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Twin paradox
In physics, the twin paradox is a thought experiment in special relativity, in which a twin makes a journey into space in a high-speed rocket and returns home to find he has aged less than his identical twin who stayed on Earth. This result appears puzzling because each twin sees the other twin as traveling, and so, according to a naive application of time dilation, each should paradoxically find the other to have aged more slowly. However, this scenario can be resolved within the standard framework of special relativity, and therefore is not a paradox in the sense of a logical contradiction. Starting with Paul Langevin in 1911, there have been numerous explanations of this paradox, many based upon there being no contradiction because there is no symmetryonly one twin has undergone acceleration and deceleration, thus differentiating the two cases. Max von Laue argued in 1913 that since the traveling twin must be in two separate inertial frames, one on the way out and another on the way back, this frame switch is the reason for the aging difference, not the acceleration per se.[1] Explanations put forth by Albert Einstein and Max Born invoked gravitational time dilation to explain the aging as a direct effect of acceleration.[2] The twin paradox has been verified experimentally by precise measurements of atomic clocks flown in aircraft and satellites. For example, gravitational time dilation and special relativity together have been used to explain the HafeleKeating experiment.[3]
History
Further information: Time dilation and twin paradox In his famous work on special relativity in 1905, Albert Einstein predicted that when two clocks were brought together and synchronized, and then one was moved away and brought back, the clock which had undergone the traveling would be found to be lagging behind the clock which had stayed put.[4] Einstein considered this to be a natural consequence of special relativity, not a paradox as some suggested, and in 1911, he restated and elaborated on this result as printed below, (with physicist Robert Resnick's comments following Einstein's):[5][6] "If we placed a living organism in a box ... one could arrange that the organism, after any arbitrary lengthy flight, could be returned to its original spot in a scarcely altered condition, while corresponding organisms which had remained in their original positions had already long since given way to new generations. For the moving organism, the lengthy time of the journey was a mere instant, provided the motion took place with approximately the speed of light." If the stationary organism is a man and the traveling one is his twin, then the traveler returns home to find his twin brother much aged compared to himself. The paradox centers around the contention that, in relativity, either twin could regard the other as the traveler, in which case each should find the other youngera logical contradiction. This contention assumes that the twins' situations are symmetrical and interchangeable, an assumption that is not correct. Furthermore, the accessible experiments have been done and support Einstein's prediction. ... In 1911, Paul Langevin gave a "striking example" by describing the story of a traveler making a trip at a Lorentz factor of . The traveler remains in a projectile for one year of his time, and then reverses direction. Upon return, the traveler will find that he has aged two years, while 200 years have passed on Earth. During the trip, both the traveler and Earth keep sending signals to each other at a constant rate, which places Langevin's story among the Doppler shift versions of the twin paradox. The relativistic effects upon the signal rates are used to account for the different aging rates. The asymmetry that occurred because only the traveler underwent acceleration, is used to explain why there is any difference at all, because "any change of velocity, or any acceleration has an absolute meaning".[7] Max von Laue (1911, 1913) elaborated on Langevin's explanation. Using Minkowski's spacetime formalism, Laue went on to demonstrate that the world lines of the inertially moving bodies maximize the proper time elapsed between two events. He also wrote that
Twin paradox the asymmetric aging is completely accounted for by the fact that the astronaut twin travels in two separate frames, while the earth twin remains in one frame, and the time of acceleration can be made arbitrarily small compared with the time of inertial motion.[8] Eventually, Lord Halsbury and others removed any acceleration by introducing the "three-brother" approach. The traveling twin transfers his clock reading to a third one, traveling in the opposite direction. Another way of avoiding acceleration effects is the use of the relativistic Doppler effect.[9] Neither Einstein nor Langevin considered such results to be literally paradoxical: Einstein only called it "peculiar" while Langevin presented it as a consequence of absolute acceleration.[10] A paradox in logical and scientific usage refers to results which are inherently contradictory, that is, logically impossible and both men argued that, from the time differential illustrated by the story of the twins, no self-contradiction could be constructed. In other words, neither Einstein nor Langevin saw the story of the twins as constituting a challenge to the self-consistency of relativistic physics.
