Hold back time, don’t climb the stairs: study
Climbing the stairs or to the top of a mountain really can age you, but don’t worry you can set the clock back by taking a quick trip in the car, a new study said Friday.
Scientists in Boulder, Colorado say they have proved what every schoolchild learns in the classroom about Einstein’s theory of relativity — that time flies at altitude but paradoxically slows down when people speed up.
Decades ago, experiments proved the basic premise of Albert Einstein’s theory, sending an atomic clock into space on a rocket and comparing it to one kept behind on Earth, where gravity acts to slow down the passage of time.
But now experiments at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have enabled physicists to demonstrate the theory in the smallest facets of daily life.
In the study, published Friday in Science, they showed how they measured the effect on a scale of about one foot (33 centimeters) to demonstrate how people age faster when standing a couple of steps higher on the staircase.
They used a pair of highly sophisticated experimental atomic clocks, dubbed “quantum logic clocks,” which use laser lights to measure an electrically charged aluminium ion as it vibrates more than a million billion times a second.
One clock keeps time within one second in about 3.7 billion years, the study said, and the other is close behind.
The aluminum clocks can detect small relativity-based effects because of their extreme precision, the study said.
“You can think about it as how long a tuning fork would vibrate before it loses the energy stored in the resonating structure,” said lead author James Chin-Wen Chou.
Although the results are infinitessimally small, they showed that climbing up steps will age you faster — adding up to about 90 billionths of a second over a 79-year lifespan.
In one of the experiments, scientists raised one of the clocks by elevating the laser table to a foot above the second clock. “Sure enough, the higher clock ran at a slightly faster rate than the lower clock, exactly as predicted,” the study said.
The NIST team also studied another feature of relativity — that time passes more slowly when you move faster — but measured the effect at speeds such as a car travelling about 20 miles per hour (32 kilometers), rather than on jet aircraft.
Agence France-Presse
AFP journalists cover wars, conflicts, politics, science, health, the environment, technology, fashion, entertainment, the offbeat, sports and a whole lot more in text, photographs, video, graphics and online.
-
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_VBBPK6TXLNOESMA46VLYF2GRKI Wayne
-
Anonymous
-
Anonymous
-
Anonymous
-
Anonymous
-
Boneman
-
http://www.rawstory.com RawStory
-
Anonymous
-
Anonymous
-
kiboshki
-
Anonymous
-
Anonymous
-
http://www.everythingpie.co.cc/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=472 how to get your ex girlfriend back
-
http://thaiwife.com/profile.php?id=103866##ImageOverlayAdsScam Image Overlay Ads Scam
New on Raw Story
- New amateur video of Challenger disaster released
- Stylist refuses to cut NM gov’s hair over same-sex marriage opposition
- U.S.-initiated anti-piracy treaty put on hold by European Parliament
- Elderly poverty rates 200% higher for blacks and Latinos: report
- American, French journalists killed in Syria
- Obama to propose cut to corporate tax rate
- VA gov backs off support for ultrasound bill
- Dem proposes vasectomy limitations in wake of anti-abortion legislation
- Christie: Santorum Satan remarks are ‘by definition relevant’
- Feingold: Citizens United opened floodgates of corruption
Special Coverage
Follow Us!
