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
> 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?
Yes, because time is relative there is no such thing as one single “right now” in our universe anymore then there is one single “right here”. If we paused the universe “right now” then there are events that have happened from my perspective that haven’t yet happened from yours, and vice versa. We call this [Relativity of Simultaneity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity).
It gets complicated (because this is legit Einstein shit we’re talking about) but the effect is tied to spatial distance. In other words the closer our clocks are synchronized to each other the further out we have to go spatially before “right now” begins to look different for us, and the further out we go the more our “right now” becomes separated. So if the difference in the passage of time between the both of us is really small then we have to look really far before “right now” begins looking different.
Here on Earth the time dilation we experience in our everyday life between one another is so infinitesimally small (but very real nonetheless) that it’s pretty much indistinguishable… But if we hit the pause button and look out far enough in the universe there is different “right now” for every single person reading this.
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