I am obviously having some difficulty in my interpretation of Special Relativity as I am continuously mentally defeated by Dewan and Beran's interpretation of what is going on in this thought experiment referred to as Bell's spacehip paradox. I cannot in my mind avoid the temptation of assuming that the spatial distance between accelerating spaceships should also experience lorentz contraction. Apparently according to Dewan and Beran, it doesn't. Could someone enlighten me on why it doesn't?

Edited February 4, 201411 yr by Implicate Order

I am obviously having some difficulty in my interpretation of Special Relativity as I am continuously mentally defeated by Dewan and Beran's interpretation of what is going on in this thought experiment regarding

 

 

In the (inertial) frame of the launch pad the distance between the rockets stays unchanged (by the way the problem was constructed). The string , on the other hand, is subject to Lorentz contraction. This means that the rockets tend to stretch the string, breaking it.

Edited February 4, 201411 yr by xyzt

Thanks xyzt. I am going to have to mull on it. It still doesn't come easy but there is a glimmer of hope in your clue relating to the way the problem was constructed.

 

PS Not sure what I am doing but I am having a drama linking correcty to the wiki page describing the paradox as it always truncates the description to bring it to the incorrect page.

Edited February 4, 201411 yr by Implicate Order

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_spaceship_paradox

Mine link works fine.

You can try using shortening links websites. Similar to what Twitter uses. There is plenty of them on the Internet.