"Time is the speed of light."

[Miffymog]

It's all right for us taking the measurement, but think of the the poor laser light, it has no idea how far it travelled

[Stosh]

I suppose the photons dont know they ever left , poor unfulfilled photons

Edited November 22, 2015 by Stosh

[Marblehead]

And poor little mirror - stuck up there forever.

[Miffymog]

Sorry Brian, after your great explanations, we're kind of going off topic here

 

But, if a mirror's purpose in life is to reflect, this one gets to do some pretty important reflecting.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Miffymog

[Stosh]

The reflecting it does get to do ,with all the universe shining at it , should be of comfort. Possibly making for a very happy mirror. I always wondered though, if a thing is said to be accellerating some fraction of the speed of light ,, relative to what exactly? In a rocket ,Id be accelerating away from any thing around , for an infinite radius, at different calculated rates depending on my vector.

 

[Marblehead]

The reflecting it does get to do ,with all the universe shining at it , should be of comfort. Possibly making for a very happy mirror. I always wondered though, if a thing is said to be accellerating some fraction of the speed of light ,, relative to what exactly? In a rocket ,Id be accelerating away from any thing around , for an infinite radius, at different calculated rates depending on my vector.

But you would also be accelerating toward other things.  You will never escape "things".  Not even at the speed of light as the universe is expanding at a rate faster than the speed of light.

 

No matter what path you walk you are always walking toward a new experience.  Only when we stop dead do we stop having new experiences.

[Marblehead]

Acceleration relative-to-what depends on the situation.

For sure.  If you are driving 75 MPH in a 25 MPH speed zone you will have a monetary situation.

[Stosh]

Acceleration relative-to-what depends on the situation. Acceleration, itself, was formalized from a distance equation. The application of differentiation to a distance equation brings out a velocity equation; the application of differentiation to a velocity equation brings about an acceleration equation. In a general sense, acceleration is not relative to a what. We have a change in location relative to a what and a speed at which the change can take place and possible variations in the speed over the course of motion. 

 

An object's kinematic and dynamic equations, then, will take it's original, arbitrary location in a formalized account of space as the point of reference. The point of reference, though, loses relevance when we move from kinematic to dynamic equations. If you know how differentiation developed, it involves the application or infinitesimals or hypperreals (depending on the system)---an idea understood intuitively with the trigonometric tangent. The main idea is that, formally, it is supposed to be instantaneous. In practical terms, the stuff of acceleration (viz. non-zero acceleration) refers to a near-immediate instant where the velocity was different. The "what" that acceleration is relative to is a prior state.

So if I'm coasting at half the speed of light towards Antares, my rate of time is slowed (relative to normal space ) , and put on my engines in the other direction and bring my speed back up to half the speed of light, my acceleration is now back to zero relative to my original speed, and this acceleration makes my time speed up relative to the external space, but its called deceleration? ...  Then one should be able to determine an original zero acceleration value based on whether the application of ones engine slows or speeds up time in each direction moved. Right? (Like a doppler shift.)

Edited November 23, 2015 by Stosh

[Stosh]

But you would also be accelerating toward other things.  You will never escape "things".  Not even at the speed of light as the universe is expanding at a rate faster than the speed of light.

 

No matter what path you walk you are always walking toward a new experience.  Only when we stop dead do we stop having new experiences.

dunno, about the speed of expansion , How do you determine where the universe ends , or if there's anything at all out there ,if no matter and no light have gotten from any of it to earth? ( the expansion of space exceeding the rate light can traverse it ) , Looking through a scope ,Im thinking ,  the stars one could see, would present a border distance with an empty background,(depending on how long the light has been travelling to earth from some particular distance).

[Marblehead]

dunno, about the speed of expansion , How do you determine where the universe ends , or if there's anything at all out there ,if no matter and no light have gotten from any of it to earth? ( the expansion of space exceeding the rate light can traverse it ) , Looking through a scope ,Im thinking ,  the stars one could see, would present a border distance with an empty background,(depending on how long the light has been travelling to earth from some particular distance).

