On Tuesday, December 17, 2024 at 11:11:11 PM UTC-7 Jesse Mazer wrote:
On Tue, Dec 17, 2024 at 11:34 PM Alan Grayson <[email protected]> wrote: On Tuesday, December 17, 2024 at 9:05:09 PM UTC-7 Jesse Mazer wrote: On Tue, Dec 17, 2024 at 10:52 PM Alan Grayson <[email protected]> wrote: On Tuesday, December 17, 2024 at 6:57:28 PM UTC-7 Alan Grayson wrote: I On Tuesday, December 17, 2024 at 2:33:46 PM UTC-7 Brent Meeker wrote: On 12/17/2024 9:25 AM, Alan Grayson wrote: Yes, you look at it just in terms of lengths, which is what I did in the first pair of diagrams. But the relativity of simultaneity is another way to look at the same problem, which is what I showed in my last posting. *Another way, but not the only way. AG * We seem to be on the same page concerning use of length contraction to explain the differing results in the frames under consideration. But I remain unclear how the disagreement of simultaneity can also give the same results. For example, suppose from the pov of the garage frame, the car fits in the garage for sufficient v, with room to spare, but the front and rear end EVENTS do not Lorentz transform into simultaneous events in the car frame. Can't there be other ways for the car to fit, using another set of events which* are* simultaneous in the car frame? AG For any pair of events on the worldlines of the front and back of the car which are simultaneous in the car frame, rhe distance between that pair of events in the car frame is always 12. OK, AG And for any pair of events on the worldlines of the front and back of the *garage* which are simultaneous in the car frame, the distance between that pair of events in the car frame is always 6. Don't follow. AG Can you say more about what you don't follow about this comment? Given the two garage worldlines, we can find pairs of events along those two worldlines that are simultaneous in the car frame, no? (just draw a horizontal line in the first of Brent's diagrams, which was drawn from the POV of the car frame, and the points where your horizontal line intersects the two slanted red garage worldlines will be such a pair) Is that the part you don't follow, or do you not follow why the distance between any such pair would be 6 in the car frame? Jesse Truthfully, I don't follow these arguments using worldlines, but what I can say is that it's more or less uniformly assumed in the physics community, that the problem is solved, whatever the problem is -- and now I'm not sure! -- by the claim that simultaneous events in one frame, are not simultaneous in the other -- the frames being the car and garage frames. Now, in Brent's recent plots, he seems to show, or believe, that when the car fits perfectly, from the pov of the garage frame due to contraction of the car, that the front and back events ARE simultaneous in the car frame. So, if what I've written is correct, why does the consensus opinion conclude that the problem's solution depends on something which isn't true; namely, an alleged disagreement about simultaneity? AG Finally, since using length contraction and Brent's initial conditions of the lengths of the car and garage as 12' and 10' respectively, is there any objection to the conclusion that from the car's frame, it never fits in the garage, and if so, is there any paradox implied that the frames disagree on whether the car will fit, or not, in the garage? AG -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/59086494-1deb-497e-94a0-e8ec74fd9fb8n%40googlegroups.com.
