Contraction Definition and 689 Threads

If length contraction occurs due to relativistic effects, the atomic spacing becomes shorter. This should also increase the repulsive force between atoms. Then how can the stable bonding length remain short in such a scenario?

For this problem, Does someone please know that won't the cabin, the person, and the clothing all shrink by the same proportion in the direction of travel so if you brought smaller cloths or a smaller cabin than you normally would then you may not be able to fit in? So you should not buy a...

Outside a static spherically symmetric body in vacuum lies the Schwarzschild metric. However, when observing a contractive sphere from a point near the sphere, it no longer appears spherical. Its opposite end appears stretched for an observer stationary relative to the center of the sphere. In...

This has probably been discussed/explained many times before so I apologize in advance. Please just direct me to the relevant thread if it has. In Morin, "Special Relativity For the Enthusiastic Beginner", he explains the loss of simultaneity and specifically the "rear clock ahead" effect. If...

This is a more of a "can you confirm" what I am thinking here; I think I understand what is going on, but just want to make sure. At the end of this post, I reference the two selected websites at the times mentioned that compare "Length Contraction" verses "Terrell Penrose Rotation." My...

I'm having trouble understanding tensor contraction. So for example, for something like AuvBvu, would this equal to some scalar?

I'm reading Semi-Riemannian Geometry by Stephen Newman and came across this theorem: For context, ##\mathcal{R}_s:Mult(V^s,V)\to\mathcal{T}^1_s## is the representation map, which acts like this: $$\mathcal{R}_s(\Psi)(\eta,v_1,\ldots,v_s)=\eta(\Psi(v_1,\ldots,v_s))$$ I don't understand the...

Let's assume a spaceship traveling from the Earth to the Proxima Centauri with constant acceleration g = 9.81 m/s2. The ship is accelerating the first half of the trajectory and decelerating the second half. I calculated the velocity profile from the Earth reference: The travel time on...

If I am traveling in my spacecraft at .99999999 percent the speed of light past a star, then according to the equation of length contraction a star with 4x or more solar mass would contract along the line of motion according to my frame of reference by an amount of over Length naught (8*10-E)...

The thread "twin paradox without math" inspired me try to find fully graphical solution of length contraction. Here is the result: Graph is 3D as I think that is ilustrative to make all in one graph, but I am sure that it is possible to do it in 2 or 3 2D slices. X and Y are spatial axes, T is...

The twin paradox is connected to the special relativity but I wonder simply if one might construct the paradox (or something very similar) based on the Lorentz’ (and FitzGerald) work alone? Several ingredients in the paradox, time dilation and Lorentz contraction, are often mentioned with...

Hello! I have a question. If there is a wooden rod which burns certain time, and an astronaut inside rocket lights two such rods: one oriented along the rocket's length and the other goes across the rocket, and an observer see the rocket passing by with a relativistic speed. Will the observer...

Newton's gravity depends on the euclidean distance between two masses. Two comoving frames will have different values of length between masses so the forces will be different in two frames. Is it enough to prove that the gravity rule has to be modified?

I have read that length contraction is real and not just an illusion. However, when I compare an object at rest with an observer and the object in motion relative to another observer, I see that instead of there being a real length contraction, there is simply a difference in the part of the...

The goal is to calculate the difference in the passage of time between two ends of a cabin which is accelerating upwards due to length contraction. To help in the calculations we can consult: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1807.05338.pdf There is an old problem called the 4/3 problem which has been...

How to calculate the contraction of second and fourth indices of Riemann tensor?I can only deal with other indices.Thank you！

Hello, My name is Dave and I'm a physics major at UIUC. It looks like I will be taking the special relativity course (phys 225) this fall. I've always been fascinated by the theory so I decided to get a head start with Lenny and Art's perspective on it. My first head-scratching moment came in...

Two planets are immobile one with respect to the other and distant of D. A rocket passes from one to the other at high speed v. Is the distance really traveled by the rocket between these planets D or only D*sqrt(1-(v/c)^2) ?

In GR, a free falling object when viewed by a distant observer appears to be length contracted and slows down as it approaches the event horizon of a black hole. The length contraction piece, however, seems counterintuitive. I would have thought that the leading edge of the object would...

Hi, It's not a homework but still thought to post it here as advised in the past. A rocket is going to leave Earth's surface and it is decided that a data pulse encoding emission time of pulse will be sent every second from Earth station to the rocket, and the rocket would do the same. The...

I am trying to follow the work to this question but am stumped at steps 3 and 4. I am confused as to where the cos^2(90+θ) comes from? I can see it is used to invoke sin into the equation since we have that value. Is it because we are only measuring the x-component of the movement, so we need...

I just started learning about Special Relativity and have come upon the topics of Time dilation and Length contraction. Its a bit abstract for me and I just want to cross ref my knowledge here and see if someone can tell me if I am understanding this correctly. I've attached an excerpt of a...

I am new here, so pardon my ignorance. First of all, I am aware of the impossibility to distinguish experimentally between SR (Special Relativity) and LET (Lorentz Ether Theory). I know there is a PF policy article on LET and the Block Universe. I must admit though that LET is more appealing...

I know that I have heard that GR proves that there is no absolute time, so does this go for location too? If so, could it be said that particles have a superposition in position/location the same way that particles do in QM?

I am trying to understand the effect of relativistic length contraction on the electron bunches in a linear accelerator. Figure B is for nonrelativistic speeds, successive cylinder lengths are progressively longer. However, wikipedia says "At speeds near the speed of light, the incremental...

A rigid rod with length ## l_0## slides on a smooth and flat tabletop along the length at speed of ## ~\frac {\sqrt{3}}{2}c~ ##, there is a hole of width ##~l_0~##on the table. The observer who is stationary relative to the desktop thinks that the length of the rigid rod ##~ l=l_o...