Specific example
Consider a space ship traveling from Earth to the nearest star system outside of our solar system: a distance light years away, at a speed (i.e., 80 percent of the speed of light). (To make the numbers easy, the ship is assumed to attain its full speed immediately upon departure - actually it would need more than a year accelerating at 1 G to get up to speed.) The Earth-based mission control reasons about the journey this way : the round trip will take years in Earth time (i.e. everybody on earth will be 10 years older when the ship returns). The amount of time as measured on the ship's clocks and the aging of the travelers during their trip will be reduced by the factor , the reciprocal of the Lorentz factor. In this case and the travelers will have aged only 0.60010 = 6 years when they return. The ship's crew members also calculate the particulars of their trip from their perspective. They know that the distant star system and the Earth are moving relative to the ship at speed during the trip. In their rest frame the distance between the Earth and the star system is = 2.4 light years (length contraction), for both the outward and return journeys. Each half of the journey takes = 3 years, and the round trip takes 23 = 6 years. Their calculations show that they will arrive home having aged 6 years. The travelers' final calculation is in complete agreement with the calculations of those on Earth, though they experience the trip quite differently from those who stay at home. If a pair of twins are born on the day the ship leaves, and one goes on the journey while the other stays on Earth, they will meet again when the traveler is 6 years old and the stay-at-home twin is 10 years old. The calculation illustrates the usage of the phenomenon of length contraction and the experimentally verified phenomenon of time dilation to describe and calculate consequences and predictions of Einstein's special theory of relativity.
Twin paradox There are indeed not two but three relevant inertial frames: the one in which the stay-at-home twin remains at rest, the one in which the traveling twin is at rest on his outward trip, and the one in which he is at rest on his way home. It is during the acceleration at the U-turn that the traveling twin switches frames. That is when he must adjust his calculated age of the twin at rest. In special relativity there is no concept of absolute present. A present is defined as a set of events that are simultaneous from the point of view of a given observer. The notion of simultaneity depends on the frame of reference (see relativity of simultaneity), so switching between frames requires an adjustment in the definition of the present. If one imagines a present as a (three-dimensional) simultaneity plane in Minkowski space, then switching frames results in changing the inclination of the plane. In the spacetime diagram on the right, drawn for the reference frame of the stay-at-home twin, that twin's world line coincides with the vertical axis (his position is constant in space, moving only in time). On the first leg of the trip, the second twin moves to the right (black sloped line); and on the second leg, back to the left. Blue lines show the planes of simultaneity for the traveling twin during the first leg of the journey; red lines, during the second leg. Just before turnaround, the traveling twin calculates the age of the resting twin by measuring the interval along the vertical axis from the origin to the upper blue line. Just after turnaround, if he recalculates, he'll measure the interval from Minkowski diagram of the twin paradox the origin to the lower red line. In a sense, during the U-turn the plane of simultaneity jumps from blue to red and very quickly sweeps over a large segment of the world line of the resting twin. The traveling twin reckons that there has been a jump discontinuity in the age of the resting twin. The twin paradox illustrates a feature of the special relativistic spacetime model, the Minkowski space. The world lines of the inertially moving bodies are the geodesics of Minkowskian spacetime. In Minkowski geometry the world lines of inertially moving bodies maximize the proper time elapsed between two events.
Twin paradox
for v/c=0.8.
