Twin Paradox Revisited
Now we can understand better the twin paradox?
The twin that left on the rocket and returned had to have very large accelerations! These affected his “clocks” relative to the one that stayed on earth
Here is one way to see the magnitude of the effect:
- The effects on clocks due to the earth’s gravity is very small
- The earth’s gravity is equivalent to acceleration g = 10 m/s2
- But for an astronaut to reach a speed approaching c and then turn around requires enormous acceleration a (or long times!)
- Applying the formula??f / f = a L / c2 for the slow down of his clock during the turn around, the astronaut twin concludes there will be a large affect since L is the large distance to the star!
- The astronaut twin really does age much less than the earth twin when they meet after the rocket returns to earth!