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all rights reserved 2002
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Peculiar Relativistic Effects
Length
Contraction and
Time Dilation
One
of the strangest parts of special relativity is the conclusion that two
observers who are moving relative to one another, will get different
measurements of the length of a particular object or the time that passes
between two events
. Consider
two observers, each in a space-ship laboratory containing clocks and meter
sticks. The space ships are moving relative to each other at a speed close to
the speed of light. Using Einstein's theory:
In
particle accelerators
,
particles are moving very close to the speed of light where the length and time
effects are large. This has allowed us to clearly verify that length contraction
and time dilation do occur. |