Simultaneity... