[layman (OP)]

From school and reading I've always understood that time slows as you approach the speed of light and an objects mass becomes infinite. I was wondering why time slows it must be affected by something. I'm just guessing here but does time or change travel at the speed of light? If it does, does time have energy and can it be measured?

[simplified]

From school and reading I've always understood that time slows as you approach the speed of light and an objects mass becomes infinite.

Speed and mass are parameters of an impulse. A gravitational field is a parameter of mass. The gravitational field does not increase when object approaches the speed of light, therefore relative mass does not exist. One dominant physicist has told that  relative mass is created for an explanation of relativity to backward people .

[layman (OP)]

Ouch that hurt. I know relatavistic mass is not considered part of special relativity. Does not the relativistic mass increase with the kinetic energy of a mass at rest increase at higher speeds?

"I was wondering why time slows it must be affected by something. I'm just guessing here but does time or change travel at the speed of light? If it does, does time have energy and can it be measured?"

In my ignorance let me rephrase the question, why does time appear to slow for the people on the train from the observers point of view why does time appear to slow in a gravitational field. When an astronaut comes back is he not seconds younger, do not satellites have to be set at a different time rate than the time rate at sea level? what is the energy required to produce these results, can it be measured?

[simplified]

Ouch that hurt. I know relatavistic mass is not considered part of special relativity. Does not the relativistic mass increase with the kinetic energy of a mass at rest increase at higher speeds?

"I was wondering why time slows it must be affected by something. I'm just guessing here but does time or change travel at the speed of light? If it does, does time have energy and can it be measured?"

In my ignorance let me rephrase the question, why does time appear to slow for the people on the train from the observers point of view why does time appear to slow in a gravitational field. When an astronaut comes back is he not seconds younger, do not satellites have to be set at a different time rate than the time rate at sea level? what is the energy required to produce these results, can it be measured?

Energy does not increase force of a gravitational field of object. If you do not wish to understand it then I shall not study your next question. []

[yor_on]

Layman

There are no 'backward people' asking questions, only those that won't may be defined as backward, as I see it. Ahem, at least they will seem awkward

Time as such is just a reference toward causality. We have a certain 'flow' in SpaceTime making sense to us:   history -  Ah, now? - and the 'future'  :Those together makes a 'causality chain' allowing us to observe a order to the universe.

For a long time we thought times arrow --> to be the same everywhere, always giving the same measure. But relativity and Einstein showed us that, even though it's true that my watch always will measure the same amount of beats from my heart in about the same amount of time no matter where I am, the idea of a 'universal objective (always the same) time' was somewhat incorrect.

Nowadays we speak about 'frames of reference' instead, defined as different points in SpaceTime from where we/to observe, be they material or just imaginary. Although times arrow still exist and points one way, at least macroscopically, it now is found to be related to how those 'frames' are defined/observed against each other.

The main reason why we didn't notice that before is that we, more or less, have a common macroscopic 'frame of reference' in being here together on Earth. So instead of 'time' a lot of physicists like to think of it as entropy instead, defusing the old idea somewhat But to me it's still time and its arrow they are talking about.

As for the 'speed' or 'velocity' of time? We know that on a strictly personal plane, no matter your 'frame of reference', be it a black hole or a speeding starship, time always will be the same to you. In the 'twin experiment' we have one twin getting older than the other due to him 'speeding away and back'. But the reason why they would notice it is related to the common origin of departure. That is, without him coming back there is no way to confirm the results in time.

So the question you ask seems at least twofold. Why is time on a personal plane always the same? And why will different 'frames of reference' dilate time relative each other. And as we observe that this phenomena is related to motion and mass. How can motion dilate time, and how can Mass?

Mass is here defined as 'relative mass' also, although not to what we call the momentum, relating to bosons like our photons.
==

As for the energy.

Energy measured will be a result of it taking time to produce the result.
So in that motto energy is a 'suborder' to causality/times arrow.

What you seem to be asking here is possibly if energy can exist without times arrow being involved? I don't know that one. Everything we do, from thinking to measuring is done in time, using its arrow. Doesn't mean the question is 'unreal' though. There might be a way to reconcile 'energy' with something even without involving time, although, not that I know how one would do so?

[yor_on]

Think of one photon speeding, either away from you or towards you. Away from you it will be red-shifted, and so also be of a longer wavelength (weaker). Coming towards you it will be blue-shifted, its waves shorter compressed in time and so be of a higher energy relative you. In both cases we are talking about the exact same photon, only its direction relative you differing. Why it behaves that way is due to the 'invariance' of light, that it always will have the same velocity (in a vacuum). The energy of it differ with the relation it find itself relative the observer (you) but in a (possibly:) objective sense it was the exact same light quanta in both cases.

