Is “Now”, for me, mathematically the same as “Now” for people on the other side of the world?

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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

25 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Simultaneity – the idea of things that happen “at the same time” is relative. For all practical purposes their experience is simultaneous to yours but in terms of actual physics the order of events doesn’t have to be the same from all perspectives. This is bizarre and unintuitive, but such is physics sometimes.

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