The Theory of RELATIVITY

[arian]

[center]Relativity - 101 Grade school - High school version I've been told, and that this has been known and taught for over a hundred years![/center]

Relativity
Physics - the dependence of various physical phenomena on relative motion of the observer and the observed objects, esp. regarding the nature and behavior of light, space, time, and gravity.

OK, .. so there seems to be a various physical phenomena on relative motion of the observer and the observed object, even I have noticed this phenomena, it is somewhat a different perspective going 150mph on a motorcycle vs standing still and watching someone pass me by doing 150 mph on a motorcycle.

This states that all motion is relative and that the velocity of light in a vacuum has a constant value that nothing can exceed.
E=MC^2 - where E is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of light. Thus, Einstein stated that the universal proportionality factor between equivalent amounts of energy and mass is equal to the speed of light squared. The formula is dimensionally consistent and holds true irrespective of which system of measurement units is used.

All motion is relative, got it, but why ‘state’ that “the velocity of light in a vacuum has a constant value that nothing can exceed� .. and then go and square the speed of light in the equation E=MC^2?
OK, so this equation states that ‘C’ is Speed of Light which has a constant value of 186,282 miles / s.
Now squaring a speed that which nothing can exceed gives us a somewhat faster than ‘C’ speed of light, ... about 186,282 times faster because C squared is 34,700,983,524 miles / second.

Fine, let’s use that value of 34,700,983,524 miles / second to figure out the effects, or the relativity to T (time) on M (mass) when it is in motion at given V (velocity)?

- Among its consequences are the following: the mass of a body increases, and its length (in the direction of motion) shortens, as its speed increases;

OK, so the Mass of a body increases with speed, another word something with let’s say a mass of 50lb. becomes heavier and heavier as it goes faster and faster. So any mass reaching the assumed speed of light squared (34,700,983,524 miles / s) would become infinitely heavy, .. is this correct?

.. and ALSO, it’s length in the direction of the motion shortens, which I understand that at the speed of C^2 (34,700,983,524 miles / s) the Mass (any mass) would become the size of this universe (since they don’t consider anything outside the universe), meaning infinitely heavy and infinitely big .. is that correct?

- Holding true more generally, any body having mass has an equivalent amount of energy, and all forms of energy resist acceleration by a force and have gravitational attraction; the term matter has no universally-agreed definition under this modern view.

Continuing with the Energy=Mass C^2, what I’m understanding is (since ‘infinite’ is not imaginable for them in this universe, we’ll just stick with the size of the universe (whatever that may be?) .. so Mass at the speed of light squared, would become as ‘heavy’ as the entire universe, and as big as the universe since as stated; “the mass of a body increases, and its length (in the direction of motion) shortens as its speed increases� meaning that the leading end of the mass going at 34,700,983,524 miles / s would get shorter and shorter until it reached its trailing end, and since mass and energy is equal, it would all be one huge mass of energy (only this would happen at just past the speed of light, the effects of mass moving 186,282 times the speed of light would be much different effect) ... do I have this right?

But that is not all, they say that at the speed of light (especially at speeds C squared), Time would also slow down to a stop. Now if all the IFF’s are true, that would make sense since Mass and Weight would reach infinite, it would engulf the entire universe including time & space, thus everything would become an enormous gravitational Mass void of space, time or light ... am I close?

Is this what they call a ‘Gravitational Singularity’?

Question; to get to this point, don’t we need space and time where mass, any mass could have room to accelerate to reach the speed of light squared?

Let’s move on with relativity to how things 'might' appear by different observers at speed of light at 186,282 miles per second, or squared at 34,700,983,524 miles / second;

- the time interval between two events occurring in a moving body appears greater to a stationary observer; and mass and energy are equivalent and interconvertible.

As I understand and some of it based on - Among its consequences are the following: the mass of a body increases, and its length (in the direction of motion) shortens as its speed increases that if somebody was traveling near the speed of light for millions of years would have experienced only days, or just minutes vs the man standing would have been long gone and vanished millions of years ago,
also if a man traveling at the speed of light was able to look over at the watch of a man standing still, it would be flying by years not minutes, while his at the speed of light would be standing still, or stopped.

How close am I to understanding the Theory of Relativity as described by Einstein's equation of E=MC^2? And what parts am I misunderstanding?

Here are some doubts about Einstein's (that is if it's truly Einstein's idea?) Theory of Relativity, so the question for the Original Post is: 'Am I wrong, and if so, where am I wrong?'

