- #1
Jeronimus
- 287
- 9
Inspired by Aziza's question i came up with a similar, seemingly puzzling question.
Imagine a space-platform with a big cylinder on it. The cylinder has a hole drilled in, with a bomb-button at the end of the hole, which would trigger a bomb destroying the whole galaxy.
A terrorist is on that space-platform with his rocket. He is too weak to push the trigger, so he decides to use his rocket nose to push it.
The nose of the rocket is only 10 meters long, while the cylinder hole is 20 meters.
The rocket is T shaped, so the tail of the rocket would hinder him from getting further inside once the nose is fully in. See picture.
http://www.lupiupload.de/images/2012/09/23/bf63b4dc89a421f8b0528116d43276dac3b53550.png
The terrorist is quite smart and knows SR quite well, so he decides to speed up his rocket to about 0.9c. The cylinder seen from his inertial reference frame at this speed would shrink to about 8.7m. The rocket nose within the terrorist's/rocket's inertial reference frame would be 10m still.
Enough for his rocket to fly in and push the button with it.
An observer on the cylinder is laughing at the terrorist, seeing the rocket coming in, which from his inertial frame of reference has a nose length of only ~4.36m. Knowing the cylinder is of some super strong material, just like the rocket, he is convinced that the terrorist won't succeed since even in the rest frame, the rocket nose was only 10m long, not enough to push the button.Will the terrorist succeed in blowing up the galaxy or not?
Imagine a space-platform with a big cylinder on it. The cylinder has a hole drilled in, with a bomb-button at the end of the hole, which would trigger a bomb destroying the whole galaxy.
A terrorist is on that space-platform with his rocket. He is too weak to push the trigger, so he decides to use his rocket nose to push it.
The nose of the rocket is only 10 meters long, while the cylinder hole is 20 meters.
The rocket is T shaped, so the tail of the rocket would hinder him from getting further inside once the nose is fully in. See picture.
http://www.lupiupload.de/images/2012/09/23/bf63b4dc89a421f8b0528116d43276dac3b53550.png
The terrorist is quite smart and knows SR quite well, so he decides to speed up his rocket to about 0.9c. The cylinder seen from his inertial reference frame at this speed would shrink to about 8.7m. The rocket nose within the terrorist's/rocket's inertial reference frame would be 10m still.
Enough for his rocket to fly in and push the button with it.
An observer on the cylinder is laughing at the terrorist, seeing the rocket coming in, which from his inertial frame of reference has a nose length of only ~4.36m. Knowing the cylinder is of some super strong material, just like the rocket, he is convinced that the terrorist won't succeed since even in the rest frame, the rocket nose was only 10m long, not enough to push the button.Will the terrorist succeed in blowing up the galaxy or not?
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