I'm holding a pole and running at a relativistic velocity

[whydoyouwanttoknow]

Say the pole is 10 metres long. I run really fast into a barn that is 15 metres long.

Say I run fast enough so that from my point of view the barn shrinks to less than 10 metres long due to length contraction. What happens to the barn now that my pole won't fit?

The other problem is that from the barn's point of view the pole would have shrunk to much smaller than the barn and would fit quite nicely.

 

[jcsd]

The pole and barn 'paradox' is as old as the hills.

You can examine from the point of view of the failure of simulataneity between the two ends of the pole:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/polebarn.html

 

[whydoyouwanttoknow]

The pole and barn 'paradox' is as old as the hills.

You can examine from the point of view of the failure of simulataneity between the two ends of the pole:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/polebarn.html

Cool, thanks.