Recent content by HALON

There are introductory undergraduate units where students are expected to write a scientific report, with full referencing. Would the tutor fail to get it? Or is it a case of having to go through educational red tape? What if the discovery wasn’t relativity? For example, a simple method to...

I only called him modern Einstein to convey his brilliance. His real name could be Mudd. I’d be interested if you agree with my approach. I think the modern guy’s first step should be to submit his theory to a university as part of a course (and to establish authorship). Then he should...

I guess so. But doesn’t Albert have to be attending a university before the physics journal will even read it? And at least have a Phd? They must get zillions of submissions with the invention of the internet. I was just setting the scene. Actually both play the violin, thanks for mentioning...

This is not a joke. Suppose Albert Einstein was born in 1979, not 1879, and to date had not written any articles. Like the old Albert, modern Albert works for a government department. He assesses applications for arts grants. You see, unlike the old Albert, modern Albert studied art after...

In fairness to Brian Greene, the sharing of motion between dimensions was his "heuristic". The rest of the model was my take. The mathematics agreed neatly, so actually I'm not confused at all. It seems others are. So I'll retire from this thread to reflect.

I've started reading Mermin's It's About Time. Damn though...he doesn't cover rotations, which is what the ordinary clocks on the book's cover do. I suspect this may be my last post for a while. Meanwhile, Brian Greene's book (which I haven't read in years) put this idea into my head "an...

Should I read this book? Namely, It's About Time: Understanding Einstein's Relativity by N. David Merman who states on page 63 --The slowing down of moving clocks is often referred to by the deplorable term "time dilation".[You tell 'em Dave!] It is deplorable because it suggests in some...

I don’t have the skills to arrive at the equivalence principle using space-time diagrams. Maybe somebody can explain that. This is how I get there: Time is 1D, but a clock face is 2D (and potentially even 3D). From the outset, this is a purely idealized imaginary clock (old fashioned...

I understand that. You could look it at that way too. When a train blows its whistle while moving away, the sound waves must cover the extra distance before reaching the observer. Doesn’t a moving light source follow the same principle? We have red-shifts to indicate stars are moving away. Not...

Yes I think I understand your point. I just meant the rest frame of the object with respect to the coordinates of another object. My next answer is longer than I thought it would be. I'll put it in terms of the Doppler effect. When the distance between the signal emitter and the receiver...

OK The rest frame is also a uniform moving frame if there is no acceleration. Your observation about time not being dependent on direction (and the fact length is defined by time) leads to a geometric description. Namely, a body’s proper time extends in all directions, like a bubble. That's the...

Length contraction was devised as an explanation, yes, but what experiment directly shows a “yardstick” to Lorentz contract? Only the number of ticks in a clock contract which, of course, is what is predicted by the length contraction hypothesis. So it is indirect evidence. I'm not saying it's...

Actually, yes, that’s what I was thinking- time dilation, or γ=1/\sqrt{1-v^2/c^2}. I am aware of the difficulty in finding direct evidence for length contraction. Computer modelling of the length contraction of particles is just that, a model. (There may be other evidence that I’m not aware of...

The workings are below the dotted line. But more importantly, why the heck am I doing this? It relates to an obsession with spinning disks. Just in case you're interested. Using proportions of one, my goal is to find several spiral lengths corresponding to their corresponding pencil radial...

In mathematics, what is the name (type) for a curve given by velocity and time dilation? Specifically, I want to find a name for the curve y=1/(1-x^2)^{1/2} This curve is derived from the equation of a unit circle (x-a)^2+(y-b)^2=r^2 where y=(1-x^2)^{1/2}