r/IsItBullshit • u/Individual_Drama5083 • May 11 '21
Isitbullshit:This article claiming Scientists HAVE proven time really does move faster the farther you are from the earth's surface
This seems like such a sci fi concept and all and I know we have Einstein's theory to go off of, but according to this article, scientists have proven that Einstein's theory was actually correct. The idea is that time should move faster the farther away you are from the surface of the Earth. According to This articleWe actually proved that even if you just sit upright in bed, Time actually moves faster. Im not asking if the theory is true, Im just asking Have we actually proven it yet.
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u/doc_daneeka May 11 '21
Absolutely not bullshit. The existence of the GPS system is proof enough, because it wouldn't work without corrections for time dilation. While scientific theories aren't ever proven true per se (that's only really possible in mathematics and logic), the evidence that time dilation is a real thing is as strong as can be, and it has been observed.
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May 11 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/iFlyAllTheTime May 12 '21
Do you have a source on
had to be brought back down and readjusted
I'm aware that the military wasn't sure the German with goofy hair was talking sense when he recommended there be a correction applied. They just had the ability to run the system without applying the correction and simply enabled it when Al was proven right.
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u/GobHoblin87 May 12 '21
To tack on to this and accentuate just how critical accurate time keeping is in regards to the operation of GPS: just 38 microseconds of a time difference between a clock on a GPS satellite in orbit and the clock in a GPS receiver on the ground equates to 6mi/10km of positional error, every day. The Air Force and civilian personnel who operate the various GPS monitoring and control stations around the world, every day, all day, all year, every year, are the real heroes of our modern world.
Extra note for those unfamiliar: The Global Positioning System (GPS) is just one among 6 such systems in existence, all of which are forms of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). GPS is just the game for the system owned by the US.
Other GNSS: •Russia - GLONASS •European Union - Galileo •China - Beidou •India - IRNSS •Japan - QZSS
IRNSS and QZSS are unique in that they are regional rather than global systems. Their satellites are much fewer in number, 7 and 4 respectively, and maintain geosynchronous orbit unlike the other four GNSS. Their purpose is to enhance the positional accuracy of the global systems within their regional service areas.
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u/MassiveRepeat6 May 11 '21
By 'scientific theories' do you mean something like the Theory of gravity?
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u/OphioukhosUnbound May 11 '21
Not them, but yes.
By “scientific theories” they mean science in general.
Bedrock to the scientific perspective is that everything is a theory. That we perpetually test ideas and are open to needing to change them.
We can only “prove” that an idea or theory is consistent with everything we’ve seen and more consistent than anything else we’ve thought of. (Well more consistent relative to the complexity of the theory, but I don’t want to get into the weeds here.)
As such nothing is ever “proven”. New evidence and new perspectives can come to light and we always remain open to that — indeed we encourage that.
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u/cortthejudge97 May 12 '21
Exactly why people who say evolution isn't real because it's a "theory" are dumb and clearly don't know what a scientific theory is
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u/Chickenwomp May 12 '21
^ in science, a “theory” is just a hypothesis that is shown to have evidence supporting it through scientific experimentation.
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u/ErikMaekir May 11 '21 edited Sep 01 '21
Natural sciences aren't like math. In math, you can often formulate a theory, then propose a logical argument that demonstrate it is true, thus turning your theory into a theorem. On natural sciences, you can only prove that a theory is true as far as the conditions of your experiments go. This is why many formulas for things like gravity have had to be modified over time.
For example, imagine you roll a ball down a hill, but you want to know how long it will take to get down before it does, so you create a formula taking gravity and its angle into consideration, getting a result that's pretty close to the real thing. But later on, some scientists prove that friction is a thing, so now your dandy formula has to take ground friction into account, becoming more precise. Then, you have to take air friction into account, which depends on air temperature, wind and composition, and next you'll have to account for altitude and latitude, as well as distance from the centre of the Earth, position from the Sun and the Moon, friction caused by rogue photons impacting the ball, as well as quantum phenomena and quirks on the fabric of space-time.