1. 'C'^2 is 186,282 times faster than the assumed speed of light in a vacuum. How can Mass move so fast, and where is it moving IN? (not the universe we know, because there is a 'speed-limit' in our universe as defined by Einstein, which is mutually agreed upon, .. right?)

2. it is claimed that; nothing is faster than the speed of light, yet they assume that on the outer-skirts of our expanding fabric-of-space lies entire galaxies that are expanding ten times the speed of light, AND still emitting light at the speed of light both in the direction of the expansion, and leaving a trail behind?

3. Why is it that at these speeds distance would be shorter, not the time it takes to get to these distances? Matter of fact, they claim 'time would stop' at 186,282 miles per second. This can only mean one thing; that once these expanding galaxies passed the speed of light, they are actually coming behind us, or as we see ourselves in the mirror, we behold our face from the back. That what we see out there is US passing through us?

But that can happen only UP-TO twice the speed of light, because three times the speed of light would pass through the 'twice the speed of light', and if Einstein is right about squaring 'C', we are actually seeing 186,282 TIMES the outskirts of our universe passing through us! That would be like taking a mirror and looking back INTO a mirror, ... our universe creating infinite universes... or am I missing something?

I could use any help on this,

Thanks.

[A Troubled Man]

I just can't seem to swallow these few things like Time Dilation and Mass Contraction with higher speeds. This is besides that for the time being I accept light having a speed of 186,282 m/p/s.

Any further help on this would be greatly appreciated.

You need not ask for help when you don't even follow advice or guidance from anyone here. You need to go way back to the very basics and start learning something rather than jumping to the end and stating that you can't swallow what you clearly don't even understand.

[Jax Agnesson]

[Replying to post 240 by arian]

Hi again, Arian.
Let me try this from another angle?
Note that I don't have any formal schooling beyond English 3rd year; (equivalent to US 9th grade). So, just like you, I have to work these things through from simple concepts and then work at it till I get it. So let's go back to just before Galileo Galilei got himself into trouble with the Inquisition.
Before Galileo, there was Copernicus. He was working on ways of improving the tables of figures that the church used to predict the relative positions of the planets, moon, sun, etc. And he realised that it was actually easier to do this if you 'pretended' that the sun was in the middle, and all the planets went around it, including the earth. But, being familiar with the workings of the Vatican, he had the good sense not to publish his findings till his death.
Galileo was not that careful. He experimented, he took careful observations, he looked at the planets, and he ended up concluding that the earth actually does go around the sun.
you probably know this story already. But have you ever stopped to try to imagine what it must have been like for 'scientists' in those days?
Consider. Every human since time began has this experience: the earth does not move, except in earthquakes etc. The sun travels across the sky, and so does the moon, and so do the planets and the stars. You can see this with your own eyes. There is the evidence, plain before you, every day and night of every person's life, everywhere on earth. Galileo's claim is absurd, by ordinary experience and common sense.
What's more, even for those of us today who accept the Copernican heliocentric model, it is still the case that you cannot directly detect or sense this movement. Here's an experiment.
Get yourself into a laboratory equipped with any instruments you can think of. Work out, from your knowledge of your latitude, longitude, the time, the date and the direction of true North, exactly where the track of the sun is at any given time, from inside your lab. From this, work out the speed of motion of the earth in its orbit around the sun. Now, with all the blinds drawn, so you can't observe the sky, see if you can conduct any experiments whatsoever to detect this motion. You may have set up a big circular surface parallel to the ecliptic, and a big arrow pointing to the sun, and another arrow at right angles to that one, pointing to the direction the earth is currently travelling at 30 000 meters per second (give or take)
