On 10/28/2013 6:23 AM, Cordwell, William R wrote:
Another interesting special rel. "paradox" is a spaceship of rest-length L, travelling at a significant fraction of c, approaches a berth, or dock, of rest-length L. When the nose of the spaceship touches the far end of the berth, the spaceship stops. Just before that instant, a person standing on the ship sees the berth as shorter than the ship (the ship is sticking out); a person on the dock sees the ship as shorter than the dock (the ship is well inside the dock). What is going on?
Aside from infinite deceleration that requires sonic velocity in the ship structure exceeding c? Aside from that there's the fact that where the back end of the ship is at the same instant the nose touches the berth and where the back of the dock is at that instant are both frame dependent. Brent