What On Earth Is Going On? (An Introduction)

By
Martin Scarratt

What on earth is going on?
(an introduction)

2014 by Martin Scarratt

Contents

I Time Dilation and the Twin Paradox
(How to age less than your friends) 4

II Length Contraction, Simultaneity and the Pole-Barn Paradox
(How to fit a ladder in your handbag) 14

III Spacetime Diagrams
(Seeing the universe) 22

IV The Paradoxes Revisited
(Seeing the truth) 34

V The Lorentz Transformations
(The keys to enlightenment) 46


4

I

Time Dilation and the Twin Paradox
(How to age less than your friends)

5 Time Dilation and the Twin Paradox


Time Dilation and the Twin Paradox
Inertial Frames
Every body has a frame of reference which is always at rest relative to itself. You always experience
everything from your own frame of reference. The type of reference frame that special relativity is
principally concerned with is the inertial frame of reference. A simple definition of an inertial frame is
as follows:
A reference frame in which the observers are not subject to any accelerating force.
The observers in this definition being the bodies that are at rest in the frame. So any inertial frame
travels at a constant speed relative to any other inertial frame.
Eg. If a bus is travelling at a constant speed V ms
-1
relative to a person standing on the pavement
then the bus is in an inertial frame which is travelling with the bus. The person on the pavement is
also in an inertial frame that stays at rest relative to the pavement. If the bus changes its speed, then
it is no longer in the same inertial frame. Also if the bus changes direction but keeps the same speed
it will have changed its inertial frame. An object is only in a single inertial frame if its motion remains
unchanged.
An inertial frame can be thought of as a coordinate system with the origin initially centred on the
observer, such that any event in this frame can be identified by giving the coordinates, of the
event.

The Two Postulates of Special Relativity
Einsteins theory of Special relativity is based on two postulates:
i) All laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames.
ii) The speed of light in a vacuum is the same in all frames.
The first postulate just states that all frames are equivalent. An example of this is that if you are on a
train travelling with a constant velocity (and so in an inertial frame) and you throw a ball vertically
upwards, then the ball will continue to move in a vertical direction. This is exactly what you would
expect if you threw a ball vertically upwards while standing at rest relative to the earth on the ground
outside the train (in another inertial frame). Of course the two observers would disagree on what had
happened to the ball in each case. To the observer outside the train, the ball thrown inside the train
would also be travelling with the train and so have some horizontal motion as well as vertical, so this
observer would see the ball describe a parabola. The same can be said for the person inside the train
watching the ball thrown from the ground. So there is a symmetry between the two observers.
This postulate seems to be common sense and so could seem to some to be a little pointless, but it is
of vital importance and means that there is no preferred inertial frame we will see how important
this is later on.
The second postulate is far from common sense and has some very unusual and counter intuitive
consequences. This postulate has been thoroughly tested through experiment and can be taken as a
fact of nature. It says that given two observers, A and B, both in inertial frames, with B travelling at a
speed of ms
-1
relative to A, if B sees a particle of light (called a photon) passing by and measures its
speed as ms
-1
then A will see the same photon and also measure its speed to be ms
-1
!
6

The Galilean (and common sense) view of this would be that A should see the photon travelling at
( ) ms
-1
, that you should add the velocities of observer B and the particle. So we need a new rule
for relative velocities and all our common sense and gut feeling must be put aside (which can be a
very difficult thing to do).
The rule (for any particle) is this:

Where
is the velocity that we want (the velocity of the particle relative to A),
is the velocity of
A relative to B and
is the velocity of the particle relative to B. is the speed of light (
)
We will not prove this formula here as it would be necessary to develop the theory beyond the scope
of this chapter (see chapter 5 for a proof).
For our example where the particle is a photon (ie travelling with speed ) take
, which gives

Which is the correct answer.
This formula has other consequences, one of which being that as long as and are both less than
the speed of light (), their relative sum will also always be less than . So if a particle is seen to be
travelling at below the speed of light in one frame, this will be true in any frame.

The Light Clock

To show some of the effects of these postulates, we need to
set up a little thought experiment involving an imaginary piece
of apparatus called the light clock.
A light clock involves the repeated travelling of light across a
constant distance. A photon is emitted from a source and
travels towards a mirror set perpendicular to the line of
motion of the photon. The photon is reflected back to the
source where it is received and another photon is
immediately sent. Time can be measured using this device as
there is a constant interval between the photon being
released and it being received again. The interval depends on
the distance between the mirror and the detector.
The important feature of a light clock is that the speed of the
moving part of the clock is the same in any frame even if the
actual clock is moving with respect to the frame.
Figure 1



Time Dilation
Imagine we have two inertial frames, Well call the first one S, in which we are always sitting at the
origin and the second S in which the light clock and another observer are sitting at its origin. S is
travelling with velocity v with respect to S such that the light clock in figure 1 is moving in a horizontal
direction from left to right.
All measurements we take from S we will write with a prime or dash next to them (apart from , the
speed of light, as it is the same in both frames) eg. , . All measurements taken from S will have no
prime or dash eg. , . We will also assume that d is unchanged in both frames as it is a
measurement in a direction in which there is no relative velocity.
When the observer in S looks at the light clock they see it as if it is at rest (which it is, relative to
them), ie the same as in figure 1. So the time taken for the photon to travel from the detector to the
mirror is:

When the observer in S looks at the light clock they see something slightly different. To them, the
clock is moving with speed v and so the path that the photon makes is that of an isosceles triangle.

Figure 2
This means that the distance travelled by the photon whilst moving between the detector and the
mirror as seen from frame S is vertically and horizontally, so using Pythagorass theorem, the
distance travelled, , is

We know from S that

so

The factor
comes up so often in relativity that it is given its own symbol, (gamma). So the
equation becomes

This is the equation for time dilation. For this formula to work it is important that both frames agree on
the length . This length is the distance between the positions of the two events in the frame in which
the clock is at rest.
In general, the time dilation formula is only valid if the spatial distance between events, relative to one
of the inertial frames (the S frame in this case), is either zero or perpendicular to the relative velocity
of the frames. We usually make sure that both events are at the origin of one of the frames when we
want to use time dilation, then the time interval in this frame multiplied by gamma will equal the time
interval in the other frame. For situations where this is not possible there exist more general formulae,
known as the Lorentz Transformations, which we will derive in chapter 5.

Observations on the Time Dilation Formula
Facts about :
cannot be equal to . if is equal to the denominator becomes zero and is undefined. If
begins below the speed of light then it will not be able to increase to a value of and so
certainly could never increase above .

is always less than 1. So is always greater than 1.

If is small compared to then
is nearly 1 which means that is also very near to 1

and so has very little effect.
The formula tells us that, as observed by S, the time passed is greater than that passed on the
clock of S. We also have a limit on the velocity of the frame S, it can never exceed the speed of light
and time dilation is only a noticeable effect if the relative speed of S is very large.
This final point is why we never notice this effect in our own, very slow paced world. The speed of
light is very large indeed. Currently, the fastest aeroplane can travel at about 2200mph this sounds
fast, but its only about 983ms
-1,
and as a fraction of c is about
At this speed our equation

becomes



Which is a negligible effect, but it can be measured given accurate enough clocks and a large enough
time period.
It is not necessary to have a light clock to observe this effect. If you put a normal mechanical clock
next to the light clock in this experiment, and made the length of the light clock such that it ticked once
per second, then by postulate 1 both clocks would tick at the same rate. S would also see the light
clock and the mechanical clock ticking at the same rate. Removing the light clock would make no
difference to the mechanical clock. So our time dilation formula would apply to the mechanical clock
too. Or any kind of clock, even a biological one such as a heart, or the age of a person!
What would happen if we put the light clock in the other frame instead?
Here we have a perfectly symmetrical system. S travels with a speed of relative to S and so
exactly the same argument applies. is unaffected by a negative velocity so we have the same result
for S.
What if we put a clock in both frames?
S would see the clock of S running slowly and S would see the clock of S running slowly! This looks
like a contradiction or paradox. There are many of these apparent paradoxes within Special relativity
but it is important to realize and understand that there are no actual paradoxes at all! The reason this
looks like a paradox is because of the fact that we are looking at two different frames points of view at
the same time and comparing them. Exactly the same problem arises in Galilean relativity but you
think nothing of it. The example of a ball being thrown on a train illustrates this. Does the ball move
vertically or in a parabola? Two different points of view of the same event. Both are correct but only in
the frame they originate from.
It makes no sense to compare conceptions of reality in different frames (unless they agree of course).
In general we compare clocks in two frames as seen by an observer stationary in one of these frames.
This observer will always see the clock in the other frame running more slowly that the one in their
own.

