- #1
MikeLizzi
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I’m looking for feedback with respect to an SR “paradox”. I’ve gotten myself into a dialog with an Anti-Relativity activist. I know I’ll hate myself in the morning but I thought I would at least make an attempt at explaining this “paradox”.
You may be familiar with it. It goes like this.
There is a spaceship traveling at some relativistic horizontal velocity with respect to Earth. In the spaceship is a pulse beacon positioned some distance above a long vertical pipe. At the bottom of the pipe is a light sensor wired to an explosive. From the reference frame of the spaceship, when the pulse beacon flashes, it will create a spherical light wave front that expands at speed c. Some of the light will travel directly down into the pipe triggering the explosion. The file Ref_Frame_Space.gif is intended to show this arrangement (without the walls of the spaceship). I am using a faceted circle for the wave front to make it obvious that a specific part of the wave front enters the top of the pipe and travels to the bottom without needing to go through the walls.Now consider the situation from reference frame Earth. The spaceship, pulse beacon and pipe are all moving horizontally. The beacon and pipe remain vertically aligned. Now, when the beacon flashes, from the point of view of Earth, the expanding wave front is at rest with respect to the Earth. It is centered at the location of the beacon at the time of the flash. The file Ref_Frame_Earth.gif is intended to show this arrangement. Note again that a specific facet of the wave front enters the top of the pipe and travels to the bottom without needing to go through the walls, just not the same facet as before. I’ve varied the elevation of the pulse beacon and I always get some part of the wave front making it down the pipe, just different parts.Anybody know how to run the gif files? They don't seem to run for me.
So, two questions:
1. Are the gif files consistent with relativistic physics?
2. Assuming they are, what are my chances that I can persuade an SR skeptic with them?
You may be familiar with it. It goes like this.
There is a spaceship traveling at some relativistic horizontal velocity with respect to Earth. In the spaceship is a pulse beacon positioned some distance above a long vertical pipe. At the bottom of the pipe is a light sensor wired to an explosive. From the reference frame of the spaceship, when the pulse beacon flashes, it will create a spherical light wave front that expands at speed c. Some of the light will travel directly down into the pipe triggering the explosion. The file Ref_Frame_Space.gif is intended to show this arrangement (without the walls of the spaceship). I am using a faceted circle for the wave front to make it obvious that a specific part of the wave front enters the top of the pipe and travels to the bottom without needing to go through the walls.Now consider the situation from reference frame Earth. The spaceship, pulse beacon and pipe are all moving horizontally. The beacon and pipe remain vertically aligned. Now, when the beacon flashes, from the point of view of Earth, the expanding wave front is at rest with respect to the Earth. It is centered at the location of the beacon at the time of the flash. The file Ref_Frame_Earth.gif is intended to show this arrangement. Note again that a specific facet of the wave front enters the top of the pipe and travels to the bottom without needing to go through the walls, just not the same facet as before. I’ve varied the elevation of the pulse beacon and I always get some part of the wave front making it down the pipe, just different parts.Anybody know how to run the gif files? They don't seem to run for me.
So, two questions:
1. Are the gif files consistent with relativistic physics?
2. Assuming they are, what are my chances that I can persuade an SR skeptic with them?
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