Why is the speed of light constant for all observers?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the question of why the speed of light is constant for all observers, with a focus on the implications of special relativity, particularly length contraction and time dilation. Participants explore these concepts through a hypothetical scenario involving a car and a garage, examining how different frames of reference affect measurements of length and time.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested
  • Mathematical reasoning

Main Points Raised

  • One participant suggests that the problem of fitting a 5m car into a 3m garage relates to the variable speed of light and gravitational effects, but acknowledges limited understanding.
  • Another participant asserts that the speed of light remains constant for all observers, introducing the concept of length contraction as a key factor in the scenario.
  • Length contraction is described mathematically, with participants providing equations and discussing the implications of relative motion on the perceived length of objects.
  • There is a discussion about how the car, when moving at high speeds, can be measured as shorter than its proper length, depending on the observer's frame of reference.
  • Participants debate the nature of time dilation, questioning why a moving clock is observed to run slow and how this relates to the measurements of length when the object returns to the observer's rest frame.
  • Some participants highlight the concept of simultaneity and how it affects observations of events in different frames of reference.
  • There is mention of experimental verification of time dilation effects, referencing atomic clocks and subatomic particle behavior as evidence supporting relativistic predictions.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally agree on the principles of special relativity, such as length contraction and time dilation, but there are ongoing debates about the implications of these effects and how they relate to different frames of reference. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the interpretation of time loss and its relationship to length measurements.

Contextual Notes

Participants express uncertainty about the relationship between time dilation and length contraction, particularly when frames of reference change. There are also references to gravitational effects, which complicate the discussion but are not fully explored.

Who May Find This Useful

This discussion may be of interest to those studying special relativity, physics students grappling with concepts of length contraction and time dilation, and individuals curious about the implications of different frames of reference in relativistic scenarios.

  • #31
Originally posted by zoobyshoe
This part, I don't get. I thought cosmic rays were photons
No, sorry for the confusion -- some cosmic rays are photons -- but many are massive particles like protons and electrons. The photons, of course, will always be observed traveling at c, while the massive particles will always be < c.

- Warren
 
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  • #32
Originally posted by chroot some cosmic rays are photons -- but many are massive particles like protons and electrons.
Interesting. How did they all get the same name, being such different things?
 
  • #33
In Six Easy Pieces he mentions cosmic rays as the highest energy photons we are aware of. Is there a term that can be used to differentiate these from the "riff raff" cosmic rays?
 
  • #34
Originally posted by Ambitwistor
It hasn't been clear to me what your points have been, but it has seemed at times that you have been implying that acceleration is necessary for the twins to experience different elapsed proper times, and/or general relativity is required to resolve the twin paradox in the presence of acceleration, neither of which is true.

Well, somehow we got off track I think...perhaps you are expecting Ivan the Terrible?

First, I was explaining the mechanics of the paradox; that's all.

Next, I addressed the issue of preferred observers; and I still think correctly so. Perhaps this language is out of favor, but specifically I meant that no absolute state of rest or motion exists. This is a still significant concept of SR; no?

Finally, I keep addressing the issue that if we wish to describe one frame of reference as preferred, this in response to Zooby's question about whose clocks run slowly - meaning to prefer one system over the other - a frame of rest must be defined. I meant this all within the context of SR. In all cases we must still define a frame of rest by which we determine who will age less quickly; true? With our twins, we know who is in motion - the one who leaves earth...and this requires acceleration. The page linked makes this assumption immediately
 
  • #35
Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
When the car is in motion, it is shorter in the frame of the garage. Likewise, from the frame of the garage, the car's clocks are running more slowly. When the car stops, that is, when the frame of the car coincides with the frame of the garage, the two lengths L and L0 agree. Likewise, it we compare the ticks of the clocks, we find that again they agree – they occur at the same rate. However, and this was a key test of relativity, we find that while the frames of the car and garage did not coincide, ie, while the car is in motion as viewed from the garage, the clocks in the car really were running more slowly...just as observed and predicted.