Try to devise some sort of experiment that will give one result when facing the earth's direcrtion of travel around the sun, and a different result if you turn it round to face some other direction. You will not find one, I promise. even if you could measure the speed of light travelling in the direction of the arrow, and the speed of light travelling in the opposite direction; you will see no difference.
So, you can imagine how difficult it was for people in Galileo's time, when hardly anyone in the world hasd a simple scientific instrument of any sort, to accept that the earth travels around the sun. It's counter to all experience, common sense, and anything else that the ordinary person could consider evidence. The earth isn't moving, and that's that!
But this is the same as your current predicament. You and I could set up an experiment, with a couple of cars on a straight stretch of road, so we perceive each other to be moving, in opposite directions, at some speed which we can call 'u'.
If you think I'm moving past you at speed you, travelling East, then I will see you travelling West, at the same speed 'u'.. If we each measured the speed of a third passing car relative to ourselves, we would get two different answers, and the difference in our answers would be just equal to 'u'.
At least, that's what happens when we measure normal speeds, of the sort we would observe in ordinary life. So we see the space we move through, and the time we measure, as being fixed and universal. Exactly the way everyone pre-Galileo considered the earth to be standing still and the sun travelling around it. Because that's how we experience it.
But light travels about a million times faster than sound, and when we measure things moving at that kind of speed, we notice something about time and space that is not obvious to our senses, namely, that different observers, moving at some speed relative to each other, cannot notice that speed difference by any difference in the speed of light.
Now here is the true genius of young Albert. He took the observations of Michelson's experiment, as mathematically modelled in Lorentz's equations,, and he compared those results with the field equations of Maxwelland recognised that they were both pointing to the same, seemingly impossible, conclusion; and instead of saying 'that's just impossible' he pointed out that, just as you can't discover the earth's movement through space by using mechanical experiments, you can't discover that movement by measuring the speed of electromagnetic waves, either. In that sense, he wasn't really saying anything different; he was just extending a phenomenon already well known to be true.
The startling thing is, that once you recognise and accept that the speed of light is constant for all inertial observers, you have to accept that either space. or time, or both, must be variable for different inertial observers; since speed is just the relationship of the change of position in space with a change in time..
So Einstein went on to show precisely by how much the space and time measurements will change with the relative motion of any two inertial observers.
And these predictions have been tested over and over and over,in the century since, and there is no arguing with the fact that they are consistently accurate, to extremely high degrees of accuracy.
If you cannot make sense of some pictured scenario involving various rocketships measuring each other and comparing their results, you have to go back every time to the Lorentz transformations. If you can learn enough mathematics to use these transformations (it's only high-school algebra) you will see that it works out exactly as predicted.
You can't do it by trying to picture the thing using common sense; just as common sense will never show you the earth travelling around the sun. don't try it. Go back to the transformations, every single time. You still might find the results astounding and counter-intuitive, but at least you'll be obliged to accept it, just as people in the century after Galileo gradually accepted that the earth is not standing still.
Galileo and Einstein both say the same thing; that there is no 'absolute' referential frame. Galileo says this about space, and Einstein extends it to time.

