Relativity and charge

Enola Straight · Post by **Enola Straight** » 2003-01-08 04:39pm

There are three basic relativistic distortions:

as an object approaches lightspeed, length in the direction of travel foreshortens, mass increases, and time slows down.

What effect does relativity have on charge? ie, does charge increase, decrease, or not change at all?

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-08 07:22pm

Well, if charge is not proportional to mass, it shouldnt theoretically change.

Cthulhu-chan · Post by **Cthulhu-chan** » 2003-01-08 11:59pm

Given no outside influences, then charge would not change.

The increase in mass is due to an increase in kinetic energy. Remember, energy and mass are esentially the same thing, and a given amount of energy of whatever type will exert the same gravitational forces as an equivalent amount of mass as given by E=mc^2.

Compression along the axis of movement may as well be the result of an optical illusion until some kind of experiment can verify that "yes, objects actually physically contract at near-luminal speeds".

On time dilation, the theory I've heard is that everything moves at c through space/time. For everything that isn't a photon or highly energetic particle, the vast majority of that velocity is within the time domain. The greater the velocity in space, the less velocity in time. The exchange isn't one for one, and in fact obeys a logarithmic scale IIRC.

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2003-01-09 09:10am

Cthulhu-chan wrote: On time dilation, the theory I've heard is that everything moves at c through space/time. For everything that isn't a photon or highly energetic particle, the vast majority of that velocity is within the time domain. The greater the velocity in space, the less velocity in time. The exchange isn't one for one, and in fact obeys a logarithmic scale IIRC.

You can see this by the time dialation equation:

B = (1 - v^2 / c ^2 ) ^0.5

re-arranging:

B^2 = 1 - v^2 / c^2

v^2 + (Bc)^2 = c^2

x^2 + y^2 + z^2 + (cB)^2 = c^2

B (beta) gives the time dialation, and is a number from 0 to 1. cB would then be the "velocity through the time dimension". v^2 is velocity squared which equals x^2+y^2+z^2, or the sum of the squares of the individual spacial velocities.

ie Your speed in the x, y, z, and time dimensions is "c".

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-01-09 02:29pm

x^2 + y^2 + z^2 + (cB)^2 = c^2

This looks remarkably similar to the equation for a hypersphere which is:

x^2 + y^2 + z^2 + u^2 = r^2 or something like that. LOL