Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Gravitational time dilation is a form of time dilation, an actual difference of elapsed time between two events, as measured by observers situated at varying distances from a gravitating mass. The lower the gravitational potential (the closer the clock is to the source of gravitation), the slower time passes, speeding up as the gravitational ...
Time dilation is the difference in elapsed time as measured by two clocks, either because of a relative velocity between them (special relativity), or a difference in gravitational potential between their locations (general relativity). When unspecified, "time dilation" usually refers to the effect due to velocity.
The publication of the law has become known as the "first great unification", as it marked the unification of the previously described phenomena of gravity on Earth with known astronomical behaviors. [1] [2] [3] This is a general physical law derived from empirical observations by what Isaac Newton called inductive reasoning. [4]
Objects are falling to the floor because the room is aboard a rocket in space, which is accelerating at 9.81 m/s 2, the standard gravity on Earth, and is far from any source of gravity. The objects are being pulled towards the floor by the same "inertial force" that presses the driver of an accelerating car into the back of their seat.
Important vector fields in relativity include the four-velocity, = ˙, which is the coordinate distance travelled per unit of proper time, the four-acceleration = ¨ and the four-current describing the charge and current densities. Other physically important tensor fields in relativity include the following:
The principle of equivalence implies gravitational time dilation. [p 12] It is important to realize that Einstein's arguments predicting gravitational time dilation are valid for any theory of gravity that respects the principle of equivalence. This includes Newtonian gravitation.
[5] [8] A gravitational redshift can also equivalently be interpreted as gravitational time dilation at the source of the radiation: [8] [2] if two oscillators (attached to transmitters producing electromagnetic radiation) are operating at different gravitational potentials, the oscillator at the higher gravitational potential (farther from the ...
The free-fall time is the characteristic time that would take a body to collapse under its own gravitational attraction, if no other forces existed to oppose the collapse.. As such, it plays a fundamental role in setting the timescale for a wide variety of astrophysical processes—from star formation to helioseismology to supernovae—in which gravity plays a dominant ro