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Experiment --> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Experiment 1
Mrs. Einstein is standing in a field and Mr. Einstein is riding on a railroad
car that is moving with velocity v. Mr. Einstein shines a flashlight in the
direction in which he is moving.
Question:
What happens? Answer:
Because
of the principle of the constancy of the velocity of light, each observer will
measure the light beam from the flashlight as traveling at the same speed. This
may be contrary to what you expected as you might have thought that the observer
in the field would have seen the beam moving at (the speed of light) + (the
speed of the train). Nevertheless, this is not what is observed in practice.
What is actually occurs in the real world is that no one ever measures light
moving faster or slower than c = 186,000 miles per second (in a vacuum). |