The Twin Paradox
If two twins travel away from each other at some high speed, say one on a spaceship and one on the
Earth, then the spaceship turns around and returns to Earth, will the twins be different ages when they
meet? If so, which will be older?
Where is the paradox?
Which frame should you take as stationary? The first postulate says that there is no preferred frame
and so either frame is equally valid. For two frames moving relative to one another, either of the twins
could be older depending on whose point of view you take. The paradox is that if they meet again
then it should be obvious to everybody which twin has aged more, yet relativity seems to say that this
cant be the case!
Remember there are no paradoxes here, just apparent ones, so our task is to prove that there is no
paradox. Well, it is really quite simple, the twin that turned around and returned to earth was not in a
single inertial frame for the whole journey, they must have experienced some acceleration when they
turned around, so none of our arguments apply here. But still the question remains, which would be
older? Even if one of the twins changed their inertial frame, there must still be some time bending
going on if they are travelling at a high relative speed. Or maybe turning around and coming back
10

cancels out any effect and really this is a very theoretical and useless theory of no practical
significance at all.
It is possible to solve this problem using only what we have already seen. There are actually three
inertial frames involved here. The first, T is the frame on Earth, the second, T is the frame of the twin
leaving the Earth and the third, T is the frame of the twin returning to Earth. The first two frames start
in the same position and the distance between them gradually increases. While this is happening the
third frame is decreasing its distance to the point where the twin turns around and starts his return
journey. At the exact time that the twin would turn around, the origins of T and T should be in the
same place. So T takes the place of T at the turn around point. This means that T must have the
same speed as T as seen by earth but in the opposite direction. Figure 3 shows this situation.

Figure 3
First we will take all of our measurements from the T frame. Say we want the travelling twin to travel
for a certain number of years before he turns around. If the observer in the T frame observes that the
outward journey takes p years in the T frame and years in its own frame, then because leaving
Earth and arriving at the turn-around point both happen at the origin of T, . The total time
experienced by the twin in the spaceship would be years. The relative speed of T and T is
found by using the relative velocity formula (the velocities are added)

And so

So for the outward part of the journey

v
v
In frame T
Earth
Frame T
Frame T
Turn-around
point


The time taken for the entire journey as seen from the T frame is
, as for the return journey

T would experience the same journey in reverse as T experienced for the outward journey.

Now, the relative velocity of the T and T frames is simply , and so

This shows that from the T frame, the time for the entire journey is more in the T frame than in the T
frame (as ). We would get exactly the same result if we took all of our measurements from the T
frame as the motion of this frame is identical to the T frame, only in the opposite direction. Also,
taking the measurements from the T frame will give the above formula directly. So all three inertial
frames agree that the time difference experienced will be by a factor of and the twin on Earth will be
older than the twin in the spaceship.

Application
Lets see this with some actual figures.
Well restate the problem:
If two twins travel away from each other at
ms
-1
, say one on a spaceship and one on the Earth,
then after 7 years, (as experienced by the observer on the spaceship) the spaceship turns around and
returns to earth, will the twins be different ages when they meet? If so, which will be older?
First of all find the relative velocity of the frames T and T which are both travelling towards each
other with speeds of
ms
-1
.

We have and so

12

On reaching Earth
, and from the above

So the frame T observes 50 years passing on Earth while the spaceship travels for 14 years. Of
course the observer in the T frame has to sit through a tedious 179 years for all of this to happen,
but T doesnt really exist. T is just a tool for us to do the calculations with.
Now what does the observer in the inertial frame T, sitting on earth think of all this? For the 14 years
that the twin is away it is a simple calculation with and

Which agrees with our previous result, so there is no confusion, everybody agrees that the twin on
Earth will be 36 years older than the one that went on the 14 year trip!

What do the Twins See?
The twin on the Earth simply spends 25 years watching their twin travelling away from Earth whilst
only aging 7 years and then another 25 years seeing the same for the return journey.
The experience of the twin on the spaceship is a little stranger. On the outward journey they observe
the twin on the Earth aging less than themselves
. So for
the 7 years of the outward journey they see the twin on Earth age only 2 years. Exactly the same
happens on the return journey. Here we come across the apparent paradox again. But we havent
taken the change of frame into account. When the twin changes frame they see the twin on Earth age
incredible rapidly in fact, for an instantaneous change of direction, the twin on Earth will seem to
age 46 years in an instant!
With a more realistic, gradual change of speed there would be a slower (but still unnaturally quick)
ageing. For example, the maximum acceleration experienced in a space ship during take-off and re-
entry is about 3Gs which is about 29.4 ms
-2
. It would take about 8 months to slow down, stop, turn
around and then speed back up to the desired speed in the opposite direction at this acceleration.
This would be quite an uncomfortable 8 months. This means that as a rough estimate it would take 8
months for the twin on Earth to age 46 years (more on this in chapter 4). Of course we would have to
adjust other parameters to get an accurate answer here as the spaceship would no longer be
travelling at
ms
-1
for the entire 14 years.
So it is the actual changing of frame that prevents the paradox and it is this changing of frame which
made it seem as if there was a paradox in the first place. The person who changes frame will always
age less than the person who doesnt.
So there is no twin paradox, but just an apparent twin paradox.



14

II

Length Contraction, Simultaneity and
the Pole-Barn Paradox
(How to fit a ladder in your handbag)

15 Length Contraction, Simultaneity and the Pole-Barn Paradox


Length Contraction, Simultaneity and the Pole-Barn Paradox
Length Contraction
Distance Travelled
We know that given two inertial frames of reference moving with a relative speed of the observers in
each frame will disagree on the amount of time that has passed. Bearing this in mind and given one of
them is travelling at a constant speed relative to the other, it must follow that they also disagree on the
amount of relative distance travelled, (if you travel at a certain speed for a certain amount of time then
you travel a certain distance, but if you travel at the same speed for a different amount of time you
must travel a different distance).
Lets say we have two frames S and S, where S is travelling at speed relative to S. Then an
observer in frame S will see S travel meters, whereas an observer in S will see itself travel
meters.
Now because we are concerned with the position of S which is always in the same place relative to
itself, we can use the formula .
Using these three equations we can derive the following formula:

So the observer in the S frame sees S travel further than the distance S sees itself travel (as ).

