First, a disclaimer: This may sound correct or obvious, but if so, it is because that is the way I write. Nothing should be taken as either factual or as representing the opinions of educated physicists.
This is another of my crank ideas, or rather, this is a potentially crank explanation intended to shed some light on why Lorentz Contraction happens.
So, in relativity, gravity is a distortion in spacetime; you can think of it as a change in the coordinate system such that, with respect to a "static" coordinate system, the points are closer together. This is why orbits happen - because one side has to go through more coordinate-space than the other side, it is going "faster" relative to a third party observer, pulling the object to the side.
Now, information can't go faster than light - which means that changes in gravity can't go faster than light, either. So you get a sort of spacetime compression wave building up in front of an object (relative to other objects - from the object's perspective, the space it occupies is undistorted, it is everything else that is distorting). As an object continues to increase relative speed, this compression wave of its own coordinate space means it is occupying, relative to a static coordinate system and in the direction of its motion, less and less space. From its own perspective, it is still occupying the same area - but a third-party observer would see the object contracting, because, from the perspective of their coordinate-space, which isn't compressed, it is.
I write this because most explanations revolve around light traveling from different points on the relativistic object, which confuses the issue when you try to consider the standard example of a ladder fitting into a barn for a moment of time.
So, in relativity, gravity is a distortion in spacetime; you can think of it as a change in the coordinate system such that, with respect to a "static" coordinate system, the points are closer together. This is why orbits happen - because one side has to go through more coordinate-space than the other side, it is going "faster" relative to a third party observer, pulling the object to the side.
Now, information can't go faster than light - which means that changes in gravity can't go faster than light, either. So you get a sort of spacetime compression wave building up in front of an object (relative to other objects - from the object's perspective, the space it occupies is undistorted, it is everything else that is distorting). As an object continues to increase relative speed, this compression wave of its own coordinate space means it is occupying, relative to a static coordinate system and in the direction of its motion, less and less space. From its own perspective, it is still occupying the same area - but a third-party observer would see the object contracting, because, from the perspective of their coordinate-space, which isn't compressed, it is.
I write this because most explanations revolve around light traveling from different points on the relativistic object, which confuses the issue when you try to consider the standard example of a ladder fitting into a barn for a moment of time.
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