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hkyriazi
- 175
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Lorentz believed in the ether, and developed his version of Relativity Theory based on interactions of moving charged particles (electrons, specifically) with the ether. What I don't understand is how one always gets length contraction for movement in an inertial system moving with respect to one's own inertial system. For a mechanical theory of interaction of matter with the ether, one would (naively, it seems) think that increasing one's rate of movement against the stationary ether would cause a length contraction, but that moving more with the ether would result in a length expansion.
I realize this can't be the case, because it would allow one to identify the stationary ether reference frame without having to look, say, at the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, but I don't see how one can reconcile this aspect of relativity theory with a mechanical ether (which presumably was Lorentz's view).
What am I missing? (This seems to be simply another way of saying, "If person A's yardstick A in inertial frame A sees a yardstick in moving inertial frame B as being shrunk, why does person B in frame B not see A's yardstick as enlarged?")
I realize this can't be the case, because it would allow one to identify the stationary ether reference frame without having to look, say, at the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, but I don't see how one can reconcile this aspect of relativity theory with a mechanical ether (which presumably was Lorentz's view).
What am I missing? (This seems to be simply another way of saying, "If person A's yardstick A in inertial frame A sees a yardstick in moving inertial frame B as being shrunk, why does person B in frame B not see A's yardstick as enlarged?")
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