The Length of a Moving Object
This can be further illustrated by considering an object at rest in one of the frames. Imagine a rod of
length L sitting at rest on the ground. Now imagine somebody flying past the stationary rod at great
speed (relative to the ground), lets call that speed . There is a time when that person is at the
beginning of the rod and a time when they are at the end of the rod. The beginning and end of the rod
occur in the same position relative to the person who is flying by (ie both of them occur at the origin of
the flying persons inertial frame at different times). This is the condition for the time dilation formula to
be valid with the person flying being in the inertial frame S and the rod being in the frame S (the ends
of the rod are not both at the origin of the S frame as the rod is stationary relative to S).
The distance moved by the S frame between these two events (passing the front end of the rod and
passing the back end of the rod) is the same as the length of the rod. So from the above,

So the observer in the frame in which the rod is stationary sees the rod has length L, but the observer
in the frame which sees the rod moving sees a shorter rod of length L.
So to sum up, moving things appear shorter than when they are stationary.
16

Comparing this with the time dilation formula, you may be mistaken in thinking that they are the same
formula only with different quantities.
, where L is the rest length of the rod.
, where the S frame has the two events separated by time t occurring in the same position.
But it is the conditions following the formulae that are key here. You will often find that the formulae
share an inverse relationship as the next example illustrates:
In frame S we observe a car travelling past in frame S at
relative to us and in that car we see

a dog barking. The car is at rest in S and the dog is barking in the same position in S, so and
(notice the difference in this second equation this is because L is the rest length). If the
owner of that car knows his car is 5 meters long and his dog is barking once every two seconds, then
we will measure his car as being
meters long and see his dog barking once every 2 seconds.
It is interesting to look at what the owner of the other car thinks of our car. If our car is 5 meters long,
then the owner of the other car will see our car as being
meters long. So we will see our car as

being the longest whereas the other driver will say his was longest. But just as with time dilation, this
is not a contradiction as it is two separate measurements taken from two different inertial frames.

What About Height Contraction?
We have looked at how the length of an object is affected by its motion, but how do we know that the
entire object doesnt shrink rather than it squashing only in the direction of motion? The following
thought experiment illustrates why this cannot be the case:
Say we have two identical (when at relative rest) high speed trains travelling past each other, each
equipped with a paintbrush at the same height, one with red paint and one with blue which will paint a
horizontal line on the other train as it passes. When sitting in one of the trains (the one with the red
paintbrush, say) we know that the other will appear to be shorter but will it also appear to be less tall?
If it is then we will be able to see that the paintbrush on our train is higher than the paintbrush on the
other train and so after the trains have passed each other and returned to the station we can look at
the painted lines. We should see the red line is above the paintbrush on the other train and the blue
line on our train is below the paintbrush, i.e. the red line is above the blue line. But a passenger on the
other train would claim that they saw that our train had contracted and so there should be a lower red
line and a higher blue line and of course that makes perfect sense as the first postulate states that
all frames are equivalent. Both parties must agree because the proof is painted on the trains and they
just need to look at the trains together to find the answer. But it makes no sense if you saw a higher
blue line being painted when in the train, but on inspecting the train afterwards you see that the red
line is higher if you see something happening, then it really happened! The only way both
passengers could agree and be happy with the final train inspection is if there was no change in
height of either train (both red and blue lines would be at the same height). The only way for the first
postulate to remain unbroken is if there is no vertical contraction, and so there isnt. Contraction only
occurs in the direction of motion, and in no other.

Simultaneity
Given two events A and B, we already know that the time measured between the events depends on
the frame of reference and the distance between the events also depends on the frame of reference.


But surprisingly, it also turns out that it can be the case that the order in which A and B occur can also
depend on the frame of reference! This is illustrated below with an example:
There is an open door at each end of a long corridor in a spaceship. Let event A be the door at the
rear end of the spaceship is closed and let event B be the door at the front end of the spaceship is
closed. The doors must be closed simultaneously in the rest frame of the spaceship. A person is
assigned to each door and each person is instructed to close the door when they see the light
situated in the centre of the corridor turn on. When somebody turns the light on, the light travels the
length of the corridor in both directions at the speed of light, simultaneously reaches our door closers
and the doors are closed at exactly the same time. This is shown in the diagram below.

rear [ -- ] front Light switched on
[ - - ]
[ - - ]
[- -] Event A and B
The light bulb is switched on just as the spaceship passes an observer on a space station. The
observer watches the light travel down the corridor in both directions as the spaceship zooms by,
shown below.

[ - - ]
[- - ] Event A
[ - ]
[ - ]
[ -] Event B
The forward motion of the spaceship ensures that the light reaches the rear of the spaceship first.
Just before the spaceship reaches the space station it releases a scout ship which overtakes the
spaceship to investigate the space ahead. Just as the scout ship passes the centre of the spaceship,
the light bulb is switched on and the pilot of the scout ship watches the light travel down the corridor in
both directions.
[ - - ]
[ - -] Event B
[ - ]
[ - ]
[- ] Event A
18

The relative backward motion of the spaceship ensures that the light reaches the front of the
spaceship first.
Notice that in all three inertial frames the light travels in exactly the same pattern just as the second
postulate requires. The only difference between the three frames is the way that the spaceship
appears to be moving and the fact that the spaceship is slightly length contracted in the scout ship
and space station frames.
Also notice that in the spaceships frame the events A and B are simultaneous, in the space stations
frame A happens before B and in the scout ships frame B happens before A. So there is no absolute
order of events.
You might think that this is just a trick of the light (so to speak). You could, (understandably) be saying
to yourself that this only happens because we are watching a light beam, which has the property that
it looks the same in all frames. This is not the case. We have used the fact that light has this property
to reveal the properties of simultaneity rather than to create them. If we removed the light signal and
just said that the doors were closed simultaneously in the spaceships frame, this would not affect the
experiment in any way. It is the fact that the doors were closed and when they were closed, (rather
than the fact that the light reached the end of the corridor) that we are interested in.
Apply a little imagination and this can be quite unsettling. It seems to be that we are saying that if you
flick a piece of paper at a wall, then the two events the flick and hitting the wall dont necessarily
happen in that order. The paper might have hit the wall before you flicked it. Or what if you were born
before you were conceived? Fortunately for our sanity, cause and effect are conserved. If one event
caused another then the order of these events is always the same in any frame (the time between
them may be different though). This idea can be extended a little to say that if it is at all possible to
send a signal from one event to another (the fastest a signal can travel is the speed of light) then the
ordering of the events is independent of the frame they are observed from. To show this requires a
mathematical analysis of the situation.
To analyze this using time dilation would require an inertial frame in which both events happen at the
same position. Looking at the spaceships frame you can see this isnt possible as both events
happen simultaneously in different places. Also it is obvious that the formula cannot work as
doesnt make sense for
.
To look at this concept in detail requires some more powerful mathematical tools, namely the Lorentz
Transformations which we will meet in Chapter 5. It is possible to visualise the possibilities of this by
drawing a graph of the situation, (called a space-time diagram) which we will discuss in Chapter 4.
For now we will settle for the knowledge that any two events that do not share a causal relationship
may seem to happen in any order depending on your frame of reference.

The Pole-Barn Paradox
A 20 meter pole lies next to a 15 meter barn. A runner picks up the pole runs away from the barn and
then runs back towards the barn with a velocity of , carrying the pole so that it is pointing in the
direction of motion. The door of the barn is open and the runner and pole enter the barn. As soon as
the back end of the pole enters the barn the door is shut. When the front end of the pole touches the
back wall of the barn the runner stops. The question is, does the door actually ever get shut?
At first glance there seems to be no problem with this situation. Obviously the door of the barn is
never shut as you cant fit a 20 meter pole in a 15 meter barn, and that would be the end of the
discussion if it wasnt for the fact that the runner with the pole is travelling near the speed of light.


Because of this velocity, the observer in the barns reference frame (the door closer) would see the
pole as being shorter than 20 metres. In fact it would be
meters. If the barn is in the frame S and

the runner and pole are in the frame S, the lengths in S are given by:

A 12 meter pole will easily fit into a 15 meter barn, so as far as the door closer is concerned the door
will be shut!
Now, lets look at this from the runners reference frame. How long is the barn in this frame?