This was finally verified I think in the early sixties using two atomic clocks; one on the ground, and one in a jet. After flying one of the clocks around for a while, and after accounting for the effects of gravity, the clock on the plane had indeed lost time as predicted to within the accepted margins of error. This has since be replicated in many other ways. Also, we see the lifespan of subatomic particles increase according to Relativity and their relative speed – since their clocks run more slowly, we see them live longer. This is seen in particle accelerators as well as in nature.

To the extent that isotopes have a 1/2t, does that in relativity,
an accelerating particle runs more slowly than than at rest, factor in when calculating the 1/2t of an isotope?
 
  • #36
Yes, a particle will appear to have a longer half-life when it is travelliong at relativistic speeds in some rest frame, indeed this is a famous example of a relativtic effect.
 
  • #37
Originally posted by Ambitwistor
I wouldn't say that we know that the Earth twin is "at rest", if that's what you're implying by defining a rest frame, but it is true that we know that acceleration breaks the symmetry between the two twins in this variant of the twin paradox. (There are other variants in which this is not the case.)

This was a poor choice of words on my part.

There are other variants in which acceleration does not break the symmetry between the two twins? I may not know what you mean. Could you give an example or two?
 
  • #38
No, acceleration isn't the critical point. You can construct variants of the twin paradox in which nobody accelerates, but the twins come back with different ages.

How exactly does this apply to the twins paradox? I thought a key assumption is that they start and end in the same frame of reference. By this it would seem that the twin set into motion must experience a force in order to start, and to end his trip.
 
  • #39
Originally posted by Ambitwistor
Not really; they just need to start and end at the same place. If you stick in an arbitrarily large acceleration, it changes the elapsed proper time by an arbitrarily small amount. In my example, if the traveling twin goes out and comes back, it still takes him only 6 subjective years to do that, regardless of whether he stops at the end or keeps going.

This poses an interesting question. IF, as you had said, there is both a theoretical model in which one of the twins does not accelerate, but non-the-less 'comes back' at a different time (or age, as the case may be), and also if it is so that an acceleration need not be 'large' (you have not defined a range for 'large'), but
an arbitrary 'small' (whatever 'small' may mean), the would, if string theory were true, the 'vibration' of the string be (by each string an element in a large dynamic consisting of the sum of all of the strings), would all matter exist in two or more times?
 
  • #40
If neither twin accelerates or decelerates then how do you determine which twin is younger since they can both argue the other is moving? Sorry if you already covered this.

Kaw
 
  • #41
Originally posted by kawikdx225
If neither twin accelerates or decelerates then how do you determine which twin is younger since they can both argue the other is moving? Sorry if you already covered this.

Kaw
That's what much of this thread has been about. The short version: the younger twin is the one who travels along a shorter path in spacetime. For the long version, read the thread.
Actually, if neither twin accelerates, then they are both sitting next to each other not moving with respect to each other for their entire lives. They stay the same age relative to each other.

The whole point of them being "twins" is that at the starting point in their lives they are sitting next to each other in the same frame. To get an age difference, one MUST accelerate.

I think the problem got so complicated, the initial intent of a "twins paradox" may have been lost.
 
  • #42
Originally posted by Ambitwistor
Not really; they just need to start and end at the same place. If you stick in an arbitrarily large acceleration, it changes the elapsed proper time by an arbitrarily small amount. In my example, if the traveling twin goes out and comes back, it still takes him only 6 subjective years to do that, regardless of whether he stops at the end or keeps going.

If we never break symmetry, then how does address the paradox? For example, suppose someone happens by planet Earth while traveling near the SOL. I look through my telescope at this person and see someone who appears to be twenty years old. Assume the traveller follows the proper path - only proper acceleration - and then passes by Earth in another eighty years or so and I look again. Through my ancient eyes I see a barely aged, 26 year old in the ship. He has also looked at me on first pass, and again on the return path. From his point of view, I was the one in motion. I am the younger. It seems that we have the original paradox. In other words, I don't see how we resolve the twins paradox without breaking symmetry.
 
