Stupid question about relativity/time from a noob

[VALIS]

If you were to travel to Andromeda and back to earth on a rocket travelling at 99.99999999% of light speed then the trip from your perspective would have taken 100 years. But the time on earth would have been 5 million years. (you have basically travelled into the future). Now according to relativity this is because time travels slower the faster the speed you are traveling.

And my question is why? Or how? or......what is the science behind this? can someone explain it? Why DOES time slow down and become shorter as you travel at tremendous speeds?

[Sphere]

And my question is why? Or how? or......what is the science behind this? can someone explain it? Why DOES time slow down and become shorter as you travel at tremendous speeds?

Both the theory and actual observation so far agree that yes, the passage of time is relative to the speed of the observer. You can google the now enormous body of experimental & observational evidence that supports this (the GPS system is perhaps the most every day experience, as it runs assuming relativistic time as the speed of the satelittes involved are fast enough to require it).


But I think it is actually more interesting to examine the experiments and observations that forced the overturning of the Newtonian perspective of space/time (example) as they were generally set up to support this entrenched scientific perspective, and yet in the end provided some key evidence that ended up undermining it. There is some sort of hope to be gleaned from that I think.

Richard Feynman has gladly agreed to address the "why" part of the question.

[Portuguese Rebel]

Both the theory and actual observation so far agree that yes, the passage of time is relative to the speed of the observer. You can google the now enormous body of experimental & observational evidence that supports this (the GPS system is perhaps the most every day experience, as it runs assuming relativistic time as the speed of the satelittes involved are fast enough to require it).


But I think it is actually more interesting to examine the experiments and observations that forced the overturning of the Newtonian perspective of space/time (example) as they were generally set up to support this entrenched scientific perspective, and yet in the end provided some key evidence that ended up undermining it. There is some sort of hope to be gleaned from that I think.

Richard Feynman has gladly agreed to address the "why" part of the question.

Loved how Feynman takes over 7 minutes to say to the guy "i could explain, but you're too ignorant to understand"...

[Gordon Freynman]

And my question is why? Or how? or......what is the science behind this? can someone explain it? Why DOES time slow down and become shorter as you travel at tremendous speeds?

It's a result of the fact that the speed of light is constant and unchanging no matter what what reference frame you observe it in, and spacetime appears to transform itself to make this true. Ultimately the speed of light seems to be an intrinsic property of spacetime itself. How or why that's the way it is is pretty much unanswerable at this point.

[Sphere]

Loved how Feynman takes over 7 minutes to say to the guy "i could explain, but you're too ignorant to understand"...

I don't think that was his point exactly. More so that nature doesn't really offer succinct answers to "why" questions. Nature is the way it is, independent of how familiar it is to us.

And I can't pass up an oppurtunity to drop some more Feynman