py to 10000 km in nearly vertica maser Selocks™ ty ' of the two efleets jointly W stablished to an accu; 1d The win paradox ele contraction, so also time dilation can lead to g 7 Like Heng ewed by to different observers. Infact this parahee t aeatled twin or clock paradox, or paradox of Langevin (1911), ig onal the oldest of the relativistic paradoxes. It is quite easily resolved, but eeu tw pe some hidden emotional content that makes it the subject a interminable debate among dilettantes in relativity. Consider two synchronized standard clocks A and B at rest at a point p of an inertial frame S. Let A remain at P while B is briefly accelerated tq t velocity v with which it travels to a distant point Q in g. There it is decelerated briefly and made to return with velocity —v to P. If of two twins, one travels with B while the other remains with A, the B-twin will be younger than the A-twin when they meet again, for each ages at the same rate relative to his clock. Now the paradox is this: cannot B (we shall identify clocks with persons) claim with equal right that it was he who remained where he was, while 4 went on a round-trip, and that consequently A should be the younger when they meet again? The answer is no, and this resolves the paradox: A has remained at rest in a single inertial frame while B was accelerated out of his rest frame at P, at Q, and once again at P. These accelerations are recorded - ‘on B's accelerometer and he can therefore be under no illusion that it was he who remained at rest, or that he and his twin entered this ‘experiment’ symmetrically. Of course, the two accelerations at P are not essential for the HB) or sinply of gist of the argument—the age comparisons could be made in passing—but JB) We ish to the acceleration at Q is vital. We define Still, it can be argued that there is symmetry between A and B for ‘most of the time’, namely during the times of B’s free fall. The three asymmett accelerations can be confined to arbitrarily short periods (as measured by A—they are even shorter as measured by B). How is it then that a larg asymmetric effect can build up, and, moreover, one that is proportional to the symmetric parts of the motion? But (as pointed out by Bondi) # situation is no more strange than that of two drivers A and B going fi O to P to Q (three points in a straight line), A going directly, while B de" at P to a point R off the line, and thence to Q. They behave quite similay except that B turns his steering wheel and readjusts his speed briefly 2 and again at R. Yet when they meet at Q, their odometers may indica large mileage difference! In a way, the twins’ eventual age difference can be considered [0 during B's initial acceleration away from P. During this perio some constant ‘fet ° peo 13. VelocitRELATIVISTIC KINEMATICS a s y-factor gets to be 2, say, B finds that he has accomplished more han half his outward journey! For he has transferred himself lo a frame in wich the distance between P and Q is halved (length contraction), and this halving is real to him in every way. Thus he accomplishes his outward trip in about half the time that A ascribes to it, and the same is true of his return piel, if hi Many arguments of this nature exist, which illuminate the lack of symmetry between the twins and demonstate the self-consistency of the theory. (See, for example, Exercise III(1).] But the paradox is disposed of as soon as the asyrnmetry has been established. Sciama has made perhaps the single most enlightening remark about this paradox: it has, he said, the same status as Newton's experiment with the two buckets of water—one, rotating, suspended below the other, at rest. If these were the whole content of the universe, it would indeed be paradoxical that the water surface in the one should be curved and that in the other flat. But inertial frames have a teal existence too, and relative to the inertial frames there is no symmetry between the buckets, and no symmetry between the twins, either. It should be noted, finally, that the clock paradox is entirely independent of any assumptions about clock behaviour under acceleration. Whatever the effects of the accelerations as such may be on the moving clock or organism, these effects can be dwarfed by simply extending the periods of free fall. 13. Velocity transformation d Once again, let us consider two inertial frames S and I Fe Sonfiguration. Let u be the instantaneous vector velocity in sib a> °r simply of a geometrical point (so as not to exclude the’ oral «Wish to find the velocity u’ of this point in S’. As in class define (3.1) W = (ty, ta, ts) = (dx/de, dy/d, a (132) WS Gat, wy uy) = Caesar, ay'/8" d278- ty uO kinematics. ynomina- d det 9 . : , merator ant ocity “titution from (73) into (13.2) division oF each Ta, yields the ¥ "OF by dr, and comparison with (13.1), OW Srmation formulae: (33) ly we ape!) ee also