Saturday 21 March 2020

Special relativity time dilation messing with my head



Say we have the earth and a person on it and an astronaut travelling away from the earth in a spaceship in a straight line and then coming back in a straight line at the same speed.


The person on the earth measures the time between when the astronaut leaves and when he comes back as 1 year. This is a proper time since the observer has not moved in his frame of reference. Thus according to the relation $t = \gamma t_o$ the astronaut must have experienced a longer time.


The person on the spaceship measures the time from takeoff to landing as 1 year. Since he's standing at the same point in his frame of reference this is a proper time. Thus according to the relation $t = \gamma t_o$ the person on earth must have experienced a longer time.


The above is contradictory. Either the astronaut experiences a longer time or the person on earth does. The issue is that either the astronaut is thought to be moving relative to the earth or the earth is thought to be moving relative to the astronaut. What's the explanation? Can anyone help me understand?



Okay. I’ve read through the below answers, as well as watched a few videos and the Wikipedia page on it, however, i don’t see any of them explaining it. They claim that the acceleration solves the issue, however, don’t we arrive at the same problem? In the earth point of view the astronaut is rotating, but you might as well see the earth as rotating in the astronauts view. In other words, same problem.




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