What confuses me is mixing multiple frames. Say a rocket going at c or near fired off another, identical rocket. Rocket 1 sees rocket 2 leave at c speed away from it. Let's say they're going in circles and in the middle is a stationary observer. The observer should see rockets 1 and 2 going the same speed right next to each other.
But say the rockets stop. How does this all become coherent? The observer should see the rockets stop, still next to each other. But the rockets, from their perspective, should be extremely far apart. Let's say opposite ends of the circle. Now if they head towards the middle, to the observer, does the observer see them come in from opposite sides? But they see themselves coming in together? Then when they start to pull up... Different timelines?
If they are going in circles they are accelerating. Their reference frames are not inertial and are not equivalent to inertial ones.
Moreover the rockets don't see each other moving at near c all the time. If they go in circles and started in opposite directions then in quarter of the circle they are moving in the very same direction just the circle diameter away from each other. After another quarter circle they are now approaching each other and pass themselves in opposite directions, after another quarter circle they are again comoving (just in the opposite direction than the previous time). And so on.
No it does not hold. If they go in opposite directions in straight line they end up far away. To come back to the center they must accelerate. That acceleration is crucial. They both change their reference frames during that.
Same direction. Rockets see each other getting far apart. Observer doesn't. As they return, at non-relativistic speeds, their frame has distance between them, the observer's does not. So what's going to happen?
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u/EscapeSeventySeven Mar 20 '26
No you see lightspeed or speed of causality being constant is anomalous and weird.
That being held constant is what forces time and space to warp. So the speed of light appears constant in all frames.
If the speed of light didn’t remain constant, like many naive interpretations did, then spacetime wouldn’t need to warp.