The twin paradox and the principle of relativity arxiv. One of the most famous paradoxes of all of physics whos older. This has been proven many times over, though admittedly more with clocks and subatomic particles than twins, but its really all the same. Stella flies off in a spaceship at nearly the speed of light, turns around after a while, thrusters blazing, and returns. The twin paradox is a result from special relativity that states that if one person, alice, remains stationary and another person, bob, takes any kind of round trip, then the stationary alice will experience more time. Our story stars two twins, sometimes unimaginatively named a and b. In the standard formulation of the twin paradox an accelerated twin considers himself as at rest and his. Suppose one of two twins carrying a clock departs on a rocket ship from the other twin, an inertial observer, at a certain time, and they rejoin at a later time. The twin paradox isnt a paradox at all, its just strange and offputting like twins.
In this supposed paradox, one of two twins travels at near the speed of light to a. In physics, the twin paradox is a thought experiment in special relativity involving identical twins, one of whom makes a journey into space in a highspeed rocket and returns home to find that the twin who remained on earth has aged more. A closely related phenomenon predicted by special relativity is the socalled twin paradox. The paradox is that on first glance each twin witnessed his twin doing the exact same thing. For the twin paradox to be considered a true paradox the framing of the scenario must be stringent, that is to say we cannot permit assumptions to be. It is a problem that involves relativistic time dilation, from the special theory of relativity the jargon might seem tough, but the solution is quite intuitive. Lets say we have twin brothers alpha and beta it is also known as alphabeta paradox. The twin paradox is one of those problems that encase within it a beautiful solution or might i say, answer. In the earth frame which we will refer to as the laboratory system the spaceship travels from earth to rigel a distance of 800 light years which. This is a companion video for his earlier one in which the same question was handled.
In accordance with the timedilation effect, the elapsed time on the clock of the twin on. Olavs plass, n0 oslo, norway abstract in the standard formulation of the twin paradox an accelerated twin considers himself as at rest and his brother as moving. In special relativity, the twin paradox occurs when one twin makes a. Oslo university college, faculty of engineering, p. In this supposed paradox, one of two twins travels at near the speed of light to a distant star and returns to the earth. In physics, the twin paradox is a thought experiment in special relativity involving identical twins. One twin travels at great distance at the speed of light and returns, much younger than the other twin. The twin paradox is a result from special relativity that states that if one person, alice, remains stationary and another person.
The twin paradox is the conclusion from relativity that if your twin travels out into space at high speed and then returns, he or she will have aged less than you. One twin travels at great distance at the speed of light and. Hence, when formulating the twin paradox, one uses the general principle of relativity, i. There is no twin paradox mathematical proof physics forums. International journal of theoretical and mathematical physics, vol. And within the special theory of relativity the principle of relativity is not valid for accelerated motion. For mathematical problems involving the positions of the hands on a clock face, see clock angle problem.
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