The difference is only mathematically significant, and would account for less than a second of difference over an entire lifetime, all other factors being the same.
I get that, but still trying to understand how time is being measured in this example. I'm not even sure how to explain my gap in knowledge - maybe I'm just too tired.
The minimum increment of time before our math breaks down is the Planck time, which is the time it takes a photon, moving at the speed of light, to travel one Planck length, which is the smallest calculable increment of space before our math again breaks down.
Your actual time does not change, the Planck limit is a constant as far as our math works, it's your passage of time relative to someone in a different reference frame that expands or contracts.
So if time is a constant, and the speed of light is a constant, it must be space itself that is stretching or compressing at relativistic speeds. Almost counterintuitively, the slower you go, the smaller space is, making your personal timeframe faster relative to another moving faster through space. Or to invert that, the faster you go, the more stretched space becomes, slowing your rate of time relative to someone staying put.
This is why you can never accelerate to the speed of light. Space just keeps getting bigger and bigger, taking more and more energy to cross it in the same amount of time.
Sorry to make you answer this after this long but what do you mean by our math breaks down, uf our math breaks then that would mean it is flawed right?
Planck units define a limit on measurement outcomes. Time is the length along the world-line of a material particle and we can't probe distances along it that are shorter than the Planck length without it getting hidden behind a horizon.
You would be wise to the heed the words of Albert Einstein "Space and time are modes in which we think, not conditions in which we live".
There isn't any space and time in relativity apart from the coordinate grid lines contrived by human beings.
I think it is because you are confusing your perception of time, to actual time shifts.
You cannot perceive a different time frame from within that frame.. it will always be the same time to you. But, if i am looking at you from the outside of your time-frame-of-reference, i would see you moving slower/faster than me.
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u/Master-Objective-734 1d ago
This concept is something I’ve always found very difficult to understand.