An idea on time and velocity.

[Aanker]

Having thought about the matter of time, time dilation and relativity for some time (pun unintended), I had a tiny idea. Now bear in mind I have yet to reach the part of my current physics course that encompasses most of these concepts in detail, so my understanding of them is largely basic - in other words, please do not bash me.

Either way, my idea is as follows:

If time could be altered or encountered in such a way that a "tunnel" of space could have a faster flow of time, say, x2 the time flow experienced on Earth, then objects within that tunnel should logically travel the length of the tunnel twice as fast as objects travelling parallell to its length but outside it in a time flow comparative to that of Earth, with the same velocity (the only difference is the "time flow" in the both spaces).

Now, imagine that both objects are allowed to travel at the speed of light. This means that without actually breaking the limit imposed by the speed of light, the object within the tunnel arrives at the end of its travel path twice as "fast" as the object outside the tunnel.



I guess the question is how one would go about creating a tunnel in which the time flow is double that of the outside space, however.

[Time Commander Bob]

Not sure that time really "flows", but from the Lorentz factor you can work out the difference in time experienced by two reference frames with a relative velocity between them.

The lorentz factor (gamma) is 1/sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2) where v is the relative velocity between two frames and c is the speed of light. If we have two identical clocks then the rest frame time for the second hand to move is the lorentz factor multiplied by the time taken for the second hand to move in the rest frame.

However, with two rays of light they are both moving at the speed of light so they will always experience time in the same way to a third common rest frame (that is time won't appear to pass at all in the light from the rest frame since the lorentz factor is infinite). So I think the situation you have described is probably impossible. A better way for one object moving at the speed of light to beat another object travelling at the speed of light to the same destination is to warp space to create a shorter path.

[Yaga Shu Ra]

If time could be altered or encountered in such a way that a "tunnel" of space could have a faster flow of time, say, x2 the time flow experienced on Earth, then objects within that tunnel should logically travel the length of the tunnel twice as fast as objects travelling parallell to its length but outside it in a time flow comparative to that of Earth, with the same velocity (the only difference is the "time flow" in the both spaces).

This thought experiment of yours is operating under the notion of absolute time.

[Aanker]

This thought experiment of yours is operating under the notion of absolute time.

But suppose you carry it out on Earth, with one observer standing on its surface, and the other travelling through an imaginary tunnel of this construction, say, looping around the Earth.

[Mr. Crow]

basically you can make a portion of space time were time has a faster speed, by using mass, but by accelerating to relativistic speeds, both, the object in the gravity well and the one outside it, come close to a similar velocity, in a way the mass of the objects negates the effect of the gravity well. you could make however a tunnel that is shorter than the original path, as to how i am not sure.