Top Document: Einstein (1905) Absurdities Previous Document: 16. The "contraction circus" absurdity. Next Document: 17. A straightforward pro-simultaneity argument. See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge Einstein (a) defined a test for clocks at rest wrt each other in a stationary system (we'd now say inertial), to determine that they are synchronized. [At clock A at time ta send light to clock B which reflects it at tb to clock A at ta', with observers at each clock noting the time the clock says at the three events. If tb-ta=tb-ta' then the clocks are synchronized.] (b) had a stationary system thereby synchronize its clocks. (c) posited a second inertial - but moving - system whose clocks at all times and places would show the first system's times at the immediately adjacent first system location. (d) posited the first system running the synchroni- zation test on the second system clocks; that is, with a completely non-definition test. With r=distance between the clocks - per stationary system - he got tb-ta=r/(c-v) and tb-ta'=r/(c+v). He concluded that clocks synchronized in one inertial system cannot satisfy the definitional test for synchronization in a second inertial frame. If the second system had indeed run its synchronization test like the first system had, the times would be tb-ta=r/c and tb-ta=r/c. His proof is much like having a stationary pianist playing a stationary piano and then turning on his stationary piano stool to play a second piano that is moving past him, while he stays stationary. User Contributions:Top Document: Einstein (1905) Absurdities Previous Document: 16. The "contraction circus" absurdity. Next Document: 17. A straightforward pro-simultaneity argument. Single Page [ Usenet FAQs | Web FAQs | Documents | RFC Index ] Send corrections/additions to the FAQ Maintainer: Thnktank@concentric.net (Eleaticus)
Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:12 PM
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