The runner knows that their 20 metre pole will definitely not fit into the 9 meter barn and so the door
will not close.
So here is the paradox. You cant fit a 20 meter pole in a 15 meter barn, yet it appears that the person
assigned the job of closing the door will have no problem carrying out his task, as a 12 meter pole will
easily fit into a 15 meter barn. The runner would say the barn is only 9 meters long and so when he
stops in the barn there will still be 11 meters of pole sticking out of the barn behind him. The door
closer says he is not bothered about the concerns of the runner and he is just going to go ahead and
close the door anyway.
So what happens?
Well, the door closer sees the entire pole go into the barn, as he knew he would, and he closes the
door. It would certainly have been possible for him to do this seeing as a 12 meter pole easily fits into
a 15 meter barn, and so that is exactly what he would do! The door would be closed, nobody could
disagree with that, it is a physical fact... But, this being the case, what on earth is going on in the barn?
As far as the door closer is concerned, after closing the door the runner would have run for another 3
meters and then stopped when the end of his pole touched the back of the barn. In the runners frame
though, he would have stopped when there was still 11 meters of pole sticking out of the open door
behind him. Or, what I should really say is that the runner stopped the end of the pole that was
touching the back of the barn, the rest of the pole didnt instantly realise that the front had stopped, it
took a little bit of time for the information to travel the length of the pole (nothing can travel faster than
the speed of light, not even the forces along a pole). So the door is still open, the front of the pole has
stopped and the back of the pole is still moving! The pole compresses. It will continue to compress
until it receives the message to stop. During this time, the back end of the pole will pass the open
door, at which point the door closer will shut the door! What happens next depends on the properties
of the pole. In reality the pole would have disintegrated with the shock of being decelerated at such an
incredibly high acceleration, (and so would the runner). If we had an extremely flexible pole then it
would eventually bounce back to its original length of 20 meters, making a hole in the door.
There seem to be a few discrepancies with this explanation, for example, the door closer closed the
door before the pole touched the back of the barn, but when the runner stopped he could see the
door was still open, it only closed after the pole had compressed to the length of the barn. So the
20

door closer saw the door close and then the runner stop, but the runner stopped first and then saw
the door close. This makes sense only if you know that the order of events in one inertial reference
frame isnt necessarily the same in another reference frame. We can check to see if this is possible by
testing whether we can send a particle of light from the closed door to the back of the barn before the
front of the pole reaches the back of the barn. If not then a message cannot be sent between the
events and the order in which the events occur may be different in the two frames.
In the inertial frame of the barn, when the door is closed the front of the pole has 3 meters to travel at

until it reaches the back of the barn. This takes
seconds. Our particle of

light has 15 metres to travel at
. This takes
seconds. It takes longer for the light

signal to reach the back of the barn than it does for the front of the pole to reach the back of the barn.
Therefore it is impossible to send the signal in the time we have, so we cannot be sure that the
frames will agree on the order of events (and as we can see from above, they clearly dont).
Another question that might be asked is, 'what if the pole instantly disintegrates when it touches the
back wall?' Wouldnt the 11 meters of pole still sticking out of the barn disintegrate outside the barn
causing the door closer to see the pole disintegrate before it had fully entered the barn and so before
the front of the pole had reached the back of the barn? This is impossible because touching the back
wall caused the pole to disintegrate, so all frames must agree that touching the back wall must
happen first. This seems to be a contradiction. The explanation is that the runner would have seen the
pole disintegrate starting from the front and moving backwards along the pole. The rear end of the
pole would have long passed the door before it realised it was supposed to stop and it wouldnt be
able to disintegrate until it got this information, so the entire pole would still disintegrate inside the
barn.
To show this, consider a light particle emitted from the point where the front of the pole contacts the
back of the barn, we want to know how far the back end of the pole moves before the light particle
reaches it (this is where the back end of the pole will be when it disintegrates). From the back end of
the poles frame the light particle must travel the full length of the pole, so the time for the particle to
reach it is simply
and the distance it moves relative to the barn will be

So the pole will be only
metres long when it has totally disintegrated (well within the

barn).
From the door closers inertial frame the pole compresses too. To find out how much, consider a light
particle emitted from the rear of the barn on impact, travelling towards the moving rear end of the pole.
Then the following equation must be true:

The sum of the distance travelled by the light and the distance travelled by the rear end of the pole
must be equal to the length of the pole this is because the end of the pole and the light particle are
initially separated by the length of the pole and are moving towards each other. Solving this equation
gives
seconds, and so the distance the end of the pole has moved is

So the end of the pole will be
meters from the end of the barn when it disintegrates.



The fact that the final length of the pole in the barns frame is greater than in the poles frame makes
sense because of length contraction. We are measuring an object (the disintegrated pole) that is at
rest in the frame of the barn and so it should obey the relationship . Checking this with

and
gives
. For we know that
, and so
, which is correct.
If you are not too comfortable with elastic/disintegrating poles, then a variant on this paradox is to
have two door operators at either end of the barn. We start with the back door closed and the front
door open. As soon as the pole is in the barn, the front door is closed and as soon as the pole
reaches the back of the barn, the back door is opened, thus letting the pole and runner straight
through. The door operators see both doors closed with the pole runner inside the barn for a short
time, (ie the front door is closed before the back door is opened) whereas the pole runner sees both
doors open while his pole is sticking out of the front and back ends of the barn at the same time (ie
the back door is opened before the front door is closed). Again this is a disagreement with the order of
events between different inertial frames.
As you can see, there is no contradiction or paradox here, only an apparent paradox (just as with the
so called twin paradox).
So, how do you fit a ladder in your handbag? Its simple, just put it in quickly! How quickly? Lets see...
Say your handbag is 20cm deep and your ladder is 3m high then we need to move the ladder quickly
enough for it to shrink to 20cm in the handbags inertial frame. So using

Which is pretty fast, but Im sure you can manage it...(You may find it easier with a friend: one to put
the ladder in and one to do the zip up).

22

III

Spacetime Diagrams and the
Spacetime Interval
(Seeing the Universe)

23 Spacetime Diagrams and the Spacetime Interval


Spacetime Diagrams and the Spacetime Interval

Time dilation, length contraction and simultaneity can be visualised by drawing a graph of events.
This graph is nothing more than a simple displacement-time graph with time on the y axis and
displacement on the x axis (possibly reversed from the axes you are used to). It is called a spacetime
diagram because it is a graph of a number of spacial dimensions (well deal with only one, x) and a
time dimension. These graphs become very useful when you draw two different inertial frames on one
diagram, then an event is easily comparable from both frames.

The Inertial Frame S
To start with well look at an empty spacetime diagram from the inertial frame S.

As you can see here the vertical axis
is labelled rather than . This is
merely to calibrate the axes so that a
line representing something travelling
at the speed of light is at an angle of
to the vertical. So the green

dotted line in the diagram can be
thought of as a photon of light leaving
at .

To show that this really does represent something travelling at the speed of light use the fact that we
know that the gradient of the green dotted line is 1:

The gradient in such a diagram is always:

This green dotted could represent a photon released from the origin of S travelling in the positive
direction.
It is not necessary to always plot this photon line on a spacetime diagram, but we will as it is a handy
visual reference, as you will see in the following diagram.
45
x
ct

24

This spacetime diagram shows four events:
joined with a blue line and
joined with a pink line. The
blue and pink dotted lines are to help in seeing
the coordinate values of each event. The
green dotted line is, as before, the photon
emitted from (0,0).

First lets consider the blue line: The gradient of this line is given by:

Because this velocity is less than the speed of light the blue line could represent some object
travelling along in the direction at a speed of
. Events like this are said to be time-like

separated as there is a greater change in than in . Any line on a spacetime diagram that
represents a travelling object is called the worldline of that object.
Doing the same for the pink line gives
. This is more than the speed of light and so

could not represent an object travelling. It could be two unconnected events, such as two doors
separated by a distance of 6 metres being shut, one 4 seconds after the other. Events like this are
said to be space-like separated as there is a greater change in than in .
The spacetime diagram is useful here because you can see these facts immediately just by
comparing the slopes to the green dotted line. The blue slope is steeper than the green dotted line,
(slower than light) but the pink slope is shallower (faster than light). Time-like separated events are
joined with a line steeper than the photon line and space-like separated events are joined with a line
shallower than the photon line.
From our discussion in the previous chapter we know that the order in which the pink events happen
is frame dependent, whereas the blue events should always happen in the order seen above. All
space-like separated events have an order that is frame dependent, whereas the order in which all
time-like separated events occur is independent of the frame from which the events are observed. We
will look at why this is the case in chapter 4.
6
1
2 1
3
x
ct
5


x
ct
It is important to realize the significance of lines
that are parallel to the axes.
Because the -axis is horizontal here, all
horizontal lines are lines in which there is no
change in time. In other words, any two events
that are separated by a line parallel to the -axis
happen simultaneously in the S frame.
Also, the -axis being vertical means that all
vertical lines are lines in which there is no change
in . Or put a different way, any two events
separated by a line parallel to the -axis happen
in the same position.

