Simultaneity - Albert Einstein and the Theory of Relativity

yorkshirepud100 Says:

Apr 28, 2012 - No force is acting on her. She is traveling at constant velocity and hence in an Inertial Frame of Reference. She is therefore not accelerating therefore (using Newton's second law) there is no force acting. And in her reference frame she is at equal distance from both flashes. Only in the man on the platform's frame is her distance changing. But in her reference frame the events actually happen at different times.

StormLogic Says:

Apr 28, 2012 - Again: the flashes occurred at the incidence of the train and the lightning - in the man's reference-frame, the train is moving, and it moves away from said incidents; in the woman's reference-frame, she is stationary and the train is not moving, hence she is maintaining a constant distance from said incidents. It matters that she is moving forward relative to the man, because that's why he rightly concludes that the flashes are not simultaneous to her.

StormLogic Says:

Apr 28, 2012 - The speed of the train in the reference-frame where she is not moving is zero.

SuperMagnetizer Says:

Apr 28, 2012 - If the train is moving to the right past the man, then this is equivalent to the man moving to the left past a stationary (relative to the ground) train. If he sees the two flashes at the same time, this is simply because he has moved closer to the rear flash and farther from the front flash by the time they reach him. He therefore sees them simultaneously while the woman sees them at different times. This assumes the two flashes occur at the ends of the train.

SuperMagnetizer Says:

Apr 28, 2012 - If, on the other hand, the lightning strikes the tracks and misses the train, then the man will see them simultaneously while standing stationary relative to the flashes. The woman will see the front flash before the rear flash, because she has moved closer to the front and farther from the rear by the time the flashes reach her. Her illusion of non-simultaneity would be accompanied by an apparent blue-shift of the front flash and red-shift of the rear flash.

artesque Says:

Apr 28, 2012 - There is enough force acting on her to maintain her in motion.In her reference frame, she is at equal distances of the source of the flashes and only at the instance the flashes occurs. When the light reaches her, she is no longer at equal distances from the source points of the flashes. The ends of the train were not the source points. The spaces outside the train were. She must take into account that everything not bound by the train is "moving", including the lightning.

artesque Says:

Apr 28, 2012 - She is not maintaining a constant distant from said incident, just like she is not maintain the same distance from the man. They exist outside the train. If she doesn't understand that, she is an idiot. She moves away from one incident and passes through the other. If she thinks she is stationary, then she must think everything not bound by the train is moving. That means the lightning, not bound by the train, is an event that moves opposite to the train. She will see one first, but in error.

StormLogic Says:

Apr 29, 2012 - Again: the ends of the train were where the event occurred, and in her reference-frame the train is not moving, therefore the ends of the train persist in being where the event occurred.

StormLogic Says:

Apr 29, 2012 - In her reference-frame, everything other than the train and herself are indeed moving - again, the movement of the lightning beyond its incidence with an end of the train is irrelevant.

BOOMkhopadshot Says:

Apr 29, 2012 - or if through the windows she saw the clouds that rained down lightning on her ignorant self and saw them moving, she would come to different conclusions. The whole relativity nonsense is stupid. Kinda like believing that the head on plate illusion is real even when you are explained that it is not.

StormLogic Says:

Apr 29, 2012 - She would not come to different conclusions about whether she was moving towards the flash; again, she can correctly consider herself to be at rest, because there is no experiment she can do to distinguish between being at rest and being in motion at a constant velocity.

BOOMkhopadshot Says:

May 4, 2012 - Yeah, you are not breaking any new ground here. "She can correctly consider herself to be at rest" is ridiculous unless one keeps on believing in the naivete of the observer. As for experiment, she can simply compare notes with the observer on the ground. A human observer lacks the faculty to judge the space where the light originated from, in this case she is incorrectly attributing it to the ends of the carriage.

MrEarthmonkey68 Says:

May 6, 2012 - this is all well and good, but should i watch this when im drunk and its ACTUALLY lightning outside?

StormLogic Says:

May 6, 2012 - She is not incorrectly attributing it; the light from the events did originate at the ends of the carriage. What differs between the two frames is whether the ends of the carriage are moving, and hence whether the distance between the ends of the carriage and where the light originated from is changing.

ThreeBlindDice Says:

May 10, 2012 - MINDFUCK

LeconsdAnalyse Says:

May 17, 2012 - 1/2Hello. For sure the passenger does NOT consider herself to be at rest. You are missing the point!She is measuring the details of events unfolding from her point of view according to the Lorentz boost (as opposed to the Galilean boost). That is to say, according to SR.

LeconsdAnalyse Says:

May 17, 2012 - 2/2Remember that the train is moving at a relativistic speed (i.e., v: v/c~1), and that the Lorentz boost applies to material objects NOT light. And, that SR pertains to physics not philosophy and/or psychology. Your thinking has steered into the wrong direction.

andresbyron Says:

May 20, 2012 - y eso no tiene nada que ver con el Doppler effect