I'll give my two cents here...I am by no means an expert in
relativity :-).
Firstly, the ideas in physics are (or should be) open for
new interpretations. We know that Einstein's first formulations
are not necessarily the best choice today. At some point, he
spoke about relativistic mass (i.e., mass of an object increases
as speed increases). Richard Feynman talked about relativistic
mass in his Lectures. Nevertheless, people who use relativity
in their research don't seem to use relativistic mass anymore;
for instance, the classic book by Taylor & Wheeler (Spacetime
Physics) advocates using just term 'mass' instead of 'rest mass'
or 'invariant mass'. One argument that I have seen to promote
this view is the following: how could the mass of an object
increase just because the observer passes by with high speed?
Some time ago I was thinking about this and I asked myself
a question: why is mass different from length and time? Why
do we talk about length contraction and time dilation but not relativistic mass? I explained it to myself by thinking that
there is no need to invoke relativistic mass because the analysis
in terms of momentum and energy (or momergy) is sufficient
and elegant. OTOH, length contraction and time dilation are
easy to derive even in a high school course; the gamma factor
provides the measure for these effects.
Now John D. suggests a new way of interpreting length contraction
and time dilation. If I have understood his point correctly,
John's interpretation puts mass, length, and time in the same
footing. The concept of mass has already been reinterpreted,
perhaps the same could happen also for length and time in
relativity? Clearly, the Phys-L forum is not enough to make
this happen. John, could you put your arguments in the form
an article, e.g. to American Journal of Physics? It would be
exciting to see how the physics community would react.
Regards,
Antti
Antti Savinainen, Ph.D., B.Ed.
Senior Lecturer in Physics and Mathematics
Kuopio Lyseo High School
Finland
E-mail: <antti.savinainen@kuopio.fi>
Website: <http://kotisivu.mtv3.fi/physics/>
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