RTD
Relative Time Displacement is a phenomenon observed since the
advent of MEST space travel, but it is always of personal impact to the family and friends of those involved.
The members of the Alpha-Centauri expedition, for example,
experienced RTD of 8.4 years upon return to Earth, and most of
the personnel adjusted without any special trauma.
However, the 33.5 year displacement of Niels and
Marucia is the longest RTD recorded to date, and it remains to be
seen what the long-term reactions will be.
If the Jupiterian-proposed Aldebaran expedition takes place, the
participants will experience RTD of 53 years each way, for 106 years in all. Volunteers may be hard to find.
Relative Time
Space is full of Relative Time. Everyone knows how any specific
time-frame is determined by velocity in the natural order of the
Physical Universe. People travelling through space are often
living in faster or slower time than us on Earth, depending on
their velocity in relation to us. The faster they go, the slower
they live, until the Speed of Light=zero time.
The only constant we have had is the Speed of Light
itself--that's always the same, no matter what your relative
time-frame
is, which seems to create a paradox, but is in fact consistant
with the structure of the Universe.
However, MEST techniques "warp" that structure and now allow Time
to be independant of Velocity.
This has been used to advantage in scientific experiments which
would have taken many years to run, being compressed down to
minutes, or even seconds of our time. The radioactive element
half-life experiments done at Newer Delhi Research Laboratories
are the classic example of how a million years RTD were reduced
to 45 minutes of lab time.
Then there was the sad story of the older man (39) who was
obsessively in love with a very young girl (14), so he
volunteered for a MEST- generated RTD experiment. He was in zero-
time stasis for 10 years, and when he came out he was the same
age, and the young girl was then 24 years old--but she had since
married another older man (40) two years before.
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