Recent content by psmitty

Why is it irrelevant? Because it is slow compared to other values? What if I want to make a precise calculation? What about the Sagnac explanation in Wikipedia? It doesn't take L. contraction into account when it describes that detector is "moving away" from the source. Could you explain the...

With my current calculations, this is the only answer I believe is correct: that this difference can be ignored for small speeds. I still hope I did a mistake somewhere. But now you are talking about area as everyone else, and I have the feeling you still don't understood what I am asking. I...

If we have two clocks, one stationary at surface of Earth, and the other one very slowly moved at the surface of Earth, in the direction of Earth rotation, the clock that made the trip should be running ahead of the same stationary clock once it makes a complete circle and stops where it started...

I agree, that seems like the only logical explanation, but what appears strange is that wheel also retains its circular shape and its radius, while all points along the rim are contracted "separately" (in lack of a better description - as I cannot describe them contracting, and retaining the...

Ok, the bottom part of the wheel is actually stationary relative to road frame. But how does this wheel look for a moving observer (the observer where this wheel is stationary)? If all points along the wheel are moving at some tangential speed, they should all be contracted in the...

Ok, so in other words, speed of the wheel (RPM) when observed from the stationary frame, should increase as the bike moves faster, and be proportional to the speed of bike. Meanwhile, RPM will be even larger in the moving frame, because road will be contracted and less time will pass between...

When comparing time and frequency domains, it is easy to imagine the meaning of the Fourier transform. In time domain, our function takes time as a parameter, and returns the value (result) of our process. When we make a Fourier transform of the same function, we take it to the frequency...

Ok, but this shouldn't be a problem. We can imagine it's a pinion on a rack: [PLAIN]http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/2/rackandpinionanimation.gif By all means, I would be very grateful. Ok, it's clear that parts of the wheel are contracted and dilated as they move around, but they "get...

If a bike is running at v=0.866c, and it travels path of length L in time T, when observed from the stationary frame, same path will have length L/2 and be traveled in time T/2 in his, moving frame (because gamma=2 for v=0.866c). Now, what I don't understand is: If the bike is not...

No, MMX doesn't have anything to do with length contraction. Check https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=229034". At this point there are no direct experimental proofs of length contraction.

Actually, if I got it right: if a train is 100m long at rest in the stationary frame, it will still be 100m long when it starts to move, when observed from the stationary frame. But the observer in the train will experience contracted lengths along the path of movement.

I still don't understand why area should be important in MMX. MMX setup is not being constantly rotated, so I don't see why you should mention area as the reason for the null result. If Sagnac wheel was not rotated, it would also have null result. Does the following setup have zero area (taken...

I will quote Wikipedia: Special relativity: Special relativity is the physical theory of measurement in inertial frames of reference Sagnac effect: For ω != 0 this frame of reference is non-inertial, which is why the speed of light at positions distant from the observer (at r = 0) can...

Special relativity should be a special case of general relativity, for flat spacetime manifolds. For locally flat manifolds, special relativity should however give approximate results. But even Earth is a non-inertial frame. So that would mean that special relativity can only be observed for...

Ok, nevermind, I found the answer elsewhere. I made a mistake in my calculations: EARTH's frame delta_x: -15km = -15000m (height decreased by 15km) delta_t: delta_x/v = 50.54µs It takes 50µs for the muon to travel 15km. v=0.99c. MUON's frame delta_t': gamma*(delta_t-(v*delta_x)/(c*c))...