Time and CuSeeMe

What happens to time as you approach the speed of light?

Take this example:-

An interstellar starship is launched from earth and accelerates up to just under the speed of light.

If the crew of that ship had a "window" that looked down onto earth they would see time passing very very quickly.

If a person on earth had a "window" in which they could see the crew of the starship, the would see them moving incredibly slowly.

If the ship travelled for a pre-set amount of time (that is time as the crew see it) and then returned to earth, they would find that time on earth had passed at a much multiplied rate, and their friends and families have aged faster than they have.

This in my experience is the same with CuSeeMe..

Consider a reflector as the starship, and the outside world as the earth. While spending time on a reflector, it appears to the participants that time is moving at a normal rate, but when they log-off and return to the real world, they find that in reality a much longer period of time has passed. What they thought was one hour was in fact four hours to the rest of humanity.

Furthermore...If an outside observer could observe a CuSeeMe conference (without actually taking part, merely as an on-looker...a lurker??? ) they would see everyone moving very slowly...again in my experience this is also true.

The reasons for this are simple to explain....Whilst on a reflector and sending video, your virtual self is constantly being sent across the Internet as a stream of electrons, and as we all know electrons travel at a speed approximating the speed of light!, much as if we were in fact aboard that hypothetical starship mentioned above.

PS. I think I have the physics round the right way.

� Russ_UK 1997