[arian]

[Replying to post 240 by arian]

Hi again, Arian.
Let me try this from another angle?
Note that I don't have any formal schooling beyond English 3rd year; (equivalent to US 9th grade). So, just like you, I have to work these things through from simple concepts and then work at it till I get it. So let's go back to just before Galileo Galilei got himself into trouble with the Inquisition.
Before Galileo, there was Copernicus. He was working on ways of improving the tables of figures that the church used to predict the relative positions of the planets, moon, sun, etc. And he realised that it was actually easier to do this if you 'pretended' that the sun was in the middle, and all the planets went around it, including the earth. But, being familiar with the workings of the Vatican, he had the good sense not to publish his findings till his death.
Galileo was not that careful. He experimented, he took careful observations, he looked at the planets, and he ended up concluding that the earth actually does go around the sun.
you probably know this story already. But have you ever stopped to try to imagine what it must have been like for 'scientists' in those days?
Consider. Every human since time began has this experience: the earth does not move, except in earthquakes etc. The sun travels across the sky, and so does the moon, and so do the planets and the stars. You can see this with your own eyes. There is the evidence, plain before you, every day and night of every person's life, everywhere on earth. Galileo's claim is absurd, by ordinary experience and common sense.
What's more, even for those of us today who accept the Copernican heliocentric model, it is still the case that you cannot directly detect or sense this movement. Here's an experiment.
Get yourself into a laboratory equipped with any instruments you can think of. Work out, from your knowledge of your latitude, longitude, the time, the date and the direction of true North, exactly where the track of the sun is at any given time, from inside your lab. From this, work out the speed of motion of the earth in its orbit around the sun. Now, with all the blinds drawn, so you can't observe the sky, see if you can conduct any experiments whatsoever to detect this motion. You may have set up a big circular surface parallel to the ecliptic, and a big arrow pointing to the sun, and another arrow at right angles to that one, pointing to the direction the earth is currently travelling at 30 000 meters per second (give or take)
Try to devise some sort of experiment that will give one result when facing the earth's direcrtion of travel around the sun, and a different result if you turn it round to face some other direction. You will not find one, I promise. even if you could measure the speed of light travelling in the direction of the arrow, and the speed of light travelling in the opposite direction; you will see no difference.
So, you can imagine how difficult it was for people in Galileo's time, when hardly anyone in the world hasd a simple scientific instrument of any sort, to accept that the earth travels around the sun. It's counter to all experience, common sense, and anything else that the ordinary person could consider evidence. The earth isn't moving, and that's that!
But this is the same as your current predicament. You and I could set up an experiment, with a couple of cars on a straight stretch of road, so we perceive each other to be moving, in opposite directions, at some speed which we can call 'u'.
If you think I'm moving past you at speed you, travelling East, then I will see you travelling West, at the same speed 'u'.. If we each measured the speed of a third passing car relative to ourselves, we would get two different answers, and the difference in our answers would be just equal to 'u'.
At least, that's what happens when we measure normal speeds, of the sort we would observe in ordinary life. So we see the space we move through, and the time we measure, as being fixed and universal. Exactly the way everyone pre-Galileo considered the earth to be standing still and the sun travelling around it. Because that's how we experience it.
But light travels about a million times faster than sound, and when we measure things moving at that kind of speed, we notice something about time and space that is not obvious to our senses, namely, that different observers, moving at some speed relative to each other, cannot notice that speed difference by any difference in the speed of light.
Now here is the true genius of young Albert. He took the observations of Michelson's experiment, as mathematically modelled in Lorentz's equations,, and he compared those results with the field equations of Maxwelland recognised that they were both pointing to the same, seemingly impossible, conclusion; and instead of saying 'that's just impossible' he pointed out that, just as you can't discover the earth's movement through space by using mechanical experiments, you can't discover that movement by measuring the speed of electromagnetic waves, either. In that sense, he wasn't really saying anything different; he was just extending a phenomenon already well known to be true.
The startling thing is, that once you recognise and accept that the speed of light is constant for all inertial observers, you have to accept that either space. or time, or both, must be variable for different inertial observers; since speed is just the relationship of the change of position in space with a change in time..
So Einstein went on to show precisely by how much the space and time measurements will change with the relative motion of any two inertial observers.
And these predictions have been tested over and over and over,in the century since, and there is no arguing with the fact that they are consistently accurate, to extremely high degrees of accuracy.
If you cannot make sense of some pictured scenario involving various rocketships measuring each other and comparing their results, you have to go back every time to the Lorentz transformations. If you can learn enough mathematics to use these transformations (it's only high-school algebra) you will see that it works out exactly as predicted.
You can't do it by trying to picture the thing using common sense; just as common sense will never show you the earth travelling around the sun. don't try it. Go back to the transformations, every single time. You still might find the results astounding and counter-intuitive, but at least you'll be obliged to accept it, just as people in the century after Galileo gradually accepted that the earth is not standing still.
Galileo and Einstein both say the same thing; that there is no 'absolute' referential frame. Galileo says this about space, and Einstein extends it to time.

Thank you so much Jax (and everyone who responded here), I had to take some time to digest hundreds of years of information, and as you said it is truly amazing. The more I learn the more intriguing this universe becomes. The mathematics behind all this is just mind-blowing, and to predict quantum equations considering time and light speed with everything in the universe floating and moving in all direction, with all the different frames of references, yet light being a constant, it is truly a mind bending roller-coaster ride.

I just learned why things shrink with distance. As you know for a long time I thought that it was an illusion, but now I understand that it is a mathematical FACT. Only the math part is automatically and instantly done with our brain, with extreme accuracy. This observation is also mind-boggling, that our brain can make so many calculations just from what we see, instantaneously!!! Wow!

But this leads me even more to an extremely genius Creator, a Planner that had to know everything before creation even began.

Just to consider the shrinking with distance alone, not just with stationary telephone poles lined up in the distance and me standing, but for our mind to calculate EVERYTHING we look at, at all kinds of different distances and trig all that out to get the right angle with the relation to the distance the objects really are to give us the exact height we should be seeing in our mind, ... this could Never have 'just evolved by some accident', .. never.

I mean I can trig out how tall a 25 foot telephone pole should look like at a mile distance by drawing a triangle, knowing one side, the 25 foot telephone pole, and the distance it is from my eyes, then taking the two known sides and the 45 deg angle at the foot of the pole and calculating it all out I get how tall it should look at that distance, .. but our brain does this instantly without any measurement, and gives us the perfect actual mathematical perspective every glance no matter what speed and varying distance we are at. And this is fact whether for Einstein, or a simple shepherd boy watching his sheep as one goes wondering off.

