Solving a Momentum Question: Struggling with Simple Cons?

  • Thread starter Thread starter stallm
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Momentum
stallm
Messages
7
Reaction score
0
Hi, I've been struggling with this question for a while, can't help but think I'm missing something obvious
Let's say I have a particle of rest mass 2m. In the frame S, it moves with velocity v. S' is the rest frame of the particle. In S, the momentum of the particle (c=1)
p=\frac{2mv}{\sqrt{1-v^2}}

Now, in S', the particle splits into two particles of mass m with velocities v and -v. The particles with -v will be stationary in S, the particle with v will have velocity vnew
v_{new}=\frac{v+v}{1+v^2}=\frac{2v}{1+v^2}
by the velocity addition formula

So the momentum in S
p=\frac{mv_{new}}{\sqrt{1-v_{new}^2}}

This doesn't appear to be equal to the p before (just by trying v=0.5), so something's clearly gone wrong. Can someone help?
Thanks
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Now, in S', the particle splits into two particles of mass m with velocities v and -v.
This step does not conserve energy. In S' before the split the total energy was 2m. But after the split each particle will have energy greater than m, since it has rest energy m plus kinetic energy.
 
Ah I see. Thank you
 
OK, so this has bugged me for a while about the equivalence principle and the black hole information paradox. If black holes "evaporate" via Hawking radiation, then they cannot exist forever. So, from my external perspective, watching the person fall in, they slow down, freeze, and redshift to "nothing," but never cross the event horizon. Does the equivalence principle say my perspective is valid? If it does, is it possible that that person really never crossed the event horizon? The...
In this video I can see a person walking around lines of curvature on a sphere with an arrow strapped to his waist. His task is to keep the arrow pointed in the same direction How does he do this ? Does he use a reference point like the stars? (that only move very slowly) If that is how he keeps the arrow pointing in the same direction, is that equivalent to saying that he orients the arrow wrt the 3d space that the sphere is embedded in? So ,although one refers to intrinsic curvature...
So, to calculate a proper time of a worldline in SR using an inertial frame is quite easy. But I struggled a bit using a "rotating frame metric" and now I'm not sure whether I'll do it right. Couls someone point me in the right direction? "What have you tried?" Well, trying to help truly absolute layppl with some variation of a "Circular Twin Paradox" not using an inertial frame of reference for whatevere reason. I thought it would be a bit of a challenge so I made a derivation or...
Back
Top