If you were to stop time, would things like temperature and radiation still affect you?
Asked by
XOIIO (
18328)
December 14th, 2012
I’ve been musing to myself a little bit, and had an interesting idea pop up. If you were to stop time at say, the point of a nuclear explosion, would the extreme heat and radiation still manage to affect you, or would you be able to observe it up close without it affecting you?
Of course this is theoretical, but I’m interested to know what might be the case.
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11 Answers
If you were to stop time, I would assume that all molecular movement would stop as well, so the temperature would be at absolute zero.
Nope. It would not. To stop time means to stop all particle movement and interaction.
Which would mean that all forms of radiation would be ‘frozen’ in place.
Temperature around you would drop to absolute zero.
No light will be penetrating your eyeballs, meaning it would be complete darkness.
Soundwaves will not propagate through the air, meaning it would be absolute silence.
And last but not least, the air you normally move through easily would have turned into a completely impenetrable substance, which means you will be completely unable to move, and you will be unable to breathe as well.
But worry not, frozen time means there will also be no thermal energy transfer between you and the absolute zero air, so you will not freeze to death.
You will choke to death.
@ragingloli Now something els,e would the same occur if you “stopped time” by accelerating your molecules, like they did in that one movie? Can’t recall what it was but a watch accelerated the molecules of whoever was wearing it and what they touched, so would this be the same case?
@XOIIO
Relativity tells us, that the faster you move, the slower an outside observer would see you age, while the fast moving person however would see everything around him faster.
So that movie, I think I have seen it, too, is completely wrong anyway.
Anyway, assuming you could move that fast, just think of what happens when the spaceshuttle reenters the atmosphere.
@ragingloli Yeah, kind of what I thought. Interesting to think about anyways though.
I disagree. You would not choke to death because that implies change, which implies motion forward through time. If you could actually stop time, NOTHING would change at all, ever.
@ETpro
We are assuming that time is only stopped for anything that is not the person stopping the time.
@ragingloli Aha. That makes answering this difficult, as such an assumption stands outside reality.
I guess that depends. When you stop time, does everything just freeze, besides you? (and anyone else involved in the time stopping) So if you stopped time when it was really cold, I guess the weather would be stopped and jammed in that condition. Or if you stopped time before the radiation got to you, you might be safe, but if you stopped too late, it might be even worse. But reading some of the answers here, I guess for anything like cold or radiation to happen, motion and time would have to be a tool, otherwise none of it could happen. But then whatever would occur because of no motion/time might suck just as much balls. :/
@Symbeline Yeah, who knows, maybe somewhere in a government facility someone stopped time in a small room but can’t see anything now and can’t let the world know lol.
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