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The mountain is moving from Georges perspective and so the horizontal distance between the top and bottom of the mountain is less in his frame of reference than in mine. Since the vertical distance is not in the same direction as George’s motion, he and I will agree on the vertical distance between the top and bottom. Therefore, as he measures the same height but a different length, he must also measure a different slope.
I am partially convinced.
I am convinced that now for different observers is different and they can’t agree on a single now (if they are moving with respect to each other), but there is still a now for every one of them. A bit like a group of observers could see a rainbow, but each would be looking at a slightly different version of that rainbow.
What is it that makes something in my future move into my past. It seems Special Relativity doesn’t address this (yet?).
All the way up to this point I have been lead to believe that Special Relativity only describes uniform motion. If a ship turns around the motion is not uniform so Special Relativity shouldn’t be able to accurately describe what happens. Surely under Special Relativity, once two observers pass each other they will never meet again. (If they do, at least one of them has changed speed and/or direction)
Maybe General Relativity can be used to deal with a change of direction (acceleration), but I haven’t got that far yet!
This is indeed mind-blowing. I have read, that in some circumstances, two observers in different places can’t even agree which of two different events came first. This does sound a bit stranger. I think it is probably related to the information given in this section. Maybe I will understand more as I progress through the course.