As for the stay-at-home twin, he gets a slowed signal from the ship for 9 years, at a frequency 1/3 the transmitter frequency. During these 9 years, the clock of the traveling twin in the screen seem to advance 3 years, so both twins see the image of their sibling aging at a rate only 1/3 their own rate. Expressed in other way, they would both see the other's clock run at 1/3 their own clock speed. If they factor out of the calculation the fact that the light-time delay of the transmission is increasing at a rate of 0.8 seconds per second, BOTH can work out that the other twin is aging slower, at 60% rate. Then the ship turns back toward home. The clock of the staying twin shows ' 1 year after launch' in the screen of the ship, and during the 3 years of the trip back it increases up to '10 years after launch', so the clock in the screen seems to be advancing 3 times faster than usual. When the source is moving towards the observer, the observed frequency is higher ("blue-shifted") and given by
This is
for v/c=0.8.
As for the screen on earth, it shows that trip back beginning 9 years after launch, and the traveling clock in the screen shows that 3 years have passed on the ship. One year later, the ship is back home and the clock shows 6 years. So, during the trip back, BOTH twins see their sibling's clock going 3 times faster than their own. Factoring out the fact that the light-time-delay is decreasing by 0.8 seconds every second, each twin calculates that the other twin is aging at 60% his own aging speed.
Twin paradox
After the ship has reached its cruising speed of 0.8 c, each twin would see 1 second pass in the received image of the other twin for every 3 seconds of his own time. That is, each would see the image of the other's clock going slow, not just slow by the factor 0.6, but even slower because light-time-delay is increasing 0.8 seconds per second. This is shown in the figures by red light paths. At some point, the images received by each twin change so that each would see 3 seconds pass in the image for every second of his own time. That is, the received signal has been increased in frequency by the Doppler shift. These high frequency images are shown in the figures by blue light paths.
Light paths for images exchanged during tripLeft: Earth to ship. Right: Ship to Earth. Red lines indicate low frequency images are received Blue lines indicate high frequency images are received
signals traveling between Earth and ship (1st diagram) and between ship and Earth (2nd diagram). These signals carry the images of each twin and his age-clock to the other twin. The vertical black line is the Earth's path through space time and the other two sides of the triangle show the ship's path through space time (as in the Minkowski diagram above). As far as the sender is concerned, he transmits these at equal intervals (say, once an hour) according to his own clock; but according to the clock of the twin receiving these signals, they are not being received at equal intervals.
Twin paradox
The distinction between what they see and what they calculate
To avoid confusion, note the distinction between what each twin sees and what each would calculate. Each sees an image of his twin which he knows originated at a previous time and which he knows is Doppler shifted. He does not take the elapsed time in the image as the age of his twin now. If he wants to calculate when his twin was the age shown in the image (i.e. how old he himself was then), he has to determine how far away his twin was when the signal was emittedin other words, he has to consider simultaneity for a distant event. If he wants to calculate how fast his twin was aging when the image was transmitted, he adjusts for the Doppler shift. For example, when he receives high frequency images (showing his twin aging rapidly) with frequency , he does not conclude that the twin was aging that rapidly when the image was generated, any more than he concludes that the siren of an ambulance is emitting the frequency he hears. He knows that the Doppler effect has increased the image frequency by the factor . Therefore he calculates that his twin was aging at the rate of when the image was emitted. A similar calculation reveals that his twin was aging at the same reduced rate of in all low frequency images.
Twin paradox clocks will appear to be sped up enough to account for the difference in proper times experienced by the twins. It is no accident that this speed-up is enough to account for the simultaneity shift described above. The general relativity solution for a static homogeneous gravitational field and the special relativity solution for finite acceleration produce identical results.[16] Other calculations have been done for the traveling twin (or for any observer who sometimes accelerates), which do not involve the equivalence principle, and which do not involve any gravitational fields. Such calculations are based only on the special theory, not the general theory, of relativity. One approach calculates surfaces of simultaneity by considering light pulses, in accordance with Hermann Bondi's idea of the k-calculus.[17] A second approach calculates a straightforward but technically complicated integral to determine how the traveling twin measures the elapsed time on the stay-at-home clock. An outline of this second approach is given in a separate section below.
