Blog Ekkehard Friebe

Nachstehend bringe ich einen sehr wichtigen Beitrag von Rothwell Bronrowan (Germany).

Quelle: http://www.wbabin.net/weuro/bronrowan4.pdf

Zitat:

The Lorentz Triangle
Rothwell Bronrowan  physbron@t-online.de

One of the pillars of relativity, the Lorentz factor appears in length contraction, in timedilation and in mass increase. It is also the primary factor determining frames of reference as depicted in the Lorentz transformations.  Perhaps the world’s simplest definition [1] of the Lorentz factor is:

the ratio of the hypothenus of a right-angled triangle to one of the other sides!

This paper will trace the origins of the Lorentz factor, it will show that, as derived by Lorentz, it is merely a specific case of a more general factor, and it will introduce a new tool, the Lorentz triangle, with which much of the confusion associated with this concept can be eliminated.

Lorentz was not the first to notice this factor. Maxwell, for example, is also said to have come across it in the context of his work. But it’s modern-day significance stems from Lorentz and his usage of it.

This can be traced back to the Michelson-Morley experiment (1887), and even to the first of Michelson’s two initial experiments intended to verify the ether, conducted in 1881. In this experiment Michelson split a beam of light into two pencils of light, which he sent off at right angles to each other towards two reflectors at equal distances, then back to the source. One pathway, that in the direction of the earth’s motion, was expected to require more time for the round trip than the other in the perpendicular direction.

No significant difference in the time taken was detected, however. Lorentz proposed a correction to the initial mathematical calculations, which cast the previous result into doubt. Michelson therefore decided to repeat the experiment, allowing for this correction, but also improving the precision of his set-up in general.

Again, however, no significant difference in the time taken for the respective journeys of the pencils of light was detected. And it was in response to this that Lorentz – and independently FitzGerald in Dublin – proposed the „solution“ which initially concerns us here, length contraction. [2]

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[1]: Or at least derivation

[2]: Notice, incidentally, that unlike Michelson, who was prepared to accept the experimental results and their implications, Lorentz proposed length contraction as a means of compensating for Michelson’s results and thereby retaining the ether theory.

(Zitatende)

Lesen Sie bitte hier weiter!

Beste Grüße Ekkehard Friebe