- #1
walker669
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Hi, I'm really having a hard time grasping some of the concepts of this theory. Yes I'm not a really clever person but I enjoy learning and need abit of help. My question is probably very basic to you guys but I need some confirmation that I am thinking the right away about this. I have been reading something I found on the net..
"We have Bert and Dana. Take a bus, and put Bert on the bus. The bus goes down the road. Dana, she sits here, on the side of the road. He's in the bus and she's on her ***. And now take a rock off of the moon, and let it fall at them. It hits the air and cuts in two. The two bits burn, and then land just as Bert and Dana are side by side. One hits the dirt up the road a ways, and one hits down the road a ways. Dana sees each rock at the same time, but Bert sees one rock and then sees the next rock. Now: if Bert and Dana both see Dana as the one who is "at rest", they both will say that the two bits came down at the same time. Dana will say, "I am 'at rest', and I saw them both land at the same time, so they both did, in fact, land at the same time." And Bert will say, "I move away from the rock down the road, so when I add that fact in, I can see that if I were 'at rest', I'd have seen both land at the same time. "
Now my line of though is that if bert is moving away from the rock it will take him longer to see it because the light has to travel a bigger distance back to his eye before he realizes it's hit the ground. The rock infront will seem as though it has hit 1st because the distance is shorter to him, meaning the light will come back to his eye faster. Giving him the effect that one has hit the ground before the other one.
Is this correct or am I thinking about this the wrong way completey? I realize that the speed of light is so fast you would hardly notice a difference but what if the bus was traveling very very fast. Then the distance would be greater and make the light travel a larger distance back to the eye, resulting in some time difference which was noticable to the human eye. Is this what this anolgy is trying to get at?
Many thanks in advance.
"We have Bert and Dana. Take a bus, and put Bert on the bus. The bus goes down the road. Dana, she sits here, on the side of the road. He's in the bus and she's on her ***. And now take a rock off of the moon, and let it fall at them. It hits the air and cuts in two. The two bits burn, and then land just as Bert and Dana are side by side. One hits the dirt up the road a ways, and one hits down the road a ways. Dana sees each rock at the same time, but Bert sees one rock and then sees the next rock. Now: if Bert and Dana both see Dana as the one who is "at rest", they both will say that the two bits came down at the same time. Dana will say, "I am 'at rest', and I saw them both land at the same time, so they both did, in fact, land at the same time." And Bert will say, "I move away from the rock down the road, so when I add that fact in, I can see that if I were 'at rest', I'd have seen both land at the same time. "
Now my line of though is that if bert is moving away from the rock it will take him longer to see it because the light has to travel a bigger distance back to his eye before he realizes it's hit the ground. The rock infront will seem as though it has hit 1st because the distance is shorter to him, meaning the light will come back to his eye faster. Giving him the effect that one has hit the ground before the other one.
Is this correct or am I thinking about this the wrong way completey? I realize that the speed of light is so fast you would hardly notice a difference but what if the bus was traveling very very fast. Then the distance would be greater and make the light travel a larger distance back to the eye, resulting in some time difference which was noticable to the human eye. Is this what this anolgy is trying to get at?
Many thanks in advance.
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