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Tom Milner-Gulland: The mechanical downfall of special relativity (12-Apr-2003) |
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> Why go to all the trouble of imagining teeth and cogs and such? After
all, > if the train is moving at more than c/2, the top of any train wheel must be > moving faster than c, right? And that disproves SR, right? Oh wait, maybe > the wheel isn't round any more from the tracks perspective. Oh yeah, and > maybe from the trains perspective, the ratio of the circumference to the > radius of the wheel isn't 2 * pi anymore. Oh yeah, and maybe you just > hadn't thought this thing through too good yet... > > <snip> > > Alfred What's your point? There's a whole range of things that would prove to be the downfall of Einstein's thought experiment, but if you prove, whether by logic or by experiment, that c can be surpassed, I'll bet you anything that relativists will say just that SR needs a bit of amendment. One thing that comes to mind is that the machinery in the train is made up of parts that are all moving at different speeds, and by SR they will be length-contracted accordingly, it's not difficult to see how the parts will no longer intermesh and the train will end up as scrap metal. |
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