Nonlinear Phenomena in Complex Systems, 2007, Vol.10, No.3, pp.271-277

NONLINEAR PHENOMENA IN COMPLEX SYSTEMS
An Interdisciplinary Journal

2007, Vol.10, No.3, pp.271-277

Beyond the Pole-Barn Paradox: How the Pole is Caught.
J. P. van der Weele and J. H. Snoeijer

Hundred years after Einstein formulated the special theory of relativity~\cite{Einstein05}, we review one of its famous paradoxes: the length contraction paradox, about a farmer who wants to catch a pole in a short barn. The original paradox describes the situation in which the velocity of the pole with respect to the barn is constant, but we go beyond that and focus upon the actual catch in which the pole is brought to a standstill. This natural follow-up question, rarely addressed in textbooks, turns out to have a very surprising outcome.
Key words: special relativity, paradox, Lorentz contraction, shock wave

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