Proving Special Relativity w/ Standard Equipment

[Andreas S-H]

Hello everyone, I am preparing to write an exam project in college about special relativity, however i am missing the critical experiment to prove that it is true. I thought about using the life time of muons, but i don't have a scintillator to detect them, so unless a standard geiger counter works i don't really have a clue on how to prove it.

Kindly Andreas

Ps. i have standard physics equipment available

 

[PeroK]

There's no one experiment that will prove SR, but many that corroborate it and show that Newtonian physics cannot be correct in all circumstances.

 

[Andreas S-H]

There's no one experiment that will prove SR, but many that corroborate it and show that Newtonian physics cannot be correct in all circumstances.

I see, do you know an easy one ?

 

[PeroK]

I see, do you know an easy one ?

It depends how you define "easy". The most obvious is to use a particle accelerator! But, I wouldn't call that easy.

 

[Andreas S-H]

It depends how you define "easy". The most obvious is to use a particle accelerator! But, I wouldn't call that easy.

I don't really think my school has that, so something that uses easy to get physics equipment

 

[martinbn]

Why do you have to do the experiment? Wouldn't it be enough to describe an experiment that has been done by physicists.

 

[LCSphysicist]

Nothing has been proved. The one who "proves" are mathematicians, not physicist. It is simple. If disagrees with experiment, the theory is wrong. If it agrees, we continue to use it until it disagree with the experiment.

"But it can never be proved right, because tomorrow's experiment may succeed in proving what you thought was right wrong. So we never are right. We can only be sure we're wrong."

Anyway, you don't need to show that special relativity predicts the results of these already known experiments, (the one involving muon, etc). Everyone already know that, just start your paper with the assumption that special relativity is the background theory in which you will base your calculations.

 

[PeroK]

Nothing has been proved. The one who "proves" are mathematicians, not physicist. It is simple. If disagrees with experiment, the theory is wrong. If it agrees, we continue to use it until it disagree with the experiment.

"But it can never be proved right, because tomorrow's experiment may succeed in proving what you thought was right wrong. So we never are right. We can only be sure we're wrong."

Anyway, you don't need to show that special relativity predicts the results of these known experiments, muon etc. Everyone already know that, just start your paper with the assumption that special relativity is the background theory in which you will base your calculations.

There's validity and much to be said for students repeating the experiments of the past, just as they repeat the necessary calculations.

 

[LCSphysicist]

There's validity and much to be said for students repeating the experiments of the past, just as they repeat the necessary calculations.

Not sure if i understood your post. So i think i misunderstand the OP message. He is not writing a paper for review, but a school's/college' homework? Oh, so if this is the case, i agree it make senses to redo the experiment.

The words "big report" on the OP message make me think that he was talking about something new in the field.

 

[Dale]

Here is a large list of experiments proving SR.

https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html

I am not sure what specific equipment you have, so your best bet will be to read through these experiments and see which ones you can replicate given what you have.

 

[Sagittarius A-Star]

This video shows an easy experiment:

 

[sysprog]

Maybe you might look at writings regarding the Michaelson-Morely experiment.

 

[Andreas S-H]

Nothing has been proved. The one who "proves" are mathematicians, not physicist. It is simple. If disagrees with experiment, the theory is wrong. If it agrees, we continue to use it until it disagree with the experiment.

"But it can never be proved right, because tomorrow's experiment may succeed in proving what you thought was right wrong. So we never are right. We can only be sure we're wrong."

Anyway, you don't need to show that special relativity predicts the results of these already known experiments, (the one involving muon, etc). Everyone already know that, just start your paper with the assumption that special relativity is the background theory in which you will base your calculations.

i would love to be able to do that, but here in Denmark we have to have a critical experiment of some sort that proves or disproves something

 

[Andreas S-H]

Not sure if i understood your post. So i think i misunderstand the OP message. He is not writing a paper for review, but a school's/college' homework? Oh, so if this is the case, i agree it make senses to redo the experiment.

The words "big report" on the OP message make me think that he was talking about something new in the field.

it is correct it is for a college exam project that i have to defend, i will rephrase my question

 

[Sagittarius A-Star]

I thought about using the life time of muons, but i don't have a scintillator to detect them, so unless a standard geiger counter works i don't really have a clue on how to prove it.

