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Re: Symmetry in Lorentz transformation equations



----- Original Message -----
From: John S. Denker <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Friday, September 03, 1999 2:12 PM
Subject: Re: Symmetry in Lorentz transformation equations


At 10:09 PM 9/3/99 +0500, DEVARAKONDA VENKATA NARAYANA SARMA wrote:
I think that Lorentz transformation is not valid for accelerated
frames.

The situation is not nearly as bad as that seems to suggest.

It is easy to deal with accelerated reference frames, using the
following
trick. At each instant, choose an *instantaneously comoving*
freely-falling reference frame. Do the physics in that frame, and then
move on.
. . .

There are pitfalls here! Eg., you cannot use this method to discover the
parabolic depression in a spinning pail of water simply by doing such a
kinematic transformation from a flat, still pail of water! You must do
the physics; SR won't do it for you!

Bob

Bob Sciamanda (W3NLV)
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (em)
trebor@velocity.net
http://www.velocity.net/~trebor