Room in Spaceship: Apparent Paradox?

[Superstring]

Imagine a room in a spaceship. At each end, a laser is set up that points toward the center. At the center of the room there is a double-sided light detector that is connected to a switch. When the switch is flipped, it completes a circuit which causes a light-bulb to turn on. If both laser beams hit the detector at the same time, the switch is flipped and the light turns on. If they hit at different times, the light remains off. The lasers are activated a remote control, also stationed at the center of the room.

From the reference frame of someone inside the ship, if they were to turn on the lasers then the beams would hit the detector at the same time and they would see the light turn on. However, if someone in a passing spaceship (passing in the same direction as the laser beams) were to watch this, they would see the beams hit the detector at different times and the light would not turn on.

So does the light turn on or not? Or both, somehow?

 

[PeterDonis]

From the reference frame of someone inside the ship, if they were to turn on the lasers at the same time then the beams would hit the detector at the same time and they would see the light turn on.

I added the phrase in bold to clarify what I take you to mean here. The clarification is crucial, because it resolves the apparent paradox, like so:

However, if someone in a passing spaceship (passing in the same direction as the laser beams) were to watch this, they would see the beams [STRIKE]hit the detector[/STRIKE] being turned on at different times [STRIKE]and the light would not turn on[/STRIKE] but still reaching the detector at the same time and they would also see the light turn on.

Again, I've added the corrections in bold and crossed out the parts that were incorrect i your statement of how things would look from the spaceship. So the light turns on regardess of who is doing the observing (as it should--actual physical experiments have to give the same results in all frames).

 

[Superstring]

I added the phrase in bold to clarify what I take you to mean here. The clarification is crucial, because it resolves the apparent paradox, like so:



Again, I've added the corrections in bold and crossed out the parts that were incorrect i your statement of how things would look from the spaceship. So the light turns on regardess of who is doing the observing (as it should--actual physical experiments have to give the same results in all frames).

Thank you. That cleared up my confusion.