Einstein's paradox

From what i understand of this theoretical experiment. There are two twins, one goes at the speed of light, one doesn't, and then after all is said and done, one twin is older. My question is, isn't the twin only visually older? The light cannot catch up to the twin therefore the light cannot portray any time or age on the twin. yet the cells continue to age. Is this only a visual illusion? Light is only visual and doesn't effect the rate of growth of anything organic.

I haven't read up on this much, i just had an interesting discussion in English. I could be totally off on this one and if i am, please forgive me .

Put everything in a big box and put a clock beside it. Watch the clock go by and watch the objects in a box. That's how i like to think of it, not sure if the metaphor will work for you.

What if the box contains two inertial systems (which i'm not quite sure what this means). All i'm saying is if you look at the huge picture, why would time be any different in any particular place.

Okay, i probably don't know enough about this then. I just had discussion in English that's really all.

No, that is not it. There are some Time Life explanations of how relativity works that might help you. It would be easier with a diagram but here goes. Two spaceships, right? You're on one and George is on the other. Relative to you, George goes by at quite a few million miles an hour. Woosh.

Now in each spaceship, there is a clock. The clock works by firing a beam of light at the mirror on the floor once a second. This is how it keeps time. The clock on George's spaceship does this too. But, relative to you, the mirror in George's spaceship has actually travelled quite a few thousand miles between the time the beam left the roof, and hit the mirror on the floor, and then another few thousand miles on the return trip.

From where George is standing, the light has just made a standard round trip of a few meters. From where you are standing, the light has travelled a few thousand miles. Light always travels at the same speed.

Therefore the time taken for the light beam on George's spaceship has taken longer relative to you than it does, relative to George.

So the clock is actually running slower on George's spaceship.

hope that helps.

Sorry, what I meant was, the OP doesn't understand relativity.

In the example I gave, if you set a watch, and put it on both ships, and then after a while, they came back together, both watches would be telling different times, but both would be correct.

It is just a simple way to illustrate how it works - as I said, a Time Life books example.

Sorry, what I meant was, the OP doesn't understand relativity.

In the example I gave, if you set a watch, and put it on both ships, and then after a while, they came back together, both watches would be telling different times, but both would be correct.

It is just a simple way to illustrate how it works - as I said, a Time Life books example.

Does a mechanical clock actually run slower, or does this only affect the light clock?

Sorry, what I meant was, the OP doesn't understand relativity.

In the example I gave, if you set a watch, and put it on both ships, and then after a while, they came back together, both watches would be telling different times, but both would be correct.

It is just a simple way to illustrate how it works - as I said, a Time Life books example.

Is this because the light hasn't caught up to one of the watches so it's visually delayed?

If this was to happen, one watch would have to exceed the speed of light. Einstein's theories state that nothing can exceed the speed of light, and relativity is observed at speeds near this.

Perhaps your thought of visual delay is related to theories of the event horizon of a black hole.

Time actually slows down. At extreme speeds, space curves, and time curves along with it. As the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, an uncurved portion of space will reach a point in time before the curved portion of space, and thus the uncurved portion of space will be older.