Atomic Clocks & Relativity Bollox

[NobleGuy]

Have been reading about this stuff recently again with a view to changing my view on it. Things like:
http://leapsecond.com/pages/atomic-tom/

I mean, they're saying time goes faster/slower depending on the level of gravity. Having read it again and thought about it again, I've come to the same conclusion, that's it's probably crap. I reckon it's more to do with the the atoms they use in their atomic clocks simply behave fractionally differently under different gravitational forces and that affects their results.

Can anybody explain this to me in a way that could maybe change my viewpoint? I'm happy to be told I'm wrong

[Digga]

Time is realtive to the Observer, but if you don't have a copy, a Telegraph of times will serve the purpose.

[hairykrishna]

NobleGuy said:

Have been reading about this stuff recently again with a view to changing my view on it. Things like:
http://leapsecond.com/pages/atomic-tom/

I mean, they're saying time goes faster/slower depending on the level of gravity. Having read it again and thought about it again, I've come to the same conclusion, that's it's probably crap. I reckon it's more to do with the the atoms they use in their atomic clocks simply behave fractionally differently under different gravitational forces and that affects their results.

Can anybody explain this to me in a way that could maybe change my viewpoint? I'm happy to be told I'm wrong

Behave differently in a way that (near)precisely fits the predictions of general relativity? Made years before? Hell of a coincidence.

I'm afraid explaining general relativity is a bit beyond me.

[Vee Racer]

So you want someone to explain the finer points of General Relativity to you in a few sentences? It takes years of studying to get anywhere near understanding it. If your not prepared to take it on face value then sign up to University.

[foreright]

NobleGuy said:

Have been reading about this stuff recently again with a view to changing my view on it. Things like:
http://leapsecond.com/pages/atomic-tom/

I mean, they're saying time goes faster/slower depending on the level of gravity. Having read it again and thought about it again, I've come to the same conclusion, that's it's probably crap. I reckon it's more to do with the the atoms they use in their atomic clocks simply behave fractionally differently under different gravitational forces and that affects their results.

Can anybody explain this to me in a way that could maybe change my viewpoint? I'm happy to be told I'm wrong

Here's a reasonable explanation: http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/Outreach/Explore_...

You could try reading Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe" - there's a whole set of chapters in there about general relativity. Incidentally, if you do read this and understand it all first time around you're either a) a genius, or b) not understanding it at all

Edited by foreright on Wednesday 14th January 16:27

[Neil_H]

NobleGuy said:

Have been reading about this stuff recently again with a view to changing my view on it. Things like:
http://leapsecond.com/pages/atomic-tom/

I mean, they're saying time goes faster/slower depending on the level of gravity. Having read it again and thought about it again, I've come to the same conclusion, that's it's probably crap. I reckon it's more to do with the the atoms they use in their atomic clocks simply behave fractionally differently under different gravitational forces and that affects their results.

Can anybody explain this to me in a way that could maybe change my viewpoint? I'm happy to be told I'm wrong

You're disagreeing with Einstein? It doesn't just happen to atomic clocks, an accurate-enough wristwatch would show the same differences.

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

[Eric Mc]

The vibration of atoms is not a fundamental aspect of time itself. It is just another method by which we measure it - no different in principle to the swing of a pendulum or the uncoiling of a spring.

[Mr E]

NobleGuy said:

I'm happy to be told I'm wrong

Well GPS stats have to correct for time dilation, so my money is on the Swiss patent clerk.

[Vince Vega]

Everything that can be said to have existence is limited to a max speed [within the four dimensions] of 'c' we'll call that 300,000m/s [or energy], now at first this seems ok but their are things called 'fields' that appear to have no movement within the three dimensions [LxWxD] so how can this be true?

Well time is a dimension and it too takes part of that overall 'quotient' of 300,000m/s[energy], in fact 'fields' take all of that quotient because of their peculiar nature.

Gravity is also a motion and field and takes a tiny part of that 300,000m/s[energy] so has to be accounted for from any calculation made.

I will try to post a couple of line drawings to explain this better in a minute.