My textbook (from first year university physics) says that length contraction is actually real. But how can it be real when two different observers can measure two different lengths? For example, if I am in a spaceship going close to the speed of light relative to people on Earth, they will...

I know it's not possible to travel at light speed so this is just theoretical. As I understand it at relativistic speeds the distance you need to cover to travel to a destination are length contracted. If you were traveling at light speed is the distance between you and any object ever zero?

Sorry, I accidentally posted this while typing it up, then when I finished typing it I found the mistake that made me come here to make this thread. I'll still write it up just to make the thread somewhat useful, and then ask my follow-up question at the end I'm picking units so the speed of...

A long time ago, I was very impressed by a lecture on elementary special relativity which showed in simple math how the correct conclusion to the null results of the Michelson-Morley experiment were obtained by concluding a constant c but then adding a length contraction and time dilation. I...

Deriving time dilation was easy: Imagine two events in frame O' at the same location. ##ds^2 = -c^2 dt'^2## The same viewed in O frame is: ##ds^2 = dx^2+dy^2 + dz^2 - c^2 dt^2## ##\Rightarrow dx^2+dy^2 + dz^2 - c^2 dt^2 = -c^2 dt'^2## ##\Rightarrow (\frac{dx}{dt})^2+(\frac{dy}{dt})^2+...

I've been doing research on how muscles work using the page below and overall I get the general idea, however I still have some questions. Why does ADP and Pi detach from the myosin head during the power stroke and why does the attachment of ATP to the myosin head cause the myosin head to detach...

First, I calculated the velocity of the object with regards to earth, which is: $$v'=\frac{V-v}{1-\frac{vV}{c^2}}=0.34c$$ Now, the problem is solved if I consider the length ##l=45m##(so by calculating the ##\gamma## factor with ##v'##) to be the proper one... but since it's measured by the...

The 2 Bowling Balls Ball(a) & Ball(b) (a) is in acceleration of 10m/s^2 (b) is in at fixed position in a gravitational field where g=10m/s^2 In both cases the observer is: - perpendicular to the vector of acceleration - distant enough to be in empty flat space Question : In an instantaneous...

I first began to identify the various events in the problem. I call the rocket ##S'## and the Earth ##S##. Sending signal Tail signal reflection Head signal reflection Tail signal return Head signal return For the Earth I know that: ##t_4 = T## ##t_5 = T + \Delta T## Since the two events...

Hello, i can't understand how does the author found this expression relating ##x_{c}## and v. I already tried by a lot of geometrical ways, knowing that the tangent of the angle between the dotted line and the x-axis should be v, but the results are illogical. Could you help me? I am start to...

My attempt to try and convert book equation to FE manual equation in 3rd pic Fx = QpV1 + P1A1 - QpV2Cosa - P2A2Cosa Fx = P1A1 - P2A2Cosa+ Qp(V2Cosa +V1) P1A1 - P2A2Cos(a) - Fx = -Qp(V2Cosa +V1)

What if any is the experimental confirmation for length contraction and the velocity addition formula?

I have been able to prove to myself that, based on Einstein's two postulates and the the Pythagorean theorem, that time dilates. From here how do I prove that length contracts? (All of this observing a frame that is moving relative to the proper frame at uniform velocity.)

Hello there.About time dilation, could we provide a derivative of time in relation to one of the coordinates of the manifold we have taking time as a function and get something as a result?Or its integral?And about time dilation we have the formula that gives it between two clocks and an...

Hi, can i use a light clock made out of mirrors a distance appart to measure whether there is length contraction in different regions of spacetime? If the clock speeds up then the distance between the mirrors decreased. If the clock slows down the distance between mirrors increased.

So basically i know almost nothing about physics but i have this one curiosity and i hope you can help me ahah. For what i understand if you could move at the speed of light time would stop for you and you would see the whole universe age in a blink of an eye. But what if you could stand...

Radio wave travels at the speed of light 3x10^8 (m/s) Converting the distance to meter: 1.3 x 3.1x 10^16 = 4.03x10^16m The time it takes in our Earth frame of reference is: 4.03x10^16m/3x10^8 (m/s) = 4.26 years The answer is B But wouldn't the time in light's frame of reference be 0 and it's...

This question is probably silly, but suppose I have a contraction of the form ##g_{\mu \nu} C^{\mu \nu} = 0## where ##C^{\mu \nu}## is a tensor* and ##g_{\mu \nu}## is the metric tensor. Can I say that it must vanish for any ##g_{\mu \nu}##, and since in the most general case all ##g_{\mu \nu}##...

Suppose I'm traveling inside a spaceship at speed comparable to light between two points A and B. According to me the distance between the two points will be shortened due to length contraction. But actually my spaceship passes through every point between A and B so the distance measured by...

I was absent for a while due to personal constraints but I did keep myself busy with the Time dilation equation some member sent me a while back. I decided to set a time limit for myself to learn and understand time Dilation and length contraction, which must be before December 2020, or I will...

I get the same values for both observers, which is not nice I think.

Alice travels in a spaceship, which she measures to be L. The spaceship is moving with velocity v relatively to Bob. Alice makes a light beam traveling along the spaceship and measures the time interval it takes to go from one end to another, ΔtA. So, equation (1): L = c × ΔtA From Bob's...

I know HNO2 favours diazotisation.So amine reacted and formed diazorised product with N+=NCl- which leaves and gives a carbocation to which OH- attacks.So according to me the answer should be cyclohexane-1,2-diol. But in the answer key,cyclopentane carboxyaldehyde was given as answer. I know it...

Generally speaking, when a simple contraction occurs there is a contraction point. Length contraction in special relativity appears to be a simple contraction, and hence there should be a contraction point. Where is this contraction point located?