Recent content by mixinman7

No. I took a conceptual physics course for my major, but it is not that type of physics course. I understand the rod and clocks concept, but I was not thinking that is the meaning of an inertial frame of reference. That is about as far as I have gotten with that book. I'm still reading it...

Does a single inertial reference frame have conceptual meaning outside their use in math, or do you need a series of inertial reference frames to build a concept? What I meant in my previous post is that a single inertial reference frame is only useful for math, and a conceptual illustration of...

I think I understand now. The books I'm reading use illustrations to explain what inertia is, but the inertial reference frame in practice is an arbitrary math construct with no conceptual reality. So my expanding the illustrations that are not actually real is basically missing the point.

The space station has to travel faster to orbit lower than a communication satellite. The space station can be seen http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/index.htmlhttp://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/index.html , where as a communication satellite is in a fixed position that...

This is a simple concept. The sun is very massive and far away from the earth. The moon is less massive, and closer to the earth. An orbiting man-made satellite is less massive, and closer to the earth. A bolt is less massive and closer to the earth. Velocity is a factor, so hold the velocity...

I would appreciate this post being removed, or the thread. I got the answer I needed. Thanks for the responses.

It's called critical thinking - a seemingly rare skill among humans. Thanks for your response.

The inertial reference frame is where a mass will maintain its velocity without being influenced by another force. From this, in an orbit an object like the moon or a man made satellite can maintain its velocity without another force. I love that my description of reality is named a...

If anti-matter fell down with the same weight normal matter would, what would that mean? If it fell up, I'd assume that tickles the super-symmetry theory.

When you produce an EM wave you are just moving positive and negatives back and forth. You need electrons and protons to do that. The electrons move much easier that the protons, so the motion of the electron is what is commonly described. However, the EM wave is produced by both the proton and...

My question is: Is the inertial reference frame dependent on mass? In re-reading materials on the topic of special relativity, I have noticed something that passed my attention previously. Within the inertial reference frame, the mass of test particles isn't necessarily dependent on how they...

This concept seems to contradict the twin paradox. If a twin leaves on a rocket and travels near the speed of light, he can come back and be much younger than his twin. So during that trip, the man in the rocket should be able to look at the twin's clock and see that the twin on Earth's clock is...

I think I might be misunderstanding this comment. The way I think of it, if the role of the observer is ignored, the statement "time will go faster for anything that travels faster" is true because the sequence of events measured from a given perspective of anything traveling faster will elapse...

I might be wrong, but I'm thinking this ties back to what you said earlier DaleSpam. "Lorentz transform t'=γ(t-xv)." The x means distance, v means velocity, t means time, and y means 1/sqrt(1-v2/c2) right? Also, what is the ' mark next to t? Last, why isn't mass in this equation? Thanks

Three people in a row missed this word (than)? That's what I meant, thanks. Except that the observer will see its clock traveling faster than anyone else's time if that anyone is traveling slower.