- #1
starfish99
- 28
- 0
The fact that two rocket ships passing each other see the other ships clock run slow fascinates me. But what about total elapsed time?
Suppose a person on Earth and a rocket ship on Mars 40,000,000 miles away are at rest relative to each other. They synchronize their clocks so that at t= 0 seconds the Martian ship accelerates to 95% of the speed of light and heads toward Eartha on Earth. The Martian ship flies very close to the Earth clock(about 1 meter) where Eartha and the Martian pilot can see each others clocks.
At the moment they are side-by-side(with no Doppler Effect), they look at each others and their own clock, so that at closest approach there are four clock readings:
1 Eartha looks at her own clock.
2 Eartha looks at the Martian pilot's clock
3 The Martian pilot looks at his own clock
4 The Martian pilot looks at Eartha's clock
The only answer that I am sure of is 1) Eartha will see a reading of 226 seconds on her clock, the time it takes the ship to travel 40,000,000 miles at 0.95c.
What are the other clock readings for 2, 3, and 4.
Suppose a person on Earth and a rocket ship on Mars 40,000,000 miles away are at rest relative to each other. They synchronize their clocks so that at t= 0 seconds the Martian ship accelerates to 95% of the speed of light and heads toward Eartha on Earth. The Martian ship flies very close to the Earth clock(about 1 meter) where Eartha and the Martian pilot can see each others clocks.
At the moment they are side-by-side(with no Doppler Effect), they look at each others and their own clock, so that at closest approach there are four clock readings:
1 Eartha looks at her own clock.
2 Eartha looks at the Martian pilot's clock
3 The Martian pilot looks at his own clock
4 The Martian pilot looks at Eartha's clock
The only answer that I am sure of is 1) Eartha will see a reading of 226 seconds on her clock, the time it takes the ship to travel 40,000,000 miles at 0.95c.
What are the other clock readings for 2, 3, and 4.