The ladder paradox or (barn-pole paradox) is a thought experiment in special relativity. If a ladder travels horizontally it will undergo a length contraction and will therefore fit into a garage that is shorter than the ladder's length at rest. On the other hand, from the point of view of an observer moving with the ladder, it is the garage that is moving and the garage will be contracted. The garage will therefore need to be larger than the length at rest of the ladder in order to contain it.Suppose we have a ladder that is longer than the length of the garage, but it is traveling at a fast enough speed that, from the frame of reference of the garage, its length is contracted to less than the length of the garage. Then from the frame of reference of the garage, there is a moment in time when the ladder can fit completely inside the garage, and during that moment one can close and open both front and back doors of the garage, without affecting the ladder.However, from the frame of reference of the ladder, the garage is much shorter than the length of the ladder (it is already shorter at rest, plus it is contracted because it is moving with respect to the ladder). Therefore there is no moment in time when the ladder is completely inside the garage; and there is no moment when one can close both doors without it hitting the ladder. This is an apparent paradox.What if the back door (the door the ladder exits out of) is closed permanently and does not open. Suppose that the door is so solid that the ladder will not penetrate it when it collides, so it must stop. Then, as in the scenario described above, in the frame of the reference of the garage, there is a moment when the ladder is completely within the garage (i.e. the back of the ladder is inside the front door), before it collides with the back door and stops. However, from the frame of reference of the ladder, the ladder is too big to fit in the garage, so by the time it collides with the back door and stops, the back of the ladder still hasn't reached the front door. This seems to be a paradox. The question is, does the back of the ladder cross the front door or not?The difficulty arises mostly from the assumption that the ladder is rigid (i.e. maintains the same shape). Ladders seem pretty rigid in real life. But being rigid requires that it can transfer force at infinite speed (i.e. when you push one end the other end must react immediately, otherwise the ladder will deform). This contradicts special relativity, which states that information can only travel at most the speed of light (which is pretty fast for us to notice in real life, but is significant in the ladder scenario). So objects cannot be perfectly rigid under special relativity.In this case, by the time the front of the ladder collides with the back door, the back of the ladder doesn't know it yet, so it keeps moving forwards (and the ladder kind of "compresses"). In both the frame of the garage and the initial frame of the ladder, the back end keeps moving at the time of the collision, until at least the point where the back of the ladder comes into the light cone of the collision (i.e. a point where force moving backwards at the speed of light from the point of the collision will reach it). At this point the ladder is actually shorter than the original contracted length, so the back end is well inside the garage. Calculations in both frames of reference will show this to be the case.What happens after the force reaches the back of the ladder (the "green" zone in the diagram) is not specified. Depending on the physics, the ladder could break into a million pieces; or, if it were sufficiently elastic, it could re-expand to its original length and push the back end out of the garage.
Anything that makes sense.
Vanilla Sky, The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption, Resevior Dogs, Momento, Pulp Fiction, Lucky Number Slevin, The Fountain, Gangs of New York, Donnie Darko, 21 Grams, Babel, Requiem for a Dream, City of God, American Psycho, The Illusionist, The Prestige, 25th Hour, Meet Joe Black. ETC.
Family Guy, ATHF, Seinfield, King of the Hill, anything on the History and Discovery Channels, Dexter, Curb your Enthusiasm, The Shield, and some other low key TV shows.
"I heard the water stop running upstairs so I walked into the living room which was darker than normal I looked to the window and the curtains were completely closed together. More so on the left side. I thought this was strange because we never closed the curtains in the living room because we had no one to hide from. We lived on a dead end street and there were no neighbors within an acre's reach from us. It was incredible. That was our best year together. We went to Ireland that spring, then to Italy the following fall. Over the winter we spent our time in Venezuela, and any country we found across the equator. We were so happy, catching flight after flight. Never truly knowing where we were going. That's how she liked it. The adventure. I loved that about her. I remember our first journey through the Oronoco River, from Venezuela into Brazil, we stopped for water in a small village which bordered both countries. And just watching as the sun set just behind her left shoulder, as its arms stretched through the leaves in the trees and outlined her body to the dirt ground below me, (she was dressed in small camouflage shorts, a backpack and nothing else but a compass and a map, that was probably when I knew she was the one I wanted to spend my life with) was one of the most beautiful moments in my life. We had so many photo albums. We had been to over twenty countries. Over fifty flights we had flown together. I could never remember the name of that village though.She stepped out from the bath room with nothing but a beige towel around her head, which made me smile to think that still felt comfortable around me though it has been so long. She was brushing her teeth, and I looked at her, and I said, "Remember our time in Venezuela honey? Do you remember the name of that village we stayed at?"She paused just for a second, "Yes of course.†The words rolled off from her lips so elegantly. “Bucaramanga." Just as she said I started to lip it. It was something that would always rest on the tip of my tongue but could never get it right. (That was another thing I loved about her. She knew everything I didn't, and I knew everything she didn't. We were the perfect team. Separate, we formed out own very distinct person, (where the equation 1 minus 1 equals 2, would apply here.) But when we collided, oh when we came together, we created an energy so strong that anyone could feel it. (And I believe the equation 1 plus 1 equals 1 applies here.) And we knew that, and that in itself made us more stronger and our love for each other stronger.) Of course she remembered, and I loved her for that. And she knew that."The place you said you want to go when you die." she said."It was, wasn't it." I replied."