Ed,
I finally found my paper from undergrad and I think some of this
will answer your question. According to H. Ott, S = S_o where _o
indicates rest frame. Then both heat and temp receive a Lorentz boost,
Q = gamma * Q_o and T = gamma * T_o where gamma is the normal
sqrt(1-(v^2/c^2)). I can references later if people want, but the work
dates back to the 50's and 60's. I can even try to scan the paper for
people. However, some of it is pretty complicated tensor equations that
do not give me an intuitive feel for the material.
Sam Held
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Schweber [mailto:edschweb@IX.NETCOM.COM]
Sent: Friday, February 19, 1999 8:37 PM
To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
Subject: Re: A question on inelastic relativistic collisions
Ed Schweber (edschweb@ix.netcom.com)
Physics Teacher at The Solomon Schechter Day School, West Orange, NJ
To obtain free resources for creative physics teachers visit: http://www.physicsweb.com
Hi again,
Let me just push this a bit further. Herb Schulz, David Bowman, and
Jack
Uretsky all point out that internal energy is measured in the rest frame
of
the object.
Imagine that there is a solid object at rest and in thermal
equilibrium
with a surrounding fluid. They are both at the same temperature. Now a
force
accelerates the solid object without without adding to its internal
energy.
Is this in some way unreasonable. If not, the solid object should
have
the same temperature as before and the same temperature as the fluid
through
which it is now moving. But from the rest frame of the fluid would not
the
solid object now have a different average kinetic energy per molecule?
Would there not now be a transfer of this molecular KE between the
solid
and the fluid -that is a transfer of heat between objects at the same
temperature - in violation of the Second Law of Thermo?