Image:Time dilation spacetime diagram02.gif

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Time_dilation_spacetime_diagram02.gif‎ (256 × 256 pixels, file size: 88 KB, MIME type: image/gif)

Description:
This animation represents a space-time diagram.
The yellow lines represent the worldlines of pulses of light that are emitted at t=0
Usually, space-time diagrams are not represented as animations. The consecutive frames of the animation combined represent a single diagram.
The three red circles represent a fleet of spaceships. The changes of the red circles represent onboard clocks, counting the lapse of proper time. The two orange circles represent miniclocks shuttling back and forth between the ships of the fleet, the miniclocks are used for a procedure to maintain synchronized fleet time.
The ships of the red fleet are 4 units of distance apart. Here, 4 units of distance means that pulses of light take 4 units of time to propagate from one ship to another.
In this animation the miniclocks take 5 units of fleet time to travel from one ship to another, so their velocity relative to the fleet is 4/5 the speed of light. During the journey from one ship to another, the miniclocks count 3 units of proper time.
This difference in lapse of proper time is called time dilation.

This animation is designed to be used together with
Image:time_dilation_spacetime_diagram03.gif
Image:time_dilation_spacetime_diagram04.gif
Image:time_dilation_spacetime_diagram05.gif
Image:time_dilation_spacetime_diagram06.gif

Created: 8 January 2006

Author: Cleonis

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

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