Friday, 5 July 2019

Special relativity - twin paradox explored


A thought experiment. A person on the Earth has a clock. Another person who also has a clock is in a rocket ship passing the Earth travelling at 50% the speed of light. They synchronise watches as rocket man goes past. Rocket man (1) travels for a year and at that point he encounters another man (2) in a rocket travelling towards Earth at 50% the speed of light. As they pass Rocket Man (2) who also has a clock, sets the date and time to that of Rocket man (1) (information is passed). A year later, as Rocket Man (2) passes the Earth (he doesn't slow down) he compares his clock to that of Earth Man.


According to special relativity Rocket man's clock should be (a lot) slower than Earth man due to the speed travelling. However also under special relativity one should be able to say that it was Earth man (along with the solar system etc) and Rocket Man (1) that were moving, while Rocket man (2) was fixed. Therefore Earth man's clock should be slower.


I had another earlier version of this question which had some naive elements re clocks changing direction so I have tried to avoid any acceleration elements in this formulation.



So the question is how is the apparent paradox that both clocks should be slow resolved ?




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