[ETL]

What happens if the clock is moving vertically, like in an elevator, instead of horizontally? Going “up” fast enough would shorten the tock part because the bottom mirror would be closer to the position the top mirror was in when the light beam left it on the return journey.

As the elevator's upward speed approached the speed of light, it would take longer and longer for the upward traveling light pulse to reach the upper reflector. But on the way down, the light pulse could only approach the midway point. (i.e., if the elevator could theoretically travel at light speed, it would meet exactly at the mid-point) And so the longer duration of the upward pulse would increasingly win out over the limited duration of the lower directed light pulse and time dilation would still grow to infinity for the complete round trip (full tick-tock).

[hadit2here]

I’m glad there are people who actually can understand stuff like this because it was a major brain-strain just to try to understand putting the clock in an elevator, let alone how the light would work while it was moving. ;^)

But I DO give myself props for realizing, right AFTER I pressed the post button, that the one travel time would be lengthened and the other shortened, so I guess I’m not a total dunce at it. But then shaking the clock up and down vigorously came to mind and I soon was in the throes of a massive brain fart just trying to imagine that. 8^O

I’m gonna give up before my head explodes.