Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
We therefore do not know just how important clock synchronization and the train and embankment thought experiment were to Einstein's development of the concept of the relativity of simultaneity. We do know, however, that the train and embankment thought experiment was the preferred means whereby he chose to teach this concept to the general public.
The train-and-platform experiment from the reference frame of an observer on board the train Reference frame of an observer standing on the platform (length contraction not depicted) A popular picture for understanding this idea is provided by a thought experiment similar to those suggested by Daniel Frost Comstock in 1910 [16] and Einstein in ...
Scientists also use thought experiments when particular physical experiments are impossible to conduct (Carl Gustav Hempel labeled these sorts of experiment "theoretical experiments-in-imagination"), such as Einstein's thought experiment of chasing a light beam, leading to special relativity. This is a unique use of a scientific thought ...
The ladder paradox (or barn-pole paradox) is a thought experiment in special relativity.It involves a ladder, parallel to the ground, travelling horizontally at relativistic speed (near the speed of light) and therefore undergoing a Lorentz length contraction.
Only Einstein's theory proved to be consistent with experiments and observations. To understand the theory's basic ideas, it is instructive to follow Einstein's thinking between 1907 and 1915, from his simple thought experiment involving an observer in free fall to his fully geometric theory of gravity. [1]
1895 – Albert Einstein probably makes his thought experiment about chasing a light beam, later relevant to his work on special relativity. 1897 – Oliver Lodge publishes another experimental result questioning aether drag. 1897 – Joseph Larmor publishes his coordinate transformations extending the length contraction formula.
Neither Einstein nor Langevin considered such results to be problematic: Einstein only called it "peculiar" while Langevin presented it as a consequence of absolute acceleration. [A 7] Both men argued that, from the time differential illustrated by the story of the twins, no self-contradiction could be constructed. In other words, neither ...
The rotating disc and its connection with rigidity was also an important thought experiment for Albert Einstein in developing general relativity. [4] He referred to it in several publications in 1912, 1916, 1917, 1922 and drew the insight from it, that the geometry of the disc becomes non-Euclidean for a co-rotating observer. Einstein wrote ...