Yeah, that's all tricky stuff.  If we are viewing something that is 100 light years away then really we are seeing it as it was 100 years ago.  It may have already exploded and disappeared.

 

If what the astro-physicists are saying about the expansion of the universe we will never be able to see any edge of the universe because it is expanding faster than we can see it.  What we will always see is something that existed "X" number of light years ago but may not exist at this point in time.

 

The theories are that the universe is expanding because of dark energy but the galaxies are being held together by dark matter.  The distance between galaxies is increasing except for special cases where, as with the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, they are on trajectories that will have them colliding in about five billion years.

 

The entire universe is dynamic, not static.  As Vmarco would say, we are seeing in the past, not the now moment.

[Stosh]

Yeah, that's all tricky stuff.  If we are viewing something that is 100 light years away then really we are seeing it as it was 100 years ago.  It may have already exploded and disappeared.

 

If what the astro-physicists are saying about the expansion of the universe we will never be able to see any edge of the universe because it is expanding faster than we can see it.  What we will always see is something that existed "X" number of light years ago but may not exist at this point in time.

 

The theories are that the universe is expanding because of dark energy but the galaxies are being held together by dark matter.  The distance between galaxies is increasing except for special cases where, as with the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, they are on trajectories that will have them colliding in about five billion years.

 

The entire universe is dynamic, not static.  As Vmarco would say, we are seeing in the past, not the now moment.

Well that makes sense, but Im not going to agree with Vmarco on the now moment , Its now when I say its now, and the moment is as long as I say it is, functionally speaking this works better    I miss his posts though. 

[Marblehead]

... but Im not going to agree with Vmarco on the now moment , Its now when I say its now, and the moment is as long as I say it is, functionally speaking this works better    I miss his posts though. 

Yeah, I miss him too.  Always a nice challenge talking with him.

 

And true, you can have your "now" any time you want to.

[Brian]

Relativity demonstrates mathematically, and backs it up with repeatable experience, that we take "now" with us. It is the monkey mind which seeks to dwell on "past" and "future" to the exclusion of the present.

[Brian]

Oh, that is a fact.  I do not deny it.  I don't mind fair criticism.

 

Yeah, I just heard about that a couple days ago while watching one of the science documentaries.

 

Isn't it said that our sun also generates a little bit of it?

 

Now that's weird.  Why?

 

That is always my question when presented with new information:  Why?

 

The creation of matter I can understand.  But why is there or has there ever been anti anything?

 

Yeah, creation and destruction.  But it's still not logical.

Honestly, the question "why?" only makes sense in the context of an ordered reality, one in which things are as they are for a reason. Lacking (a belief in) an intelligent creative force, "how?" is a more meaningful question.

[Brian]

I've always thought that scientists should say "how" instead of "why" since, to my mind, a "why" would indicate teleology and a subject who had a purpose in mind. Anyways for this:

 

 

You might need to further specify this.

 

The notion of deceleration is not necessary and as a term it can cause confusion. Acceleration, since it is a differential of velocity, which is a differential of displacement, involves vectors. Vectors have magnitude and direction. Therefore deceleration, as a term, only matters when we've locked ourselves into one account of orientation. For every action there is an action that is equal in magnitude and opposite in sense; the decrease of the magnitude of acceleration in one direction is due to the increase in magnitude of acceleration in the opposite direction.

 

So, with what you've described, I am slightly at a loss because you are coasting towards Antares at half the speed of light and then you want to reverse your engines to get back up to half the speed of light (as far as I can tell, you never left)?

 

Uhhh.....If you're coasting at the speed of light than you're presumably at a constant speed (otherwise it wouldn't be coasting) with zero acceleration. Generally, there will always be acceleration (especially in space with the absence of frictional forces to slow you down and, depending on your location, the presence of gravitational forces to pull you one way or another) but that might be besides the point....

