Explain Like I'm Five

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ELI5: Why does time slow down for something as it approaches the speed of light but then are suddenly fast when they are the speed of light or faster? (lemmy.wtf)

submitted 2 weeks ago by CraigOhMyEggoAlt@lemmy.wtf to c/explainlikeimfive@lemmy.world

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This never made any sense to me whatsoever.

I've see all the physicists (Michio Kaku, Stephen Hawking, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, etc.) explain this principle but it doesn't make sense. They say that if you were to go to the moon and back at a certain speed near the speed of light, you might return to Earth a thousand years into the future like what happened in Planet of the Apes. But if you were going at the speed of light, you would arrive at the time light takes to arrive there. Why the dip? What is being missed?

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[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Also if you're looking for actual practical applications of this that have happened, Cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev is actual .02 seconds younger than everyone else born at the same moment he was on Earth. He's an honest to goodness time traveler that has traveled .02 seconds into the future (relative to the rest of us on Earth). He did this by staying in space for a sum total of 748 days on a space station traveling 27,700 km/h around Earth.

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