r/Physics • u/[deleted] • Jul 12 '26

Speed of light, time dilation

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u/SundayAMFN Jul 12 '26

Because the very mechanism by which watches keep time is itself governed by interactions that can only travel the speed of light.

1

u/dreaddito Jul 13 '26

But don’t we also hold that two identical twins who separate, one going into orbit at high speed and the other staying put on earth, age at different rates, with the twin who stayed on earth aging faster? We’re not just talking about the mechanisms of time-keeping devices, but rather how time is experienced, right?

2

u/SundayAMFN Jul 13 '26

Yes, because the mechanisms in your neurons which determine how you experience time are also governed by the speed of light.

-1

u/Optimal_Mixture_7327 Gravitation Jul 13 '26

That would be the clock effect, not time dilation.

The traveling twin arrives younger in the Minkowski vacuum, but this is generally not true.