Would a Conveyor Belt from Earth to Mars Have a Time Delay?

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A conveyor belt from Earth to Mars would not have an instantaneous response due to the principles of relativity. The movement of the belt is dependent on the propagation of atomic movement, which is influenced by electromagnetic forces that are not instantaneous. When activated, the disturbance would travel at the speed of sound within the material of the conveyor belt, leading to a significant delay. Therefore, it would take much longer than 8 minutes for the opposing end on Mars to start moving. The physical properties of the material dictate the timing of the response.
nbj622
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Consider a very long conveyor belt from Earth to Mars. If we turned on the conveyor belt from Earth, would its opposing end instantly move on Mars? Or would the timing be slowed somehow from relativity? Thanks
 
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Yes, assuming it's frictionless and everything perfect, it would still be slowed down. The movement of the conveyor is the atoms in the conveyor belt moving and this movement is basically propagated by the electromagnetic force, which of course is not an instantaneous force and obeys relativity.
 
So if I turned it on, it would take about 8 minutes to just start moving on Mars?
 
nbj622 said:
So if I turned it on, it would take about 8 minutes to just start moving on Mars?

Actually I should have mentioned this in the first post. The disturbance would propagate at the speed of sound in the material. So it would take far far far longer than that. Physical disturbances travel at the speed of sound in the material
 
thanks!
 

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