I found the following publication on this topic:

Special relativity in the school laboratory: a simple apparatus for cosmic-ray muon detection

Source:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0031-9120/50/3/317

 

[PeterDonis]

here in Denmark we have to have a critical experiment of some sort that proves or disproves something

You must be joking: schools in Denmark won't accept Special Relativity as a valid theory unless you can show one single experiment that proves it?

 

[jtbell]

here in Denmark we have to have a critical experiment of some sort that proves or disproves something

I suspect you might be dealing with the Danish word "prøve." Although it is cognate to the English word "prove," it appears to have a somewhat different meaning or connotation. According to this page:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prøve#Danish

I would be inclined to interpret it in this context as meaning merely "probe" (which is also a cognate), "test" or "demonstrate"; and not rigorously "prove" as in mathematics or the sciences.

 

[Erland]

Wouldn't it suffice to just describe some of the most important experiments, without actually carry them out? It seems unlikely that a college should have the equipment to test any of most important experiments to corroborate SR.
If it is really required to actually carry out an experiment, then I suppose you must choose another subject for your exam project.

 

[vanhees71]

The idea with the muons is perhaps the only thing which at least seems not too unlikely to be feasible. "Just" measure the muon flux on top of a montain and at the bottom of the montain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_testing_of_time_dilation

As also written in this Wikipedia article, one can do a similar measurement today much more accurately using decaying particles or nucleons in a storage ring running around at an relativistic speed (also proving the "clock hypothesis", according to which acceleration has no impact on time dilation.

 

[Sagittarius A-Star]

"Just" measure the muon flux on top of a montain and at the bottom of the montain.

In the I link I found, they describe a way to avoid the measurement on the mountain:

However, it is not enough to simply count how many muons we detect at sea level because we don't have an accurate figure for how many muons are being generated in the upper atmosphere. We can instead observe how their number varies over a known change in the distance they must travel. This is accomplished by measuring the flux of muons, I(θ), arriving at different angles, θ, to the vertical, having followed different path lengths through the atmosphere.
...
We now construct an apparatus that allows us to detect muons arriving at a particular known angle to the vertical. The apparatus must have high specificity, so that background radiation does not cause a systematic error. Below we describe a simple yet powerful technique for creating a directional muon detector: coincidence detection

Source:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0031-9120/50/3/317

 

[Mister T]

You must be joking: schools in Denmark won't accept Special Relativity as a valid theory unless you can show one single experiment that proves it?

I think what he's saying is that he has to have a demonstration of some sort that demonstrates the validity of a physical theory or concept. It's not a test of the theory, it's a test of one's ability to teach.

It's probably the case that a description of a demonstration or experiment won't do. the teacher has to use actual equipment in a real classroom-type demonstration.

 

[Erland]

Well, one simple experiment would be to walk and bounce a ball, or something like that, to demonstrate the special relativity principle. But would that suffice?
Mustn't one also demonstrate the invariance of light speed? This seems impossible without advanced equipment?

 

[jbriggs444]

Well, one simple experiment would be to walk and bounce a ball, or something like that, to demonstrate the special relativity principle. But would that suffice?
Mustn't one also demonstrate the invariance of light speed? This seems impossible without advanced equipment?

Rather the proving special relativity correct for all cases, one should work to prove that special relativity makes a correct prediction for a case where the Newtonian prediction is incorrect.

Bouncing a ball does not work for this because both Newton and Special Relativity make the same predictions.

The Bertozzi experiment is good, but not fit for a small budget.

 

[Demystifier]

You can use oscilloscope to measure the speed of light.
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.14418!/file/Measurement-of-the-velocity-of-light.pdf
By measuring it twice with a time shift of 12 hours, you really measure it at velocities $v$ and $-v$ of your laboratory. Perhaps it can be interpreted as a version of Michelson-Morley experiment.

 

[Erland]

Can one really by using such an oscilloscope measure the light speed with a relative accuracy of 0,0003%? This is required if we want to measure the hypothetic difference in light speed caused by the daily rotation of the Earth.