Simultaneity

A wave source and two equidistant detectors are at rest in reference frame S', which moves with constant velocity v in frame S, along the common axis X. Clocks are synchronized so that at t = t' = 0 the origins of coordinates coincide: O = O'. At the same time a wave front quits the source and is eventually detected. We consider two cases:

By choosing/setting you may
S system / S' system select the reference frame in which source and detectors move with velocity v / are at rest
Light / Sound choose the special relativistic / Galilean case
v/c set the dimensionless velocity: the Lorentz factor γ is automatically set (to 1 in the Galilean case)
∆t set the animation step length
Events choose whether to stop when a door is closed or removed
Minkowski select whether to show Minkowski's diagram
Show simultaneous choose whether to show the events simultaneous with detections
Go start the simulation from the emission time
Stop stop the simulation
Continue continue a simulation stopped at an event
Reset recover all initial settings
Units are chosen so that the speed of sound / light in vacuum c is unity.


Activities




This is an English translation of the Basque original for a course on mechanics, oscillations and waves.
It requires Java 1.5 or newer and was created by Juan M. Aguirregabiria with Easy Java Simulations (Ejs) by Francisco Esquembre. I thank Wolfgang Christian and Francisco Esquembre for their help.