So when you're assuming that it might be so that energy is related to time that will be true in a relative sense. But, you will need two frames for it to come true. And as the amount of time taken for your observations will be the same in both cases, the energy observed always have to be an 'relation' of what 'frames of reference' producing it. You can compare it to what we call 'potential energy', the fact that you at all times contain an infinite amount of 'potential energies', all depending on what other 'frame of reference' you compare yourself to. The same way that you have all those possible 'energies' that photon will have a infinite possibility of energies depending on from what 'frame of reference' you will observe it. And when hitting you that energy will be true. But you have to remember that in all of those frames the time you notice, measuring it inside, will be the same for you. Time dilation is only defined when being compared between frames, and to you your time never differed, and neither did it do so for those 'twins'.

Hope this made sense
==

and now I'll stop.
Ah, not time though.
==

Harder than I thought to stop.
sh* ( & phiewww

[simplified]

 Ether hides speed of object and slows down its time. Dominant masses hold and change an ether.

[CPT ArkAngel]

Time is a dimension like space, it has no energy.

[Geezer]

Time and energy are inextricably linked. For example, money is really just a virtual form of energy. As Willie Nelson puts it,

"If you've got the money Honey, I've got the time."

This is clearly a statement of time/energy equivalence.

Now, we know that energy really defines time. I don't think it's possible to measure time without consuming energy, so, ultimately, when there is no longer any available energy (entropy has won) time will also cease.

[yor_on]

Seems like Willie and me are on the level here

Time/energy equivalence is one way to look at it, the question would be how to reconcile all those possible frames against each other? As time in some ways reminds me of various potentials, all being 'true' simultaneously depending on your 'frame of observation'?

Maybe we need a better word for what we call time?

What we can say is that causality chains seems to point 'one way', no matter the relation with those other 'frames of reference'. Nobody ever saw that cup reassemble itself from the floor, ending whole at the table. Well, except in some movie possibly.

It's no wonder that physicists like the word entropy better

Yeah Geezer, I agree, there have to be some order to it.

[Geezer]

Yes, I think there is some order.

Entropy wins. The more we try to resist it by creating "order", the more we accelerate disorder.

[JP]

Ah yes.  I recall hearing about time-money-energy equivalence.

[simplified]

 A fast speed freezes time in flow of ether, freezing of time takes energy. When time thaws, it gives back energy. []

[LeeE]

From school and reading I've always understood that time slows as you approach the speed of light and an objects mass becomes infinite. I was wondering why time slows it must be affected by something. I'm just guessing here but does time or change travel at the speed of light? If it does, does time have energy and can it be measured?

Have a read of this response to another thread:

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=34024.msg323267#msg323267

In short, it is not time that slows but rather your rate of movement through time that changes, just as your rate of movement through space can vary.

As CPT pointed out:

Time is a dimension like space, it has no energy.

...elaborating a little, energy may be possessed by objects travelling through space-time, by virtue of their relative motion to other objects travelling on different vectors, but space-time itself doesn't appear to be a construct of energy.

[layman (OP)]

there was a reason why i chose layman as a user name, and i need some clarification. going back to the twins, why would one twin say the journey he took lasted only this long and the other twin say no it lasted longer? or am i so incredibly thick that i've missed the answer above.

not related to this at all, my shift key isn't working.

[yor_on]

Think of two mirrors, parallel to each other. Now you got yourself a brand new mirror-set. Mount an invincible engine to them and send them out in space. Now let a 'light corn' bounce, yes I say bounce between those mirrors.

You stay at home at that launching pad from where the mirrors was sent, and as your eyesight is supernatural you have no problems watching that 'light corn' bounce between those two mirrors, mounted into that mirror-set, moving away from you near the speed of light.

As you look at it bouncing you notice that it seems to bounce real slow. Thinking of it you realize that as the mirrors move away, uniformly moving now as the engine turned off its acceleration, the space the light corn have to traverse between the mirrors now must be much 'longer' as the mirror speeds away at all times.

So you say, "Ahha, that's why."

But as you want to make sure you use your superpowers to materialize yourself upon one of those mirrors. Doing so you now will be 'inertial' relative the mirrors having the exact same velocity as those. But, as you look at that 'light corn' again you find that the time it takes bouncing, as measured by your wrist watch, now is no longer than it was on Earth, when testing your clever device that first time, before sending it up and away in that gleaming firmament. So you shake your head swear** ahh, grumbling, then teleport back to Earth to double-check your results, just to find your damn*' wristwatch once more insisting that the damn** light corn have 'slowed down'..

Now why did it do that?

As you think of it you start to wonder about how you would have known that you was moving, sitting at that mirror, if you hadn't had the stars and stuff to compare that motion too? Remember that the mirror-set was coasting here. As you Swea*' ahh, think some more, you start to imagine yourself and that mirror-set getting enclosed in a very big black box, with you sitting on one of the mirrors. Suddenly wondering how you would be able to prove that you and the mirror-set was moving at all, having nothing to compare your 'possible uniform motion' too?

