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As was shown in the movie Interstellar, when you go close to a black hole or move near the speed of light in space, then your clock runs slower than a clock on Earth.

In the movie, Matthew McConaughey's character was younger than his daughter because he was moving in space.

Question: Even a person moving in space near the speed of light, but his body clock moves to same rate compare to earth. How could travelling near the speed of light keep you young? The only effect you can see is demonstrated with time and a clock, but how could it effect a person's body?

HDE 226868
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Satish
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2 Answers2

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That's because the special relativity theory predicts that when you are standing in a moving frame that travels at very high speed $v \rightarrow c$, i.e. you're travelling to that speed, then the time experimented by every object in your frame (including you) will be different than the time experimented by the objects relative to whom you're moving at speed $v$, therefore when Matt travels at very high speed or stands near to the horizon of a black hole (which is equivalent), the time that he (and his clock) experiment goes much slower than the time experimented by his daughter on earth, that's why he gets older slower than her.

It's difficult to understand if you're not familiar with it, but this is a theory that has been proved experimentally many times, as a matter of fact, the GPS system in your phone/car wouldn't work if this theory wasn't true.

I hope that it was useful!

manuel91
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From what I understand of special relativity, moving at near light speed doesn't keep you young. All observers are at rest relative to their own reference frame (there is no absolute frame of reference). So, from your point-of-view, it is everyone else that is moving near the speed of light and it is they that are staying young, while you get old! :-D

(disclaimer: I'm only talking about special relativity here, neglecting gravitational/acceleration effects)

Time4Tea
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