TWIN PARADOX WITH

THIRD INERTIAL
FRAME

Submitted by-
Vishwesh Singh (2008PH10641)
Aishwarya Kumar (2008PH10605)
What is a paradox?
 A paradox is a statement or group of
statements that leads to a contradiction or a
situation which defies intuition.
 Typically, either the statements in question do
not really imply the contradiction, the puzzling
result is not really a contradiction, or the
premises themselves are not all really true or
cannot all be true together.
The experiment
 The twin paradox is a thought experiment in
special relativity, in which a twin who makes a
journey into space in a high-speed rocket will
return home to find he has aged less than his
identical twin who stayed on Earth.
The paradox
 This result appears puzzling on this basis:
Each twin sees the other twin as travelling; so,
according to the theory of special relativity,
each should see the other age more slowly due
to time dilation. Then on returning to Earth how
has the other twin aged less than one on Earth.
SIMULATANEITY
In Relativity events that appear to be simultaneous
in one frame are usually never simultaneous in a
frame moving relatively to that frame.
Also there is a difference between what an
observer sees and what is actually happening,
since what he sees includes the lag due to finite
speed of light.
In a Minkowski Space-time diagram lines of
simultaneity represent all the events that occur
at the same proper time for a particular frame.
They are horizontal for the frame with vertical time
axis and at a slope for a frame moving with
relative velocity v.


Space-time diagram of twins
(time for earth frame
vertical)
Twin

Twin 2
1
 Acceleration  ∞
T’ Before the turn around twin
2 observes twin 1 ageing
slower than himself, but
after the turn around, the
slope of his lines of
simultaneity changes
T1 T’’ instantaneously. Then it can
be seen from the Space-time
diagram that he observes a
jump in the age of twin 1 as
he observes he is now
simultaneous with time
gap(T’’) added to the age he
observed just before the
turn around.
CALCULATIONS
(Twin 1)
Twin 1 is always in an inertial frame. From S-T diagram his lines of
simultaneity are always horizontal. Therefore mid point of his world
line is simultaneous with the turn around, so he can use time dilation
on his halves of trip to calculate proper times for twin 2 in the 2
inertial frames.

Let T1 be time shown by Twin 1’s clock

Let distance = d, Velocity of Twin 2 in 1’s frame = v
⇒ T1 =

Let T2 be the time shown by Twin 2’s clock

⇒ T2 =
CALCULATIONS
(Twin 2)
It is clear from the lines of simultaneity of Twin 2, that in the
limit a  ∞, The turn around is simultaneous with points much further
from the centre of twin 1’s trip.
Therefore if we take into account simultaneity, if twin 2 tries to
calculate proper time for twin 1 by applying time dilation on his
halves of the trip it gives him T’ which he wrongly takes to be the
half time of Twin 1’s clock.
In case when there is finite acceleration, there is a line of
simultaneity common but he cannot apply time dilation formula as his
frame is non-inertial.
To get the correct result he must also take into account the Time Gap
T’’

⇒T’’ = T1 – 2T’

Also, T’ =

And, => T’’=

This shows the error in calculation by twin 2…..the gravitational time

Gap.
Gravitational Time Gap
This expression gives the time dilation due to a gravitational
field.

The equivalence principle refers to several related

concepts dealing with the equivalence of gravitational and
inertial mass, and to Albert Einstein's assertion that the
gravitational "force" as experienced locally while standing on
a massive body (such as the Earth) is actually the same as the
pseudo-force experienced by an observer in a non-inertial
(accelerated) frame of reference, hence we can equivalently
state that
Twin paradox in third inertial
frame
 If in the whole experiment the observer is in an inertial frame, which is
in relative motion to Earth (another inertial frame).
 Let us assume that the observer moves with velocity u with respect to
Earth(twin 1) and as usual twin 2 moves with velocity v w.r.t twin 1
 Now we have to analyze the whole process in the third inertial frame,
finding the times in third inertial frame and predicting times in the clocks
of twin through the third inertial frame, to check if any paradox arises as
in frame of twin 2.
For this we define following symbols used henceforth

 , relative velocity of earth w.r.t the third inertial frame

 ,relative velocity of twin 2 on the outgoing leg w.r.t
third
 inertial frame.


 , relative velocity of twin 2 on the incoming leg w.r.t

third
 inertial frame.


 , time dilation factor for twin 1 from the third inertial

frame
S-T diagram in 3rd inertial
frame
W o rld lin e o f tw in 1 . slo p e = -1 / u 1
t W o rld lin e o f tw in 2 o n o u tg o in g le g , slo p e
= 1 / u2

W o rld Lin e tw in 2 o n in co m in g le g , slo p e

= -1 / u3

x
d ε
 Steps to solve:
First the time at which twin 2 changes
his direction is calculated, at that
time distance b/w 2 twins is dεin
third inertial frame(due to length
contraction), it comes out to be
Next we find the intercept of world
line of 2nd part of journey to find its
equation, which comes out to be
We solve the equations of twin 1 world
line world line of 2nd part of journey
simultaneously to get total time of
trip in the third inertial frame, to
get

t=
d ε ,in which if
we put values of u1,u2,u3 we get t= ,if the third observer wants to
calculate proper time for twin 1 he multiplies by time dilation factor, giving t=
,which is the increase in age of first twin, same as observed by both the
twins and third inertial observer.
If he now wants to calculate the proper time for twin 2, he has to do it
separately for 2 legs as the time dilation factors are different
and

Putting values of u1,u2 and u3 in the expressions for time in the two parts of
journey and adding them we get t=

which is the increase in age of travelling twin as observed by both twins and the
third inertial observer.