Can Time Slow Down?

Ponca City, We Love You writes "Does time slow down when you are in a traffic accident or other life threatening crisis like Neo dodging bullets in slow-motion in The Matrix? To find out, researchers developed a perceptual chronometer where numbers flickered on the screen of a watch-like unit. The scientists adjusted the speed at which the numbers flickered until it was too fast for the subjects to see. Then subjects were put in a Suspended Catch Air Device, a controlled free-fall system in which 'divers' are dropped backwards off a platform 150 feet up and land safely in a net. Subjects were asked to read the numbers on the perceptual chronometer as they fell [video]. The bottom line: While subjects could read numbers presented at normal speeds during the free-fall, they could not read them at faster-than-normal speeds. 'We discovered that people are not like Neo in The Matrix,' Eagleman said. 'The answer to the paradox is that time estimation and memory are intertwined: the volunteers merely thought the fall took a longer time in retrospect'."

Comments

Hmmm...

[geekmansworld]

Sounds a bit weak to me. Though such an event can be frightening or exhilarating, you KNOW that it's coming, and you KNOW that it's perfectly safe. To me, the experience of going over a roller coaster hill is different than the experience of being involved in an auto accident. I say more research is required.

Re:Newsflash.

[ResidntGeek]

Oh, shut the fuck up. You'd have said the same thing if they'd reported that the brain went into overdrive and could read the faster-than-normal numbers.

Re:Newsflash.

[tzhuge]

Even though you've been modded Troll, I pretty much agree with the sentiment expressed by your post. This meme of 'that study's conclusion is so obvious; what morons funded it' is getting really tiresome. It wasn't that long ago when it was obvious that the Earth is flat and sailing far enough takes you off the edge.

Re:Understatement of new Millennium

[FroBugg]

I'm glad you've taken a break out of your busy schedule of ending world hunger, finding a replacement for oil, and curing every disease to comment on Slashdot. It's good to have you here.

Re:Slow down?!? What?!?

[yourlord]

I have a pet theory on that effect, as I've noticed the exact same thing. When you are 5 years old an hour is a LONG time. A week is almost eternity. At 20 an hour doesn't seem as long as it used to. I'm now 36 and time is flying by. Years are clicking off the way weeks seemed to when I was 5-10..

It doesn't bode well as if you extrapolate this phenomenon out to the age of 70 then the last decade of your life will go by in what seems like a month.

I attribute this effect to the amount of time your brain has experienced. When you are 5 years old, an hour or a day is a much larger portion of the total time frame your brain has to relate to than when you're 20, 30, or 70.

At 5, a month is 1/60 of your brain's entire time reference. At 40 it's 1/480 of it. In relation to your brain's total time reference, an hour is much more significant at age 5.

It's just a personal theory.

That was never "obvious".

[khasim]

Greeks knew the world was round.

The Church declared that it was flat. Despite the obvious fact that it was round.

Re:Newsflash.

[ResidntGeek]

The study was measuring the PERCEPTION of the passage of time. If you could have definitively predicted the results of this study beforehand, then congratulations! You know more about neurology than anyone on earth!

Completely absurd experimentation method

[tygt]

If time perception slows down - in other words, if your brain goes into overdrive and processes events more rapidly - during extremely stressful situations, you're not going to be able to measure it in an experiment where the subject doesn't experience extreme stress, and a safe simulation of free-fall is unlikely to be stressful enough, especially when the subject has been assured that they're in no danger.

Danger is what it's all about, or perception of danger. The adrenaline rush of the free-fall experience is only there because subconsciously you're still somewhat afraid, but the whole mind isn't involved in the fear.

This would be like saying "Can people exhibit super-human strength under extreme stress?" (eg the "mom lifts car off of baby" stories) and testing it by saying "ok so pretend that your baby is under the car and lift the car up ok". Sure buddy.

Next waste of time and money....

Re:Newsflash.

[masterzora]

You're not being pedantic enough. If one travels faster than c, one goes backwards in time. If one travels at c, time is constant in that reference frame while time passes in other frames. If one travels less than c, time dilation occurs.

My point? While you are correct in pointing out that any travel will cause effects, but significant effects are observed only for a significant fraction of the speed of light, you didn't mention that the original poster was even more wrong than you said since faster than light speeds cause time to reverse, not to go slower (though, obviously, your velocity at that point also changes how quickly time reverses).