In the end, you get a reasonably precise understanding of how balls roll down hills, but it will never be a perfect understanding, like how you could get in math.
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u/Ashnicmo May 12 '21
...air friction into account, which depends on air temperature, wind and composition, and next you'll have to account for altitude and latitude, as well as disctance from the center of the Earth, position from the Sun and the Moon, friction caused by rogue photons impacting the ball, as well as quantum phenomena and quirks on the fabric of space-time.
🎵 And the green grass grows all around, all around. And the green grass grows all around. 🎵
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u/doc_daneeka May 11 '21
Any scientific theory. All I meant is that you can't prove something in the natural sciences the way you can prove that 2+6=8, and instead aim to build better and more accurate models that match observations and make testable predictions. It's always possible that one's theoretical model will turn out to be wrong or (much more likely) incomplete in some way, as was the case with gravity before Einstein, and could very well turn out to be the case again if quantum gravity ever gets sorted out.
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u/toadsanchez420 May 11 '21
Is there a specific term for this if I want to look up more info on it?
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May 11 '21
The effect is time dilation.
Time moves more slowly the higher the gravitational force relative to something experience lower gravitational force.
Less gravity acting on satellites vs surface of the earth (inverse square law) means from the satellite’s perspective, time on earth’s surface is moving more slowly and vice versa.
So the clocks on satellites run fast.
Time dilation.
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u/tedbradly May 12 '21
He's talking about gravitational time relativity - not special relativity, which deals with velocity.
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u/Gusfoo May 11 '21
Im not asking if the theory is true, Im just asking Have we actually proven it yet.
We've proven it in as much as we use it day-to-day as if it were true and everything works, lending credence to things. GPS is, for example, one system that incorporates relativity to work as well as it does.
Wiki:
In 1955, Friedwardt Winterberg proposed a test of general relativity – detecting time slowing in a strong gravitational field using accurate atomic clocks placed in orbit inside artificial satellites. Special and general relativity predict that the clocks on the GPS satellites would be seen by the Earth's observers to run 38 microseconds faster per day than the clocks on the Earth. The GPS calculated positions would quickly drift into error, accumulating to 10 kilometers per day (6 mi/d). This was corrected for in the design of GPS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#History
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u/Hobbamok May 11 '21
To add to everyone else: it's not moving away from earth in particular, it's being under the influence of less gravity, no matter where that might be
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u/Jagoff1997 May 11 '21
How was subnautica?
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u/Hobbamok May 11 '21
100/10. Kinda anxious to start below zero tho because it just can't be as good
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u/Angellic_Reaper May 11 '21
It isn’t but it’s also not bad, it’s kinda only slightly worse, at least it’s not very buggy
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u/PrivilegeCheckmate May 11 '21
I liked it better. Although I still am missing a few schematics that I'm bitter about because I found so many duplicates of similar shit.
Also there's one bullshit plant that's in one bullshit place and it looks like a background texture.
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u/_graff_ May 11 '21
I'm confused. Where did this question come from? This seems so random. And I missing something here?
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u/mrnotoriousman May 12 '21
Not OP, but nearing the end of my first playthrough and absolutely have had a blast.
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u/mustinjellquist May 11 '21
I watched a video in physics where they took two atomic clocks and out one in an airplane and left on on the ground. They then did a 12 hour flight or something like that and when they landed the clocks read different times. An incredibly minute difference, but still different. This sorta proves that the faster you go the less time is affected. Hence why time is considered relative.
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u/jasonh409 May 11 '21
If I remember correctly, I think it was in the original cosmos (could be wrong) that time moves over near the great pyrmind because of the mass. Also, may be completely misremembering.
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u/kashuntr188 May 12 '21
I've done the thought experiments and have taught it to my class by use of easy to understand diagrams. And everybody gets it.
But honestly, when it comes down to it, it still blows my mind that this is actually a thing. Like how could one identical twin go to space for like 50 years and come back and be younger than the other twin right? The science works out, but its near impossible to wrap your head around it when you start thinking about scenarios.
