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On 2002-10-02 17:57, SeanF wrote:
Welcome to the BABB, Verlan! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]
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On 2002-10-02 15:49, Verlan J. Kliewer wrote:
. . . The mathematical model involves multiple observers moving relative to each other, and arriving at contradictory results, without changing their velocities. I would like to explain it with a story . . . speed away in opposite directions. Then they speed back and meet again.
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(Emphasis mine)
Your astronauts did, in fact, change their velocities.
There are no mathematical contradictions or paradoxes in Special Relativity (or General Relativity, for that matter), despite what you may have been told.
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First, welcome to the BABB, Verlan.
SeanF is exactly right. The twin paradox has been discussed several times on this board. Our beloved Grapes has a nice
write up on this.
For GR the problem gets much more complicated. Consider two astronauts orbiting a planet in opposite directions. Each is in a valid free-float frame (say that five times fast [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]) and each would observe the other as younger, right? But symmetry says that they should be the same age. Which is right?
Symmetry is.