Time is relative, what does that mean?

Question

Time is relative, what does that mean?

Answer 1

When you move very fast (or are in a very strong gravitational field), time goes slower for you compared to someone who is not moving fast.  In other words, time would move slower for you relative to somone else.

So if your in a spaceship going close to the speed of light and you're out there for 5 years, when you come back to Earth, you'd find that everyone was 50 years older (depending on exactly how fast you were going).

Time went by slower for you compared to the people on Earth who were not buzzing around in a space ship.  

Answer 2

It means that the passage of time changes in different reference frames that are moving relative to each other.

For example, if you assume that you are standing still, you will measure a certain event, like a clock second hand moving around the face, that takes, say, 60 seconds to occur. If the clock is standing still in your frame of reference, then someone that passes you at high speed will see that same clock, but will measure a different time for the event to transpire. For him, the clock will run much faster as he sees it pass by him. It may take only 30 seconds to make a complete revolution.

This is not an illusion and it is not a trick. It is the way that time actually behaves as you approach the speed of light. Time slows down for the traveler relative to the static observer, so the traveler sees time passing more quickly in the static frame. The traveler will not notice the difference within his own frame of reference; the only difference occurs as compared to the static frame. Of course, "static' is only an assumption - all frames are moving relative to each other and there is no fixed reference that can be used to identify any one frame as static - in fact, the static observer would see the same phenomenon if he saw a clock pass by and held by the traveler. The effects are unnoticeable at speeds that we are familiar with, but the phenomenon has been observed countless times in a laboratory environment.    

Answer 3

time is relative to you.  time slows to the persons view so that the speed of light remains constant, thats why it is the cosmological constant

Answer 4

One experiment placed a cesium clock on an aircraft, and another identically precise clock on the ground. After the return of the aircraft, the clocks were compared, and less time had elapsed on the aircraft’s clock. Inertia – the force felt during acceleration – is equal to gravity. With greater gravity, time moves slower. Thus, the further the aircraft was from the Earth, the less was the Earth’s gravitational pull, since gravity weakens with distance. Additionally, the inertia of the aircraft added to the slower time passage relative to Earth.

Answer 5

you have to learn some basic things about relativity

a classic example is that you have a pair of twins, one goes in a spaceship flying at the speed of light (time standing still) while the other stays on earth

when the one in the ship comes back, he will have stayed the same age while the one on earth got older

Answer 6

Its not constant, and its woven into space.

Time actually slows down for objects that approach the speed of light.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time

Answer 7

If you're rocketing away from Earth at near the speed of light and someone back on Earth can monitor a clock on your spaceship it would seem to be moving slower than their own clock. *Relative* to the person back on Earth, time moves at a different rate.