How does relativistic time work. I just read Project Hail Mary and the space science went over my head. Why would a person experience less time the faster they go? They kept saying once you get to a certain speed you experience time differently, but what does that mean?
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Everyone moves at the same speed through spacetime.
Imagine you’re on a Ferris wheel. The faster you’re moving *horizontally* the slower you move *vertically*, but your total speed is the same throughout.
Spacetime is the same way: The faster you move through the *space* part, the slower you move through the *time* part. Put another way, the more space you experience on your path through spacetime, the less time you experience.
Humans, relative to any useful reference, are effectively stationary, which means we experience basically all that motion through the time component of spacetime. This in turn means we all basically agree on how fast time is passing. If you move fast enough relative to others, that’s no longer the case. From your point of view, time is “compressed”, meaning events seem to occur closer together.
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