Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The relativistic slowing of a clock that moves with respect to a stationary observer.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun physics The
slowing of thepassage of time experienced byobjects inmotion relative to anobserver ;measurable only atrelativistic speeds .
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whichbe commented on the word time dilation
The phenomenon whereby an observer finds that another's clock which is physically identical to their own is ticking at a slower rate as measured by their own clock. This is often taken to mean that time has "slowed down" for the other clock, but that is only true in the context of the observer's frame of reference. Locally (i.e., from the perspective of any observer within the same frame of reference, without reference to another frame of reference), time always passes at the same rate. The time dilation phenomenon applies to any process that manifests change over time. (Wikipedia)
May 29, 2008