Twin Paradox Program Documents

Main Document

Twin Paradox Program 

written by Kiril Simov and Wolfgang Christian

The Twin Paradox program displays the effect of time dilation on a moving twin as seen from a stationary twin.   In the default scenario the light signals sent from the moving twin are depicted using a space-time diagram and are shown as seen in the stationary twin's reference frame (the Home Frame).  The sliders can be used to change the twin's trip distance and her trip speed relative to the stationary twin.

Twin Paradox is an Open Source Physics program written for the teaching of special relativity.  It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive.  Double clicking the sr_twin.jar file will run the program if Java is installed.  Other special relativity programs are also available.  They can be found by searching ComPADRE for Open Source Physics, OSP, or Relativity.

Last Modified May 23, 2008

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