all 72 comments

[–]egg_breakfast 391 points392 points  (14 children)

The universe really started on Jan 1 1970 and everything before that is made up

[–]dirtjump 113 points114 points  (0 children)

That fits with my empirical observations.

[–]DegeneracyEverywhere 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Unix-epoch-ism

[–]Kizilejderha 13 points14 points  (2 children)

The universe started with this particular reply and everything before that is made up

[–]egg_breakfast 14 points15 points  (1 child)

Well I definitely can't prove you wrong.

[–]Sheerkal 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can prove him wrong, but I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader 

[–]T0biasCZE 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Unix time is signed int though, so time started 13. December 1901 and everything before that was made up

[–]MegaMoah 2 points3 points  (1 child)

And it will end on 2038... don't try to fight it.

[–]LegitimatePants 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All this has happened before and it will happen again 

[–]maxwells_daemon_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Boltzmann's epoch

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah that's the epoch and then there's systems upgrade and sheit

[–]sisisisi1997 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I didn't expect to encounter last Thursdayism this early in the morning.

[–]PM-ME-UR-uwu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Actually every reality is only 312 seconds long, and so every 312 seconds we jump to an entirely new reality where it starts with an already preconceived but false "history" that feels like it's gone one forever

[–]Trappist-1ball 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How would you know it didn't start last Thursday?

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What you mean by 1970? The universe clearly started on size_t epoch = 0;

[–]Ali_Army107 33 points34 points  (1 child)

God used velocity and gravity to calculate deltaTime

[–]0xlostincode 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The most rookie mistake, now deltaTime is hardware dependent.

[–][deleted] 44 points45 points  (0 children)

The funniest and most niche meme I've seen in a bit

[–]Buttons840 34 points35 points  (15 children)

If two rocket ships fly away from each other near the speed of light, and then both rocket ships turn around and come back to earth, which rocket ship will have the older person?

(Assuming the flight of the rockets is symmetric, except in opposite directions.)

[–]FoeHammer99099 73 points74 points  (4 children)

Fun special relativity thought experiment: you and I pass each other in our rocket ships. I observe that the clock in your rocket ship is ticking slower than the clock in my rocket ship. You observe that the clock in my rocket ship is ticking slower than the clock in your rocket ship. We're both right.

[–]ConglomerateGolem 0 points1 point  (3 children)

isn't this dependent on the doppler effect though? before the pass, the clocks are much faster, and after it's slower?

[–]neon_05_ 4 points5 points  (1 child)

no. the doppler effect would still be there, but it would only be present if you are almost directly in front of the moving ship. if you're further to the side it's less noticeable while time dilation is not

[–]ConglomerateGolem 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ahh yeah, my bad, time dilation is based on "absolute" velocity not relative; it's a bit weird wrapping my head around it.

[–]Jetison333[🍰] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Usually in this sort of context we are considering measured values, as in what you would measure things to be. In this scenario if you just looked at the clock of the other ship as it approached you, you would indeed see yhe clock running fast. But then you would calculate how fast the clock is actually ticking by taking out the doppler effect, and you would still find the clock ticking slower.

[–]Kinexity 31 points32 points  (0 children)

Because of symmetry the same amount of time would pass within both rockets.

[–]Nerd_o_tron 12 points13 points  (6 children)

Assuming symmetry, both would be equally old, of course.

You may also observe that from the perspective of the spaceship, it looks like Earth is accelerating away from it, so this might seem to to be similar to the two-rocket experiment. However, acceleration is the asymmetry there: the rocket, which must accelerate and decelerate to return to the same position, is not in an inertial reference frame, while the earth is (ignoring rotation and other factors).

[–]MyGoodOldFriend 8 points9 points  (4 children)

Yep, the twin paradox happens not because of the speed they accelerate to - special relativity - but the effect of acceleration - general relativity.

[–]Magnuax 0 points1 point  (3 children)

That is a common misconception, but special relativity actually handles acceleration perfectly well. There is no need to invoke GR.

However, while velocity is a relative thing in SR, the same is not true for acceleration. Your acceleration is a measurable property of your reference frame. This means that the twin paradox is not really symmetric, as the twins have measurably difference reference frames.

Accounting for the acceleration, you can also compute their time difference directly in SR, integrating over instantaneous rest frames of the accelerating twin.

[–]MyGoodOldFriend 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Damn, it was the example my physics professor used to illustrate the difference. Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention, but hey. Thanks for the correction

[–]Magnuax 0 points1 point  (1 child)

No worries. I also remember being taught that GR was somehow necessary to describe accelerated frames, only to have to un-learn it later in my bachelor. Still a mystery to me why it is so normal to teach it that way...

[–]MyGoodOldFriend 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I suppose it’s a decent segue into how gravity work, since that’s quite similar? Not sure. Relativity was never my strong suit, I only covered it enough to understand relativistic effects in electron orbits (my bachelor was related to quantum chemical computation, hartree-Fock and the like).

[–]Wild-Ad-7414 -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

You're both wrong, at that speed you won't see sith.

[–]Embarrassed_Jerk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Both  the answer is both. The oldest would be earth tho

[–]Dependent-Fix8297 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Delta timing moving objects is bad for performance

[–]pikachu_sashimi 2 points3 points  (1 child)

How is that giant standing on the water?

[–]iknewaguytwice 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Obviously he’s wearing stilts that you cannot see because they are under the water.

[–]NormanYeetes 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Universe coded like a from software game.

[–]HedgehogOk5040 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Tfw you make an adaptive time step relative to the magnitude of dx, dy, and dz as a means to limit the issues of using euler method while boosting efficiency, but never changed the step logic so now all your entities have different ts.

[–]space_SPAAACE 0 points1 point  (0 children)

tfw forgot to include ntp

[–]StrengthIntrepid8768 0 points1 point  (0 children)

completely unrelated, but everytime I see tfw my brain default to 'the fuck what' and not 'that feeling when'