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A2 Special Relativity

Hi,
I'm doing the AQA A2 Physics course and am stuck on the special realitivity section of the option topic, turning points in physics.

I get really confused between which is the proper time, t0, and the proper length, l0. Can someone explain what each of these terms mean and how to find which time is the proper time etc?

Reply 1

atsruser

Original post by RThornton

If you imagine a particle carrying a clock with it, and allow it to travel along some curve between 2 points A and B in space-time at some speed less than c. Then the proper time interval between A and B is the time that is recorded by the particle's own clock. Here the word "proper" corresponds to "ownership" rather than correctness. (It may have been better if they had called it eigentime).

The proper length of a 1D body is its length measured in its own rest frame. This will differ from its length as measured by an observer in any other inertial frame.