Link to updated draft
Thanks for the feedback, especially @Orodruin's. I made a mistake with rotating world lines using Pythagorean's theorem, which as some of you have pointed out, is incorrect in Minkowski space. I've changed that section to show the rotation of 4-dimensional velocity...
I took a stab at simplifying Special Relativity, but I want to be 100% sure I'm not butchering physics in the process. Anybody care to weigh in on that? Here is a draft of my Medium article:
https://medium.com/@philipkd/special-relativity-explained-with-a-deck-of-cards-f99bfd873bd5
Thanks,
- Phil
I wrote an article explaining Einstein's train-platform experiment, and I wanted to get feedback from PF about it. Should I post it under Special and General Relativity, or should I post in something under Science Education and careers? I wanted to simplify elements of the experiment to make it...
All goo ideas!
Regarding that, though, I somehow thought that the two events in a single birth are the clock and the birth, so no two people could agree as to which hour, minute, and second the birth was synchronous with. Maybe I'm mistaken. If I am, someone let me know!
I always liked the idea of starting relativity discussions with the idea that your father could travel at a substantial fraction of the speed of light and return back at roughly the same age as you. This makes time dilation seem interesting, and drives curiosity in students.
But I'm struggling...
I understand now. The synchronization process you described explains the concept! I didn't (and still don't) understand the language. How do you travel "in the limit of" something? It's not an expression I'm familiar with. I know what limits are.
I'm trying to understand length contraction from wikipedia, and they mention clock synchronization:
The observer installs a row of clocks that either are synchronized a) by exchanging light signals according to the Poincaré-Einstein synchronization, or b) by "slow clock transport", that is, one...
Greetings! I found this forum while googling questions about special relativity. I'm a writer who is seeking to improve the metaphors and thought experiments we use to teach the public about advanced physics.