 

Personally, I think that Brian's comment on the "now" is on point not just as a quip but as something with metaphysical validity. Time, itself, does not speed up or slow down. This is a misnomer. Time is metaphysical and undergoes no alteration. When people say that time has slowed down they mean to say that the indicators of the passage of time (e.g. adjustments in the configuration of matter, locally) have taken place at a slowed rate.

 

Maybe I'm just silly but I'd think that speaking in terms of adjustments of matter would be better than speaking in terms of adjustments of time.

Speak of energy rather than matter and we are is perfect agreement! (And I don't think you silly at all.)

[Stosh]

I dont see what you arent getting We're on the same page the whole way. But with decelleration being the same as acceleration .. except for direction,, then according to the direction one would be stretched back into shape,rather than being spacially foreshortened.. or an atomic clock would come back to ticking at the same rate back on earth though reading a different date (since theoretically you couldnt add the two accellerations, That would put you at the speed of light. )

[Michael Sternbach]

Personally, I think that Brian's comment on the "now" is on point not just as a quip but as something with metaphysical validity. Time, itself, does not speed up or slow down. This is a misnomer. Time is metaphysical and undergoes no alteration. When people say that time has slowed down they mean to say that the indicators of the passage of time (e.g. adjustments in the configuration of matter, locally) have taken place at a slowed rate.

 

Maybe I'm just silly but I'd think that speaking in terms of adjustments of matter would be better than speaking in terms of adjustments of time.

 

We generally assume that there is a general time flow quite independent from us. I think that Relativity implies that, instead, we are moving through time, much like we are moving through space. It's not time which moves.

[Marblehead]

Honestly, the question "why?" only makes sense in the context of an ordered reality,

And we all should know by now how much I prefer an ordered reality.

 

"How" is always a matter of cause and effect.

[Stosh]

Your question seems to be transforming over time....My confusion with the original is that you were referencing different quantified things that would require different and disparate reference points in order to make sense.

You weren't getting the point of the question as I tried to describe it in the scenario, so I'm trying to rephrase to accommodate . You chose an arbitrary floating point of zero time distortion earth, but since its arbitrary , I can choose halfway to Antares.  

If you accelerate and up in a slower time zone , and then stay there , the difference in atomic clocks would accumulate while one coated at speed. However If one were in actuality decelerating, the time difference would accumulated this time  indicating the speedup. ( from a clock halfway to Antares) ,,, If folks zap some particle in circles there is only acceleration relative to the floating zero time distortion of the lab. Such tests maybe cant show deceleration. 

[Brian]

The entire concept of some "point of zero time distortion" is the problem here, Stosh. Time is entirely relativistic. We carry "now" with us and the measurement of time only makes sense from and with respect to the frame of reference of the observer. We can use some relatively simple mathematics to transform from one coordinate system to another (as, for instance, the pilot of a landing airplane might mentally converts from the plane's perspective to the airport's perspective upon approach) but that doesn't mean time changes, only that one's perception changes.

 

As to acceleration versus deceleration, remember that acceleration is a vector, which means it denotes both magnitude and direction. Step on the gas pedal in your car and you accelerate. Step on the brake and you accelerate, just in the opposite direction. Turn the steering wheel and you accelerate, too. In fact, a satellite in orbit around the Earth might be moving at a constant speed but it is constantly accelerating towards the center of the Earth (technically, towards the center of mass of the Earth-satellite system but that's splitting hairs) and, despite constant speed, its velocity is constantly changing, too (velocity also being a vector).

 

Personally, I'd suggest staying away from acceleration in a relativistic context until the inertial-case special relativity is unraveled as this introduces a whole new set of assumptions to be disabused.

[Stosh]

The entire concept of some "point of zero time distortion" is the problem here, Stosh. Time is entirely relativistic. We carry "now" with us and the measurement of time only makes sense from and with respect to the frame of reference of the observer. We can use some relatively simple mathematics to transform from one coordinate system to another (as, for instance, the pilot of a landing airplane might mentally converts from the plane's perspective to the airport's perspective upon approach) but that doesn't mean time changes, only that one's perception changes.