where v(t) is the coordinate velocity of clock K' as a function of t according to clock K, and, e.g. during phase 1, given by
This integral can be calculated for the 6 phases:[18] Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3
Twin paradox Phase 4 Phase 5 Phase 6 where a is the proper acceleration, felt by clock K' during the acceleration phase(s) and where the following relations hold between V, a and Ta:
which is, for every possible value of a, Ta, Tc and V, larger than the reading of clock K':
represents the time of the non-inertial (travelling) observer K' as a function of the elapsed time inertial (stay-at-home) observer K for whom observer K' has velocity v(t) at time t. To calculate the elapsed time of the inertial observer K as a function of the elapsed time
of the
of the non-inertial
observer K' , where only quantities measured by K' are accessible, the following formula can be used:[19]
where
is the proper acceleration of the non-inertial observer K' as measured by himself (for instance with an
accelerometer) during the whole round-trip. The CauchySchwarz inequality can be used to show that the inequality follows from the previous expression:
Using the Dirac delta function to model the infinite acceleration phase in the standard case of the traveller having constant speed v during the outbound and the inbound trip, the formula produces the known result:
In the case where the accelerated observer K' departs from K with zero initial velocity, the general equation reduces to the simpler form:
Twin paradox
which, in the smooth version of the twin paradox where the traveller has constant proper acceleration phases, successively given by a, -a, -a, a, results in[19]
where the convention c=1 is used, in accordance with the above expression with acceleration phases and coasting phases .
A rotational version
Twins Bob and Alice inhabit a space station in circular orbit around a massive body in space. Bob departs the station and uses a rocket to hover in the fixed position where he left Alice, while she stays in the station. When the station completes an orbit and returns to Bob, he rejoins Alice. Alice is now younger than Bob.[20] In addition to rotational acceleration, Bob must decelerate to become stationary and then accelerate again to match the orbital speed of the space station.
Primary sources
[1] Miller, Arthur I. (1981). Albert Einsteins special theory of relativity. Emergence (1905) and early interpretation (19051911). Reading: AddisonWesley. pp.257264. ISBN0-201-04679-2. [2] Max Jammer (2006). Concepts of Simultaneity: From Antiquity to Einstein and Beyond (http:/ / books. google. com/ ?id=vuTXBPvswOwC& pg=PA165). The Johns Hopkins University Press. p.165. ISBN0801884225. . [3] Hafele, J.; Keating, R. (July 14, 1972). "Around the world atomic clocks:predicted relativistic time gains" (http:/ / www. sciencemag. org/ cgi/ content/ abstract/ 177/ 4044/ 166). Science 177 (4044): 166168. Bibcode1972Sci...177..166H. doi:10.1126/science.177.4044.166. PMID17779917. . Retrieved 2006-09-18.Hafele, J.; Keating, R. (July 14, 1972). "Around the world atomic clocks:observed relativistic time gains" (http:/ / www. sciencemag. org/ cgi/ content/ abstract/ 177/ 4044/ 168). Science 177 (4044): 168170. Bibcode1972Sci...177..168H. doi:10.1126/science.177.4044.168. PMID17779918. . Retrieved 2006-09-18. [4] Einstein, Albert (1905). "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" (http:/ / www. fourmilab. ch/ etexts/ einstein/ specrel/ www/ ). Annalen der Physik 17 (10): 891. Bibcode1905AnP...322..891E. doi:10.1002/andp.19053221004. . [5] Einstein, Albert (1911). "Die Relativitts-Theorie" (http:/ / www. archive. org/ details/ vierteljahrsschr56natu). Naturforschende Gesellschaft, Zrich, Vierteljahresschrift 56: 114. . [6] Resnick, Robert (1968). "Supplementary Topic B: The Twin Paradox" (http:/ / books. google. com/ ?id=FRtNPwAACAAJ). Introduction to Special