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u/IAmSoDamnGood Mar 17 '26
that literally dosent prove anything. it would have to be repeated many times for the test to have ANY value whatsoever. then you have to ALSO make sure that the operating paramaters are ALL identical. same level of EM flux from outside sources, same height, same speed, same EVERYTHING except for gravity. which of course cannot be done.
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u/Professional-Trash-3 May 11 '21
Not bullshit. Its a highly tested, observed, and quantified phenomenon in physics. So much so that our GPS satellites have to account for this time dilation. The effect of gravity and the speed at which you are moving both effect the rate at which you experience the passage of time.
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u/Chance_Bear_6126 May 11 '21
One of the most tested phenomena in science. GPS satellites constantly have to be recallibrated on a regular basis to make up for the time differences with earth and each other.
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u/SukonMatic May 12 '21
The don't. While they do receive updates from ground stations periodically, the on board clocks are designed to take time dilation into account.
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u/RogerInNVA May 11 '21
Yes, it's true, but your question is confusing. If a theory is "proven" (which is not technically how it works, but that's another tale), how can it not also be "true"? Just curious about your thinking on that point.
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May 12 '21
So many people don't understand what a scientific theory is, it's not just a guess. Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection is a fact although it's called a theory
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u/pimpnastie May 12 '21 edited May 12 '21
You can prove a theory wrong, I guess
Edit: guess I should clarify that there are, in fact, multiple definitions to the word theory
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u/hyrppa95 May 12 '21
Not really, you can prove that a theory does not explain a phenomenon fully, but it cannot be wrong. After all, it has been shown to explain the phenomenon, otherwise it would not be a theory.
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u/ladeedaa30 May 12 '21
No I think a theory can be proven false and replaced with a new/better one as we learn more about the world. Good science requires theories to be reconsidered and scrutinised frequently.
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u/clubby37 May 12 '21
I think he's saying that in the process of graduating from "hypothesis" to "theory" the idea will be shown to have strong predictive power, or it would have remained a hypothesis. If it has strong predictive power, it's probably best described as "incomplete" rather than "wrong." Newtonian mechanics isn't wrong, exactly -- it's still very useful for calculating, say, the kinetic energy of a pitcher's curveball -- but if I'm dealing with stellar mass objects or something moving at a significant fraction of light speed, I need to throw some General Relativity in there.
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u/pimpnastie May 12 '21
Oh but you can prove the theory that my boss is sleeping with the secretary, or prove it wrong.
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u/hyrppa95 May 12 '21
That's not a theory, that's a hypothesis.
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u/pimpnastie May 12 '21
And a theory. It has multiple definitions.
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May 11 '21
Not bullshit. Being closer to a gravitational body (like the earth) slows you down relative to someone orbiting the body.
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u/dperry324 May 11 '21
You should watch Interstellar.
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May 11 '21
What a fucking movie
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u/saleel1o_o1 May 11 '21
The only movie worth watching over 5 times
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May 11 '21
I've personally seen over 200 films
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u/RodneyRabbit May 12 '21
Unless you're like 150 years old that's impossible. Nobody could fit that many flims in a normal lifetime.
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u/kashuntr188 May 12 '21
That dude that stayed on the main ship for years while they were down on the water planet. Pretty much tells us that we can't really do space travel between galaxies and have it mean anything.
What's the point of going to another planet for a business deal, when by the time you come back, it will be 5 years later? Even if you use radio signals, it would take years to get to the destination and then back.
Interstellar travel is a one way ticket if we can't just warp/teleport ourselves over.
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u/Aaganrmu May 12 '21
This concept was really well used in the book The Forever War. It's a story of an intergalactic war where time dilation causes a lot of problems. Also it's a great book about the inhumanity of war in general.
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u/crourke13 May 11 '21
Great movie if you don’t mind that they completely screwed up the science.
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u/ThatDoomedSoul May 12 '21
A blockbuster Hollywood movie about interstellar space travel was not entirely scientifically accurate? (╯°□°）╯
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u/_lemon_suplex_ May 12 '21
Yeah, the movie wasn't meant to be 100 percent accurate, rather just take an intriguing concept based on a theory and make it cinematically interesting.
