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 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Time for you is relative to your movement. You experience time because shit is moving inside of you. By shit I mean each particular atoms that build your body.

If you'd be close to a light speed, entirety of you would move in that speed. So for yourself the time is normal. One second is one second.

For someone observing you from earth, you'd blast the universe and after an hour you wouldn't be visible any more.

For you tho, it's not even a second.

Time is movement. No movement no time. If something moves then also time changes. If all your atoms would stop now you wouldn't get older. Also you wouldn't think any more and you wouldn't notice any time.

Ps. I was at the same state as you some year ago. I've spent several hours absorbing this topic and eventually it clicked. Take your time.