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The distance between the coils gives the clock tick rate, hence, obviously increasing speed will result in a slower tick rate.
The idea is what I think is a natural interpretation of what happens in the very popular thought experiment of Einstein relativistic train. If the light beam is a light clock, it becomes clear that the trajectory of the light beam is the only thing that makes the tick rate change.
Thank you, but I'm affraid your explanation is not acceptable. The diagram you have posted here is the classical example for explaining the theory. Hovever, when you measure the speed of light in the carriage , you send the beams parallel to the direction of travel, not at an angle(they usually don't say how the speed of light is measured when using that basic example), but you still get the same value for the two way speed of light. This means that either time itself dilates or as I said, clocks tick rates slow down. According to my personal research, it is the later one that happens.
It is velocity and not change in velocity for light being independent of the source. Lets consider you believe you are lining up perpendicular a laser on an x. The laser will always remain on the x as you approach c. But the x will not remain in the perpendicular position of view.
GoC: It is velocity and not change in velocity for light being independent of the source. Lets consider you believe you are lining up perpendicular a laser on an x. The laser will always remain on the x as you approach c. But the x will not remain in the perpendicular position of view.
GoC: It has been proven that atomic clocks measure the same travel distance as the light distance. So we can interchange atomic clocks and measure the distance light travels as a function of time.
Quote GoC: It has been proven that atomic clocks measure the same travel distance as the light distance. So we can interchange atomic clocks and measure the distance light travels as a function of time. A very perceptive and insightful statement! I think that this whole fiasco with special relativity is because of a lack of communication, not lack of communication as it exists today and which is excellent but a lack of communication as it existed more than a hundred years ago when special relativity was first conceived. Information in those days moved extremely slowly and more often than not the gist of what was said was lost in transit. Firstly the Lorentz transformations as they were conceived by Henri Lorentz were meant to prove the existence of an aether ! They were not meant to prove the non-existence of an aether.
As you can see from a diagram of the Michelson Morley experimental apparatus, both beams of light travel the same distance.
Scientists could not accept the fact that the much sought after aether was non-existent, if it had been present it should have manifested itself through the beam of light moving against it (i.e., the aether) should move slower than the beam of light moving with it. To account for this Fitzgerald, an Irish physicist, suggested half in jest, that maybe the aether was not detected because the length of the beam in the apparatus that was pointing in the direction of the aether was shortened! Henri Lorentz picked up on this idea and found that according to the equations the time over which light traveled could also vary.
What Einstein did was to dismiss the notion of an aether and the raise the constancy of the speed of light to a postulate. Lorentz often lamented that what he had theorized Einstein had postulated and won recognition for.
Without this historical perspective special relativity does not make sense.
GoC: True but the one way distance is different from the two way distance.