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Relatively Speaking

By: Jonathan Whyatt (School of Physics and Astronomy)
Competition Year: 2016
Votes (1) | Comments (0)
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Sitting around in my rest frame
With my lengths, my time both staying the same
When all of a sudden, what should fly past
But an accelerated proton, so charged and fast
I guessed .8c and it could just be me
But its length contracted so suddenly
And when 10 seconds passed, he counted 8
As his time began to dilate

I was intrigued, I had to know more
So he told me of the gamma factor
And how lengths seem shorter and time frames longer
When there is movement relative to an observer
How results from experiments will be the same
Despite being in different inertial frames
And each frame will have the same speed of light
To hold with Einstein’s second postulate

Now it may seem strange that things should be this way
But think about the maths and you will say
It’s common sense when you know the cause
Like conservation of energy or Newton’s laws
Although it may baffle the untrained mind
Think of the Physics and you will find
Relatively speaking, this is how it should be
Relatively speaking it makes sense to me
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