
Ever wondered why clocks on fast-moving planes tick slightly slower?
Ever wondered why clocks on fast-moving planes tick slightly slower?
Imagine you're on a plane flying at high speeds, and you notice the flight's clock is a tiny bit behind the clock at the airport.
As the plane zips through the sky, time itself stretches a bit, making everything on the plane move through time a little slower compared to those at the airport.
Example
If a flight's clock shows a 1-hour delay compared to the airport clock, but the plane's speed is such that time dilates by 0.01%, then the plane's clock would actually lag by 0.0001 hours, or 0.006 seconds.
Remember this
The faster you move through space, the slower you move through time.
Text adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Time dilation
Clocks run slower in stronger gravitational fields
Time
Why do astronauts age slower in space?
Special relativity
Albert Einstein's special relativity paper introduced time dilation
Global Positioning System
How fast-moving clocks tick differently?
Twin paradox
Ever wondered why space travel affects aging differently for astronauts?
Relativity of simultaneity
Simultaneity depends on the observer's motion
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