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A timely letter to the editor of Science News;
<http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050716/fob7.asp>
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In your article you refer to a standard concept of a person speeding "in
a rocket traveling slightly less than the speed of light" and say that
"motion at such enormous speeds drastically slows the clock for the
traveler." That reasoning, which is common, troubles me. If the traveler
is traveling speedily with respect to an observer, then, clearly, the
observer is traveling speedily with respect to the traveler (who is
observing the observer). Since all motion is relative, why shouldn't the
observer's clock slow down as observed by the traveler?
Arra Avkain
Fresno, Calif.
The difference is subtle, but it's because the traveler changes
direction-turning around is a form of acceleration-that less time passes
for that voyager than for the observer.-P. Weiss
Larry Woolf
General Atomics
www.ga.com
www.sci-ed-ga.org