Re: Question about light clock and derivation of time dilation
- From: stevendaryl3016@xxxxxxxxx (Daryl McCullough)
- Date: 12 Jul 2005 08:44:48 -0700
Sue... says...
Hey, I thought you "plonked" me.
>Just because you can indicate a path in another
>frame of reference does not mean an object is
>moving in that frame of reference or obeying
>physical laws of motion for that frame of
>reference.
Your paragraph is a little confusing. A frame
of reference is a choice of how to *describe* the
path of an object. Whether the object is moving
or not is dependent on that choice.
Here's an analogy: You draw a curve on a plain
piece of white paper. You pick a point on that
curve. You ask: "Is the curve horizontal at that
point?" Whether it is horizontal or not depends
on how you orient the piece of paper. It isn't
an intrinsic property of the curve, it is a property
of the curve, together with a choice of what axis
counts as "horizontal".
Special Relativity views spacetime as the canvas
on which paths are drawn. You pick a point on the
path of some object, and ask "Is the object stationary
at that point, or is it moving?" Moving versus stationary
is not a property of the path itself, but is a property
of the path, together with a choice of which axis counts
as the "time" axis. A stationary object is one whose path
is purely in the time direction (just sitting there means
one-way travel into the future). But there are many
choices of time axes, and whether something is moving
or not is relative to making such a choice.
--
Daryl McCullough
Ithaca, NY
.
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