  • #43
Originally posted by Ambitwistor
If there's no symmetry breaking, then there's no age difference...the end result depends on the entire history of the worldline, not just the endpoints.)

OK, this is the crux of the paradox to me. Under SR, we have no absolute frame of reference; and the relative motion between our two observers dates back ultimately to the big bang. So, it seems that we can never find a common or preferred frame no matter how far back we look. So it would seem that the answer is not that there is no age difference, the answer is that unless we break symmetry, there is no unique answer to the question: Who ages less quickly? To me, this also implies that the age of the universe depends on the observer. I have never been clear on this point.
 
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  • #44
Originally posted by Ambitwistor
the ones who see the universe as maximally isotropic. The Earth is close to, but not quite, one of those preferred observers.
Just to add to what Ambi said: these preferred frames are just those frames in which the cosmic microwave background radiation is uniform in all directions. If you have some relative motion with respect to the CMBR, you see it as blueshifted along the direction you're moving, and redshifted in the opposite direction. A "comoving" observer is one who is just sort of going along with the flow of the expansion of the universe.

An analogy are two people floating in a river. One guy just floats and let's the water carry him -- he's a comoving observer, and sees the water moving the same speed all around him: zero.

Another guy swims hard in some arbitrary direction. He sees the water moving faster in some directions than in others.

There's nothing that violates relativity theory: this CMBR rest frame is not an absolute rest frame or anything like that. There's nothing special about it relativistically. There is, however, something special about it cosmologically.

Cosmologists measure the age of the universe as the proper time experienced by such comoving observers.

- Warren
 
  • #45
Originally posted by Ambitwistor
If the situation is truly symmetric, you can uniquely answer the question: they both age at the same rate.

Truly symmetric? I'm not sure what exceptions you refer too here.

So you are saying that in my example, when we use our telescopes during each of our two passes near each other, we see each other aging at the same rate? That is, on his second pass by earth, I don't see a 26 year old in my scope, I see a 100 year old person in the ship?
 
  • #46
Originally posted by Ambitwistor
I can't say for sure, since I asked and you didn't clarify the details of how the other twin is returning. But I would guess that the situation is not symmetric and nor will be their ages. If the traveling twin returns by accelerating/decelerating, or by gravitational slingshot, or by circumnavigating a closed universe, then his worldline is very different from the Earth twin's, so there is no symmetry (regardless of whether he starts or ends at rest with respect to the Earth twin).

I mean the situation is which our world lines have never crossed since the big Band, and where our traveler follows a course having only proper accelerations - allowing a second pass by Earth and a second comparison of our clocks, by telescope..
 
  • #47
Originally posted by Ambitwistor
What does "having only proper accelerations" mean? That the traveller has a nonzero proper acceleration at all times? Does he accelerate and decelerate? Or what?

I mean that we never break symmetry.
 
  • #48
Originally posted by Ambitwistor
Can you describe a physical scenario in which the traveling twin is able to pass the Earth twice, without breaking symmetry?

From some of your earlier comments, I thought that you knew of such a trick. If this is not possible, then all is well.
 
  • #49
Originally posted by Ambitwistor
I can invent such a scenario (but not in pure special relativity); I just didn't know what scenario you were considering. For instance, both twins could circumnavigate a closed universe, with opposite velocities relative to a cosmological observer. In that case, their aging would be symmetric.

So in this case, if on some near pass one twin accelerates and joins the other, we find that the twins are [almost exactly] the same age?
 
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  • #50
Originally posted by chroot
Cosmologists measure the age of the universe as the proper time experienced by such comoving observers.

- Warren

Is there a maximum age for the universe as viewed by some class of observers; where all other observers will measure a lesser age?
 