But this observation has also led me to kind of start understanding how God could know everything, past, present and future events. Its all there, and quantum theory, Einstein's Relativity, Maxwell, Hubble, .. they all had a glimpse of it, .. we just have to start putting it all together.

So now God to me is not just a scientific reality, but a mathematical one also. We could never do all this with our conscious mind. It would take us years to figure out just one glance into the Grand Canyon, not to mention driving up there and spending the day sight-seeing. We must have a bit of Gods Spirit in us that governs and calculates all this information for us. I know I'm not doing it, .. and yet its all there when I need it.

[Bust Nak]

If the shuttle traveling at the velocity of 0.8 C carrying a metal Meter Stick could drop it into the 1/2 Meter slot in a stationary Platform it was passing by, isn't there something wrong with that picture?

Yes, the stick wouldn't fit. An one meter stick could not be dropped into a 1/2 meter slot. However, an one meter stick could be dropped into an one meter slot which only appeared to be 1/2 meter wide to an observer.

1. Me in the shuttle at the velocity of 0.8 C would see the slit even shorter than what it is, maybe even 1/4 the Meter, not the 1/2 Meter that it actually is, right?

Right. Apart from the distance being guesses, the idea is correct. The faster the relative speed, the shorter the distance appears.

2. The guy on the platform would see my Meter Stick much, much longer than a Meter, am I correct?

No, it would appear to be shorter, not longer.

So what? Do we just label this as "what it seems like vs what it is"?

The terms used is "proper length" or "rest length," and "observed length."

Looking at the ping-pong ball example ...

I don't understand the experiment you are describing. So you have a ball moving between two boards one foot apart in the y direction. And the whole thing is moving in the x direction. In 10 seconds, the ball has travelled 10 feet in the y direction, and 14 feet in total when the movement in x is taken into account. Ok, then what? Where does the car in the distance factor come into it?

From what I can tell, there seems to be some confusion between simple time delay and time dilation.

[arian]

I just can't seem to swallow these few things like Time Dilation and Mass Contraction with higher speeds. This is besides that for the time being I accept light having a speed of 186,282 m/p/s.

Any further help on this would be greatly appreciated.

You need not ask for help when you don't even follow advice or guidance from anyone here. You need to go way back to the very basics and start learning something rather than jumping to the end and stating that you can't swallow what you clearly don't even understand.

That is why I can't swallow it, .. I don't understand. This is why I was asking for help.

Also, I do heed advice and guidance, I really do! Only it takes me time to digest it, so you just don't see it yet, .. my apologies.

Yes, it would be nice to go back to 4th grade (actually I was completely withheld from 3rd grade, so I just sat in 4th grade until we moved again) but that is no longer possible, well so far anyways.

Sorry to upset you my friend, .. I can imagine how frustrating it must be for you to read my post on something as complicated as Einstein's Theory of Relativity, inertial Frames of References, Light-speed, Time Dilation, and even string-theory .. and so forth, but none the less I find all this fascinating, and will continue to ask dumb and stupid questions. We all must do with what we got, .. right?

Also remember that in my post I stated that this is grade school/high school stuff, .. so low level stuff, so I need simple explanations. I still think that I do understand things no matter how complicated, but it's a lot harder, and will take longer for me than for those with schooling. So I have to work it all out in my head, and as Jax and other kind debaters here told me, many of it will be practically impossible to do just in my head, .. but I'm stubborn. Maybe not as stubborn as Helen Keller, .. but I am stubborn none the less.

Besides, why couldn't I work it all out in my head? I remember back when I was sixteen in Detroit working on summer vacation at the Big-Boy Restaurant #2 on Eight Mile Rd. flipping burgers, .. and we had this one cook, an Arab guy who couldn't read or write English or Arabic.
On weekends we got really busy, and one time we were short a main-cook. He was all alone up in the front kitchen where we made all the orders (except the burgers which three of us made in the back) and the huge wheel got full, .. TWICE I kid you not.
This guy would remember each order as the waitresses called them in, which includes which order had medium rare ground-round, .. how they wanted the stake, which order had no onions, which no sauce, cottage cheese instead of fries, and you can imagine the rest, but he got the orders out with no complaints, one after the other in as timely fashion as if there were three cooks up there.
I remember when he finally caught up, we all cheered!

.. or, they could have sent him home and told him to learn how to read first, .. right?

[arian]

If the shuttle traveling at the velocity of 0.8 C carrying a metal Meter Stick could drop it into the 1/2 Meter slot in a stationary Platform it was passing by, isn't there something wrong with that picture?