I thought we flattened out as we sped up , (and more energy was input on a vector) this distortion being real and relative to our current frame of reference not just a perceptual phenomena.  

 

 

 

As to acceleration versus deceleration, remember that acceleration is a vector, which means it denotes both magnitude and direction. Step on the gas pedal in your car and you accelerate. Step on the brake and you accelerate, just in the opposite direction. Turn the steering wheel and you accelerate, too. In fact, a satellite in orbit around the Earth might be moving at a constant speed but it is constantly accelerating towards the center of the Earth (technically, towards the center of mass of the Earth-satellite system but that's splitting hairs) and, despite constant speed, its velocity is constantly changing, too (velocity also being a vector).

Agreed , no argument on that. But whilst adding energy into the system along the vector I am distorted flatter , and flatter the faster I go, and stay that way as long as I cruise on that vector , BUT I can also slow down back to earth speed , cant I ? remove energy from that vector of travel ? and stretch back to earths level of distortion? as I go slower and slower ? 

I cant add the new input energy required-for- the slowdown , to the acceleration-required- energy input, that would calculate me as going even faster, not slowing down. ( if that was possible ,I could get to close to the speed of light by just going back and forth in the parking lot for a few years, right? )  

 

 

 

Personally, I'd suggest staying away from acceleration in a relativistic context until the inertial-case special relativity is unraveled as this introduces a whole new set of assumptions to be disabused.

Ok Ill wait on that. 

[Brian]

OK, so I'm on Earth and you accelerate in a spaceship along a straight line away from me, from my perspective. From your perspective, you are stationary and the Earth (the entire solar system) is accelerating away from you. Neither viewpoint is correct or preferred and the equations of motion work the same either way, with just a minor adjustment to compensate for the relative speed between them.

 

Imagine this -- you and I have two hockey pucks and we hit them straight towards each other across the ice, each moving at some arbitrary (but realistic) speed. We can "do the math" to describe the motion of the two pucks, including the collision and after-effects, from the perspective of either pucks, from the perspective of either of us, or from any other inertial frame of reference. All that's required is a simple addition or subtraction based on the relative motion between the different reference frames.

 

But not quite so fast...

 

Maxwell (in addition to creating the first color photo, curiously enough) showed us in the mid-1800s that the nature of electromagnetic radiation requires that the speed of light measured from ANY frame of reference must be a constant. This only works if the transformation between frames of reference is more complicated than just a simple addition or subtraction but is, instead, the Lorentz transformation. That's a paradigm shift -- if you and I each point laser beams at each other while the pucks are in motion, the speed of those two beams must measure the same regardless of whether the observer is stationary with respect to the source, is moving towards the light, or is moving away from the light. Not only will you and I measure both beams to be moving at the same speed but both pucks will observe both beams to be traveling at that exact same speed, regardless of how hard we hit our pucks.

 

This only works if time is not what we think it is. In fact, it requires blowing up our "common-sense" idea of time and of simultaneity. At relative speeds not close to the speed of light, the transform collapses to our typical experience but we know from both theory and measurement that this is a simplification.

 

We good so far?

[Michael Sternbach]

