Re: Quiz
- From: Dono <sa_ge@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 08:48:18 -0800 (PST)
On Dec 30, 8:41 am, Dono <sa...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Dec 30, 1:44 am, "Simple Simon" <m...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
According to the solution *** for MIT's OpenCourseWare Physics 8.003,
October 2006 Quiz 1 Question 1.e.E , the following statement is true:
A ping-pong ball moving near the speed of light still looks spherical.TRUE /
FALSE (circle one).http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/17B4BD2F-8932-49D2-9C7B-D1D2315965C9/...
when in fact it is measured to be an ellipsoid, according to Einstein:
"A rigid body which, measured in a state of rest, has the form of a sphere,
therefore has in a state of motion--viewed from the stationary system--the
form of an ellipsoid"http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/
What am I missing?
The answer is : TRUE.
The explanation is non-trivial: the Terrell-Penrose rotation comes
into play as well as the Lorentz contraction as pointed out by several
other people.
A very good animation can be seen here:http://www.anu.edu.au/Physics/Searle/Obsolete/Download.html
, look at "Orbit2.flc" ( I think you need Adobe Flash to run it).
See another rendering (with a different raytracer) here:
http://www.hakenberg.de/diffgeo/special_relativity.htm
.
