my friend says he doesn't believe in time dialation and when I tried to explain to him all the proof and stuff, like mathematical and even experimental, he wouldn't listen to the mathematical and when I told him about the experimental ( rocket flying really fast, clocks were slightly different) he just said some crap (I am allowed to say that right?) about how it was probably rigged, because scientists wanted more money, how the clocks couldn't have been started at the same time and other crazy sorts of things.

 

I was wondering then, if anyone here can give some sort of explanation of how time dialation has been observed and maybe some sort of reasoning to convince him?

Introduce him to the concept of the GPS satellite network.

I was wondering then, if anyone here can give some sort of explanation of how time dialation has been observed and maybe some sort of reasoning to convince him?

It sounds as if your friend has a closed mind. He is arriving at what he believes in by what he feels is correct, not on the basis of evidence. For that reason, no matter what arguments you produce, he will always come up with a counter argument.

I would still recommend trying to convince him, for two reasons.

1. You might eventually succeed.

2. One of the very best ways of learning something thoroughly is to try explaining it to someone else, especially if they are hostile to the idea.

my friend says he doesn't believe in time dialation and when I tried to explain to him all the proof and stuff, like mathematical and even experimental, he wouldn't listen to the mathematical and when I told him about the experimental ( rocket flying really fast, clocks were slightly different) he just said some crap (I am allowed to say that right?) about how it was probably rigged, because scientists wanted more money, how the clocks couldn't have been started at the same time and other crazy sorts of things.

I recommend that you tell him that god made it that way, and that ours is not to reason why. If he has no interest in your explanations, then spend your intellectual time with someone with intellectual interests, not with someone who closes his eyes and demands that you make him see.

Posting here as an amateur willing to learn more, so bear with me.

 

Time Dilation = the theory that acceleration slows time.

 

This has been proved by putting Cesium clocks in airplanes, and accelerating them, if I'm not mistaken. The Cesium clocks slowed down.

 

How can you say this is proof acceleration slows time?. All it proves is that acceleration slows down a process, namely the process of nuclear radiation in the Cesium clock. If you put your arm in water and wave it, you will find that it moves much slower than in air. Does this prove that water slows down time?

 

Unless there are other, different experiments that I haven't heard of.

Time Dilation = the theory that acceleration slows time.

 

This isn't right. The variable which supposedly causes time dilation is speed, not acceleration. Acceleration is a vector quantity, speed is a scalar quantity.

 

Regards

Posting here as an amateur willing to learn more' date=' so bear with me.

 

Time Dilation = the theory that acceleration slows time.

 

This has been proved by putting Cesium clocks in airplanes, and accelerating them, if I'm not mistaken. The Cesium clocks slowed down.

 

How can you say this is proof acceleration slows [i']time?[/i]. All it proves is that acceleration slows down a process, namely the process of nuclear radiation in the Cesium clock. If you put your arm in water and wave it, you will find that it moves much slower than in air. Does this prove that water slows down time?

 

Unless there are other, different experiments that I haven't heard of.

 

Two things happened: the speed of the clocks, relative to an inertial frame, were different. And they gravitational potential was different. These have different effects on time.

 

Cesium clocks use atomic oscillations (between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state), not nuclear decay. But time dilation experiments have been performed on nuclear decay, as well as several species of atomic clocks (cesium clocks, rubidium clocks and hydrogen masers). they all run at different frequencies. Despite the different interactions, the change in g or travelling at v did not change the frequency by a fixed amount, it changed it by the amount predicted by relativity.

 

If it was simply a matter of a force being exerted on the electron, it should be the same force no matter what atom the electron is in. But the effect is different in different atoms. If it's on the atom as a whole, it should scale with the mass of the atom. But it doesn't.