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In special relativity, proper time is like TIME in htop (linux process user time) (discuss.tchncs.de)
submitted 2 days ago by gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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I'm talking about these things here:

Proper time on wikipedia:

Linux process user time:

this is because this is the passing of time as seen by the process itself, not by an external observer. i.e. an external observer might measure absolute time (from their point of view) but time passes at a different speed (slower, in most cases) as experienced by the process itself. this is because it continues to sleep repeatedly, and so it doesn't wake up and do things, so it occupies fewer CPU cycles and it experiences less time itself.

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[-] Wigners_friend@piefed.social 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Not really. The clocks aren't being stopped in SR, they differ because there is no common notion of simultaneity. Both observers here use the same reference frame. They just don't always run their clocks. Your analogy requires the external observer to disagree on the duration of the process while only including when it is running.

this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2026
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