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 ...
The Schwarzschild radius was named after the German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, who calculated this exact solution for the theory of general relativity in 1916. The Schwarzschild radius is given as =, where G is the gravitational constant, M is the object mass, and c is the speed of light.
The faster the relative velocity, the greater the time dilation between them, with time slowing to a stop as one clock approaches the speed of light (299,792,458 m/s). In theory, time dilation would make it possible for passengers in a fast-moving vehicle to advance into the future in a short period of their own time.
For example, the Schwarzschild radius r s of the Earth is roughly 9 mm (3 ⁄ 8 inch); at the surface of the Earth, the corrections to Newtonian gravity are only one part in a billion. The Schwarzschild radius of the Sun is much larger, roughly 2953 meters, but at its surface, the ratio r s / r is roughly 4 parts in a million.
The related gravitational time dilation effect has been measured by transporting atomic clocks to altitudes of between tens and tens of thousands of kilometers (first by Hafele and Keating in 1971; most accurately to date by Gravity Probe A launched in 1976).
But time is weird, and there's another phenomenon called relative velocity time dilation that usurps gravity's effect. Why astronauts age slower Relative velocity time dilation is where time moves ...
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
Spacetime diagrams can show the geometry underlying phenomena like time dilation and length contraction without mathematical equations. The history of an object's location through time traces out a line or curve on a spacetime diagram, referred to as the object's world line .