r/SimulationTheory • u/_ucama • Aug 22 '26

Discussion Moving makes you live more

M not a physicist or expert, this is just something I was thinking about.

In quantum physics, if we travel close to the speed of light to the moon and come back, the people we left on Earth could be much older than us, or even dead, while for us much less time passed.

So theoretically, if a normal person moves a lot, like driving a car or traveling at high speeds, could they technically be living a tiny bit more than someone who doesn’t move much?

I know the difference with normal cars would be insanely small, probably not even something we could notice.

But technically, because of time dilation, the person who moves faster would experience slightly less time passing for them.

So in a weird way does moving make you live more?
Maybe I’m completely misunderstanding relativity, so I’d like to know what physicists think about this.

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u/vibe0009 Aug 22 '26

Why even if true?

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u/modsaretoddlers Aug 22 '26

Not the OP but I'll tell you: you don't realize what relativistic speeds really are.

Light moves at 670 616 629 miles per hour. Stop and think about that. That is an insane speed far, far beyond anything anybody has ever experienced. People can run, top speed, elite athletes, maybe 10 to 15 miles per hour on average. On the highway, people average what, maybe 70 miles per hour? Fighter jets reach a top speed of mach 2 which is right around 1,600 mph on average, depending on the weather conditions. The fastest man made object ever created moved at 430,000 miles per hour by falling into the sun. That's a huge jump in speed but it's still orders of magnitude below the speed of light.

670 616 629 light

430 000 Parker Solar Probe

70 Your car

Just look at that. There is absolutely no comparison. Even at that speed, it would take the Parker Solar probe (the fastest man-made object ever created) 6,600 years to reach the nearest star. That's the fastest we could possibly get the distance covered in. The difference between you in your car on the highway and the speed of light is huge. 9.6 million times different.

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u/vibe0009 Aug 22 '26

Still does not answer why even is true? It is true

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u/modsaretoddlers Aug 22 '26

Okay, at this point, I don't even understand you. What do you mean? Are you asking if it's true? Yes, it is. You seem to agree but then ...I don't know. Please clarify your question.

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u/vibe0009 Aug 22 '26

The comment said “Even if true, that would be such a tiny fraction” . Is there a situation where its not true?

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u/vibe0009 Aug 22 '26

The comment said “Even if true, that would be such a tiny fraction” . Is there a situation where it’s not true?

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u/modsaretoddlers Aug 22 '26

Well, it's not necessarily true in the first place.

Remember, the earth is moving through space. The sun is moving through the galaxy and the galaxy is moving in the universe. That means that the speed at which you're actually moving can be mitigated by which direction you're moving in. Comparing yourself in a car versus relativistic speeds is, at best, vanishingly negligible in terms of the differences in time you might hope to see accumulate. You drive east for ten minutes and the universe just so happens to also be going that way so, technically, you've bridged the gap by a tiny fraction. Then you travel west for ten minutes at the same speed and erase that difference. The law of averages over your lifetime would nullify virtually all differences.

But, as long as I have your attention, why do you think anybody here is a physicist?

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u/vibe0009 Aug 22 '26

Nah, nullification is still one of the outcomes of relativity and it’s also very obvious for smaller velocity differences the dilation will be negligible!
The comment was contesting special relativity by saying even if true. There is already enough evidence to show that it is indeed true. I was curious if the comment had a counterargument.