Dang! So many little side streets to explore here and I simply don't have the time. (Yeah, yeah... I know.)First, let me point out that nothing in science is "The Truth" but, instead, science (and particularly physics) works on building models that yield results consistent with observations, match observations better than previous models, and are predictive.The common understanding of the question "why?" generally has a motivational or psychological aspect to it but the physicist see "why" in a mechanistic fashion. The "alehouse philosopher" might view the question, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" as inquiring about the chicken's state of mind while the "natural philosopher" contemplates the principles and forces involved which make it possible for the chicken to physically cross the road. This distinction doesn't come into play in this discussion directly (at least not yet) but it is relevant in this aspect -- special relativity wasn't intended to explain why the universe appears to behave the way it behaves but rather to present an analytical model which provides a mathematical solution conforming to observation AND a predictive capability (for instance, the very measurable phenomenon of time dilation). Maxwell took four different well-tested equations related to electricity and magnetism, mixed in Lorentz's "-c²t" term, and produced a new understanding of electricity and magnetism which explained them better and explained them more deeply -- and did so in an elegant and integrative fashion. Special relativity took that same Lorentz transformation and applied it (with the restriction of inertial frames of reference) to the laws of motion with similar results.I'll go no further down that alley at this point but will turn, instead, to the issues you raise in this post.Let me start with the idea that the person traveling close to the speed of light actually takes "a time trip into the future." This is true only in the sense that our familiar "arrow of time" points in the direction of increasing entropy and, as such, we define "the future" such that we are always traveling into the future. Remember, though, that we take "now" with us -- "the present moment" is relative to the observer's perspective. This means that there is a necessary synchronization that must occur when we switch between frames of reference. This synchronization adjustment is precisely the apparent time difference calculated by the the Lorentz tansformation. This might be a good time to speak to the form of the Lorentz transformation...This forum doesn't lend itself to writing equations so bear with me. Imagine a situation in which you are observing an object that is moving at constant velocity straight towards you or away from you. The constant velocity means we are dealing with inertial systems (so we don't need to expand the discussion to general relativity) and the "straight towards you or away from you" part just simplifies the math -- it works just the same regardless. Additionally, let's define the axes of our coordinate system, S, to be centered on you and oriented such that the direction of motion is only along the X-axis. Imagine, too, a second coordinate system, S', that is similarly oriented but centered on the object being observed. The principle of invariance means that the laws of nature work the same from the perspective of either coordinate system with just a simple compensation for the relative motion between them. It is important to note, BTW, that the question, "Which one is really moving and which one is really standing still?" make no sense whatsoever. As far as we can tell, there is no observable concept of "absolute motion" or "absolute rest." The "simple compensation" between the two perspectives for this situation is as shown in this image I borrowed from Wikipedia:Notice (starting from the bottom) that the "equations of motion" for the Z & Y axes are trivial. This is by design because we intentionally aligned our two coordinate systems to make this happen. The next term is the transform between the S & S' frames of reference for the X & X' axes. If you ignore the little lowercase gamma symbol outside the parentheses, the equation x'=x-vt is simply the familiar transformation for Newtonian relativity that we use without even thinking about it when we do something like throw a ball at a moving target. The gamma, however, represents what's called the Lorentz factor and it is written out as (again, borrowed from Wikipedia):This coefficient is nonlinear. It has a value of 1 when the two frames of reference aren't moving relative to each other and approaches infinity as the relative speed between the two coordinate systems approaches the speed of light. The curve of these values changes very little until the relative motion starts getting close to the speed of light and then it increases very rapidly. The term is, therefore, very close to one for practially every event we encounter in everyday life and it can simply be dropped when working with trains, planes and automobiles (not to mention footballs, bullets, etc.) -- Newtonian relativity and Newtonian equations of motion work beautifully until that term starts to grow (as the relative motion starts to approach the speed of light...)When that term starts to "kick in," it is a multiplier that describes the contraction of the dimension affected. Notice, however, that the assignment of S & S' is totally arbitrary. It makes no real difference whether we swap the designations of S & S' or even how we choose to assign the motion itself -- is object A moving and object B is stationary, or is object A stationary or object B moving, or are they both moving relative to some other frame of reference (think, for instance, of two spaceships being