Volume 21: Pages 6-8, 2008

Some remarks on the twin paradox in relativity

V. Arunasalam ¹

¹50 Windsor Drive, Princeton Junction, New Jersey 08550, USA

If an identical twin on a rocket travels at high speed for a while, and then makes a 180° turn and returns to the Earth, the Earth twin would have aged much more than the space twin. We show here (for the first time), that the space twin is not only younger but also has become shorter both in size and shape (i.e., has now shrunk) and also heavier relative to the (initially identical) Earth twin. If the consequences of Lorentz transformation such as the time dilation, Fitzgerald–Lorentz contraction, mass variation with velocity, etc., apply equally well to all systems with or without life, then all laws of science (i.e., physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, biology, etc.) must be expressible in a manifestly Lorentz covariant manner in the four-dimensional world or Minkowski space.

Keywords: Twin paradox, Relativity, Lorentz covariance, General relativity as a field theory, Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction, Time dilation, Relativistic mass variation

Received: October 3, 2005; Accepted: May 16, 2006; Published Online: December 15, 2008