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Fredward Syndrome, also known as acute time displacement phenomenon (ATDP) is an unexplainable loss of time that may or may not follow a loss of consciousness. The total time loss could range anywhere between a few minutes to several days. While the cause of these unconfirmed reports has yet to be identified, many theories have been submitted throughout the years. The most widely accepted relates to a theory involving time loss as described by Einstein's Twin paradox theory. In physics, the twin paradox is a thought experiment in special relativity, in which a twin makes a journey into space in a high-speed rocket and returns home to find he has aged less than his identical twin who stayed on Earth. This result appears puzzling because each twin sees the other twin as traveling, and so, according to a naive application of time dilation, each should paradoxically find the other to have aged more slowly. In fact, the result is not a paradox in the true sense, since it can be resolved within the standard framework of special relativity. The effect has been verified experimentally using measurements of precise clocks flown in airplanes and satellites. Starting with Paul Langevin in 1911, there have been numerous explanations of this paradox, many based upon there being no contradiction because there is no symmetry—only one twin has undergone acceleration and deceleration, thus differentiating the two cases. One version of the asymmetry argument made by Max von Laue in 1913 is that the traveling twin uses two inertial frames: one on the way up and the other on the way down. So switching frames is the cause of the difference, not acceleration per se. Other explanations account for the effects of acceleration. Einstein, Born and Møller invoked gravitational time dilation to explain the aging based upon the effects of acceleration. Both gravitational time dilation and special relativity can be used to explain the Hafele-Keating experiment on time dilation using precise measurements of clocks flown in airplanes. Specific example Consider a space ship traveling from Earth to the nearest star system outside of our solar system: a distance d 4.45 light years away, at a speed v 0.866c (i.e., 86.6 percent of the speed of light). The Earth-based mission control reasons about the journey this way (for convenience in this thought experiment the ship is assumed to attain its full speed immediately upon departure): the round trip will take t 2d / v 10.28 years in Earth time (i.e. everybody on earth will be 10.28 years older when the ship returns). The amount of time as measured on the ship's clocks and the aging of the travelers during their trip will be reduced by the factor , the reciprocal of the Lorentz factor. In this case and the travelers will have aged only 0.500×10.28 = 5.14 years when they return. The ship's crew members also calculate the particulars of their trip from their perspective. They know that the distant star system and the Earth are moving relative to the ship at speed v during the trip. In their rest frame the distance between the Earth and the star system is εd 0.5d 2.23 light years (length contraction), for both the outward and return journeys. Each half of the journey takes 2.23 / v 2.57 years, and the round trip takes 2×2.57 5.14 years. Their calculations show that they will arrive home having aged 5.14 years. The travelers' final calculation is in complete agreement with the calculations of those on Earth, though they experience the trip quite differently. If a pair of twins are born on the day the ship leaves, and one goes on the journey while the other stays on Earth, they will meet again when the traveler is 5.14 years old and the stay-at-home twin is 10.28 years old. The calculation illustrates the usage of the phenomenon of length contraction and the experimentally verified phenomenon of time dilation to describe and calculate consequences and predictions of Einstein's special theory of relativity. Psychological explanations Several other possibilities exist to explain the unusual loss of time including Acute organic brain syndrome and Chronic organic brain syndrome. Acute organic brain syndrome is (by definition) a recently appearing state of mental impairment, as a result of intoxication, drug overdose, infection, pain, and many other physical problems affecting mental status. In medical contexts, "acute" means "of recent onset". As is the case with most acute disease problems, acute organic brain syndrome is often temporary-however this is not guaranteed (a recent-onset problem may continue to be chronic or long term). A more specific medical term for the acute subset of organic brain syndromes is delirium. Chronic organic brain syndrome is long-term. For example, some forms of chronic drug or alcohol dependence can cause organic brain syndrome due to their long-lasting or permanent toxic effects on brain function. Other common causes of chronic organic brain syndrome sometimes listed are the various types of dementia, which result from permanent brain damage due to strokes, Alzheimer's disease, or other damaging causes which are not reversible. Though OBS is a common diagnosis in the elderly, like the various types of dementias it is related to a disease processes and is not an inevitable part of aging. In some of the older literature, there was an attempt to separate organic brain syndrome from dementia, but this was related to an older world view in which dementia was thought to be a part of normal aging, and thus did not represent a special disease process. The later identification of various dementias as clear pathologies is an example of the types of pathological problems discovered to be associated with mental states, and is one of the areas which led to abandonment of all further attempts to clearly define and use OBS as a term.
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