observed from the perspective of a "stationary" space-station)? Doesn't matter because the motion is described with the same set of equations and the transformations work in either direction.So we see that, as the relative speed begins to approach the speed of light, the "distance" measured by an observer stationary relative to one frame of reference is "normal" but it will look like the other guy's measuring tape is the wrong size.Now let's move to the time equation in that first image.It is important to understand that Newtonian relativity held both space and time to be absolutes. Distances didn't change depending on your perspective and time was both immutable and independent of space. Special relativity demonstrated that none of that really holds up to scrutiny. Time is a dimension exactly like the X, X & Y axes in a Cartesian coordinate system and both space & time (which were later collapsed to the single concept of "spacetime") are entirely relitivistic -- there is (as far as we know) no absolute frame of reference for the fabric of space and there is no "universal time."OK, so that time transform...Notice that the form is virtually identical to that for distance, except with "v/c²" -- this is just multiplying one term by a constant. Otherwise, the math is identical (and no more complicated than arithmetic) and the transforms work in both directions. Just as an observer sees his or or measuring stick as being "normal" and the other guy's measuring stick as being distorted, clocks behave that way, too.We are used to this paradox of "how can they both appear to be slow?" when we are talking about distance measurments. If you and I start nose to nose and then begin backing away from each other while holding a meterstick upright in front of us, we will each see that our meterstick remains unchanged while the other guy's meterstick gets shorter and shorter. Not only that but we will each see the other person getting shorter and shorter, too. Additionally, we see that the other person compared against their meterstick still measures the same height. When we talk about a very similar phenomenon with regards to clocks instead of metersticks, however, it seems very alien and counterintuitive because our experiences (and probably our educations) have convinced us that time is nothing like space AND that time is absolute & unchanging. This is an example of the type of "false truth" delusion about which Bud Jetsun so appropriately cautioned earlier. In fact, I have made a point several times of injecting conditional modifiers like "as far as we know" and I stressed up front that nothing in human intellectual understanding (which includes "science") should be taken as The Truth but this is such an important point ant it can't be repeated too often -- except that it gets in the way of conversation.OK, one last subtopic. Let's do a tiny bit of math.Rather than having our astronaut go to Andromeda, let's put a space station exactly one light-year from Earth, fixed relative to the Earth. A light-year is 186k miles/sec x 60 sec/min x 60 min/hr x 24 hr/day x 365.25 days/year = 5.866 trillion miles (roughly speaking). Ignoring for the moment the acceleration which would really be involved (which is a very significant thing for us to be ignoring but it is beyond the scope of special relativity and therefore beyond the scope of this discussion), we can calculate how long it takes to get there. If we travel at 100 mph (note that there really is no such thing as "ship's speed" because it only makes sense to speak of the relative speed between the ship and the Earth or between the ship and the space station -- I will nonetheless use terms like "ship's speed" as a simplified expression, just so I don't have to type "the relative speed between the ship and the Earth or between the ship and the space station" every time), the trip will take about 6.7 million years. If we travel at 1000 mph, the trip takes one-tenth as long, or about 670 millenia. 10k mph and our astronaut needs to wait 67 thousand years, and so on. At ten million mph -- a pretty good clip -- the trip takes about 67 years. Even at that pace, the speed of light doesn't become significant -- 10 million mph is only about 15% of the speed of light, or 0.15c, and that Lorentz factor (goes from 1 to infinity, remember?) has moved from 1.000 to about 1.011. We would be able to start measuring some distortions in "the other guy's clock" and "the other guy's distances" but they wouldn't be substantial. Speed of light is roughly 670 million mph so let's plug in 90% of that. The time taken is 1.11 years. Getting closer now to that 1 year that we would measure a light wave to take to cover that same distance. From the perspective of the "stationary" observer back on Earth (neglecting for the moment the propagation delay we would experience in trying to watch this trip), the ship's clock is only moving at 1/10th the pace it "should" but the people on the ship would see absolutely nothing to suggest their clocks were altered. They would, however, be able to see that the Earth clock was only moving at 1/10th the pace it "should." Bump the ship's speed to 99% the speed of light and the trip takes 1.01 years. At 99.9% the speed of light, the trip is 1.001 years. Notice that as the relative speed between the ship and the Earth asymtotically approaches the speed of light, the time it takes for the journey asymtotically approaches the time it would take for a photon to make the journey.We could take these same transformational principles we used when talking about time and calculate what happens to distance and mass and momentum and energy, etc.(Pardon any misspellings -- spiel chucker seems problematic for me at the moment and I'm not doing any additional proof reading...)