Relativity. place:New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. p.201. ISBN0471717258. LCCN67031211. .. via August Kopff, Hyman Levy (translator), The Mathematical Theory of Relativity (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1923), p. 52, as quoted by G. J. Whitrow, The Natural Philosophy of Time (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961), p. 215. [7] Langevin, Paul (1911). "The Evolution of Space and Time". Scientia 10: 3154. [8] von Laue, Max (1911/2). "Two Objections Against the Theory of Relativity and their Refutation". Physikalische Zeitschrift 13: 118120. von Laue, Max (1913). The Principle of Relativity (2 ed.). Braunschweig, Germany: Friedrich Vieweg. OCLC298055497. von Laue, Max (1913). "The Principle of Relativity". Jahrbcher der Philosophie 1: 99128. [9] Debs, Talal A.; Redhead, Michael L. G. (1996). "The twin "paradox" and the conventionality of simultaneity". American Journal of Physics 64 (4): 384392. Bibcode1996AmJPh..64..384D. doi:10.1119/1.18252. [10] "We are going to see this absolute character of the acceleration manifest itself in another form." ("Nous allons voir se manifester sous une autre forme ce caractre absolu de lacclration."), page 82 of Langevin1911
Twin paradox
[11] Einstein, A., Lorentz, H. A., Minkowski, H., and Weyl, H. (1923). Arnold Sommerfeld. ed. The Principle of Relativity. Dover Publications: Mineola, NY. pp. 38-49. [12] Wheeler, J., Taylor, E. (1992). Spacetime Physics, second edition. W. H. Freeman: New York, pp. 38, 170-171. [13] Einstein, A., Lorentz, H. A., Minkowski, H., and Weyl, H. (1923). Arnold Sommerfeld. ed. The Principle of Relativity. Dover Publications: Mineola, NY. p. 38. [14] Wheeler, J., Taylor, E. (1992). Spacetime Physics, second edition. W. H. Freeman: New York, p. 150. [15] Einstein, A. (1918) "dialog about objections against the theory of relativity", Die Naturwissenschaften 48, pp. 697-702, 29 November 1918 [16] Jones, Preston; Wanex, L.F. (February 2006). "The clock paradox in a static homogeneous gravitational field". Foundations of Physics Letters 19 (1): 7585. arXiv:physics/0604025. Bibcode2006FoPhL..19...75J. doi:10.1007/s10702-006-1850-3. [17] Dolby, Carl E. and Gull, Stephen F (2001). "On Radar Time and the Twin 'Paradox'". American Journal of Physics 69 (12): 12571261. arXiv:gr-qc/0104077. Bibcode2001AmJPh..69.1257D. doi:10.1119/1.1407254. [18] C. Lagoute and E. Davoust (1995) The interstellar traveler, Am. J. Phys. 63:221-227 [19] E. Minguzzi (2005) - Differential aging from acceleration: An explicit formula - Am. J. Phys. 73: 876-880 arXiv:physics/0411233 (http:/ / arxiv. org/ abs/ physics/ 0411233) (Notation of source variables was adapted to match this article's.) [20] Michael Paul Hobson, George Efstathiou, Anthony N. Lasenby (2006). General Relativity: An Introduction for Physicists (http:/ / books. google. com/ ?id=xma1QuTJphYC). Cambridge University Press. p.227. ISBN0521829518. . See exercise 9.25 (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=xma1QuTJphYC& pg=PA227) on page 227. [21] French, A. P. (1968). Special relativity. W. W. Norton, New York. p.156. ISBN0-393-09804-4.
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External links
Twin Paradox overview in the Usenet Physics FAQ (http://www.physics.adelaide.edu.au/~dkoks/Faq/ Relativity/SR/TwinParadox/twin_paradox.html) The twin paradox: Is the symmetry of time dilation paradoxical? (http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/einsteinlight/ jw/module4_twin_paradox.htm) From Einsteinlight: Relativity in animations and film clips (http://www.phys. unsw.edu.au/einsteinlight). FLASH Animations: (http://math.ucr.edu/~jdp/Relativity/TwinParadox.html) from John de Pillis. (Scene 1): "View" from the Earth twin's point of view. (Scene 2): "View" from the traveling twin's point of view.
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License
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported //creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/