🚀 go-pugleaf

There will be a new breathtaking revolution in Einsteinana on 17
décembre 2009:

https://listes.services.cnrs.fr/wws/arc/athena/2009-11/msg00033.html
Projet "Fondements de la physique en région parisienne"
Semaine de philosophie de la physique, 14-18 décembre 2009
17 décembre 2009, 17h, ENS, salle des Actes
Harvey Brown (Oxford University) "Why do rods contract in motion?"
"Einstein's special theory of relativity predicts, correctly, that
rigid bodies contract when in motion, (though Einstein was not the
first to predict it). But what is the explanation of this phenomenon?
Einstein increasingly disliked his original explanation, based on the
relativity principle and the light postulate. What should take its
place?"

So how will Harvey Brown explain the miraculous length contraction
without deducing it from Einstein's 1905 false light postulate? I am
so curious! Will the new length contraction be reciprocal again or
will Brown return to FitzGerald and Poincaré's concept according to
which it is not reciprocal:

Banesh Hoffmann, "La relativité, histoire d'une grande idée", Pour la
Science, 1999, p. 129: "FitzGerald and Poincaré pensaient que le
phénomène de contraction des longueurs résultait du mouvement des
objets à travers l'éther. Bien qu'ils ne l'aient jamais dit
ouvertement, ils supposaient certainement qu'un observateur immobile
dans l'éther observerait une contraction des longueurs d'un objet en
mouvement, tandis qu'un observateur en mouvement observerait au
contraire une dilatation des longueurs des objets au repos dans
l'éther."

Note that if the speed of light does not depend on the speed of the
light source, that is, if Einstein's 1905 light postulate is true,
then a long train can be trapped inside a short tunnel, a 80m long
pole can be trapped inside a 40m long barn and a bug can be both dead
and alive. Harvey Brown will have to tell the world if all those
idiocies remain consistent with the new length contraction:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSRIyDfo_mY&mode=related&search

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/barn_pole.html
"These are the props. You own a barn, 40m long, with automatic doors
at either end, that can be opened and closed simultaneously by a
switch. You also have a pole, 80m long, which of course won't fit in
the barn. Now someone takes the pole and tries to run (at nearly the
speed of light) through the barn with the pole horizontal. Special
Relativity (SR) says that a moving object is contracted in the
direction of motion: this is called the Lorentz Contraction. So, if
the pole is set in motion lengthwise, then it will contract in the
reference frame of a stationary observer.....So, as the pole passes
through the barn, there is an instant when it is completely within the
barn. At that instant, you close both doors simultaneously, with your
switch. Of course, you open them again pretty quickly, but at least
momentarily you had the contracted pole shut up in your barn. The
runner emerges from the far door unscathed.....If the doors are kept
shut the rod will obviously smash into the barn door at one end. If
the door withstands this the leading end of the rod will come to rest
in the frame of reference of the stationary observer. There can be no
such thing as a rigid rod in relativity so the trailing end will not
stop immediately and the rod will be compressed beyond the amount it
was Lorentz contracted. If it does not explode under the strain and it
is sufficiently elastic it will come to rest and start to spring back
to its natural shape but since it is too big for the barn the other
end is now going to crash into the back door and the rod will be
trapped in a compressed state inside the barn."

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/Relativ/bugrivet.html
"The bug-rivet paradox is a variation on the twin paradox and is
similar to the pole-barn paradox.....The end of the rivet hits the
bottom of the hole before the head of the rivet hits the wall. So it
looks like the bug is squashed.....All this is nonsense from the bug's
point of view. The rivet head hits the wall when the rivet end is just
0.35 cm down in the hole! The rivet doesn't get close to the
bug....The paradox is not resolved."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com