Physics Fact for Fiction: Time Dilation and You

In my day job as a physicist, I come across a lot of fun physics facts that inspire or enhance my writing.  Now I'd  like to share a few of those with you!


Have you ever believed that sometimes time runs differently?  That some hours pass slower than others?  That sometimes time rushes past you?  You may have thought this was all a mind trick, but scientists have recently proven that you are sane (at least on this count) and that time is not constant!

I can see you, squinting at me in disbelief.  You're asking yourself if I'm overly sleep-deprived from staying up all night on the graveyard shift.  Ok, maybe I am, but I'm also very serious.

There was once a man named Albert Einstein, and he came up with this crazy theory (which he dubbed "general relativity").   Typically, we think of general relativity dealing with really large objects with a lot gravity that warp the fabric of space and time like a cannon ball on a stretched sheet.  One aspect of this crazy theory of general relativity is time dilation.  This is the concept that time is relative.

Let's imagine that you're an astronaut, and you've traveled to the edge of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.  One of the experiments that you're performing involves strapping a clock onto your fellow astronaut and tossing him into the black hole (attached to a lifeline, of course).  As you watch him fall in, you notice that the time between the movement of the second hand on the clock seems to increase from one second to one minute to one month until finally the watch seems to have stopped.   For your buddy (whom I hope you've given some special antigravity suit to keep him from being pulled to pieces), time is marching along at a slower rate.  Many, many years later, you decide to pull him out of the black hole so you can go home.  But for him it's only been a few years.  While you are an old, old man, he is still a young, hot cover model.  Conclusion of the experiment:  the closer you are to an object with a lot of gravity, the slower time goes.

So, how does this affect you (unless of course you and your buddy are planning a trip to the center of the galaxy)?  Scientists have recently proven that this happens to us average folks right here on Earth.  The night owl college student with the drum set that lives in the apartment above you is aging faster than you are!  Researchers used the most sophisticated atomic clocks in existence and placed them at different heights above the Earth's surface.  They found that those clocks which were farther from the surface moved a fraction of a second faster than those at the surface.   To put it in perspective, if you lived on the top floor of the world's tallest building for a million years, you'd be several seconds older than if you had lived on the ground floor.

Ok, so maybe not a big deal, but what if those three extra seconds of life allow you to finish that killer novel you've written about time dilation?

Happy Writing!