Matters relating to length and duration in physics and transportation
The question is how to interpret the Lorentz transformation. In a previous post, Lorentz generalized, a modest generalization of the Lorentz transform was derived. Absolute reference speeds were combined with a relative actual speed. Let’s step back and look at a map of space and time: This map of nodes and links on the U.S. […]
In some ways transportation is more general than physics, which is surprising. In terms of extent, from the microscopic to the astronomical, from extremes of temperature, etc., physics is the more general subject. But because transportation includes people, there are some additional possibilities. Let’s look at one transportation situation in which this is the case.
Theoretical physics has been applied to a variety of disciplines such as economics and traffic flow theory. Here we are returning the favor by considering transportation as a model for physics; in other words, physics is like a transportation system. Consider the space-time continuum as an infinitely dense transportation network. The spatial extent of the
It may seem an exaggeration at this point to speak of “spacetime” while focusing on examples from everyday life rather than the physics laboratory. Yet after all we live in a physical world so physics should include that, too. But we’ve put off considerations such as the constant speed of light until we have a
Galileo was the first to see clearly that someone traveling in uniform motion would not be able to discern any difference from being at rest (without looking out the window). He imagined someone on a ship eating peas, and if a few dropped off their fork, there would be no difference from what would happen
If an object or event is in one position so that it can be measured at leisure, then time is not an explicit factor in its measurement. However, length units are defined in terms of time: “The meter is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299
“You can have time without moving but you can’t move without any time.” Actually, no, that is not correct. I introduced this topic here but let me go into more detail in this post. The previous post on measurement sets the background: we need to be very careful what it is we’re measuring and how.
Measurement is the act of comparing something, X – an object, an event, a phenomenon, anything that can be compared – with an independent standard unit and its multiples, and then assigning the corresponding quantity of units to X as the measure of that aspect (characteristic, property) of X. I want to focus on the
A number of word problems involve vehicle or aircraft speeds over two distances or two time periods and ask what the average speed is. The student is expected to understand the difference between the space-mean speed and the time-mean speed (though these terms are not typically used). What about the “average velocity”? Since velocity is
There are a number of references for maps with multiple dimensions of time or a symmetry of space and time. Nothing refers to both. Maps with multiple dimensions of time I have argued that isochron(e) maps show time in two dimensions. Such maps have been made for over a century. The Wikipedia article on isochrone
