Time Dilation - Time Dilation Due To Relative Velocity Symmetric Between Observers

Time Dilation Due To Relative Velocity Symmetric Between Observers

Common sense would dictate that if time passage has slowed for a moving object, the moving object would observe the external world to be correspondingly "sped up". Counterintuitively, special relativity predicts the opposite.

A similar oddity occurs in everyday life. If Sam sees Abigail at a distance she appears small to him and at the same time Sam appears small to Abigail. Being very familiar with the effects of perspective, we see no mystery or a hint of a paradox in this situation.

One is accustomed to the notion of relativity with respect to distance: the distance from Los Angeles to New York is by convention the same as the distance from New York to Los Angeles. On the other hand, when speeds are considered, one thinks of an object as "actually" moving, overlooking that its motion is always relative to something else—to the stars, the ground or to oneself. If one object is moving with respect to another, the latter is moving with respect to the former and with equal relative speed.

In the special theory of relativity, a moving clock is found to be ticking slowly with respect to the observer's clock. If Sam and Abigail are on different trains in near-lightspeed relative motion, Sam measures (by all methods of measurement) clocks on Abigail's train to be running slowly and similarly, Abigail measures clocks on Sam's train to be running slowly.

Note that in all such attempts to establish "synchronization" within the reference system, the question of whether something happening at one location is in fact happening simultaneously with something happening elsewhere, is of key importance. Calculations are ultimately based on determining which events are simultaneous. Furthermore, establishing simultaneity of events separated in space necessarily requires transmission of information between locations, which by itself is an indication that the speed of light will enter the determination of simultaneity.

It is a natural and legitimate question to ask how, in detail, special relativity can be self-consistent if clock A is time-dilated with respect to clock B and clock B is also time-dilated with respect to clock A. It is by challenging the assumptions built into the common notion of simultaneity that logical consistency can be restored. Simultaneity is a relationship between an observer in a particular frame of reference and a set of events. By analogy, left and right are accepted to vary with the position of the observer, because they apply to a relationship. In a similar vein, Plato explained that up and down describe a relationship to the earth and one would not fall off at the antipodes.

Within the framework of the theory and its terminology there is a relativity of simultaneity that affects how the specified events are aligned with respect to each other by observers in relative motion. Because the pairs of putatively simultaneous moments are identified differently by different observers (as illustrated in the twin paradox article), each can treat the other clock as being the slow one without relativity being self-contradictory. This can be explained in many ways, some of which follow.