The same would apply even if the two axes were not perpendicular, for example in the following
strange looking diagram:

Again, if two events are connected
by a line parallel to the -axis, they
happen simultaneously and any
events connected by a line parallel
to the -axis happen at the same
position.
So the red event happens in the
same position as the grey event, the
yellow and grey events happen
simultaneously and the green and
yellow events happen in the same
position, green first and yellow later.

Comparing Events from Two Different Inertial Frames
To do this we need to be able to draw two spacetime diagrams together as one diagram. Any events
must have one coordinate in the S frame but a different coordinate in the S frame. An event must be
represented by a single point on the diagram (as it is a single event), this suggests that the coordinate
axes of the two frames must be different somehow (how else would we get two different readings
from the same point?). So by considering the motion of objects in two inertial reference frames, S and
S, we can construct the axes of an alternate inertial frame of reference as seen by the S reference
frame.
First of all we need to know a starting position and for the sake of simplicity we can say that they start
with their origins coinciding, in other words, .

ct
x
26

This means the -axis must pass through the origin. To decide on the slope we consider something
which is moving at rest relative to S (ie remains stationary), as this would mean it has a worldline
parallel to the -axis. If this object starts at , then its world line will actually be the -axis! We
will be tracking the origin of the S frame. If the S frame is moving with speed relative to the S
frame then the worldline of its origin should make a straight line with gradient
.

As you can see from the diagram the
greater the relative speed the closer
to the photon line the -axis gets.
As decreases to 0 the closer to the
-axis it gets until at the
and axes coincide, as you would
expect.

If we now consider the photon which is represented by the dotted green line, we should be aware that
its speed in any frame needs to be
. So its gradient must be
, in all frames. In
other words it must be equidistant from both axes in all frames. This means that for any frame the
photon line should be a line of symmetry. So adding a mirror image of the -axis in the photon line
will give us the -axis and the following blank spacetime diagram:

The two angles shown are always
equal for any two inertial frames.
must be in the range

x
ct'
ct
x
x
ct'
ct
v
cx1


Now, if we plot a single event we can read the values in both frames straight from the diagram.
The diagram shows how the
coordinates should be read. From
the S frame it is as expected, you
look vertically down from the
event to read the -ordinate and
horizontally left from the event to
read the -ordinate. The reason
you look vertically and horizontally
in this frame is because the S
axes are vertical and horizontal.

In the S frame you must look in
the directions that are parallel to
the S axes, as shown in the
diagram.

So the coordinates in the S frame are and the coordinates in the S frame are .
This means that an observer in the inertial frame S sees the event happen metres from the origin,
seconds after , but an observer in the S frame would see the event happen metres from the
origin seconds after . We are actually comparing the distances and times between two events
as seen from each inertial frame. One of the events is the red event shown in the diagram, the other
is the initial event , ie when the frames coincided.
The only thing that we havent looked at when constructing our spacetime diagram is the scale on the
axes. If we measure with a ruler the distance between 0 and 1 on the -axis, is it the same as the
length between 0 and 1 on the -axis? If it is then we could say, just by looking at the diagram, with
some confidence that . We also need to think about the and axes. To investigate this we
need to consider time dilation and length contraction.

Time Dilation
The time dilation formula is only valid if the two events occur at the same position in the S
frame. Thinking in terms of our spacetime diagrams, this means that the events must be separated by
a line that is parallel to the -axis. To make things simpler we can use one of our events as being the
initial event , then the other event must be on the -axis. This event is
shown as a green ball on the diagram opposite. The coordinates of the event as seen by S are
and as seen by S.
As , and ,

x
ct'
ct
x
a
b
a
b
28

ct
x
ct

1
x
Now , so the apparently longer distance along the -
axis, (as measured by a ruler) is actually shorter than the
distance along the -axis, (as measured by the scales on
the axes)
. So the number 1 on the -axis must

appear further up the -axis than the green event does (as
shown on the diagram). If you drew a horizontal line from the
1 on the -axis to the -axis, then using you would
find this line intersects the -axis at .
So as increases, the scale along the -axis stretches. As
and the value of
gets very small, pushing the

1 on the axis far from the origin. So as approaches the
speed of light, a change of 1 unit on the -axis in S would
take forever in S.

Length Contraction
If we have a 1m rod at rest in S with one end at the origin of S and the other at the position ,
then the world lines of the ends of the rod are vertical lines, one along the -axis and the other along
the line . As increases the rod moves up the diagram.

The observer in the S frame measures the rod by noting the
positions of the ends of the rod at the same time (ie when
). Draw a straight line such that and you can see
from the diagram that it crosses the ends of the rod at points
separated by a distance of 1 metre as seen by S.

The observer in the S frame measures the same rod by
noting the positions of the ends of the rod when .
Drawing this straight line on the diagram with both frames
present shows that the distance as see by the observer in
S is the distance between the yellow and green events on
the diagram. By length contraction we know this should be
and this is the same length as the hypotenuse of the

triangle which contains the -axis, the -axis and a vertical
side (shown in red on the diagram).

x
ct
1

1
b
1
x
ct' ct
x
1

1
a



So when The horizontal length is 1, the hypotenuse is
, and so the -axis is stretched in exactly the

same way as the -axis and we have a perfect symmetry about the photon line.
Because of this stretching of scale along the and axes, you have to take care when looking at
lengths on a spacetime diagram. If looks bigger or equal to on the diagram, then the actual
value of will be bigger. But if looks smaller than on the diagram, then you cant be sure
whether this is really the case, youll have to investigate further to determine which is smallest. The
exact same reasoning goes for the and measurements.

The Full Picture
The spacetime diagrams we have seen so far have only included the positive axes of S and S but it is
perfectly logical to suppose that there also exist negative values of and . Here is a spacetime
diagram covering the whole plane with two time-like separated events.

I have also added the worldline of another photon, travelling in the negative direction passing
through the initial event. From this diagram you can see that the green event happens before the
origins of the frames coincide in the S frame but after they coincide in the S frame, later on the red
event happens behind the S frames origin and in front of the S frames origin.

x
x
ct
ct
30

The Inverse Diagram
Because S is travelling with velocity relative to S the spacetime diagram from the S frames point
of view looks a little different. The axes of the S frame should now be vertical and horizontal. The
gradient of the -axis will be
and the photon lines will act as a lines of symmetry of the axes as
before, giving the following spacetime axes:

You can think of this diagram as being the same as the previous diagram (as seen from the S frame)
but stretched apart from the positive gradient photon line, keeping the origin unchanged.

The Strange Geometry of a Spacetime Diagram
As we have already seen, when discussing the scaling of the S axes, the length of the hypotenuse of
a triangle doesnt follow the usual Pythagorean relationship.

