
Contents
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Summary Summary
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1. Play Time 1. Play Time
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2. The Twin Paradox in Special Relativity 2. The Twin Paradox in Special Relativity
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3. An Example with Numbers 3. An Example with Numbers
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4. The Twin Paradox in General Relativity 4. The Twin Paradox in General Relativity
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5. Play Space 5. Play Space
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6. The Twin Paradox in Finite Space 6. The Twin Paradox in Finite Space
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7. The Complete Solution 7. The Complete Solution
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8. The Twin Paradox and Broken Symmetry Groups 8. The Twin Paradox and Broken Symmetry Groups
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References References
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17 Time, Topology, and the Twin Paradox
Get accessJean‐Pierre Luminet is an astrophysicist at the Paris‐Meudon Observatory in France and a leading expert on black holes and cosmology. He has published numerous articles in the most prestigious journals and reviews in these areas. He was awarded many prizes for his work in pure science and in science communication. Luminet has produced more than twenty books, including Black Holes (Cambridge University Press, 1992) and The Wraparound Universe (AK Peters 2005), as well as historical novels, poetry, and TV documentaries.
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Published:02 September 2011
Cite
Abstract
This chapter notes that the twin paradox is the best-known thought experiment associated with Einstein's theory of relativity. An astronaut who makes a journey into space in a high-speed rocket will return home to find he has aged less than his twin who stayed on Earth. This result appears puzzling, as the homebody twin can be considered to have done the travelling with respect to the traveller. Hence, it is called a “paradox”. In fact, there is no contradiction, and the apparent paradox has a simple resolution in special relativity with infinite flat space. In general relativity (dealing with gravitational fields and curved space-time), or in a compact space such as the hypersphere or a multiply connected finite space, the paradox is more complicated, but its resolution provides new insights about the structure of space–time and the limitations of the equivalence between inertial reference frames.
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