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Re: [Phys-l] light clock relativity experiment

Thank you for that site, it has been the most helpful of all the sites I have reviewed. I now have a much better understanding of time dilation. My real question though deals more with the behavior of light than with time dilation. If I could draw your attention to Figure 6, we notice that the light pulse is emitted at the same position (x) in both the green and blue cars. My questions is, "If light behaves is such a manner that the velocity of the object emitting it has no effect on its velocity, why does the light not remain at position x and simply change its y,t values?" Reworded, "Why does the light travel with the train as opposed to the train moving relative to the light?" More or less allowing the train to act almost as a sleeve, slipping by the x position in which the light exists. The reason for my inquiry is that I was taught to believe that nothing changes the velocity of light other than reflection, refraction, and change in medium. None of the previous seem to apply to this train (other than being reflected to travel at 180 degrees from its former vector as it reaches the top and bottom of the train)

Thank you for your help, it is really helping me grasp what has proven to be a difficult concept for me!

Trevor



-----Original Message-----

Date: Thu May 01 01:44:33 CDT 2008
From: "John Denker" <jsd@av8n.com>
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] light clock relativity experiment
To: "Forum for Physics Educators" <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>

On 04/30/2008 05:43 PM, I wrote:

The case where the light motion is transverse to the train motion
would require a little more work.

I did the rest of the work:
http://www.av8n.com/physics/light-clocks.htm#sec-transverse

This document is very new, and the discussion is still a bit terse.
Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome.

============

Help celebrate the centennial of spacetime:

http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Raum_und_Zeit_(Minkowski)

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