twin paradox simulator

Date view Thread view Subject view Author view Attachment view

From: MC elover (mcelover@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Feb 03 2002 - 10:31:48 PST 

Message-ID: <20020203183148.55702.qmail@web10903.mail.yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 10:31:48 -0800 (PST)
From: MC elover <mcelover@yahoo.com>
Subject: twin paradox simulator

hey again

there is this nifty little twin paradox interactive
simulator online at

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/hotsciencetwin/twin1.html

you should check it out even if you are not teaching
relativity; it's fun!

BUT, i and my students think it has a serious mistake.
 if you play around for a while you begin to notice
something strange. pick a star, like proxima centari,
and send major jane there at various speeds. it seems
that no matter what the speed, the trip takes the same
amount of earth time--about 8 years round trip. all
of the other stars have the same problem, the earth
time for the trip is the same for every speed for each
individual star. are we missing something? i mean,
if it's online at the nova site you'd think someone
would've noticed this by now. check it out and report
back.

with a length contracted relativistic handshake
--eric

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Great stuff seeking new owners in Yahoo! Auctions!
http://auctions.yahoo.com

Date view Thread view Subject view Author view Attachment view

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Mon Aug 05 2002 - 09:21:40 PDT