The very old and beaten light speed question.

[RCP/CRT/RRT]

Excuse the likely redundancy, hypothetically, If I'm traveling at say 99.99% of c in my Ferarri space craft. I turn on my ships inside lamps, do the lamps appear odd to me as an observer inside the ship?

 

Edit: And if I hypothetically did reach c, would anything change or be different from the above scenario. Would time stop for me as observer inside the ship. Would I suddenly just freeze up with no animation from my perspective?

[RCP/CRT/RRT]

My understanding is, since it can be considered I'm at rest and the every other reference frame is the one in motion, light and time, will pass perfectly normal for me... Correct?

[CraigD]

Excuse the likely redundancy, hypothetically, If I'm traveling at say 99.99% of c in my Ferarri space craft. I turn on my ships inside lamps, do the lamps appear odd to me as an observer inside the ship?

According to the theory of relativity, and supported by all experimental evidence, no.

My understanding is, since it can be considered I'm at rest and the every other reference frame is the one in motion, light and time, will pass perfectly normal for me... Correct?

Correct. :)

 

If it were otherwise:

• The laws of physics would be different for one inertial frame would differ from another, violating the principle or relativity
  
• You’d be able to detect (via some experiment like the Michelson–Morley experiment) that you had some velocity relative to a special, preferred frame, again violating the POR’s “no preferred frames” corollary.
  

You can come up with many other contradictions of SR that would result from assuming that light and time would not pass normally.

[RCP/CRT/RRT]

Thanks for the clarification!

[freeztar]

I agree with Craig.

 

Though, wouldn't it depend on how big the ship is and where the lamp and observer are located on the ship?

 

I'm thinking of a thought experiment that someone brought up recently (Modest?) to illustrate the equivalence principle. In the experiment, a ship is traveling close to c and a beacon is emitting bursts from the front of the ship every second. An observer at the rear of the ship experiences the light bursts as occurring faster than one/sec. (hopefully I got that right)

[RCP/CRT/RRT]

I agree with Craig.

 

Though, wouldn't it depend on how big the ship is and where the lamp and observer are located on the ship?

 

I'm thinking of a thought experiment that someone brought up recently (Modest?) to illustrate the equivalence principle. In the experiment, a ship is traveling close to c and a beacon is emitting bursts from the front of the ship every second. An observer at the rear of the ship experiences the light bursts as occurring faster than one/sec. (hopefully I got that right)

If the beacon was in the front of a craft in forward motion, and the observer rearward, I can see how the light, or a photon would seem to travel a shorter distance since the rearward observer is moving towards the point of the photons origin. Is that correct? How the intervals after the first burst would change is not clear to me.

 

But then again, this may be assuming a preferred reference frame? I think you need an outside observer to make Freetar's true from the observer's perspective? Again though, wouldn't only the initial burst have a time interval discrepancy? Relativity= Hard :)

[Boerseun]

Though, wouldn't it depend on how big the ship is and where the lamp and observer are located on the ship?

 

I'm thinking of a thought experiment that someone brought up recently (Modest?) to illustrate the equivalence principle. In the experiment, a ship is traveling close to c and a beacon is emitting bursts from the front of the ship every second. An observer at the rear of the ship experiences the light bursts as occurring faster than one/sec. (hopefully I got that right)

To the best of my knowledge, wherever you are on that ship makes no difference, because you're in the same inertial frame as the beacon. If the ship was moving at 99.99%c, the beacon was in the front of the ship and you're in the back, and somehow you were to run towards the beacon at 1%c, then you would see the beacon blueshift only to compensate for the 1%c speed difference between you and the beacon. There is no test you can perform on that beacon from your vantage point that will reveal its 99.99%c velocity relative to some outside point.

[lemit]

Ferrari? What kind of mileage do you get with that?

 

But seriously, if perception of our surroundings were different at 99.99% c, wouldn't it also be different at whatever percentage of the speed of light the earth is traveling in relation to the sun?

 

Is that a valid question?

 

--lemit

[RCP/CRT/RRT]

Ferrari? What kind of mileage do you get with that?

Not so bad at first, but even with some 100% efficient anti-matter reactor she gobbles up super clusters in nano-seconds :)

But seriously, if perception of our surroundings were different at 99.99% c, wouldn't it also be different at whatever percentage of the speed of light the earth is traveling in relation to the sun?

 

Is that a valid question?

 

--lemit

I think you are correct. I made the same error in Freeztar's hypothetical scenario as my friend did when I was explaining the original hypothetical situation... Uhg...

[freeztar]

To the best of my knowledge, wherever you are on that ship makes no difference, because you're in the same inertial frame as the beacon. If the ship was moving at 99.99%c, the beacon was in the front of the ship and you're in the back, and somehow you were to run towards the beacon at 1%c, then you would see the beacon blueshift only to compensate for the 1%c speed difference between you and the beacon. There is no test you can perform on that beacon from your vantage point that will reveal its 99.99%c velocity relative to some outside point.

 

Yeah, I think RCP might be correct that there was an outside observer. In which case, this doesn't apply at all. :)

 

I'll go looking for the post I'm thinking of...

[Boerseun]

Uh - oh... okay (sorry) - you were talking about an observer to the rear of the ship, not an observer in the rear of the ship!

 

Well, the way I have it, is that the only difference should be a frequency shift.

[RCP/CRT/RRT]

I did present my scenario as an observer inside, no worries:hihi:

 

I think the pulse time discrepancy Freeztar is trying to describe is related to an outside observer watching the ship. Where there is going to be a time contraction... I think, I'm kinna dumb about this stuff.

[freeztar]

Ok, I found it. Fortunately, I remembered it correctly. It doesn't *depend* on an outside observer, though Modest introduces this into the scenario to help understand it better (more intuitively).

 

It starts here:

http://hypography.com/forums/philosophy-of-science/3650-what-is-time-...post280880

 

And yes, RCP, I agree that relativity is pretty difficult. :)

[RCP/CRT/RRT]

Thanks Freeztar,

If I'm following the dialog from the link you posted above, isn't his (Modest's) hypothetical ship accelerating? Whereas adding another dynamic to the scenario. I didn't state in my scenario it wasn't accelerating, perhaps my mistake. But stated a speed of 99.99 of c, so, kinna the same thing, inferring a constant speed.

[freeztar]

You are correct. :)

 

His hypothetical spacecraft scenario involves acceleration. So, I apologize for the confusion.

 

If we plug in 0 for g we get zero time dilation.

 

[math]Td=e^{gh/c^2}[/math]

[Qfwfq]

In the experiment, a ship is traveling close to c and a beacon is emitting bursts from the front of the ship every second. An observer at the rear of the ship experiences the light bursts as occurring faster than one/sec.

By Craig's correct consideration this would break the principle of relativity. Indeed Modest was considering an accelerating ship, this is an argument by which Einstein had deduced the effect of gravitation on clocks even before he had worked out GR.

 

Well, the way I have it, is that the only difference should be a frequency shift.

Actually, not even that, if the observer is at rest with the ship, equivalent to saying travelling at the same velocity.

[arkain101]

Excuse the likely redundancy, hypothetically, If I'm traveling at say 99.99% of c in my Ferarri space craft. I turn on my ships inside lamps, do the lamps appear odd to me as an observer inside the ship?

 

Edit: And if I hypothetically did reach c, would anything change or be different from the above scenario. Would time stop for me as observer inside the ship. Would I suddenly just freeze up with no animation from my perspective?

 

How do you know we are not moving 99.99% C right now? If you answer me this question we should both acquire an answer that gets us on the right track.