Universal Universe Time/Analysis: Difference between revisions

This trope gets even worse when you start considering General [[Relativity]], which states that every location sees time pass at a different rate, depending on how fast it's moving and how deep it is in a gravity well. So even if the faraway colony of Galvenon Eta Prime did decide to ignore their own day/night cycle and use Earth time, there would be no way to keep the clocks in sync without a precise knowledge of the relative velocity and the depths of the gravity wells involved. And further General Relativity also comes with the consequence that there is no universal time, there isn't even a universal way to order two events unless one might have caused the other, for any two events you see as being simultaneous someone else can see either one of them happening first depending on relative position/velocity/etc. The question "What is happening right now on Alpha Centuri?" doesn't really mean much unless you are actually ON Alpha Centuri, because for anyone a significant distance from you when "Now" is isn't well defined. The best definition of "Now" for some place far away is pretty much any time between the light you can see from that location at the moment you ask the question, and when light from that moment will reach them from you. All of this falls out of "Assume everybody sees light as going the same speed, no matter how fast they go relative to each other." Seriously, that gets you all of Special Relativity.