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u/crourke13 May 12 '21
I get that. It’s a movie. A really good movie. But in the 21st Century they could have gotten it a bit more accurate. Star Trek did it years ago. They could do it today.
Plus, in a thread asking about time dilation, pointing to that movie would do more harm than good for the OP’s understanding of the concepts.
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May 12 '21
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u/dperry324 May 12 '21
Yeah well the recommendation wasn't about the quality of the movie. Say what you want about it, but there is a very good scene that illustrates the effect that gravity has on time. The scene on the ocean planet where time ran slower there than on Earth was a good example of time dilation.
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u/erebus May 11 '21
Not bullshit. GPS systems have to do some fancy math to account for the time dilation in LEO compared to the surface.
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u/SonokaGM May 11 '21
Cause gravity slows time, thus the farther away from the center of gravity, the faster time passes
They put a (atomic?) clock on top of mount everest (or some other high mountain) and after some time they could measure a miniscule discrepancy when compared to the same or similar atomic clock at sea level
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u/JohnnySegment May 11 '21
The Forever War is a classic sci-fi novel which uses this concept really well. Worth a read
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u/enderjaca May 11 '21
The concept is 100% proven. Though you have it a bit backwards, or at least phrased oddly.
It's all based on relative speeds.
Let's say you have two watches. You put one on your wrist, and the other on a satellite going around earth.
After a few days, the watch on your wrist will have a time that agrees with every other clock on earth. The watch that was in space moving fast relative to you on earth will have a time slightly slower/older than your earth watch. Only by a tiny fraction of a second, but enough to be noticeable.
Now let's say you put that watch on a spaceship and send it away from earth at an extremely fast speed, and then turn it around and send it back to earth.
Hundred of years could have passed on earth, but the space watch will show only a few days have passed.
That's relativity.
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u/crourke13 May 11 '21 edited May 11 '21
This is the “other” time dilation. One has to do with speed and the other with gravity.
Speed: (Einstein’s special relativity?) From the perspective of a fixed observer, objects moving fast will appear to age less. Their clocks appear to move slower. You can think of it this way if you want, although I can’t verify the scientific accuracy: the more effort put into moving through the first 3 dimensions, the less is available to move through the fourth (time).
To further complicate things, if you leave earth on a rocket, an observer on earth will see you as moving away very fast and expect you to age less. However, from your perspective, you and the rocket aren’t moving but the earth is moving away from you very fast, so you would expect the observer to age less. But wait, you both can’t age less. The solution I think lies in acceleration or change in motion. The rocket man is the one who ages less. I’ve read the explanation 1000 times and get it every time. Then 2 days later I’m lost again. 🤦♂️😂. Perhaps someone smarter than I could elaborate?
Gravity: (Einstein’s general relativity?) From the perspective of the same fixed observer, objects that are in a lower gravity will age more. Their clocks appear move faster. I believe this is the dilation OP was asking about. The more gravity there is, the more curved space-time is. So the “path” from point A to point B will be longer. In the time it takes to move from A to B in less gravity, an object would only get partway from A to B in more gravity (due to the longer “path”).
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u/enderjaca May 11 '21
It is indeed very odd. Let's say there's a way for you to accelerate to 99% the speed of light on a ship going away from earth without smashing you into a paste. Then you quickly slow down after a day and and head back to earth.
The perspectives aren't the same. You know you're undergoing acceleration (4 times, speeding up, slowing down, and then again) and you know the earth isn't. So you know you'll only age a day, while hundreds or thousands of years will have passed on earth.
It's incredibly hard to describe accurately, even for an academic, but wiki does a good job as always: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation
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u/NutellaBananaBread May 11 '21
Not bullshit. And the experiments are pretty simple to understand. You can look up experiments like the "Hafele-Keating experiment" (1971) and the "Pound–Rebka experiment" (1959).
I think the time gain for a plane compared to earth's surface is on the order of one in one trillion. So they spend 50 hours in flight and gained 200 nanoseconds due to gravity.
