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There's one thing I cannot get straight so I hope someone can help me out here.
Often the 'lightclock' example is used to explain certain aspects of special relativity. With this example its possible to understand the Lorentztransformation to some degree. Now my problem is, that I always think that if I would take a sound-clock instead of a lightclock the whole Lorentztransformation would change (the motion of sound is, as light, also independent of the source). Consider this, for a resting observer the light within the clock (the clock is in motion inside a spaceship) makes a zigzag path. Whereas the zigzag path of the light can at most form a 45 degree angle (when the spaceship moves with the speed of light). So the light takes longer from the viewpoint of a resting observer then from the viewpoint of an obeserver inside the spaceship. Now if we make the same experiment with a 'soundclock', the zigzag path of the sound is much more extrem, thus can form an angle which is much more then 45 degrees. When I think about this, that time dilation must therefore be much more extrem then with light, because from the viewpoint of the resting observer, the distance which the sound travels is much more stretched then the distance in the example of the lightclock.
Can someone help me out here? This really bugs me, and I am not able to find the error in this line of reasoning.
Often the 'lightclock' example is used to explain certain aspects of special relativity. With this example its possible to understand the Lorentztransformation to some degree. Now my problem is, that I always think that if I would take a sound-clock instead of a lightclock the whole Lorentztransformation would change (the motion of sound is, as light, also independent of the source). Consider this, for a resting observer the light within the clock (the clock is in motion inside a spaceship) makes a zigzag path. Whereas the zigzag path of the light can at most form a 45 degree angle (when the spaceship moves with the speed of light). So the light takes longer from the viewpoint of a resting observer then from the viewpoint of an obeserver inside the spaceship. Now if we make the same experiment with a 'soundclock', the zigzag path of the sound is much more extrem, thus can form an angle which is much more then 45 degrees. When I think about this, that time dilation must therefore be much more extrem then with light, because from the viewpoint of the resting observer, the distance which the sound travels is much more stretched then the distance in the example of the lightclock.
Can someone help me out here? This really bugs me, and I am not able to find the error in this line of reasoning.