Edited by Vince Vega on Wednesday 14th January 16:52

[NobleGuy]

Neil_H said:

NobleGuy said:

Have been reading about this stuff recently again with a view to changing my view on it. Things like:
http://leapsecond.com/pages/atomic-tom/

I mean, they're saying time goes faster/slower depending on the level of gravity. Having read it again and thought about it again, I've come to the same conclusion, that's it's probably crap. I reckon it's more to do with the the atoms they use in their atomic clocks simply behave fractionally differently under different gravitational forces and that affects their results.

Can anybody explain this to me in a way that could maybe change my viewpoint? I'm happy to be told I'm wrong

You're disagreeing with Einstein? It doesn't just happen to atomic clocks, an accurate-enough wristwatch would show the same differences.

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

So the hands of a watch and the mechanisms within them don't behave differently depending on the force of gravity applied to them? I would say mechanical watches as opposed to atomic clocks are even more likely to behave differently.

For example, if you stick a standard wristwatch 2 miles under the sea, it would slow down and stop because the outside pressures would affect its operation. Does that mean time is bending? Nope.

Edited by NobleGuy on Wednesday 14th January 17:39

[NobleGuy]

Eric Mc said:

The vibration of atoms is not a fundamental aspect of time itself. It is just another method by which we measure it - no different in principle to the swing of a pendulum or the uncoiling of a spring.

Exactly. Which makes me inclined to believe it's much more to do with the way the matter used to build these measuring instruments (whatever they may be) reacts to changes in the forces applied to them, rather than time actually bending. I mean, all the experiments show really is that the time reported by the instruments is different to what we'd expect. I don't think it proves one way or another what the causes of those differences are.

Mr E said:

NobleGuy said:

I'm happy to be told I'm wrong

Well GPS stats have to correct for time dilation, so my money is on the Swiss patent clerk.

I would say they have to correct for variations in the operation of the measuring instruments we use due to varying forces applied to them at different times.

Edited by NobleGuy on Wednesday 14th January 17:39

[hairykrishna]

NobleGuy said:

Eric Mc said:

The vibration of atoms is not a fundamental aspect of time itself. It is just another method by which we measure it - no different in principle to the swing of a pendulum or the uncoiling of a spring.

Exactly. Which makes me inclined to believe it's much more to do with the way the matter used to build these measuring instruments (whatever they may be) reacts to changes in the forces applied to them, rather than time actually bending. I mean, all the experiments show really is that the time reported by the instruments is different to what we'd expect. I don't think it proves one way or another what the causes of those differences are.

Not at all. They show the time is exactly (within experimental error) what we would predict, given that relativity is correct. What are the odds that this 'reaction to forces' you posit matches up with the expected results of relativity? How does your theory explain the procession of Mercury's orbit and the neding of light, both observed and both predicted by relativity?

[Vince Vega]

Nobleguy, mechanical watches/clocks are not capable of extreme accuracy, so gravity [+ or -] has no measurable effect on them.

Plus time is not a substance that can be manipulted, time is a tensor, it is merely a measurement, it is not a thing! The same applies to the other three dimensions, they too are not something that has substance, they are simply measures of trajectory.

This means you can't warp time or make holes in it etc, time is the procession of events, these events are things that use energy to exist [in time] energy to move [in space] the same applies to the word spacetime, it is not some 'thing' that exists, you can't find a bit of 'spacetime' and give it attributes you can however describe objects that use energy to behave in a way that we short-hand into spacetime.

When we say that spacetime is warped around a massive body in the cosmos we are describing a huge number of interactions of energy with other energy not some singular entity.

Edited by Vince Vega on Wednesday 14th January 18:01

[XB70]

Load of rot.

Do the resident hypercar owners (McLaren F1 and Veyrons) go through all this malarky on their autobahn runs?

Methinks not.

A complete absence of anything resembling a science degree enables me to conclude that the answer is just bigger engines and more of them.

Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light? Pah. Roswell and the little green men getting Hersey's and Babe Ruth's from the mom and pop gas station in New Mexico say otherwise.