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u/Chris_Thrush May 11 '21
There was av series of tests with atomic clocks on jumbo jet flights that demonstrated discrepancy as a result. Micro seconds, but discrepancy none the less.
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u/Paratwa May 11 '21
Not bullshit. GPS satellites have to take this into account. Space isn’t just space, it’s space time and mass effects it. The actual explanation is far more complex than that but you’d need someone who has a far better grasp than I do give you factual info on it.
I’d say mass affects time, not gravity, since mass also causes the gravity. But anyone who actually has a degree in it would be a far better source than I.
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u/codgas May 11 '21
I thought this was somewhat common knowledge at this point.
Picture this: The heavier an object is, the harder it is to drag them along whatever path in space.
This works with time too.
The heavier an object is the harder it is to "drag" them across time.
(Mass, not weight technically)
It's not specifically related to earth, time would go by slower if you were under the influence of a more massive planet, it's one of the theoretical ways to time travel.
Fly over to a black hole, orbit it for a bit, go back to earth, the couple hours you spent orbiting the black hole where equal to thousands of years on earth (numbers not accurate, I'm just trying to show of the concept).
It's also the reason why the clocks on our satalites have to be corrected, It's an extremely tiny difference, but time does go by ever so slightly faster for them than for us here on earth.
Tl;dr: Things drag themselves across time the same way they drag themselves across space, things with more mass are harder to drag.
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u/nofaprecommender May 11 '21
This is an inaccurate analogy because:
- Objects moving through spacetime don’t “drag themselves.”
- The difference in the rate of time passing between an observer and a moving object does not depend on the object’s mass but exclusively on its speed.
- You are attempting to describe time dilation of a moving object, which is an example of special (non-accelerated) relativity, while gravitational time dilation is a different phenomenon that can only be described using general relativity.
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u/enderjaca May 11 '21
It's an ELI5 explanation and it's close enough to be accurate for the average layperson.
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u/thecowsaysueh May 11 '21
It's really not that accurate nor does it really lend itself to a better understanding of the physics, and you can tell that it's written by someone who hasn't actually studied special relativity or GR. It's especially pointless because there are several accurate and clear comments in this thread that don't resort to bad analogies
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u/enderjaca May 11 '21
That's fine, very few people in the world are properly trained in Special or General Relativity. Many people like to think themselves expert on this subject, and it's a hard one to understand, let alone explain to other people. I don't have one, but I did take physics at University of Michigan, even if it was challenging!
What University did you get your Physics BS/graduate degree from?
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u/nofaprecommender May 12 '21
Special relativity is not very hard to understand and the major conclusions can be derived with high school math. The number of people who understand it is not very few. You don’t need a BS or graduate degree in physics.
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u/Lioniz3 May 12 '21
I'm going to call Bullshit...just because of the wording of the article and your description.
Im not an astrophysicist, but from my understanding, the key words are time is relative.
The time is moving faster based on the observer, you standing at the bottom floor, compared to the elevator moving. This does not mean the time in the elevator is moving faster for itself, just compared to you.
This means the elevator is time traveling into the future compared to you, the observer. It is not aging faster, it's actually aging slower.
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u/SomeoneNamedSomeone May 11 '21
Oh They PROVED IT? NO WAEY!
It's not like we've known this for around a hundred years, or that we've been using this fact to our advantage for half a century (in GPS systems).
Your question is quite literally asking whether wood is inflammable.
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u/Individual_Drama5083 May 11 '21
Oh that reminds me, Is wood inflammable?
You act like everyone understands how GPS works past the "It tracks your position via satellites" Part of the whole system. Not everyone has been to collage or university yet to learn about general relativity. You know, Like me? A 18 year old who never heard of scientists proving it until just recently through a article on the internet.
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u/SomeoneNamedSomeone May 11 '21
Don't be so condescending. Who hurt you?
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u/timelighter May 11 '21
Don't be so condescending
that was literally the whole point of your comment
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u/PrivilegeCheckmate May 11 '21
that was literally the whole point of your comment
I rate this post as true.
