EINSTEINIANA AS PERPETUUM MOBILE - sci.math

Message from discussion EINSTEINIANA AS PERPETUUM MOBILE

Pentcho Valev

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More options Nov 4 2009, 6:16 am

Newsgroups: sci.logic, alt.philosophy, sci.astro, sci.math

From: Pentcho Valev <pva...@yahoo.com>

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 22:16:21 -0800 (PST)

Local: Wed, Nov 4 2009 6:16 am

Subject: EINSTEINIANA AS PERPETUUM MOBILE

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http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/barn_pole.html
"These are the props. You own a barn, 40m long, with automatic doors
at either end, that can be opened and closed simultaneously by a
switch. You also have a pole, 80m long, which of course won't fit in
the barn. Now someone takes the pole and tries to run (at nearly the
speed of light) through the barn with the pole horizontal. Special
Relativity (SR) says that a moving object is contracted in the
direction of motion: this is called the Lorentz Contraction. So, if
the pole is set in motion lengthwise, then it will contract in the
reference frame of a stationary observer.....So, as the pole passes
through the barn, there is an instant when it is completely within the
barn. At that instant, you close both doors simultaneously, with your
switch. Of course, you open them again pretty quickly, but at least
momentarily you had the contracted pole shut up in your barn. The
runner emerges from the far door unscathed.....If the doors are kept
shut the rod will obviously smash into the barn door at one end. If
the door withstands this the leading end of the rod will come to rest
in the frame of reference of the stationary observer. There can be no
such thing as a rigid rod in relativity so the trailing end will not
stop immediately and the rod will be compressed beyond the amount it
was Lorentz contracted. If it does not explode under the strain and it
is sufficiently elastic it will come to rest and start to spring back
to its natural shape but since it is too big for the barn the other
end is now going to crash into the back door and the rod will be
trapped in a compressed state inside the barn."

Note that, if the diameter of the rod is equal to the diameter of the
barn's hole, Einsteinians will obtain a twofold decrease in the rod's
volume as well! Essentially without spending any work! Therefore both
the force exerted by the compressed rod on the doors and the work this
(enormous?) force can do for Einsteinians are just free lunch. What a
breathtaking discovery! And yet Einsteinians seem reluctant to develop
the scenario further - what is the magnitude of the force, how much
work can be extracted etc. Students should just imagine first the dull
Newtonian world where the 80m long rod does not want to hide inside
the 40m long barn, then the miraculous Einsteinian world where the rod
would hide even inside a 4 cm long barn, and that is enough. Green
lights appear in students' eyes and the tunes of "Divine Einstein" and
"Yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity" quickly
fill the spacetime.

Pentcho Valev
pva...@yahoo.com

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