Resumen de Special Relativity in Week One: 3) Introducing the Lorentz Contraction
This is the third of four articles on teaching special relativity in the first week of an introductory physics course.1,2With Einsteins second postulate that the speed of light is the same to all observers, we could use the light pulse clock to introduce time dilation. But we had difficulty introducing the Lorentz contraction until we saw the movie �Time Dilation, an Experiment with Mu-Mesons� by David Frisch and James Smith.3,4The movie demonstrates that time dilation and the Lorentz contraction are essentially two sides of the same coin. Here we take the muons point of view for a more intuitive understanding of the Lorentz contraction, and use the results of the movie to provide an insight into the way we interpret experimental results involving special relativity.
