Hey! Welcome to Ask Us Whatever. I’m Joe Sorge. Well, this episode is on the Twin Paradox, which you’ll see, really isn’t a paradox. It arose from the writings of Paul Langevin in 1911, based on a paragraph that Einstein teased us with in 1905. Einstein wrote: “If at the points A and B of … Read more
Welcome to Ask Us Whatever. I’m Joe Sorge. In Episodes 7.2 and 7.3 we talked about Einstein’s method of clock synchronization, and how it creates a spatial gradient of clock readings in moving inertial reference frames—what we’ve called a clock offset— linearly proportional to the distance separating the clocks. In Episode 7.3, I emphasized that … Read more
Welcome to Ask Us Whatever. I’m Joe Sorge. In Episode 7.4 we described how observers in two different reference frames could each convince themselves that time was passing gamma times more slowly in the other observer’s frame Our example followed Einstein’s model, in which one reference frame is stationary with respect to a stationary system … Read more
Hey! Welcome to Ask Us Whatever, I’m Joe Sorge. In 1859 Hippolyte Fizeau reported the results of a very interesting experiment. He passed light through moving water in opposite directions and asked whether the speed of the wave fronts was altered by the speed of the water. Prior to Fizeau, it was known that light … Read more
Welcome to Ask Us Whatever. I’m Joe Sorge. In Episode 7.1, I pointed out that if Clock A is ticking slower than Clock B, then it’s impossible for Clock A to also be ticking faster than Clock B in the same setup. I received a nice comment from Jonathan Doolin who pointed out that Herbert … Read more
We’ll first start with two reference frames. Using the alternative \(dx \) and \(dt \) transformations that you’ve seen in earlier episodes, and then we’ll expand the analysis to multiple reference frames. \(dx=\gamma_s^2dx^\prime+\gamma_svdt^\prime \) \(dt=\gamma_sdt^\prime+\frac{vdx^\prime}{c^2} \) \(\gamma_s \) is computed using the speed, \(v \), of a given moving Frame relative to our Preferred Reference Frame \(S \), as measured … Read more
Welcome to Ask Us Whatever. I’m Joe Sorge. Einstein was faced with a conceptual challenge. What happens if a spaceship moves at some speed approaching speed \(c \) while traveling within an inertial reference frame, call the Frame \(S’ \), that is also moving at a very high speed in the same direction, as measured … Read more
Hey, welcome to Ask Us Whatever. I’m Joe Sorge. Alright, in Episode 7.1 you heard me pick apart the Lorentz transformations, because I believe they were derived with some questionable assumptions. And then in Episode 7.2, we reviewed Einstein clock synchronization. So, now that we’ve laid some groundwork, we’re going to derive the time and … Read more
Welcome to Ask Us Whatever. I’m Joe Sorge. Well, the comments I received in response to Episode 7.1 showed me that many people do not understand Einstein clock synchronization, nor its profound implications. And because Einstein clock synchronization is essential to understanding special relativity, we need to shore up our understanding of this very unusual way to … Read more
Hey! Welcome to Ask Us Whatever. I’m Joe Sorge. So, we’ve been posting our videos, nicely trying to show that Lorentz and Einstein made some mistakes; and of course, we’ve begun to get some expected blowback. Here’s an excerpt from a comment from someone called AnticitizenX: “You seem to be under the naive impression that physicists just … Read more