Yes, the stick wouldn't fit. An one meter stick could not be dropped into a 1/2 meter slot. However, an one meter stick could be dropped into an one meter slot which only appeared to be 1/2 meter wide to an observer.

Thank you Bust Nak.

I was watching a lecture on Einstein's Relativity on YouTube by a Professor in one of the upper-schools like Yale, or Harvard (can't remember now), .. and at the end of his almost two hour lecture he stated two paradoxes, one was the twin-paradox, and the other the meter-stick traveling Near-C, .. that according to Relativity should fit through a half meter slot.
He left it as a paradox, and even gave his version how this might be done since the meter stick is traveling so fast, and to be able to drop it in the 1/2 meter slot he suggested tilting the platform where it could be observed where the back of the one-meter stick should reach the back-end of the 1/2 meter slot at the very same moment as the front reached the front of the slot. That is what he said.

1. Me in the shuttle at the velocity of 0.8 C would see the slit even shorter than what it is, maybe even 1/4 the Meter, not the 1/2 Meter that it actually is, right?

Right. Apart from the distance being guesses, the idea is correct. The faster the relative speed, the shorter the distance appears.

If you mean the slit?
You say the slit will appear, .. not actual?

But in my two space ship illustration where the shuttle launches off at 0.8 C from one ship is real, not just appears, .. no? I mean in all reality the shuttle IS traveling at 0.8 C in that reference frame (off the ship traveling the other direction), .. which is within, and 'shared' with the reference frame of the stationary Space Station where another ship is traveling at 0.4 C neck to neck with the shuttle that took off from the ship, which is traveling at 0.8 C, .. right?

According to relativity, the shuttle traveling at .8 C will age less, yet the ship above it neck to neck is moving at 0.4 C, .. which after they come back to the Space-station would have aged more!?! No??

Or is this too 'seemingly'? If so, what's the use of all this relative stuff?
Please explain as to a child, so I can visualize it.

2. The guy on the platform would see my Meter Stick much, much longer than a Meter, am I correct?

No, it would appear to be shorter, not longer.

Oh yes, right, but only appear shorter? I thought it actually becomes shorter at that speed, that is why it would fit in the shorter slot? I mean Time dilation is real, why is this any different?

You guys explained about GPS where there is a time-difference between reference frame earth, and reference frame space, even though light/information travels at a constant, is different, .. actually different where we have to literally make adjustments to synchronize the two.
Is this because the earths mass has an effect on light-speed or just the atom in the clock?

#2 If a ship with an atomic-clock on it was synchronized with a one on earth, then left traveling at 0.9 C from earth and returned after a month, would there be a 'seeming' difference between the two clocks, or a 'real' difference?

Please forgive my ignorance, but I am trying to visualize the different effect 'speed, or near speed of light' has on time, the size of mass, and weight, and whether or not the effect is equal on all three? Or does traveling at or near the speed of light have different effects on each one?

So what? Do we just label this as "what it seems like vs what it is"?

The terms used is "proper length" or "rest length," and "observed length."

I see, .. but time difference between someone sitting on earth vs someone traveling near the speed of light and returns to earth is NOT just 'observed', but real, .. correct?

I understand what one might 'observe' in clocks between one standing still and the other traveling near C, but I am trying to understand how and WHEN this becomes REAL, and not just observed?

If one going fast ages less, then why wouldn't the meter-stick traveling fast drop in a 1/2 meter slot on earth? Aren't the relative effects the same on both?

Looking at the ping-pong ball example ...

I don't understand the experiment you are describing. So you have a ball moving between two boards one foot apart in the y direction. And the whole thing is moving in the x direction. In 10 seconds, the ball has travelled 10 feet in the y direction, and 14 feet in total when the movement in x is taken into account. Ok, then what? Where does the car in the distance factor come into it?

From what I can tell, there seems to be some confusion between simple time delay and time dilation.

Yes you are most likely right, .. actually from the little I understand in studying Time dilation, you are correct, only I have too many questions in my head that I need an answer to. I really have to try to understand the time dilation due to relative velocity, then there is the Time dilation due to gravitation and motion together, .. I think that will answer my earths vs space atomic clock difference.
Only time dilation due to gravitation wouldn't really matter in the ship/shuttle example, would it?

Thanks again.

[Bust Nak]

I was watching a lecture on Einstein's Relativity on YouTube by a Professor in one of the upper-schools like Yale, or Harvard (can't remember now), .. and at the end of his almost two hour lecture he stated two paradoxes, one was the twin-paradox, and the other the meter-stick traveling Near-C, .. that according to Relativity should fit through a half meter slot.