  • #51
Originally posted by russ_watters
Actually, if neither twin accelerates, then they are both sitting next to each other not moving with respect to each other for their entire lives. They stay the same age relative to each other.

The whole point of them being "twins" is that at the starting point in their lives they are sitting next to each other in the same frame. To get an age difference, one MUST accelerate.

I think the problem got so complicated, the initial intent of a "twins paradox" may have been lost.

If neither twin accelerates, than can their either be no twin, or perhaps can both twins exist at the same time in the same place?
 
  • #52
Originally posted by Ambitwistor
Yes, assuming that they were the same age during one of the passes, they will remain the same age on successive passes. Accelerating into the same frame doesn't change this (much).

This is true since by circumnavigating a closed universe, they qualify as preferred comoving cosmological observers?

Maybe a better question, what about this path integral is unique?
 
  • #53
Originally posted by Ambitwistor
What do you mean?

Is the only unique characteristic of this path that the observers can make two passes without breaking symmetry?

I was thinking that by circumnavigating the universe, they still move with the expansion of space [sorry, I don't know the correct language here other than to say in a manner similar to the definition of a preferred cosmological observer]. While cicumnavigating the universe, the universe expands; so it seems that in order to maintain symmetry, these two observers must move with this expansion. This would seem to make their situtation unique.
 
  • #54
First, Ambitwistor, I want to thank you for all of your great answers here.

I have been reviewing the discussion to get my bearings. In your example, when our two travelers pass each other, do they still measure [see] each other's clocks running slowly - assuming that we compensate for the communication delays and doppler shift.
 
  • #55
Originally posted by Ambitwistor
If you're talking about the two moving twins in the closed universe example, then yes, they're each see each other's clocks running slowly by the usual gamma factor.

How does the frame of a preferred cosmological observer differ from that of an absolute rest frame? I find myself struggling to avoid this implication. It would seem that we can judge all frames of reference by the PCO frame, and the notion that we have no preferred observers then fails.
 
  • #56
Ivan,

It happens to be a special reference frame because it was given to us by the universe, in a sense. However, it's not special from the perspective of relativity theory.

For example, the universe also gave us Bob. We are welcome to consider the reference frame in which Bob is at rest 'special,' in the sense that the universe gave us that frame. We can choose to judge all other frames of reference with respect to Bob.

There are, however, an infinite number of these 'special' reference frames, including the PCO, Bob, Frank, and Tommy too. That makes them seem, well, not so special after all.

- Warren
 
  • #57
Originally posted by chroot
Ivan,

It happens to be a special reference frame because it was given to us by the universe, in a sense. However, it's not special from the perspective of relativity theory.

For example, the universe also gave us Bob. We are welcome to consider the reference frame in which Bob is at rest 'special,' in the sense that the universe gave us that frame. We can choose to judge all other frames of reference with respect to Bob.

There are, however, an infinite number of these 'special' reference frames, including the PCO, Bob, Frank, and Tommy too. That makes them seem, well, not so special after all.

- Warren

So then the symmetry between our two navigators is not absolute, and who is the younger depends on ones frame of reference?
 
  • #58
Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
So then the symmetry between our two navigators is not absolute, and who is the younger depends on ones frame of reference?
No, the proper time along a worldline is invariant, and will be measured the same by all observers.

- Warren
 
  • #59
Originally posted by chroot
No, the proper time along a worldline is invariant, and will be measured the same by all observers.

- Warren

Yes, after a few quick calculations I see that I can't create the paradox here that I thought. The real paradox seems to be the apparent conflict between this statement and what is observed on moving clocks. How do we reconcile this? How can we observe clocks running slowly when in fact they may or may not be?
 
  • #60
Originally posted by Ambitwistor
What do you mean? The circumnavigating ("Magellanic") twin paradox I raised isn't any different in this respect than two observers in motion in ordinary Minkowski spacetime: each observer symmetrically sees the other's clock as running at a slower rate than their own.

True. I thought I had a way to escape this particular paradox. You guys blocked my exit.
 

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