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Does mass dilate in general relativity. For example if I was accelerating will my mass dilate?

Thanks

Harry Obey
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  • In a sense, yes. Mass increases as energy increases, so at relativistic speeds and object's mass increases, I believe it's in perfect proportion to the time dilation. To the object itself, there's no apparent gained mass but to an observer an object traveling at relativistic speeds has gained mass. – userLTK Jan 29 '16 at 07:34
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    To understand what @userLTK is trying to say, and what I would recommend against thinking along those lines, see the two other post here.
    1. What is mass?
    2. Mass controversy. In short there is a nice concept which everyone likes called the rest mass, ~invariant mass, which does not change. What the object would say it weighed in its own frame.
     – Novice C Jan 29 '16 at 07:43
  • @NoviceC 100% agree that rest mass doesn't increase, I can delete my comment if you think it's more confusing than helpful. (as comments can't be edited). – userLTK Jan 29 '16 at 08:02
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    General relativity applies to systems that have non-inertial frames of reference with regard to each other, in other words when the systems are accelerating with regard to each other. In such cases, the relativistic mass of one system varies with regard to the other system as acceleration varies. This is the equivalence principle, which equates gravity with acceleration. This link will help you understand how relativistic mass relates to rest mass: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/einsteins-general-relativity-theory-gravity-as-acc.html – Ernie Jan 29 '16 at 08:20
  • It is odd that this question was closed, because it asks about general relativity. As I understand the question, what they are asking is, would mass "dilate" in a gravitational field. The linked answer does not answer that. – Francis Davey Sep 30 '21 at 16:04

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