Well, I probably won't actually get around to watching a full 2 hour lecture, but it would be nice if you could link to it.

He left it as a paradox, and even gave his version how this might be done since the meter stick is traveling so fast, and to be able to drop it in the 1/2 meter slot he suggested tilting the platform where it could be observed where the back of the one-meter stick should reach the back-end of the 1/2 meter slot at the very same moment as the front reached the front of the slot. That is what he said.

It's all to do with who is doing the observing. Form each individual's point of view, nothing would seem wrong. Someone would see a 1/2 meter stick going into a 1/2 meter slot, another person would see an one meter stick going into an one meter slot. That doesn't mean an one meter stick going into a 1/2 meter slot.

If you mean the slit?
You say the slit will appear, .. not actual?

You need to get rid of the notion that there is an "actual" length, there is no such thing. In relativity length is different depending on who is measuring. The one meter person A measures, is as "actual" as the 1/2 meter person B measures.

But in my two space ship illustration where the shuttle launches off at 0.8 C from one ship is real, not just appears, .. no?

Sure, it is real, as real as the 0.4 C from the space station's point of view; as real as the 0.0 C from inside the shuttle's point of view.

I mean in all reality the shuttle IS traveling at 0.8 C in that reference frame (off the ship traveling the other direction), .. which is within, and 'shared' with the reference frame of the stationary Space Station where another ship is traveling at 0.4 C neck to neck with the shuttle that took off from the ship, which is traveling at 0.8 C, .. right?

For ship B to be travelling neck to neck with the shuttle, they must be going at the same speed. From ship A's point of view, ship B and the shuttle are both are really going at 0.8 C. From the station's point of view, ship B and the shuttle are both are really going at 0.4 C. From either ship B or the shuttle's view, both really are stationary.

According to relativity, the shuttle traveling at .8 C will age less, yet the ship above it neck to neck is moving at 0.4 C, .. which after they come back to the Space-station would have aged more!?! No??

No, according to relativity, they would have aged the same - they are going neck to neck, ie at the same speed. They would have both aged less than the guys in the space station.

Read up more on the twin paradox. Applying the actual relativity formulars to work how exactly how much time passes for each twin, rather than viewing it as an mental exercise is how the paradox is resolved.

Or is this too 'seemingly'? If so, what's the use of all this relative stuff?
Please explain as to a child, so I can visualize it.

Discard the notion that there is one time and space that is the same everywhere. Re-evalute your experiments without that notion, then tell me what still doesn't make sense.

Oh yes, right, but only appear shorter? I thought it actually becomes shorter at that speed, that is why it would fit in the shorter slot? I mean Time dilation is real, why is this any different?

Same thing applies. How long it really is, depends on who is measuring.

You guys explained about GPS where there is a time-difference between reference frame earth, and reference frame space, even though light/information travels at a constant, is different, .. actually different where we have to literally make adjustments to synchronize the two.
Is this because the earths mass has an effect on light-speed or just the atom in the clock?

The Earth's mass, as well as the relative speed of the GPS satallite.

#2 If a ship with an atomic-clock on it was synchronized with a one on earth, then left traveling at 0.9 C from earth and returned after a month, would there be a 'seeming' difference between the two clocks, or a 'real' difference?

What is seeming difference is real.

Please forgive my ignorance, but I am trying to visualize the different effect 'speed, or near speed of light' has on time, the size of mass, and weight, and whether or not the effect is equal on all three? Or does traveling at or near the speed of light have different effects on each one?

They are all linked.

I see, .. but time difference between someone sitting on earth vs someone traveling near the speed of light and returns to earth is NOT just 'observed', but real, .. correct?

I understand what one might 'observe' in clocks between one standing still and the other traveling near C, but I am trying to understand how and WHEN this becomes REAL, and not just observed?

As above. Both. What is observed, is real.

If one going fast ages less, then why wouldn't the meter-stick traveling fast drop in a 1/2 meter slot on earth? Aren't the relative effects the same on both?

Becaise quite simply an one meter stick is too long to fit in a 1/2 meter slot. A stick one meter long at rest would be 1/2 meter long at relative speed, in which case you aren't throwing a meter long stick into a 1/2 meter slot anymore - you are throwing a 1/2 meter long stick into a 1/2 meter slot. A 1/2 meter stick fitting into a 1/2 meter slot makes perfect sense, no?