• a load of codswollop by XB70 to cover the fact that he got a nosebleed thinking about all of this*

[navier_stokes]

NobleGuy said:

Neil_H said:

NobleGuy said:

Have been reading about this stuff recently again with a view to changing my view on it. Things like:
http://leapsecond.com/pages/atomic-tom/

I mean, they're saying time goes faster/slower depending on the level of gravity. Having read it again and thought about it again, I've come to the same conclusion, that's it's probably crap. I reckon it's more to do with the the atoms they use in their atomic clocks simply behave fractionally differently under different gravitational forces and that affects their results.

Can anybody explain this to me in a way that could maybe change my viewpoint? I'm happy to be told I'm wrong

You're disagreeing with Einstein? It doesn't just happen to atomic clocks, an accurate-enough wristwatch would show the same differences.

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

So the hands of a watch and the mechanisms within them don't behave differently depending on the force of gravity applied to them? I would say mechanical watches as opposed to atomic clocks are even more likely to behave differently.

For example, if you stick a standard wristwatch 2 miles under the sea, it would slow down and stop because the outside pressures would affect its operation. Does that mean time is bending? Nope.

Edited by NobleGuy on Wednesday 14th January 17:39

Wristwatches are too inaccurate to measure the difference that time affects it due to gravity.

The slowing down of time due to gravity, for example by comparing an atomic clock on the gound and one in the atmosphere is very minimal, hence why atomic clocks were used in the experiment.

Nothing in science can ever be proved, there is just overwhelming amount of evidence and a robust mathematical model, such that the chances of time-space behaving in this way are very likely.

Obviously it doesen't work in all cases, hence the search for a grand unified theory of everything

Much like Newton's second law predicts motion on Earth very very well, but doesn't work for everything in space. See Eddington and Mecury's orbit.

[Eric Mc]

XB70 - is your alter-ego "Valkyrie"?

[Parrot of Doom]

NobleGuy said:

Can anybody explain this to me in a way that could maybe change my viewpoint? I'm happy to be told I'm wrong

Think of it this way.

Everything is travelling at the speed of light, always. Right now, even sat in your chair. Oh your speed in X Y and Z may be quite low, but your speed in T (time) is almost lightspeed. X + Y + Z + T = c

You can't go faster than c, so if you travel at close to c in X Y and Z, your speed through T (time) will slow down to compensate - not that you'll notice. Anyone watching you at normal speeds would notice though.

Its one reason why anyone travelling at light speed might experience a journey between stars in a matter of days, but anyone observing them would see them take years.

Edited by Parrot of Doom on Wednesday 14th January 18:19

[Strangely Brown]

NobleGuy said:

Can anybody explain this to me in a way that could maybe change my viewpoint? I'm happy to be told I'm wrong

Here ya go...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Space-Uncle-Albert/dp...

[XB70]

Eric Mc said:

XB70 - is your alter-ego "Valkyrie"?

Is "Valkyrie" someone else on here? If so, nope, not me.

Whether I worship the Veyron of the skies *sod it, shove six of those engines on there and use some boron enriched fuel while you are are it*, then yes.

[Vince Vega]

Parrot of Doom said:

NobleGuy said:

Can anybody explain this to me in a way that could maybe change my viewpoint? I'm happy to be told I'm wrong

Think of it this way.

Everything is travelling at the speed of light, always. Right now, even sat in your chair. Oh your speed in X Y and Z may be quite low, but your speed in T (time) is almost lightspeed. X + Y + Z + T = c

You can't go faster than c, so if you travel at close to c in X Y and Z, your speed through T (time) will slow down to compensate - not that you'll notice. Anyone watching you at normal speeds would notice though.

Which what I said!

Vince Vega said:

Everything that can be said to have existence is limited to a max speed -within the four dimensions- of 'c' we'll call that 300,000m/s \energy/, now at first this seems ok but their are things called 'fields' that appear to have no movement within the three dimensions [LxWxD] so how can this be true?

Well time is a dimension and it too takes part of that overall 'quotient' of 300,000m/s\energy/, in fact 'fields' take all of that quotient because of their peculiar nature.

Gravity is also a motion and field and takes a tiny part of that 300,000m/s\energy/ so has to be accounted for from any calculation made.

Edited by Vince Vega on Wednesday 14th January 19:53