Time dilation Created 2026-09-29 Updated 2026-10-14
If one clock measures a proper time interval while moving at constant speed in an inertial frame, that frame measures , where is the Lorentz factor. The two spacetime events must lie on that clock's world line.
Suppose a clock moving at advances by between two ticks. Set at the first tick. The laboratory's synchronized clocks assign . During that interval the clock travels , approximately . The Minkowski interval checks the result:
Both frames therefore recover the same of proper time. This calculation is useful whenever a process is timed on a moving apparatus but described using laboratory clocks.
A light clock makes the mechanism visible. Two mirrors separated by perpendicular to the motion exchange a pulse; define one tick as its complete return to the lower mirror. In the clock's rest frame the tick takes . In the laboratory each half-tick lasts and the light traverses a diagonal, so the Pythagorean theorem gives
For and , each leg covers while the mirrors move . The return tick lasts instead of : the light has the same speed of light in both accounts. [ref].
Figure 1.
One return tick of a transverse light clock at rest and moving at 0.6c; the laboratory light path is longer
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Reciprocal time dilation is consistent: each inertial frame times the other frame's single moving clock using its own synchronized clock network. These comparisons use different simultaneous spacetime events. Comparing reunited clocks instead requires their complete world lines, as in the twin paradox.