Scientists have known for decades that time passes faster at high altitudes , a curious aspect of Einstein's theory of relativity that had been demonstrated by comparing the advance of a clock at ground level with another flying over the Earth in a rocket. Now, physicists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have shown that this effect also occurs with a height difference of only 33 centimeters . And that this makes us age faster when we stand a couple of rungs above the ground on a ladder. As explained in the latest issue of Science magazine, the difference is extremely small for humans to be able to perceive it directly, since only about 90 billionths of a second are added to a life of 79 years . But the discovery may have interesting practical applications for geophysics and other scientific disciplines.
Researchers have also observed another aspect of relativity: that time passes more slowly the faster a person moves , at speeds comparable to that of a car traveling at about 35 km / h, a scale much closer than that of the previous measurements made with the help of jet aircraft.
