Re: Length "contraction" and time "dialation" bad language.
- From: "Dr ***" <paulpsremove@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 8 May 2005 17:29:28 +0100
"Baugh" <baconbaugh@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:YHofe.16748$cZ6.1182@xxxxxxxxxxx
The phrases "length contraction",
"time dialation" and "increasing mass"
are ways of describing relativistic phenomena
in the old non-relativistic language.
They are bad in that they inhibit true
understanding of special relativity.
They where specifically invented as
'mysterious effects' of the 'aether'
on all objects to explain away the
results of Michelson-Morley experiments.
A measuring rod is not 'contracted'
when viewed outside its rest frame.
Rather a measuring rod is a two dimensional
object, a spatial length spanning an infinite
time duration.
In relativity velocity transformations are no
longer additions of 3-velocities but rather
pseudo-rotations of 4-velocities:
(dx,dt) --> (cosh(a)dx + sinh(a)dt,sinh(a)dx + cosh(a)dt)
analogous to a rotation in space:
(dx,dy) --> (cos(a)dx - sin(a)dy, sin(a)dx + cos(a) dy)
To get a better understanding of 'length contraction'
and 'time dialation' consider below a space-space
analogue.
Imagine a strip of tape of infinite length
which is the space-space analogue of the
space-time measuring rod existing over an
infinite duration.
I am looking at it through what I'll call a
viewing card, a piece of cardboard
with a horizontal slit cut in it
so I can only see the apparent width of the
tape, and then must slide the card along
the tape to see more of it.
(this slit is my spatial universe at a given instant.)
dr
Why should the tape have any width.?
My viewing card also has a little counter-wheel
(like an odometer) which rolls along telling me how far I move
the card perpendicular to the slit.
I notice that if I rotate the orientation
of the viewing card a bit some strange things
occur:
(*) As I roll the card along the tape moves along
the slit. I measure the rate w.r.t. the counter
and get a "velocity".
(*) A mysterious "width dialation" effect occurs.
The tape as seen through my rotated slit appears wider.
dr
Hang on it had no need to move to do this just rotating the orientation
would be sufficient in your example.
(*) Also a "counter-wheel contraction" occurs in that
how far vertically I must roll the card between
seeing a pair of edge marks through the slit becomes
smaller after rotating.
dr
Yes if we accept that the markers is all the way across the tape but see
earlier question.
(*) Also two points which are simultaneously viewed
through the slit cease to be simultaneously viewable
when I rotate the viewing card.
dr
Yes but you are either arguing for simultaneity across the tape or your not.
in the immediate case above your presumably claiming that with a rotated
card the marker across the card is not viewable simultaneously which makes
the width of the tape a major significance as it appears to define how far
into the past and future you can see or how far in space you can see. So
that with the card rotated so the slit was parallel to the tape you could
see the maximum distance into the future and past simultaneously or with the
card rotated across the tape you are able to see the spatial width of the
card simultaneously. So in one case we have length contraction and time
expansion and in the other length expansion and time contraction both case
being inversely proportionate so they are difficult to observe accept by
comparison of real clock ticks after being returned to one place as per
experimental fact. So I see the rotation as factual and not pseudo although
you can clearly rotate the pseudo into the factual and then claim the
factual is pseudo.{:-)
snip
--
Dr *** Have a nice day.
http://home.freeuk.com/paulps/
Still full of manure but the turnips
are coming up nicely. Ooh ah.{:-)
.
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