Related papers: The twin paradox in compact spaces
If time travel is possible, it seems to inevitably lead to paradoxes. These include consistency paradoxes, such as the famous grandfather paradox, and bootstrap paradoxes, where something is created out of nothing. One proposed class of…
We revisit the familiar scenario involving two parties in relative motion, in which Alice stays at rest while Bob goes on a journey at speed $\beta c$ along an arbitrary trajectory and reunites with Alice after a certain period of time. It…
The gedanken experiment of the clock paradox is solved exactly using the general relativistic equations for a static homogeneous gravitational field. We demonstrate that the general and special relativistic clock paradox solutions are…
The topology of extra dimensions can break global Lorentz invariance,singling out a globally preferred frame even in flat spacetime. Through experiments that probe global topology, an observer can determine her state of motion with respect…
The aim of this paper is to provide a logic-based conceptual analysis of the twin paradox (TwP) theorem within a first-order logic framework. A geometrical characterization of TwP and its variants is given. It is shown that TwP is not…
It is often argued that superluminal velocities and nontrivial spacetime topologies, allowed by the theory of relativity, may lead to causal paradoxes. By emphasizing that the notion of causality assumes the existence of a time arrow (TA)…
Observation of the decay of muons produced in the Earth's atmosphere by cosmic ray interactions provides a graphic illustration of the counter-intuitive space-time predictions of special relativity theory. Muons at rest in the atmosphere,…
Two new scenarios are proposed which generalize the standard story leading to the pseudoparadox of the Einsteinian relativistic twins, thereby enabling some deeper understanding. First, the fable by Aesop 'The Hare and the Tortoise' is…
The circular twin paradox and Thomas Precession are presented in a way that makes both accessible to students in introductory relativity courses. Both are discussed by examining what happens during travel around a polygon and then in the…
A fifty-year old apparently paradoxical thought experiment involving two accelerating spaceships and a thread hat connects them states that the thread will break due to length contraction. This paradox still appears to be regarded by some…
Relativistic twin paradox can have important implications for Mach's principle. It has been recently argued that the behavior of the time asynchrony (different aging of twins) between two flying clocks along closed loops can be attributed…
We discuss the Sagnac effect in standard Minkowski coordinates and with an alternative synchronization convention. We find that both approaches lead to the same result without any contradictions. When applying standard coordinates to the…
Paradoxes are a very frequent phenomenon in processes of thought which strive towards the intelectual and cognitive shifts. They occur in all areas of human spiritual activites. What we are interested here in, are the paradoxes in physics.…
We consider two approaches to evading paradoxes in quantum mechanics with closed timelike curves (CTCs). In a model similar to Politzer's, assuming pure states and using path integrals, we show that the problems of paradoxes and of…
An in-depth and mathematically-detailed analysis of Langevin's popular 1911 article on the special theory of relativity is presented. For the reader's convenience, English translations of large parts of the original French text are given.…
The idea of constructing a time machine is not new and even received a boost thanks to the realization that a traversable wormhole could be converted to a time machine. It was shown in a recent paper that the time-travel paradoxes can be…
The time dilation of non-inertial travelers in circular and polygonal closed paths are well known. In both cases observers completing a round trip will age less than an observer at rest with respect to the circle / polygon. This rapid aging…
Suppose that you're going to school and arrive at a bus stop. How long do you have to wait before the next bus arrives? Surprisingly, it is longer - possibly much longer - than what the bus schedule suggests intuitively. This phenomenon,…
In this article, we present several apparent paradoxes of special relativity and their respective solutions. These paradoxes have appeared since the advent of relativity in 1905, and in fact they are never paradoxes. From a didactic point…
In Supplee's submarine paradox, a naive argument based on Lorentz contraction leads to a contradiction that a fast submarine should sink in the water's reference frame but float in the submarine's reference frame. Due to the submarine's…