If the earth moved close to the speed of light would we age slower than other planet inhabitants?

Question

What I really mean to ask is, if the earth was moving at say 70% of the speed of light around the sun, would the rest of the universe exist faster than we were. Would the world age slower in comparison to another nearby planet?

Answer 1

Yes.

We would not age faster of slower than others on our planet, but we would do so compared to others in other places that were (relative to us) still.

This is why the threory is called relativity.

These weird phenomena occur when one frame of reference moves "relative" to another.

You are also right in that, this phenomenon, time dilation,  only starts to occur when getting close to the speed of light.

hope this helps

Answer 2

Two atomic clocks were synchronized.  One was left on the ground.  The other took a flight around the Earth on a Jet.  The results were compared, and the one that went slightly faster on the jet was slightly slower than the one left on the ground.

So the Earth would age slower, but also experience less than slower moving planets. 70% of the speed of light in a vacuum would be pretty significant.

There is a similar effect for just sitting in a strong gravitational field.

Answer 3

Not really. Within our own frame of reference, we would still get our three score years and ten.  To outsiders looking in we would, but not where it matters to us!

Answer 4

Yes. The faster you go, the slower you go, compared to a stationary observer. But time will not appear to pass any differently for you, however.

Edit: Toddio is wrong - time dilation occurs at any speed. However you have to be moving at a sizable fraction of the speed of light to notice it. Getting up and walking across the room will change the rate that time passes for you, but at such a ridiculous fraction of a second as to not make any difference to you. But it's there, all the same.

Answer 5

The example you give is intriguing, because it is NOT what special relativity usually deals with - that applies to observers at rest in an inertial frame of reference. If I am orbiting a star with a speed of 0.7c, then I am NOT in an inertial frame of reference - I am accelerating, i.e., falling towards the star. Therefore special relativity is not so straight-forward, and the provisions necessary to resolve the "Twin Paradox" come into play.

Acceleration is NOT relative - my acceleration is the same to any observer in any inertial reference frame. A basic statement of this is: if I'm in a stronger gravitational field, clocks will run slower. So, the question is, what is the nearby planet doing? If it's also experiencing our star's strong gravitational field (which seems necessary, if we're orbiting at 0.7c), then the difference wouldn't be that great. But others far from us would seem to be moving much more slowly. The extreme example is at the event horizon of a black hole, where gravity is so strong that time would seem to stop.

Answer 6

Not anymore, some liberal scientists have slowed the speed of light to about 14 miles per hour and some other liberal scientists have succeeded in stopping light altogether, but only for a very short time!

d**n, don't cha hate it when that happens?