One problem is that, by human standards, the temperature difference associated with any really interesting change in rate would be large. We live up around 300 degrees Kelvin, and we can only survive in a range of a few dozen degrees around that; but approximating air as an ideal gas, that number scales as the square of the speed of the molecules.
Of course, to think about it in much more detail leads pretty quickly to physical absurdity. For instance, it's often said that gravitational potential differences cause time to go at different rates, but really it's more accurate to say that a gravitational potential difference IS a variation in the rate of time. If you work out what it does to the wave functions of particles, you see that the time difference is actually what causes the gravitational force! So if, say, you were in a little bubble of fast-time with everything around you going more slowly, by whatever magical means that came about, the time difference would induce an outward gravitational force in the transition zone that would suck all the air out of your bubble. If it were just confined to your body, it might pull your skin off or something.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2004-08-20 05:23 pm (UTC)Of course, to think about it in much more detail leads pretty quickly to physical absurdity. For instance, it's often said that gravitational potential differences cause time to go at different rates, but really it's more accurate to say that a gravitational potential difference IS a variation in the rate of time. If you work out what it does to the wave functions of particles, you see that the time difference is actually what causes the gravitational force! So if, say, you were in a little bubble of fast-time with everything around you going more slowly, by whatever magical means that came about, the time difference would induce an outward gravitational force in the transition zone that would suck all the air out of your bubble. If it were just confined to your body, it might pull your skin off or something.