In particular, looking at the diagram to the left, you can see that
the length of the hypotenuse is actually shorter than the vertical
side of the triangle.
The horizontal side of the triangle is the distance the origin of
the S frame moves in seconds ( metres). So we have
three sides of a right angled triangle: , and
. Trying to
apply Pythagoras to this obviously doesnt work:
) (
)

x
x
ct
ct
-v
cx1
ct
x
ct' ct
ct



But as you can see, it is close. In fact with a small adjustment we will get a formula that does work:
) (

Now and
, so we can write the above in the form:

This must be true whenever time dilation is true (as our events are both on the -axis ie ).
Geometrically this can be interpreted as being true whenever we have a right angled triangle with the
hypotenuse parallel to the -axis and the other two sides parallel to the S frames axes.
Now lets look at the symmetrical problem with the and axes

Here you can see that the length of the
hypotenuse is shorter than the horizontal
side of the triangle. The vertical side of the
triangle has length . The gradient of the -
axis is 1/(gradient of the -axis) because of
the symmetry about the photon line, and the
gradient of the -axis is
, so
, so we have a right angled triangle

with side lengths ,
, and
.

Trying Pythagoras gives:
) (
)
Which, again is close. From this we can see a formula that does work:
) (

Using
and
gives the formula

This formula is correct when there is no change in the -axis, ie . Looking from a geometrical
perspective we see this equation is true when we have a right angled triangle with the hypotenuse
parallel to the -axis and the other two sides parallel to the S frames axes.
So we have two very similar looking formulae:

x
ct
x

32

It would be nice to have a formula with no
conditions, ie for any two events. The
following spacetime diagram shows two
events, red and purple. All black lines are
parallel to the S frame axes and all orange
lines are parallel to the S frame axes. The
purple line joins the two events.
Triangles A and B satisfy the previous
conditions and so the formulae on the
previous page apply. Also, the angles at
each event in triangle A and B must be
equal, so they are similar triangles.

Lets set the height of triangle A to be
, the base length
and set similarly labelled side lengths for

triangle B.
Then

And

Also, the side lengths of triangle A and B satisfy the conditions for our formulae derived on the
previous page, so

Squaring and Subtracting equations and gives

Because A and B are similar triangles,
and so
] [
]
And by equations and

Or

x
ct'
ct
x
B

A



The value
is known as the spacetime interval between two events, often denoted
.
Sometimes
. The formula at the end of the previous page shows that

this spacetime interval is the same value in any inertial frame. This makes it a good way of describing
two events, as all observers will understand its meaning without having to compensate for their
relative velocity. The analogue of this in a purely spacial coordinate system is distance. When giving
the coordinates of two points on a map, different coordinate systems will give different coordinates for
each point, but all systems will agree on the distance between the points. It is the same with the
coordinates in a spacetime diagram, although distances change over different coordinate systems
(length contraction) the spacetime interval does not.
Both time dilation and length contraction are built into this formula (we used them to derive it, so they
must be), to see this set for events in the same position in S giving (the distance
the origin of S moves), then the time dilation formula follows:
)

And for the length contraction formula consider a rod passing an observer in the S frame who takes
note at a single point in time of where the two ends of the rod are ( ) and what the distance
between them is (). Also,
(gradient of -axis in S frame our two events are on the -

axis).

Types of Interval
A photon of light has a gradient of 1 in a spacetime diagram, so , which means that
.
The worldline of a photon is said to be null because of this.
Events joined by a line which has a gradient more than 1 ,(less than light speed to travel from one
event to the other) have a time-like interval and , so
. Space-like intervals have
, (using
).

34

IV

The Paradoxes Revisited
(Seeing the truth)

35 The Paradoxes Revisited

The Paradoxes revisited

Now that we can draw space-time diagrams and know about the invariant space-time interval, it is
interesting to go back and look at simultaneity, the twin paradox and the pole-barn paradox again.

Simultaneity
For two events to have different orders in two inertial frames they must be positioned in the spacetime
diagram in such a way that the line joining the events increases in one frame but decreases in the
other. So if we set event one as being at the origin (red) and then put event two on the diagram
somewhere above the x axis (yellow), where exactly would the yellow event have to be for the frames
to disagree on the order of the events?

The line joining two
such events would be
increasing in the S
frame. For it to
decrease in the S
frame it would have to
have a negative
value. So it would
need to be below the
-axis, as shown.

You can clearly see from the diagram that a is positive but a is negative. You can also see that this
would be the case no matter where the yellow event is placed so long as it is in-between the and
axes. If it were above the -axis, then both a and a would be positive and so both frames would
agree that red happens first, if it were below the -axis then they would both be negative (yellow first).
As long as they have different signs red will occur before yellow in the S frame but after yellow in the
S frame. The green event shown is also in a position between the and axes, and the order in
which green and red happen is not the same in both frames.

a
a
ct'
x
x
ct
36

If we moved the events about in the
diagram but kept them in the same
relative position, the same would
happen. On the diagram to the right
I have moved the red and yellow
events up and to the right but kept
them in the same position relative to
each other. You can see that
but . In other words the two
frames still disagree as to which
event happens first. S sees red
happen first, but S sees yellow
happen first.
The disagreement about order is not dependent on absolute position in the spacetime diagram, but on
relative position. So what is important when deciding whether this might be an issue is the line joining
the two events (the interval).
To be more precise it is the slope of the line that is important. From the first diagram on the last page,
you can see that the line joining the events must pass below the -axis but above the -axis (and vice
versa for the green event). This means that the gradient of this line must lie in-between the gradient of
the and axes. The gradient of the -axis is 0 and the gradient of the -axis is
, so

Where
is the velocity required to travel from one event to the other (
), and is the relative

velocity of the frames.
So
is the condition that must be satisfied if two frames are to disagree about the order of two
events.
The -axis must make an angle which is between -45 and 45 degrees with the -axis. The
requirement for a disagreement between frames about the order of events is that the angle between
the -axis and the -axis is bigger than the angle between the -axis and the interval line. If we have
two events which are space-like separated, (
faster than light speed gradient less than 1) the

angle between the interval line and the -axis must be
. So in the case of space-like separated

events, there must always be a valid -axis that we could use to ensure that the order of events is
disagreed upon between the two frames. Two time-like separated events would have an interval
angle with the -axis
and so it would be impossible to find a suitable -axis.

Algebraically we can see this as follows:
We can choose
as long as
(as the relative velocities of the frames must be less than the
speed of light). Then if we multiply our velocities we get
. If there is to be a
disagreement about the order of events, we require
, or
. Combining our inequalities

gives
. This is only possible if
, or
(space-like separation).
b
b
a
a
ct'
x
x
ct

In conclusion, for all space-like separated events, there is at least one inertial frame for which the
order that the events occur is disagreed upon. For all time-like separated events, (causally related
events are included in this category - where one event causes the other) all frames will agree on the
order of events. Note that for a given pair of frames, a pair of events which are space-like separated,
will not necessarily occur in a different order for each frame, this will only be the case if
.

The Pole-Barn Paradox
Before we look at this paradox in full we need to know what a travelling pole looks like on a spacetime
diagram from each frames point of view.

This is a spacetime
diagram of a pole
stationary in the S frame.
At , the rear end
of the pole will be at the
origin and it will move in
the direction parallel to
the -axis. The pole
must be parallel to the -
axis for the observer to
see the whole pole at a
single point in time
(
).

The observer in the S frame will
see a pole parallel to the -axis
(as he sees the whole pole at a
single point of time in the S frame)
but it will still travel parallel to the
-axis.

x
x
ct'
ct
x
x
ct'
ct
38

Comparing these two diagrams, you should be able to see that when the observer in the S frame
takes the measurements of the front and back ends of the pole he takes their positions
simultaneously, but the observer in the S frame would disagree with this. The S observer would say
that the S observer noted the position of the front of the pole before the back, and so of course the
measurement taken was less than the actual length of the pole. The observer in S would think that the
S observer had noted the position of the back of the pole first and then noted the front which would
obviously cause a measurement bigger than the actual length of the pole.

The red event shown is
the event the S observer
takes a note of the
position of the back end
of the pole. The green
event is the S observer
takes a note of the
position of the back end
of the pole and the yellow
event is both observers
measure the position of
the front end of the pole.
The disagreements in
length occur because of
the disagreement of
simultaneity.

