Quote:
Originally Posted by skwinty
Hi Alex
It all depends on who is making the observation.
The person in the static lift or the person in the moving lift.
One event and two realities.
The person in the static lift should see the apparent curvature of the light beam as the moving lift has moved as the beam travelled along and doesnt land on the exact opposite position of the far wall.
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My point is that one can only see the light as a straight beam .. I took the time to draw a step by step progression of the lift ...the beam can only be straight so the moving lift can only ever pass a straight beam...no matter how you see it in the lift it can only scribe a straight path..that is why I wondered how the diagram showed their beam as bent...there is no way that can be correct...unless the acceleration is varied...
From this also I reckon that one can work out ones speed relative to the source of the light by taking the angle that the straight beam of light appears to travel thru the moving lift.
An angle of 45 degrees indicates it passed at C I think... I have not worked out the angles at various fractions of C but obviously at slower speeds the angles will be less ...
What would be interesting is if we did the double slit experiment to the beam ..where would the wave pattens appear on the opposite wall??? either side of where the light beam passed I wonder or entirely to the bottom side..I have no idea but it would be neat to speculate... I have not yet done so.
alex
