Talk:Length contraction

Deformation of Objects

When the length contracts, I assume that things like volume and surface area are affected.

In every day life, I mean I guess where both the observer and the object are not moving relative to each other, if you deform an object, it will resist this depending upon how rigid it is. Also, applying force to it will change its temperature and permanently affect its structure.

Does relativistic length contraction work this way? Would, for example, a more-rigid object deform less than a less-rigid object? Does the object's temperature increase due to the mechanical force applied? And does the object permanently change, once it slows down relative to the observer are there measurable effects that remain?--Jrm2007 (talk) 05:30, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

You'll have to go to our wp:reference desk/science with this. Here we discuss the article, not the subject. See wp:talk page guidelines. Cheers - DVdm (talk) 07:50, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Or ask on my talk page. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:57, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I am confused by the difference between the article and the subject discussions. I ask a question implicitly so that the answer to it potentially may be included in the article. Is that not a valid usage of this page?--Jrm2007 (talk) 09:30, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

That you proposed adding to the article was not obvious from your question. To answer it: No, none of these things happen. To mention this in the article, we need reliable sources stating this. This will probably require some searching, but I think that some textbooks discuss this specific question. Paradoctor (talk) 09:56, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

If the answers to the questions asked are not apparent to Jrm2007 from reading the article then there is an argument that the article should be improved so that the answers to at least some of these questions are made clearer. That could be discussed here or, as I suggest above, in user space somewhere.

I'm not aware of saying anything to the contrary. I even suggested a set of possible sources. When it's about article content, this talk page is the right place for discussion. Paradoctor (talk) 19:57, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Paradoctor, my comments above were not aimed at you or anyone in particular, which is why I have reverted to my original indentation. The point is that by answering Jrm's questions here we may discover deficiencies in the article that will suggest ways that it can be improved.

Jrm2007, relativity seems to be a subject that attracts more than its fair share of people who appear to wilfully misunderstand the subject or demand to be allowed to propagate their own idiosyncratic understandings of the subject in WP. Discussions with these people have wasted much time of editors here, who are working to genuinely improve the article. For that reason many here regard questions about the subject itself with some suspicion and tend to want to enforce the rule that the talk page should be used only for discussions about improving an article rather more strictly than it is for other articles. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:36, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Yep. I don't think we're particularly strict, though. Relativity articles just offer more opportunities to point out the rules. Paradoctor (talk) 19:57, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

See my reply above. By answering Jrm's questions here (which we assume to be asked in good faith and with a view to improving the article) we may discover ways in which some things can be made clearer to the general reader. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:36, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Perception seems to contain idiosyncrasies to some extent. On that note, the article seems to suggest that length contraction would be accompanied by an increase in density (relative to the observer) or if density is assumed to stay constant, a decreasing in length in the direction of propagation would be accompanied by an increase in length along the transverse axis..RotogenRay (talk) 19:30, 29 July 2014 (UTC)