- #1
yogi
- 1,525
- 10
I have raised this issue in a different manner before - but never got a satisfactory analysis. In the traditional parallel moving mirrors (separated by distance d) light clock thought experiment, the photon is considered to travel back and forth over the same path in the moving train (both emission and reception occur at the same place in the train) and the external observer in the Lab frame sees the light path as a zig-zag sawtooth which prompts him to conclude that it requires more time for the over and back event as measured in the lab. But if the photon enters from the lab frame perpendicular to the parallel moving mirrors, (through a hole in one mirror) the lab frame will see the over and back distance as d and the observer in the train will see the sawtooth. Since both measure the velocity of light as c, more actual time will accumulate on the trainman's clock during one sawtooth than on the lab clock. On the other hand, if the photon initiated from the lab frame enters at an angle such that it appears to the trainman as though the photon travels over and back along the same path inside the train, the trainman's clock will record less time, and the lab clock will record more time during one sawtooth.
Any comments
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