Is it possible for some creatures to experience time faster or slower?

[Anatanoshi]

Hello, i like space related topics and i've been looking for an answer to a question i thought of.

 

Can time feel faster for some creatures or in some places in the universe?

Is the rumor about a year for a human is seven years for a dog true?

 

Thanks.

 

 

[EdEarl]

Yes, both psychologically and physically.

See time twin paradox, slow motion perception, and types of temporal illusions.

[Lord Antares]

Yes it can and it is. I don't know how familiar you are with general relativity, but it says that it is dependent upon the presence of gravity and speed with which the creature is moving.

People experience time differently on a daily basis. A person driving a car experiences time very slightly slower than a person at rest. Theoretically, a person moving at light speed would not experience the passage of time at all and could, in theory, live forever.

 

Also, a person near a stronger gravitational field would experience time slower than a person near a weaker gravitational field.

 

I think when people talk about dog years. they simply mean to equate the percentage of their life to humans.

Saying that 7 dog years is equivalent to 1 human years simply means that humans, on average, live about 7 times as long as dogs.

So I'm not sure if the 1 human year is like 7 years in the dog's mind, but thanks for reminding me about this, I wanted to open a thread and make some points about this.

[Anatanoshi]

So if we somehow invent a machine than can travel faster than light will we be able to travel forward in time?

[Lord Antares]

Theoretically, yes, but there is no point in speculating about that. As far as we know, the speed of light can never be passed so the whole scenario wouldn't make sense because it would break the laws of physics and thus we couldn't even speculate what would happen.

 

I guess it would be more fun to speculate what would happen if you could travel at the speed of light, because in a sense, that would be traveling into the future as well. If you, hypothetically, boarded a ship that travels around space for 20 earth years and lands back on earth, to the earthlings, you would have returned after 20 years, but to you, only an instant has passed and you're equally as young. So you've effectively travelled 20 years into the future from your perspective.

 

But that's all in good fun because we do not even know if it is possible to reach the speed of light. As far as we can tell, it isn't.

Edited March 3, 2017 by Lord Antares

[DrKrettin]

Theoretically, a person moving at light speed would not experience the passage of time at all and could, in theory, live forever.

 

 

 

Does this make sense? That person would experience the passage of time exactly as if he were at rest. He would not necessarily be aware of or care about your observer travelling at the speed of light relative to him.

[Strange]

Can time feel faster for some creatures or in some places in the universe?

 

 

Einstein wrote about this. He said: “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.”

 

However, apart from that psychological effect, travelling at speed (or changing the gravitational potential) makes no difference at all to your perception of time. Your clocks will still tick at 1 second per second. You will still live for 4 score + 10 years. And so on.

 

 

Is the rumor about a year for a human is seven years for a dog true?

 

Only very roughly. Different breeds of dog age at varying speeds and dogs age at varying speeds at different stages of their lives.

 

There is more info and a dog years calculator here: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22479412

So if we somehow invent a machine than can travel faster than light will we be able to travel forward in time?

 

You can ONLY travel forward in time. As you are doing now.

[Anatanoshi]

Everything experiences time, if someone doesnt experience time wouldnt that make him non-existent?

How would not experiencing time even feel like? Would i just feel like im standing in place?

Or is there just no possible way to even think about that?

Edited March 3, 2017 by Anatanoshi

[Lord Antares]

 

Does this make sense? That person would experience the passage of time exactly as if he were at rest. He would not necessarily be aware of or care about your observer travelling at the speed of light relative to him.

 

I think this is true for any speed except for c. At C nothing appears to be moving and everything is flat. Besides, you would have infinite mass if you were travelling at c, so you couldn't assume ''normal circumstances'' anyway.

 

 

 

You can ONLY travel forward in time. As you are doing now.

 

I think he just meant if he were to leave earth in something travelling fast and came back to it, a lot more time would have passed on earth, so esentially he would have travelled forward in time, in a sense. But that can be done with any speed.

 

@Crosspost with OP - not experiencing time would mean travelling at the speed of light. As I said above, you wouldn't really see anything and everything would be flat and appear to not move. There are other major issues, such as the fact that you would weigh infinitely if you were to travel at c. So all questions about that are highly speculative and not really practical in real life.

[Bender]

So if we somehow invent a machine than can travel faster than light will we be able to travel forward in time?

Going faster than light would yield imaginary time. I'm not sure how to interpret that, but let's just say it is generally considered impossible.

 

Someone going at the speed of light (also impossible) would experience nothing, as no time passes, ever. The universe would instantly end as far as that person knows.

[madmac]

Time passes at the same rate for every person. Your watch ticks at the same rate, all the time (pun intended).

This has to be so, if time dilation is true, & if not true.

 

But the ticking of an animal's or insect's inner clock is probably a function of the distance tween eye & tickerthalamus & brain.

This might be a direct proportion (D), or it might be related to D^2, or perhaps D^3 (ie proportional to mass).

One year to an ant might seem like 100 of our years, or 10,000 years, or based on mass 1,000,000 years.

I reckon 100 years. One year to a whale might feel like a few months to us.

 

But anyhow i reckon that time passes at the same rate for every person & other animals & insects.

But if it don't have a brain, then u don't have a memory, & u don't have any awareness of time.

Do bacteria feel time??

Do trees feel time??

 

Re imaginary time, all time is imaginary. Time doesn't exist, it is an illusion.

Edited March 18, 2017 by madmac

[DrP]

What about adrenaline? Is that is what is responsible for 'Fight Time' - that feeling of time going much slower during a fight or a car crash?

[mistermack]

Time obviously passes for all creatures at the same rate.

However, they do "experience" it differently.

Just like they experience distance differently. An ant will experience two metres differently to an elephant.

For the elephant it's just one footstep. For the ant it's several hundred body lengths.

We all experience the same thing in different ways. One thing we have in common though, is the length of the day and night. And winter and summer. But our experience of those things we have in common is also different.

 

In general it comes down to scale. Big things experience size and time differently to small things. Size and time are common to all, but how we experience them is unique to each.

[madmac]

Perhaps a big clock feels time differently to a small clock, even though they tick at the same rate.

Edited March 20, 2017 by madmac