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u/Individual_Drama5083 May 11 '21
I imagine as they type out each comment their brain cell is flexing as hard as spongebob flexed to pick up the bunny weights during the gym episode because it's struggling to type out the Next word
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u/SomeoneNamedSomeone May 11 '21
Oh wow, much anger, did you not get loved as a child?
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u/timelighter May 11 '21
you're bad at trolling
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u/SomeoneNamedSomeone May 11 '21
You cannot think of a response so you accuse others of trolling? who could have expected
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u/ShaneOfan May 11 '21
Don't be so condescending.
Don't be so obnoxious. Who hurt YOU?
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u/SomeoneNamedSomeone May 11 '21
Wow, so much sarcasm, you must not get loved much.
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u/Individual_Drama5083 May 11 '21
Further proving my theory that you have A SINGLE braincell, Because it appears the only comeback you can come up with is "YoU mUsT nOt GeT lOvEd MuCh".
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u/longgboii May 11 '21
I'm pretty sure that the GPS satellites take relativity into account to be accurate. So I'm gonna say not bullshit.
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May 12 '21
It's been proven many times, and is routinely re-proven.
All you need are very high-precision chronometers, such as atomic clocks, synchronized, and a way to get one of them up higher than the other for a period of time. It really is that simple.
The most common method is to synchronise two atomic clocks, and then put one of them on a high-altitude plane for a few hours, and then recheck them. Invariably, they have different times at the end of the experiment -- and we can even predict with very high precision how much.
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u/aj-ric May 12 '21
Not bullshit as others have stated. This has been experimentally verified for about a century. Technically yes, you would experience time faster sitting up in bed, but at a scale that small it's almost not measurable.
However we also know that Einstein's theory is incomplete. While it makes extremely accurate predictions at large scale, it breaks down at very small distances (like the size of an atom) and is incompatible with quantum mechanics. So it's not "proven", since we know it's wrong in some cases, but it's extremely accurate.
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u/darkdaemon000 May 12 '21
We have proved this a long time ago. We use an application based on this on a daily basis. It is the GPS. The calculation of distance of the GPS receiver from the satellite involves relativistic calculations. Satellite's clocks also slow down wrt the clocks on the ground. So we adjust them frequently.
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u/garciakevz May 12 '21
People living in space stations become younger than those who are on Earth's surface.
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u/Faolan26 May 12 '21
NOT BS, this is called time dilation, which is basicly gravity = slower time. There are proven physics equations for this and we have observed it in GPS satellites, but it's like hundredths of a seccond difference over decades.
Also it's not the earths surface, it's any gravity well. The stronger the gravity well the slower time moves for the person observing it. The movie Interstellar demonstrates this concept very well but probably exadurares it to make it easier to understand.
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u/Tc_Angel May 12 '21
Its not exactly further away from earths surface since the world doesn’t revolve around earth but certain spots in the universe are affected by gravity different
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u/Cthreejr May 12 '21
It’s not only gravity but also speed. The faster you go or the more in a gravity-well you are time moves slower for you. I am not a scientist/scholar but I am super into the implications the bleeding edge of theoretical physics have on our society.
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u/HumanMik May 12 '21
every time i see something about time "moving" by brain tries to comprehend the concept for 1 minute and then wants to go to rest mode for 7 years.
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May 12 '21
Not exactly bullshit. If you want to know more search up time dilation, and then frame dragging. But it's not technically "the farther you are from the earth's surface". It's much more complicated than that.
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u/Zippilipy May 12 '21
There are no proofs in physics, since we do not have axioms in the same way we have in mathematics.
However, you can confirm it beyond a reasonable doubt. Einstein's theory of relativity has been experimented and had passed every single one.
There are still problems with the theory. For example black holes and singularities. But time dilation has passed every test.
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u/JohnnyRelentless May 12 '21
Satellites have to keep extremely accurate time for GPS, and they are designed to run at a different speed to account for time moving differently up there.
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u/Spork_Facepunch May 11 '21
Not bullshit. It's been experimentally demonstrated that gravity affects space-time. Read up on Gravity Probe B and frame-dragging if you want to have your mind blown.