 

So, Brian, are you saying that zapping towards a star at a speed almost as high as the speed of light, we still measure the time passing on board to approximate the star's distance in light-years? (We neglect the phases of gradual acceleration and deceleration we may need, assuming that the supertechnology we are using allows us to do so.)

[Brian]

 

So, Brian, are you saying that zapping towards a star at a speed almost as high as the speed of light, we still measure the time passing on board to approximate the star's distance in light-years? (We neglect the phases of gradual acceleration and deceleration we may need, assuming that the supertechnology we are using allows us to do so.)

Yes. And we will still measure the speed of light at 186k miles per second, too. Our measuring tapes will seem normal, our masses and momentums will look fine, etc. We would have no way to tell whether we were moving or that approaching star was because there is (so far as we can tell) no such thing as absolute movement. It is all relative.

[Stosh]

Im working on it Brian, I have to remember math from 30years ago

.

http://physics.bu.edu/py106/notes/Relativity.html

If our two observers are stationary relative to each other, they measure the same time. If they are moving at constant velocity relative to each other, however, they measure different times. As an example, let's say one observer stays on the Earth, and the other goes off in a spaceship to a planet 9.5 light years away. If the spaceship travels at a speed of 0.95 c (95% of the speed of light), the observer on Earth measures a time of 10 years for the trip.

The person on the spaceship, however, measures a much shorter time for the trip. In fact, the time they measure is known as the proper time. The time interval being measured is the time between two events; first, when the spaceship leaves Earth, and second, when the spaceship arrives at the planet. The observer on the spaceship is present at both locations, so they measure the proper time. All observers moving relative to this observer measure a longer time, given by:

In this case we can use this equation to get the proper time, the time measured for the trip by the observer on the spaceship:

So, during the trip the observer on Earth ages 10 years. Anyone on the spaceship only ages 3.122 years.

It is very easy to get confused about who's measuring the proper time. Generally, it's the observer who's present at both the start and end who measures the proper time, and in this case that's the person on the spaceship.

 

That  is Arbitrary, as implied, ,, his frame is shifting and so he is a bad candidate for establishing whats proper. ( If, in his view , he takes three times less duration to reach the planet and calculates his travel at three c , then hes not the right person to assert proper time )

 

Length contraction

Carrying on with our example of the spaceship traveling to a distant planet, let's think about what it means for measuring distance. The one thing that might puzzle you is this: everything is relative, so a person on the Earth sees the clock on the spaceship running slow. Similarly, the person on the Earth is moving at 0.95c relative to the observer on the spaceship, so the observer on the ship sees their own clock behaving perfectly and the clock on the Earth moving slow. So, if the clock on the spaceship is measuring time properly according to an observer moving with the clock, how can we account for the fact that the observer on the ship seems to cover a distance of 9.5 light years in 3.122 years, which would imply that they're traveling at a speed of 3.04c?

 

I dont think it makes sense to assert that the traveler sees his motion at .95c , yet calculates the time he is taking to traverse the space three times faster unless he is deciding during the trip to calculate distances three times shorter when looking forward than back at earth. Whether he looks back at the receding earth or forward to planet X his time frame is the same slowed rate ,, 

 

That absolutely can not be true. For one thing, one of the implications of relativity is that nothing can travel faster than c, the speed of light in vacuum. c is the ultimate speed limit in the universe.

Unfounded assertion was  inserted here, its self fulfilling. 

 

For another, two observers will always agree on their relative velocities. Supports what I stated above about looking forward and back , and conflicts with a velocity calculation of three c.

 

If the person on the Earth sees the spaceship moving at 0.95c, the observer on the spaceship agrees that the Earth is moving at 0.95c with respect to the spaceship (and because the other planet is not moving relative to the Earth), everyone's in agreement that the relative velocity between the spaceship and planet is 0.95c. 

Again , he cant calculate a trip toward X at three c and simultaneously calculate a rate of .95c 

 

I have more I need to read to get caught up to you on this question, but this should illustrate where I'm just not on board yet.