Can someone explain to me Einstein's thought experiments involving mirrors and trains and discuss the relationship between thought and reality?
Im a bit confused as the textbook says the train is travelling at c, although i remember in an assessment task the marker crossed it out and wrote 0.95c
TY
There's a good Train thought experiment, different to the one you asked, but it is easy to understand and is simply the observations between a man on the train and a man off the train.
The man sits on a train, it is travelling at c. It travels to the right. In the train, there is: A light in the middle of the carriage, two doors one at either end of the carriage. The light turns on and the man in the carriage notices that the light reaches both doors at the SAME time.
A man watches the train. Same scenario. But! The man sees the light turn on. The light reaches the left door of the train carriage first. Then the right door after.
Think about it: The light is in the centre of the carriage. It gets turned on and 'shoots' light out in all directions. BUT, the train is moving to the right. So the left door will be travelling towards the centre light, the right door will be travelling away from the centre light. Get it?
Also, with the teacher thing, I think he would have just said .95c as 3x10^8m/s is apparently impossible as it will use infinite energy to reach sufficient speed, meaning the mass of the universe and more will need to be converted to energy to travel so quickly.