Our previous discussion shows that there should most certainly be a disagreement with the ordering
of these events, as the green and yellow events clearly have a gradient less than that of the -axis
and the red and yellow events have a gradient equal to the gradient of the -axis.

x
x
ct'
ct

Now well add the barn. The barn is at rest relative to S, so it should have vertical lines for each end of
the barn. The spacetime diagram for the entire motion of the rod, from the entry of the barn, to
complete disintegration is shown on the opposite page. The rod is drawn in six different colours to
represent the rod at the various stages of its journey. The rod begins its journey at the bottom of the
diagram and works its way up in a direction parallel to the -axis.
The red stage is where the front end of the rod reaches the door closer (the front end of the barn).
The green stage is where the rear end of the rod reaches the door closer and the door is closed but
only in the S frame.
The blue stage is where the rod reaches the rear end of the barn, it is here that the rod is stopped and
starts to disintegrate. This happens at light speed, so I have emitted a photon from the end of the rod
in the negative direction to show which parts of the rod have disintegrated. When the rear end of the
rod passes the photon line the entire rod will have disintegrated.
The yellow stage is where the rod, seen from the S frame, has disintegrated enough at the front end
to allow the rear end to pass the door of the barn. This is when the door is closed in the S frame.
The pink stage is where the rod has completely disintegrated from the door closers S frame.
The brown stage is where the rod has completely disintegrated in the S frame.
In this problem the rod never went through the rear wall of the barn, so the parts of the diagram where
it seems the rod has gone beyond the rear wall of the barn should be ignored (this is the case for all
stages after the blue stage). In these stages the front end of the rod remains at the same position at
the rear wall of the barn. I have indicated at the top of the diagram the final length of the disintegrated
rod.

40

Final length
of rod
ct'
x
x
ct
The Barn
Emitted Photon

The Twin Paradox
The resolution of the twin paradox involved the use of three inertial frames:
1. The inertial frame of the Earth at which one twin remained, call this frame S.
2. The inertial frame of the outward travelling spaceship travelling with speed relative to the
Earth, call this frame S.
3. The inertial frame of the returning spaceship travelling with speed relative to the Earth, call
this frame S.
The S frames origin coincides with the S frames origin when the spaceship leaves Earth and
coincides with the S frames origin when the spaceship turns around and begins its return journey.
The S and S frames are drawn as we have seen previously, but the S frames axes must be drawn
with its origin floating, at the turnaround point. Also, it is travelling with a speed of relative to the S
frame, so the gradients of the axes are those of an inverse frame.

Turnaround point
Return journey
Outward journey
ct'
ct
x
x
ct'
x
The Twin Paradox Spacetime Diagram
42

The worldline of the spaceship is in red, the S axes are black, the S axes are orange and the S axes
are pink. At the turnaround point are dotted lines parallel to the and axes to show the time
passed in the S frame as seen by the S and S frames during the flight of the spaceship in each of
these frames. Well call this time change and so will be on the -axis and by symmetry will be
the same for both the outward and return journey.
On the outward journey, the twin on the spaceship sees the twin on Earth age by years, on the
return journey this twin sees another years pass on Earth. But the diagram shows that the increase
of age of the twin on the Earth is more than . The paradox is that by time dilation the spaceship
twin must see the Earth twin age less, while the twin on Earth must see the spaceship twin age less.
We know from our previous discussion that the travelling twin actually ages more and the diagram on
the previous page shows why. There is some lost time. The twin on the spaceship sees the twin on
Earth age years, then suddenly in no time at all some time is skipped, lets call this time , and
then the spaceship twin proceeds to watch the twin on Earth age the remaining years. The
question is then, when does this happen and what causes it?
The diagram shows that in the blink of an eye the Earth twin ages a significant amount. This happens
at the instant that the frames are changed (the turnaround point). In real life you cant change frames
instantly, the immense accelerations required would be impossible for any object to withstand (and
require too much energy to bring about). What would actually happen is that the frame in which the
twin is travelling would gradually change into the return frame, ie the spaceship would slow down,
instantaneously stop and turn around and then speed up in the opposite direction again.


Graphically speaking, the S frame slowly changes into the S frame by the axes parting about the
origin until they have turned inside out and are pointing in exactly the same direction as the S axes.
While this is happening the point at which the orange dotted line on the diagram (which stays parallel
to the -axis) intersects the -axis moves upwards. The sequence of diagrams on the opposite page
illustrate this. The S frames axes have been moved so that is at the turnaround point so
that it is easier to see the direct effect on the moving -axis has. I have also moved the photon
line to emphasise the symmetry of the changing S frame.
Diagram is the initial position, it is the same as in the original diagram when the spaceship has just
reached the turnaround point and has seen the twin on Earth age years.
Diagram shows the spaceship having slowed down a little, notice the and axes are further
apart than in diagram . This slowing down has caused a small time change on the -axis as
labelled on the diagram.
The spaceship has stopped relative to the Earth in diagram , (notice the S axes are now parallel to
the S axes) causing yet more time change on the -axis, at this point it turns around and starts to
accelerate back to Earth.
This acceleration continues through diagrams - during which, more and more time is passing on
Earth (but no time is passing in the spaceships frame). Until, in diagram the spaceship reaches its
original speed travelling towards Earth, (at which point the clocks start ticking again on the spaceship)
and continues at this speed until it reaches Earth.
By diagram the twin on the spaceship has observed years pass on Earth.On the return
journey the observer in the S frame sees another years pass on Earth, making a total of
years. Of course the unrealistic aspect of our example is that during this period of acceleration we
have no time passing on the spaceship, but from this you can directly see how changing inertial frame,
or to put it another way, accelerating, bends time. It is not just the fact that after acceleration you are
travelling at a different speed, it is the actual acceleration that has its own type of time dilation.
The reason we think there is a paradox is that we are fooled into thinking that should be equal to
the time passed in the Earths frame for the twins to be able to agree on their ages when they meet
again, but it is plain to us that it cant be, (it has to be less by time dilation) so we see a contradiction.
The spacetime diagram shows us clearly that the change in frame gives us some extra time and
is exactly the time passed in the Earths frame.
44

ct
x
x
ct'
Initial speed v

ct
x
x
ct'
Slowing down

ct
x
x
ct'
Stopped and
turning around

ct
x
x
ct'
Approaching speed v

ct
x
x
ct'
Accelerating on the
return jouney
Speed v, the S
frame has become
the S frame
ct'

ct
x
x


The example in chapter 1 had the spaceship travelling for 7 years with speed
. In this time
the twin on the spaceship observed
years pass on the Earth. So we know that
. Also we know
that the total time experienced by Earth throughout the entire journey is years.
So
. This gives years. We worked all of this out in Chapter 1 but hopefully
you can now see how it is possible for this 46 year anomaly when we change from the S frame to the
S frame.

A more realistic diagram for the twin paradox would be this:

In this case we have an infinite number of inertial frames as the spaceship
accelerates from rest to a speed of and then decelerates to rest, turns
around and accelerates towards Earth. Before the spaceship reaches Earth
it must decelerate again to stop so that the twins can compare their ages.
There is so much going on here it would be very difficult to come up with
any meaningful analysis, but from our previous model we can still be sure
that the twin on Earth will still turn out to be older in the end.

If, as is suggested above, acceleration in itself causes time dilation, you may find yourself thinking
about the acceleration caused by a gravitational field. If you could prove that this gravitational
acceleration (eg. the weight you feel) is physically exactly the same as the acceleration experienced
by an object changing its speed (eg. how you feel when a lift accelerates upwards you feel heavier)
(this is called the equivalence principle), then you might begin to wonder whether a gravitational field
could bend time in some way. If you were at rest relative to the Earth but in deep space well away
from any gravitational force, would your clock tick at the same rate as somebody elses clock on Earth?
It turns out that the clocks would tick at different rates! In fact a gravitational field slows time, so your
feet are younger than your head! Our extreme model of acceleration in the twin paradox supports this
idea with a rather extreme result. The infinite acceleration at the turnaround point (where the change
in velocity is instantaneous) seems to entirely stop time for the twin in the spaceship until the 46 years
have passed on Earth.

ct
x
46

V

The Lorentz Transformations
(The keys to enlightenment)

47 The Lorentz Transformations

The Lorentz Transformations
If we know the values of and for two events, it would be nice to be able to generate the values
of
and
, (the changes in and as seen by a frame S moving with speed in the positive
direction of the S frames -axis).

