Re: a paradox?

[LUDWIK KOWALSKI <KOWALSKIL@alpha.montclair.edu>]

  Adding to Leigh's contribution Ken Caviness writes:

> Yes. To amplify slightly, the sphere is somewhat flattened by Lorentz
> contraction, but in addition we see it as skewed because of time-of-
> flight differences between light rays originating at different points
> on the sphere.  The fun part is that a projection of the skewed
> flattened ellipsoid is (for a distant observer) indistinguishable 
> from a projection of the original sphere! ...

If I understand you correctly the effect is an illusion which would
occur if we wanted to see, or to photograph, relativistically moving
objects. Such objects are contracted but the illusion would prevent
us from seeing this. Interesting; I did not know about this. The 
important point, however, is that a sphere, or an electric field 
distribution around a point charge, is really deformed and the nearby 
atoms will recognize it. We "observe" relativistic effects with our 
brains by interpreting results of experiments.

If the volume of a cube shrinks then the density increases. This is 
real. The same with the v/c effect on the transverse component of E. 
The relativistic term was added to the classical dE/dx formula by 
H. Bethe and the theory agrees with experiments at all energies. 
This is real. Illusions have nothing to with this. Do you agree?
 
                                                    Ludwik Kowalski