Proving Einstein's Relativity Of Time

In 1905, Albert Einstein wrote his own treatise on the relativity of time, famously theorising that time speeds up or slows down according to how fast an object is moving in relation to another object. Thus, according to his hypothesis, a clock which is in motion ticks more slowly than an identical clock which is at rest -- a phenomenon that Einstein called time dilation. In a study published on Sunday, the most accurate experiment yet into time dilation has proven the great German physicist to be bang on target. An international team of researchers used a particle accelerator to whizz two beams of atoms around a doughnut-shaped course to represent Einstein's faster-moving clocks. They then timed the beams using high-precision laser spectroscopy and found that, compared with the outside world, time for these atomic travellers did indeed slow down. "We were able to determine the effect more precisely than ever before," said lead researcher Gerald Gwinner of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. "We found the observed effect to be in complete agreement."