If we think of this as a geometrical
problem then we can draw a graph:
The two events are marked as a
green and a red dot. For this
example . If we know
the gradient of the -axis, (so if we
know ), we need some equations
that will generate the numbers and
.
These equations will be a coordinate
transformation from one set of axes
to another. There are two important
conditions for this transformation to
work for this type of diagram, these
are i) the origin must remain the
origin under the transformation, and
ii) a straight line in one coordinate
system must be straight in any other.

You can see that these are important conditions from the graph.
i) If the origin changes position, then our -axis origins do not coincide when . This
is a choice we made in chapter 3 when we started to look at spacetime diagrams and we
want to stick to it.
ii) If straight lines do not remain straight, then what are we to make of the interval between
two events on a spacetime diagram (show in purple in the diagram above)? The diagram
shows that the purple line is straight in both frames, so that is how it must be.
There is a special type of transformation which always has these properties, it is called a linear
transformation and it is of the form where are the variables (every term must
contain one of these to the single power) and a and b are constant numbers.
So if we were to model our transformation equations as linear equations they should look like this:

So if I know and Ill be able to find and . A,B,C and D should be the same numbers for
any two events given two inertial frames, so I would expect A,B,C and D to be in terms of , as if you
know you know everything about your frames. So our task is to find these constants which are
dependent on the relative properties of the two frames.

x
ct'
ct
x
a
b
a
b
48

There are certain other properties that we know about our frames, namely time dilation and the fact
that when time dilation is valid the events are both at the origin of one of the frames and the origin of
this frame moves by the rule .
Take , then we know that the two events are parallel to the -axis, ie they occur in the same
position in the S frame so we are tracking the origin of the S frame from the S frame. This means the
time dilation formula is valid
, and

The second equation above tells us that

Setting and
in this equation gives .

The first equation tells us that

Setting and
in this equation gives .

So our equations become

Using these new equations and setting again gives us time dilation and , this time
the time dilation formula is .
Putting these two values in the first equation gives .
Putting these values in the second equation gives

So our formulae become

Or

These equations are known as the Lorentz Transformations.

----------
) ----------


So with these formulae, given the differences in and values of any two events as seen by one
inertial frame and the relative velocity of another frame, we can find the differences in and in the
other frame.
It is possible, with just these two equations to derive every single result that we have seen in the
previous chapters.
Relativistic velocity
Dividing the Lorentz transformations gives:

Now
and
are
and
, ie the velocity needed to travel from one event to the other as seen by
each frame.
So

This is the relativistic velocity formula (seen in chapter 1) for the velocity of an object where
is the
velocity seen by S (
),
is the velocity seen by S (=
) and is the velocity of S relative to S

(

).

Time Dilation
When
(time dilation condition) we can use in giving

Length Contraction
Setting (position of ends of rod simultaneously in S) in directly gives

50

Invariance of the Interval
Squaring and subtracting our equations gives
[ (
)]
[ ]
{[
]}

So

As we saw in chapter 3

Simultaneity
If , then, using
)
(

Now, if the two frames would disagree on the order of events and
is the velocity required to travel from one event to the other, so
and

If
then the events happened simultaneously in one of the frames and so the frames would
still disagree about the order of events. And so,

is the condition for a disagreement about the order of events between frames, as seen in chapter 4.

Now if one event has caused another then it must be the case that it is possible to send a message
from one event to the other. So
. This means that
. It is always the case that , so it

must then be true that
which means
.
So
(causally related events)
The order of events is NOT frame dependent. So

causally related events will always happen in the same order in any inertial frame: the cause first and
the effect after.
The Lorentz transformations alone tell us everything that we already knew about Special Relativity
and more. They are valid for any two events and so are valid in any situation, so really they are all you
need! The other results we have obtained are useful as special cases, to be used as shortcuts when
given the correct conditions.
As an example of how these formulae tell us more, we can now use them on the pole-barn paradox to
find the difference in the times that the door closes and the pole hits the back of the barn in each
frame, (remember that we couldnt use time dilation on this problem as the two events happen in
different positions in both frames).

The Pole-Barn Paradox Yet Again
We know the rest length of the rod is 20 meters, and the rest length of the barn is 15 metres. The
velocity of the rod in the barns reference frame is
and so
.
If we take our two events as the rod reaching the back of the barn and the door closing, we have
and . The first of these values is obviously the length of the barn in the S frame, the
second is NOT the length of the barn in the S frame. If you consider from the pole runners frame the
rod continuing to move after it has reached the back of the barn we can more easily identify the
positions of the events in the S frame. The pole reaching the back of the barn happens at the front
end of the rod. The door closes when the rear end of the rod passes it, so the distance between the
events as seen by the pole runner is the distance between the front and rear ends of the rod in the
runners frame, ie 20 metres.
Using with these values gives

During our discussion in chapter 2 we did eventually find this value, but it wasnt anywhere as easy as
the above.
Now, using

Now it should be obvious to you that in the barns frame the door is closed before the rod reaches the
end of the barn (9 metre rod in 15 metre barn to find the length of the rod in the barns frame set
52

in equation ). The results above tell us that the time between these events is

seconds in the barns frame and that the time between these events in the runners frame is negative.
This means they happen in the reverse order in the runners frame, ie the pole hits the back of the
barn first and then later on the door is closed. The time difference of these events in the runners
frame is
seconds. So it seems to take longer for the pole runner than for the door closer
and it happens in a different order. As you have seen in chapter 2, it is possible to find all of this out
by using logical reasoning, but it is a lot more difficult and time consuming. In chapter 2 the fact that
the order of events is disagreed upon was only assumed as there was no other explanation! The
Lorentz transformations give us a clear numerical indication of exactly what is going on.

What On Earth Is Going On? (An Introduction)

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By

is the velocity of the particle relative to B. is the speed of light (

is always less than 1. So is always greater than 1.

is nearly 1 which means that is also very near to 1

At this speed our equation

, as for the return journey

, and from the above

relative to us and in that car we see

meters long. So we will see our car as

meters. If the barn is in the frame S and

until it reaches the back of the barn. This takes

seconds. Our particle of

seconds. It takes longer for the light

and the distance it moves relative to the barn will be

metres long when it has totally disintegrated (well within the

meters from the end of the barn when it disintegrates.

. For we know that

to the vertical. So the green

. Events like this are said to be time-like

. This is more than the speed of light and so

. So its gradient must be

. So the number 1 on the -axis must

gets very small, pushing the

and this is the same length as the hypotenuse of the

, and so the -axis is stretched in exactly the

, so we can write the above in the form:

, so we have a right angled triangle

gives the formula

, the base length

and set similarly labelled side lengths for

is known as the spacetime interval between two events, often denoted

. The formula at the end of the previous page shows that

(gradient of -axis in S frame our two events are on the -

. Space-like intervals have

is the velocity required to travel from one event to the other (

), and is the relative

faster than light speed gradient less than 1) the

. So in the case of space-like separated

and so it would be impossible to find a suitable -axis.

. Combining our inequalities

. This is only possible if

years pass on the Earth. So we know that

in this equation gives .

in this equation gives .

is the velocity seen by S (=

) and is the velocity of S relative to S

(time dilation condition) we can use in giving

is the velocity required to travel from one event to the other, so

. This means that

. It is always the case that , so it

(causally related events)

The order of events is NOT frame dependent. So

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