Re: Length Contraction

From: Jesse Mazer (vze2ztqw_at_mail.verizon.net)
Date: 02/11/05 

Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 03:29:07 GMT

Michael J. Strickland wrote:

> A car of length L drives across a bridge which has a gap of length L
> in the middle.
>
> 1. In the bridge frame, the car is length contracted to less than L
> and the car falls through the gap.
>
> 2. In the car frame, the gap is length contracted to less than L and
> the car does not fall through the gap.
>
>
> Which of these two events occurs?
>
>
>
> No references to other documents (e.g. web sites) please.
>
>
> --
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> Michael J. Strickland
> Quality Services qualityser@att.net
> <mailto:qualityser@att.net>
> 703-560-7380
> ---------------------------------------------------------------

Are you imagining that a car driving over a hole larger than itself will
remain perfectly horizontal until the exact moment the back wheel passes
the back end of the hole and the front end still has not passed the
front end of the hole? That's cartoon physics...once you take into
account that the front of the car begins to drop even if the back wheel
is still on solid bridge, the problem becomes a lot more complicated,
you might even need general relativity to deal with it since Newtonian
gravity is not Lorentz-invariant. Why don't you come up with a variation
on this problem that could happen in zero-G, and then it will be pretty
simple to show what the answer is according to SR.

Jesse

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