Timeline for Relativity Of Simultaneity Confusion
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
22 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 8, 2019 at 5:19 | comment | added | BioPhysicist | @LucaIon You can do that. That's fine. Then you will be on the platform, the presidents will sign, and no bomb will explode. It isn't a contradiction though, because the bomb is still on the train, so you can easily validate using relativity that even though you don't see the presidents sign at the same time, the bomb did see them sign at the same time. | |
| Dec 8, 2019 at 0:20 | history | edited | WillO | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 151 characters in body
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| Dec 7, 2019 at 22:34 | comment | added | WillO | @LucaIon : If you haven't digested the answer, then I doubt very much that it will help for me to type it in again. | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 20:27 | comment | added | Luca Ion | @Willo but why cant I build it? don't I just go inside the train put all the sensors and the bomb in place and then get off the train and tell the train rider to start the train and from there on I start the experiment | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 20:03 | comment | added | WillO | @LucaIon: You're going to carry this out in real life by building a bomb that can't be built? | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 20:01 | comment | added | BioPhysicist | @LucaIon If the bomb is sitting on the train and sees the presidents sign at the same time then it will not blow up. If the bomb is sitting on the platform and sees the presidents sign at different times then it will blow up. There isn't an issue with the first case as viewed from the platform, because we can apply relativity to conclude that even though we see the events at different times, the bomb must have seen them at the same time. (This "see" means after we take into account the time for light to travel) | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 19:53 | comment | added | Luca Ion | @Aaron Stevens so basically the resolution is that such bombs don't exist because otherwise special relativity would be wrong? But what if I actually carry this experiment in the real life, shouldn't I get a definite outcome of what is happening? | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 15:39 | comment | added | SK Dash | @AaronStevens I'm totally fine with the answer, but the point is that it's undermining the question, yes I agree that the question isn't set properly, it's actually quite hard to be clear about the question, however is quite a general doubt people have | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 15:32 | comment | added | BioPhysicist | @SKDash Even if WillO's starting example isn't convincing to you, the rest of the answer should be. The point is that there is not a set of snipers that exists that can decide to shoot (or not) due to simultaneous events as viewed from different inertial reference frames. | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 15:06 | comment | added | SK Dash | @WillO, say the snipers have synchronized clock and send signals at t=0, in the train reference frame. Admitted that the question wasn't framed properly, but that's what it meant to ask. That's all I want to convey, just telling such a bomb doesn't exist is overrides what the question wants to convey. | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 14:32 | comment | added | WillO | @skdash: yes, replace the bomb with the snipers and my example is still correct and relevant. | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 14:23 | comment | added | SK Dash | @AaronStevens the physics question here is related to simultaneity, and not explosion of bombs, the bomb is just to give some life to the question, it could be any way like say there are two snipers if they receive the signals simultaneously, no one shoots however if the signals are not simultaneous, whoever receives the signal first shoots. | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 14:07 | comment | added | BioPhysicist | @SKDash Then the question is no longer a physics question. What you are proposing is an actual contradiction as to how we know physics to work. So if you decide to ask this "what if", then there is no longer an actual answer that can be grounded in physics. The question becomes "what if special relativity was no longer true", which is a type of question that is closed on this site. Therefore, the correct resolution of the OP's question is that there is no paradox because if there were then we aren't talking about physics as we know it anymore. | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 14:02 | comment | added | SK Dash | @AaronStevens however the point of the question is not about if such a bomb is possible or not right? So saying that such a bomb doesn't exist would irrelevant to the purpose of the question, say what if such a bomb somehow existed, then what would happen that is what the question's answer should be about. | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 13:59 | comment | added | SK Dash | @AdrianHoward yes true, and that is what the question is actually trying to point at, that two things that are simultaneous in one reference frame is not in another, and the final result depends only on what is happening in one of the reference frame and not on the other, | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 5:51 | comment | added | Adrian Howard | @SKDash When time moves differently in different frames of reference, simultaneity becomes subjective. | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 3:45 | review | Low quality answers | |||
| Dec 7, 2019 at 10:15 | |||||
| Dec 7, 2019 at 3:44 | comment | added | SK Dash | @WillO you aren't taking the question in the way it is meant to be taken, it need not be a bomb explosion, it could be anything. The point of the question is to think about the notion of simultaneity and not about if such a situation is possible or not. | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 3:08 | comment | added | BioPhysicist | @LucaIon Even if WillO's starting example isn't convincing to you, the rest of the answer should be. The point is that there is not a bomb that exists that can be programmed to detonate (or not) due to simultaneous events as viewed from different inertial reference frames. | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 0:49 | comment | added | WillO | I think you missed the part about if AND ONLY IF. | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 0:41 | comment | added | Luca Ion | I don't really understand why is yours a paradox and why such bomb doesn't exist. If your bomb goes of if you flip head or the bomb goes of if you flip tails, then the probability of the bomb going off is 1 and thus the bomb would go off no matter what | |
| Dec 7, 2019 at 0:25 | history | answered | WillO | CC BY-SA 4.0 |