World Science Scholars
34.3 The Pole in the Barn: Spacetime Diagrams With Now Slices
demonstration
demonstration

This demonstration is similar to the previous one and illustrates the resolution of the “pole in the barn paradox” using spacetime diagrams. In this version, you can still choose one perspective (barn or pole), but now you can also see the other perspective’s spatial slices (or the other’s “now slices”). You can even view both perspectives’ spatial slices at the same time. Notice, for example, that at a high relative velocity, the barn’s perspective shows that the pole fits in the barn (i.e. both ends coincide with one of its spatial slices). By clicking on the pole’s spatial slices, though, you can see that pole does not agree that both of its ends were inside the barn at the same moment (that is, both ends did not coincide with one of its own spatial slices).



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