I have only a very vague awareness of the idea of relativity but I’m aware that there’s a concept that people in orbit experience less time than those on the planet due to gravity, in some way.
Does this mean that the idea of “now”, as in a moment that is right now, is marginally different for people in other places? Are they experiencing a moment that is in my objective future/past, in a mathematical sense?
In: Physics
Technically “now” isn’t really a thing anywhere but here.
The idea of a fixed “at the same time” doesn’t actually work in relativity, because “the same time” would differ based on the perspective.
Right now only exist at a single point at a time.
It is extremely counterintuitive and thankfully doesn’t really matter because at such small scales as different parts of the same planet, the reality is close enough to how we normally think of it that we might as well trat it like it is.
If you want to get really technical you have to deal with light cones and and different observers experiencing reality different based on where they are and how fast they are going.
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