Monday, April 14, 2014

Lorentz Contraction

Lorentz Contraction
Wine
Vino
Nación
Nation

Psalm 18:27

"For thou wilt save the afflicted people; but wilt bring down high looks."


“We were wiser in the lore of survival”~~~John Hersey


















Why does Lorentz contraction only act in the direction of motion?

Physicist: A lot of things get messed up by relativity, like when and where stuff happens, how massive things are, or how time passes.  Length contraction is an effect that literally makes things shorter in the direction of motion.  So if something whipped by you from left to right it would be thinner, but just as tall.

Which begs the question, why is it just as tall?  Why doesn’t it just shrink all over, or something?
Well, one of the things that relativity doesn’t change is whether or not an “event” actually happens.  So imagine this: you’ve got two hoops spanned by paper, and they’re flying at each other face-on.  If the paper in a hoop is torn out, then you’ve got an event that everyone will agree on.  No matter where you are or how fast you’re moving, you’ll see that the paper was torn.  The only thing relativity affects is when and where that event takes place.


Chess:  "Lorentz Contraction" "Wine" "Vino" "Nación" "Nation"

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