Part of Einstein's theory equates acceleration with a gravitational field ("equivalence principle"😉. And since acceleration to near lightspeed slows time down (for the traveler), likewise for being caught in an intense gravitational field, like with a black hole (although the effect, while less noticeable, also occurs even with Earth's gravitational field).
Originally posted by Phantom ZoneI'm no physicist, but as I understand it, it's not mass, per se, which causes time to slow down for a traveler, but momentum: the momentum of acceleration due to, say, a rocket engine or acceleration from falling in a gravitational field. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), the bigger/denser the mass, the stronger the gravity, the faster you fall, and the more time (for you) slows down.
I actually thought it was the other way around. Mass slows down time, but if you are out in the middle of space it travels faster.
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Originally posted by Phantom Zone
I actually thought it was the other way around. Mass slows down time, but if you are out in the middle of space it travels faster.
Motion alters the flow of time and you need a lot for it to even remotely register. Mass only seems to alter the flow of time because of gravity (acceleration) it produces.
The way I understood it, is time is altered by mass. For instance, if you imagine time as a stretched piece of fabric, putting bodies of mass (Marbles that represent planets) will cause the fabric to bend a little where the marbles/planets are. Thus time has a 'surface tension'. Building on this theory, black holes rip a hole in the surface tension of time...