Consider again a train passing by your position at .90 c
A friend of yours is on the train.
A single photon is emitted inside the passenger compartment.
- Skeltch & label the path taken by the photon according to your friend inside the passenger compartment
- Write an equation to indicate the displacement made by that photon.
- Skeltch & label the path taken by the photon according as you observe it from outside the train
- Write an equation to indicate the displacement made by that photon as you observe it.
- Skeltch & label the path taken by the train as you observe it
- Write an equation to indicate the displacement made by the train
See how far along you can get to deriving an equation that relates the time for the even inside the train compared to the time that passes for you as an observer outside the train
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I'll give you a few minutes to work on that before offering a few hints:
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The phenomenon of time dilation has been rigorously tested over the years. As with all (I think?) of Einstein's final form theories (in otherwords his theories that he published as complete and not published to spur further investigation) it has held up remarkably well.
Grab your chromies and do a search on "Time Dilation" and "evidence" or "proof" or some such... be prepared to relate your findings to your group and the class.
Now please use the equation for time dilation that you derived to determine how long it would take for a star ship to make the trip to our closest stellar neighbor (I'll give you a hint: Proxima Centauri).
That is a trick question, because now you have to ask "In what reference frame?"
Sooo... with that in mind, let's divide and conquer and make a quick chart to show time passing on Earth vs time passing on the starship:
Folk designated by the color Blue: v = .9c
Folk designated by the color Green: v= .999c
Folk designated by the color Orange: v = .99999c
Folk designated by the color red: v = .9999999c
Take a test?
Further reading 1 (Star Ship Propulsion Options)
Further reading 2 (NASA Warp Speed Star Ship)
True or false, NASA is (in the very VERY preliminary stages of) developing a star ship
