If you are going fast, time slow down?

[SolidJuho]

I wondered uses KSP to a theory that if you go faster time to go more slowly. . For example, consider two persons, A and B. A goes to space flight, and when he comes back years later he is in time half a year ahead, kuntaas leftover Earth Surface B's time is gone the year ahead. The time difference is really not that great at all times but it still can be found. The matter has been tested by sending a clock into space and when it comes back to is compared to the time difference.

What you guys think about this?

[kurja]

ksp does not model relativistic effects such as time dilation.

[lajoswinkler]

No, KSP does not simulate any relativistic effects.

[LN400]

As for KSP and time dilation, I'm not sure if there are any gains there, gamingwise, let alone how it would be implemented at all. That would be a proper nightmare for the coders having to deal with all the different crewmen/women aging at different rates.

As for whether or not time dilation is real, I don't recall the exact experiments but it is true that it has been shown to be real. The time difference between an observer on earth and an observer traveling near the speed of light is quite substantial too. One calculation I came across concluded that 42 years for the traveller (in this specific scenario) corresponded to 60000 years for the observer back on earth.

[lajoswinkler]

That experiment is lasting right now. It's called GPS correction.

[AngelLestat]

As for KSP and time dilation, I'm not sure if there are any gains there, gamingwise, let alone how it would be implemented at all. That would be a proper nightmare for the coders having to deal with all the different crewmen/women aging at different rates.

If some day implement higher speeds and age.. then is not so difficult to do.

[Fel]

But really, unless you're approaching light speed you aren't going to get any serious time dilation effects.

Of course, you also have to realize that, in the kerbal universe, the speed of light is infinite ;p

[Camacha]

But really, unless you're approaching light speed you aren't going to get any serious time dilation effects.

Do not be so sure of that. Even on and around Earth, engineering needs to take relativistic effects into account to have things work properly. A famous (and already mentioned) example is GPS. Without taking the differences into account, accuracy would suffer within a matter of minutes, and accuracy would drift over large distances in just days. In short, without taking relativistic effects into account, GPS technology would simply be useless and not functional. We do not need anything approaching light speed to see the effects in our lives.

Read all about it here.

[Darnok]

More interesting question is what will happen when we slow down... we are moving with Earth, Earth is moving with Sun, Sun is moving with Milky way... what will happen if we slow down to 0 m/s in relation to galaxy?

[TheDarkStar]

More interesting question is what will happen when we slow down... we are moving with Earth, Earth is moving with Sun, Sun is moving with Milky way... what will happen if we slow down to 0 m/s in relation to galaxy?

Relative to the earth and sun, you'd have just sped up a lot.

[Camacha]

More interesting question is what will happen when we slow down... we are moving with Earth, Earth is moving with Sun, Sun is moving with Milky way... what will happen if we slow down to 0 m/s in relation to galaxy?

If not done without a reasonably extended time span, you will die from the vast acceleration/deceleration forces.

[AngelLestat]

More interesting question is what will happen when we slow down... we are moving with Earth, Earth is moving with Sun, Sun is moving with Milky way... what will happen if we slow down to 0 m/s in relation to galaxy?

Darkstar already answer you, all speeds are relative between objects, but what matter most for us is the speed of earth "everybody we know" against ours, that difference on speed is what give us the time dilation, and the max is 300000 km/s, in the KSP scale might be 30000 km/s because all distances are 1/10.

[Darnok]

Relative to the earth and sun, you'd have just sped up a lot.

And I could wait until some other galaxy do not catch me up

[YNM]

No, you don't get very remarkable effects (on very short periods, any inertial reference frame) at a relative speed of few (even up to tens, or a hundred) thousand km/s. Going faster than that, and you start to feel it directly.

Hence why, you don't need to spend your time coding it in KSP.

[Bill Phil]

But any person wouldn't experience time slowing down if they were travelling at those velocities. They would feel normal. Time for them is normal, but slower than the slower guys.

[theend3r]

But any person wouldn't experience time slowing down if they were travelling at those velocities. They would feel normal. Time for them is normal, but slower than the slower guys.

