I’ve heard people talk about how people living on a space station their whole lives would age at different rates to people on Earth but…how?
In: Physics
The effect is very, very minor, but it *does* happen!
You’re probably familiar with the name *Albert Einstein* from his famous equation E=mc^2. If you’re particularly geeky, “Hey, Einstein, I’m on your side!”
Something else he’s known for is the theory of *relativity* (two of them, actually) which say that a lot of things are *relative to* other things — that is, they can’t be objectively measured. Specifically, we’re interested in the components of both theories that talk about time.
The theory of *special relativity* says that a moving clock ticks slower than a stationary clock. That is, a clock that’s moving very fast will measure time slower ***relative to*** a clock that’s not moving. It won’t see its own seconds passing any slower, but it will see a stationary clock’s seconds passing *faster.*
The other theory, about *general* relativity, says that a clock deeper in a gravity well ticks slower than one farther away. Conversely, a clock further away ticks faster.
Put these two together, and someone living on a space station actually experiences the flow of time very slightly differently: after spending six months aboard the ISS, Einstein’s theories predict that an astronaut would age about 0.005 seconds *less* than us schlubs on Earth.
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