Wednesday 29 June 2016

special relativity - Energy Conservation Dilemma


Assume that a man is travelling in a space ship at a certain relativistic speed with respect to a man at rest at some point in space, such that 3 minutes in the ship is equal to 5 minutes for the person at rest.


Also assume that the man in the ship has a lighter which contains gas of a certain amount such that the lighter can be lit for 5 minutes .


Now if the man in the space ship lights the lighter for 3 minutes, then he would have 2 minutes' worth of gas left, but the stationary observer would have seen light emitted for about 5 minutes (since 3 in that space ship = 5 minutes for the stationary observer)



How is it possible for the stationary observer to see light for 5 minutes? And in this case, how is energy conserved?




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