Why do we age more slowly when we travel by plane? (actually!)

Einstein correctly predicted that time slows down when humans move quickly, but in order to experience so-called time dilation, we would have to travel inside a black hole, according to astrophysicist Chris Lintott. Yes, but what does this have to do with aging and our pursuit of time?

In 1971, physicists Joseph Havel And Richard Keating They took atomic clocks aboard a commercial airliner, flying first west and then east around the planet before returning to their laboratory in Washington. These clocks are capable of losing less than a second every 30 million years.

Upon their return to Washington, they compared these clocks with those that were standing in their laboratory. As they expected, the hours differed from each other. Air travel seems to have changed the passage of time.

This experiment was a test of the basic principle From Einstein’s theory of relativityaccording to which time is not universal.

The further we get from Earth, the more severe such phenomena become. More specifically, about black holes, whose enormous gravity can flatten the gravity of even the largest planets.

The faster a person travels, the slower time passes for that person. Of course, the difference is negligible. If you’re taking a transatlantic flight from London to New York, so will your watch One ten millionth of a second Farther than if you were stationary on the ground.

Another prediction of the theory of relativity concerns gravity. According to this, as one moves away from Earth’s gravity, time speeds up. This affects our bodies: it means that our heads are slightly larger than our feet.

In this case the effect is incredibly small, but becomes noticeable over longer distances. The Global Positioning System (GPS), which we all rely on for navigation, works based on satellites in orbit 20 thousand kilometers above Earth This must be taken into account in order to work properly.

As we move away from Earth, Such phenomena become more severe. More specifically, about black holes, whose enormous gravity can flatten the gravity of even the largest planets. Black holes are basically what’s left over from the breakup of a giant star.

To understand why black holes If we work this way, we can imagine what would happen if we “fell” into one. When one approaches a black hole, one will notice no difference in time between it and its immediate surroundings. But looking outside the black hole, everything looks like a movie fast-forward.

At the edge of the black hole, the point scientists call… Event horizonNeither light nor other objects approaching the speed of light can escape its enormous gravity. Therefore, if we observe a person falling into it from a safe distance, at the end of the hole it will appear as if the person’s fall is slowing down.

But what happens inside? Inside the black hole, our experience So what we define as time can change radically. Within it, it may be possible to travel back and forth through time. In this sense, a black hole can act as a time machine. However, nothing can escape from inside the black hole and return to our reality.

But understanding how black holes manipulate the space and time around them may provide physicists with the opportunity to conduct a more precise examination Einstein’s theory of relativity.

With data from BBC.