Then you start to think of what you would have said, not knowing, if now that light corn suddenly had 'slowed down' as you sat there. "Magic" right? At least if you believe that the speed of light is invariant in a vacuum. So, thinking again you decide that what you saw, sitting there, actually seems quite correct, even though it doesn't make sense when comparing it to the time you noticed the light-corn take when timing it from your launch-pad on Earth.

Remember that this is just a way of conceptualizing the difference

Yep, that mirror-set can also be seen as a watch, with that light-corn bouncing becoming its pendulum. And if that light-corn, as seen from earth, moved slower, wouldn't you then have to admit to time possibly also moving a little slower too? I mean, as compared to that frame of reference (Launch-pad Earth) you clocked it from?

And if we exchange the 'mirror-set' for one of the twins, wouldn't he too age slower than you?
Well, Sort'a?

[simplified]

there was a reason why i chose layman as a user name, and i need some clarification. going back to the twins, why would one twin say the journey he took lasted only this long and the other twin say no it lasted longer? or am i so incredibly thick that i've missed the answer above.

not related to this at all, my shift key isn't working.

Do you want to know theory of relativity or a truth?

[yor_on]

But there is a trick to my explanation though.

Notice that I'm only addressing uniform motion. That's because my second validation introduce a equivalence between all uniformly moving objects, making it impossible to decide any singular velocity or even to differ it from 'standing still' or 'free falling', as long as we're sufficiently far away from other gravitational influences. Introducing gravitational influences like being close to a black hole might make it able to define motion although I'm not sure on that one? Even then it might be so that we could define it as being that other, or those other, object(s) as being the one moving? But we can always use Occam's Razor of course, in which the simplest competing explanation making sense also will be the one we should choose. The problem with that one is that it is a human 'preconception', and not a truth in any universal sense, it's to ours thinking it make sense

In a acceleration you will always know who is moving, except possibly when it's a uniform acceleration being at a constant gravity. But change my reference point 'Launch-pad Earth' to another mirror-set instead. Which pair should age slower? Think of it, if my equivalence of all uniform motions expressing themselves the same are correct, then no matter which pair you were sitting on, the other mirror sets light-corn would seem to move slower.

Why?

Well, in a uniform motion the only way to decide who is moving is to use some sort of reference frame. That means that you have a free choice in defining which of those mirror-pairs that really are moving. Also, as I see it, making it possible to define both pairs as moving away from each other.

This is somewhat of a problem and one way of solving it, as we understand ourselves to know Einstein correct, having tested his predictions against muons amongst other things, is to find another way of defining motion. One idea is to define it against very far stars, so far away that we can call them 'fixed' relative us. And there is actually a guy that recently presented a theorem supporting the validity of that approach.

Kind of confusing isn't it
But true.

==
You could argue that that mirror-set representing Earth must be the origin anyway, as we know that both mirrors started from there. And as we also know which one that left, this can't be true. And then one of the pairs won't show this time-dilation. But for that to hold true you will have to refute the equivalence I said all uniform motion share. And as far as I can see that's impossible. A uniform motion needs to be defined against another frame to exist, as there is no way you can say with which velocity you are moving otherwise.

But if you can find a way to differ coasting, aka uniform motion inside that black box you will have a way to decide which frame that is moving. You might think that you could be able to use blue/redshift to do so? But as we said before, blue and redshift can only be defined as from two frames of reference 'cooperating' and does not define any of the frames as the one 'moving'. Hmm, maybe it does, if I have a flashlight standing still relative me inside that black box, won't I then be able to define if my frame is moving? I should be able too, shouldn't I?
==

Nah

It moves with me that flashlight )
Awhh, solve that one, and tell me how one proves different uniform motions inside that black box..
I would love a presentation of that one.
==

Now, if we only had something 'unmoving' in SpaceTime
And that's why a 'unmoving Aether' is so alluring, if we had it that is

Then we could have used that as the 'anchor' from where all motion was defined. What we have is the the CBR or the Cosmic Back Ground. The radiation we expect to have been created at the Big Bang, when the universe was created, but that won't solve this, again as I see it

[yor_on]

One way might be to define time's 'origin' to be at all points in SpaceTime simultaneously. That is, there is no preferred 'point/frame' inside SpaceTime for defining an objective time. All points are equal in that they all have the exact same amount of 'time'. Then the arrow we observe to move will be a result of something else. Don't ask me what I mean though :)I don't really know why I started to think that way.
==

Oh yes I know.
That elusive ah, Einstein )

[layman (OP)]

okay i'll think this over and get back to the thread, but in the meantime your problem.

''It moves with me that flashlight )
Awhh, solve that one, and tell me how one proves different uniform motions inside that black box..
I would love a presentation of that one.''

throw the flashlight for a three point frame of reference