No, it's a bit more complicated. Time is equally slower on both ends (in both inertial frames), what makes the difference is acceleration which moves you frome one frame to the other one. Saying time is slower/faster for you because of your speed is is wrong.

No, you don't get very remarkable effects (on very short periods, any inertial reference frame) at a relative speed of few (even up to tens, or a hundred) thousand km/s. Going faster than that, and you start to feel it directly.

Hence why, you don't need to spend your time coding it in KSP.

On the contrary, I've moved faster than 3c in KSP

[Bill Phil]

Time is experienced the same way no matter your speed. But what it actually is is not the necessarily the same for others. Time is slower or faster but one would not feel it.

[-Velocity-]

More interesting question is what will happen when we slow down... we are moving with Earth, Earth is moving with Sun, Sun is moving with Milky way... what will happen if we slow down to 0 m/s in relation to galaxy?

0 m/s w.r.t. the galaxy? You're killing your orbital velocity about the center of the Milky Way. If you're very unlucky, you'll be scheduling a date in like 100 million years with the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's heart. More likely, the gravitational effects of stars you pass during your long fall, combined with the fact that the black is is not perfectly at the gravitational center of the Milky Way (and its event horizon is a very small target to hit in the grand scheme of things), will just mean you'll end up in a highly elliptical orbit.

[longbyte1]

Imagine if PhysX released a new version for higher-end GPUs that simulated relativistic and subatomic physics...

[theend3r]

Imagine if PhysX released a new version for higher-end GPUs that simulated relativistic and subatomic physics...

You'd need a quantum computer for that.

[Ralathon]

Imagine if PhysX released a new version for higher-end GPUs that simulated relativistic and subatomic physics...

Absolutely noone would care because almost no game gets close to those. Besides, general relativity isn't that computationally demanding to program. Take a look at this. Not that hard to program a shader that would do the same for KSP. But unless you are cheating you would never even notice it. It takes 34 days of constant thrust to get to 0.1c at 10G of acceleration. You would only ever notice it if you used some warp drive mod.

[BlueCosmology]

Absolutely noone would care because almost no game gets close to those. Besides, general relativity isn't that computationally demanding to program. Take a look at this. Not that hard to program a shader that would do the same for KSP. But unless you are cheating you would never even notice it. It takes 34 days of constant thrust to get to 0.1c at 10G of acceleration. You would only ever notice it if you used some warp drive mod.

General relativity is famously incredibly computationally demanding in general. It is only really possible to compute it in special cases, general relativity is a large set of coupled non linear partial differentials which are incredibly hard to solve numerically. What you have linked only simulates special relativity. Even 'simple' 2 body cases are still very hard to solve numerically in anything other than special cases.

[TheMoonRover]

An example of special relativity (the subject of the OP) is astronauts on the ISS come back slightly younger than you'd expect, but only by a second or two.

[SciMan]

Actually, it's significantly less than "a second or two". Probably less than a nanosecond or two.

Measurable? yes. Noticable to an unaided human? no.

You would have to get going about 5% light-speed or more, for about a year or so. That might make a difference of a second or two.

[-Velocity-]

Absolutely noone would care because almost no game gets close to those. Besides, general relativity isn't that computationally demanding to program. Take a look at this. Not that hard to program a shader that would do the same for KSP. But unless you are cheating you would never even notice it. It takes 34 days of constant thrust to get to 0.1c at 10G of acceleration. You would only ever notice it if you used some warp drive mod.

Actually that takes you up to about the speed of light. I caught the error because I remember that you need to accelerate at 1 g for about a full year to get up to c, so 10 gs for 1/10 of a year should also get you to c. (Did that fact that 1g is about 10 m/s^2 trip you up? I do that myself frequently- like, I'll read off some acceleration as like "1 g", and then make the dumb mistake of somewhere in my head of turning that into 1 m/s^2, and then wonder why all my numbers are off of reasonable, expected values by like a factor of 10. This is why there should only be one unit for each kind of measurable quantity )

Edited May 3, 2015 by |Velocity|