Tag Info

6

Update 1: 1) Note added in proof: The photon stress-energy densities obtained below more or less heuristically are identical to those obtained in more rigorous approaches from the electromagnetic stress-energy density tensor. 2) The physical reason why the stress-energy argument retrieves the detailed balance result in the OP, but is inequivalent to simply ...

-3

This problem is equivalent to Einstein's original thought experiment with the center of mass of a tubular spacecraft in an inertial reference frame emitting a photon from one end and reabsorbing it at the opposite end. This is the same thought experiment convinced an audience of Newtonian physicists that E=mc^2 by arguments related to center of mass. ...

0

No, they can't. In fact sound waves would lead you to Galilean relativity, and in all the cases where it differs from Einsteinian relativity they would lead you to the wrong result. This is a catastrophically bad model for Einsteinian relativity. As a simple example of where things go most horribly wrong consider a supersonic aircraft, and that the ...

1

No. In "STR" the speed of light is the same value no matter how the measurer is moving relative to anything else. For sound waves, the speed of the wave is measured relative to the medium through which the wave travels. Consider a sound source and receiver at rest relative to each other. The source and receiver have coordinated watches and have agreed on ...

1

A simple addition to the right answer from @Countto10. So they have Doppler shifts. the question might be, for cosmic microwave background photons, that red shift is with respect to what? The answer is that it is with respect to the so called comoving frame, the frame of reference which is (in a way) the frame of reference expanding with the universe - ...

2

You need to concentrate on the observer making the measurements. Photons carry energy, but they don't lose energy just because they travel. The "loss" of energy is not the cause of the redshift, only if the photon scatters off something will it lose energy. However, not all observers will agree that photon has the same amount of energy. Assume you are in ...

0

Intensity is energy per unit area; over short distances, the intensity can be considered constant. In a time period dt, the sound wave travels a distance c.dt, so the total energy passing through an area A will be equal to the sound energy present in a volume cAdt. (think of water flowing through a pipe, if it travels at 10 m/s through a pipe with a 0.1 m ...

3

In this type of problem one has to take great care in defining intensities. In this case there are 4 different intensities: 1. $I_{ss}$, the intensity received by the static observer as perceived by himself, 2. $I_{ms}$, the intensity received by the moving observer as perceived by a static observer. 3 $I_sm$, the intensity received by the static observer as ...

Top 50 recent answers are included