Interesting 'tease' ... Deimos (2009 March 16)

[apodman]

Why virtually the exact same letter?

Because all the ways to phrase the same simple request without embellishment turn out pretty much the same.

It was one sentence.

Were you trying to prove something?

No. I was trying to get an application and a catalog. Didn't I say that?

MIT probably did you a favor by being discouraging.

I didn't find them to be discouraging. I found them to be out to lunch.

[Pete]

• A rocket ship travels with velocity v (vis a vis the earth) in direction x.
  
  The rocket ship sends a laser beam out the side of the ship in direction y;
  the rocket ship sends a stream of ping pong balls out the side of the ship in direction y;
  the rocket ship sticks a yardstick out the side of the ship in direction y.
  
  The laser beam, stream of ping pong balls & yardstick ALL DEFINE the y axis
  which is unaffected by motion in the direction x (except for translation)
  (Lorentz transformation ONLY affect the x axis & the time axis).
  
  Hence, the laser beam, stream of ping pong balls & yardstick are ALL
  unaffected by in both length & direction by the Lorentz transformation.

As for the individual photons of velocity c to
keep up with a rocket ship moving with velocity v
they must, indeed, (obviously) have an aberration of theta = arcsin(v/c)
such that [c sin(theta)] = v as you have correctly calculated.

You were simply confusing the aberration of individual photons with
the laser beam locked formation of those photons along the y axis.

*palm to face* I misread the question. As you effectively said, axes perpendicular to the direction of motion are not Lorentz transformed.
To convince myself of the answer to this question, i just picture the standard light clock example with one of the mirrors removed. The individual photons are relativistically beamed in the direction of motion, but the beam itself moves with the ship. Thanks!