Twin Paradox*

Posted in: Teaching, Uncategorized

Here I wish to play a bit with the "Twin Paradox" of Special Relativity. [*note, it ain't a paradox]. For this you'll need to be happy with (1) time-dilation, (2) length-contraction, (3) Lorentz velocity transforms and (4) straight lines. I like to draw things, so in the video I construct 3 space-time diagrams for the various reference frames of the problem. A pdf version of the 3 space-time diagrams can be found here: Sloan_Twin_SPACETIME so you can see the final versions.

The subtext to this is really it's a chance to put into practice some of the fundamental properties of Special Relativity outside their usual undergraduate use of simple problems. The logic I follow is hopefully step-by-step simple, but the picture we build up will be complicated. At the end the paradox will melt away, in fact it was never there in the first place.

 

Posted in: Teaching, Uncategorized

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