otherwise GPS could go a bit wonky even being off by a minuscule amount of time.

[Roley]

Originally Posted by kulak

Even the clocks on satellites in orbit have to be design with relativity in mind. Otherwise GPS could go a bit wonky even being off by a minuscule amount of time.

We may be getting somewhere with relativity and GPS. However this just adds to the chronological confusion.

[Abdullah71601]

Originally Posted by kulak

Fun fact. A Rolex in orbit would not stay perfectly in sync with earth due to relativity.

Originally Posted by breitlings

It would take a long time at 20k-30k MPH, you need to be closer to the speed of light for it to be out of sync in a noticeably short amount of time if observing from earth. But you are absolutely right, even things like atomic decay slow down the faster you get.


A very interesting question, especially if you consider effects of gravity on C, and potentially wormholes and string theory's ~17 dimensions.

Time dilation is gravity dependent. Time moves slower where gravity is strongest (closest to gravitational mass). Time for the person on the planet would move slower than time for the person in orbit regardless of velocity.