in the movie “Interstellar” time goes by much faster for the main character on the ship than it does for the people back on Earth. How does this happen?
In: Physics
Everyone knows the 3 coordinates (x,y and z) which we often call width, height and depth when measuring objects. The 4th dimension is time, which is connected to space, hence space-time. We are constantly moving through space and time at the speed of light (speed of causality if we’re more accurate). Think of a ramp, if you are going up the ramp, you are moving through 2 dimensions because you are moving up as well as laterally. Now imagine two people are going to run a race. Both people will run at the exact same speed, but one person has to run 100 meters while the other person has to run 100 meters while also moving up the ramp. Who would win? The answer is the person who is running on the flat ground. Even though they’re running the same speed, the person running the race on the ramp is losing some of their lateral velocity and putting it towards climbing the ramp (vertical velocity). The same is true with time. Everyone is moving through space-time at the same speed, but that doesn’t mean we’re all moving the same speed in every dimension. If two people are standing perfectly still (not moving through space) then all of their motion is through time. When we begin to move, some of our movement is transferred away from time and instead put to moving through space. The faster we move thru space, the slower we move thru time. At everyday speeds, we wouldn’t notice time slowing down for us compared to everyone else. But if you are traveling at incredible speeds, like in interstellar, their time slowed down because their motion thru time slowed as their motion thru space increased.
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