What is an example of 'relativity of simultaneity' other than thought experiments (1 Viewer)

[gamecw]

Q19 2006 of independant trial
Explain the idea of the relativity of simultaneity, giving an example to support your answer..

iv included einstein's lamp in mid of train thought experiment as the example but teacher said 'nope, thats just a thought exp' so i lost the marks..

so what is an example of ROS?

my teacher gave me an example by saying
'if u fire a gunshot, the person who stands farther away from the u will hear the gunshot takin much longer time than u.'

is that a good example? i thought ros is talking about ppl judgin thins differently in different frame of reference.. if the person just stands farther away from u, isnt he still in the same frame of reference to u?

can sumone explain?

 

[Ennaybur]

praps two stars explode (hypothetically) at the same time. for one observer they see both happening at the same time, thus the events appear to be happening simultaneously. however, for another observer standing (hypothetically) next to star A , they see star A explode first, then (because light take time to reach him/her) star B explodes several thousand years afterwards.

so it shows that whilst 2 events may happen simultaneously for one observer, it is all relative to your frame of reference.

i hope that helps

 

[gamecw]

ic then its quite similar to my teacher's example then..

so one does not necessary has to be traveling at a constant speed yea?

so different frames of references mean ur in different postion?

 

[Gecko888]

Perhaps a definition of what a simulataneuos event is is in order here. Suppose in Ennaybur's example one star explodes at A, and another explodes at B. If an observer standing at the midpoint of A and B observes both events to happen at the same time (relative to them) then the observer considers the events to be simultaneuous. Now consider an observer who is traveling at speed v ms-1 towards A when the stars explodes, noting that he starts out at the midpoint of AB. Now, he will travel towards B in the time the light rays take to reach him, so that he observes B to happen sooner than A, even though at time of explosion he was at the midpoint of AB. This is the example I use when answering simulataneity questions...