Yes you are most likely right, .. actually from the little I understand in studying Time dilation, you are correct, only I have too many questions in my head that I need an answer to. I really have to try to understand the time dilation due to relative velocity, then there is the Time dilation due to gravitation and motion together, .. I think that will answer my earths vs space atomic clock difference.
Only time dilation due to gravitation wouldn't really matter in the ship/shuttle example, would it?

Yes, we assume the masses involved is not high enough to have a significant effect, just as every day human speed is not high enough to have a significant effect.

[arian]

[Replying to post 247 by Bust Nak]

Thank you again friend, it is starting to make sense. I have finally found a YouTube video explaining the twin-[strike]paradox[/strike], I would appreciate your take on this?? It is only 5 minutes 43 seconds, please let me know what you think, .. if this gentlemen is correct or not?

The Twin Paradox Explained and Resolved


I'm trying to find that other lecture about the meter stick traveling at 0.8 C into a stationary 1/2 m slot? Because if the above twin paradox is true once the twins are back on earth, .. shouldn't the meter stick be true also?

What I mean is if we do the experiment with a 1/2 meter stationary slot, and a ship carrying a meter stick, then the ship passes the 1/2 meter slot on the platform and drops the meter stick into it. We are not interested what each reference frame sees in the other, or what it seems like, only if it would fit or not.

Thanks again for your patience.

[Jax Agnesson]

I was watching a lecture on Einstein's Relativity on YouTube by a Professor in one of the upper-schools like Yale, or Harvard (can't remember now), .. and at the end of his almost two hour lecture he stated two paradoxes, one was the twin-paradox, and the other the meter-stick traveling Near-C, .. that according to Relativity should fit through a half meter slot.

Well, I probably won't actually get around to watching a full 2 hour lecture, but it would be nice if you could link to it.

I suspect it's THIS or possibly the next in the series

[arian]

I was watching a lecture on Einstein's Relativity on YouTube by a Professor in one of the upper-schools like Yale, or Harvard (can't remember now), .. and at the end of his almost two hour lecture he stated two paradoxes, one was the twin-paradox, and the other the meter-stick traveling Near-C, .. that according to Relativity should fit through a half meter slot.

Well, I probably won't actually get around to watching a full 2 hour lecture, but it would be nice if you could link to it.

I suspect it's THIS or possibly the next in the series

YES, .. that was it, thank you Jax.
I watched it through this time (last time I skipped over all those equations because they didn't make sense to me) but this time it all started to make sense (don't ask me how?)

Especially the train illustration where he uses the split beam of light to set off two explosives on either end of the car. This opened up my understanding how time can become a coordinate and how we can use the Lorentz transformation to figure all these seeming paradoxes out.
The equation doesn't seem difficult, but the placement, the visualization of what we are trying to figure out I understand is critical.

I mean I just couldn't swallow that a split light beam that travels at a constant can hit two bombs at exact distance apart, at the same moment, that if the train was moving, the trailing end would go off first.

I mean it defies all logic (I know you guys kept telling me so), but I just couldn't imagine it. Yet it all makes sense thanks to those geniuses like Einstein, and Lorentz and the rest.

So the twin paradox is not really a paradox, but IF we were able to travel at near the speed of light, .. it is a reality. So is the meter-stick into a half meter slot, for in THAT MOMENT (meter stick traveling at 0.8 C over the 1/2 meter stationary slot) TIME overtakes the size, or becomes the greater factor, .. if I understand this right?

Q. Does this mean that a 186,282 mile long stick traveling at 'C' could fit into a ONE mile size slot? Because as I understand it, .. the 186,282 mile long stick would reach the front of the one mile slot at the same time as the back end of the 186,282 mile stick would reach the back end of the 1-mile slot?

The Twin-Paradox is mentioned in 2 Peter 3:8
But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. .. all depends on relativity, .. the frame of reference we or the Lord is looking at this!?!

This above statement makes more sense, .. becomes more realistic to me now thanks to science. But will we ever reach such speeds? Only with Gods help;

Matthew 19:26
But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.� also Mark 10:27

Oh the advancement we could be achieving if we would be going 'with God', instead of 'against Him'!

I will look at the other lectures you pointed out as soon as I have some time. It is exhilarating to say the least, but to come up with answers to questions I myself have, I realize I MUST learn the basic maths..

I wonder where I could take a crash course in basic geometry and algebra? Private tutor? And how much would something like that cost?
Any volunteers?

Please correct me where I understand things wrong?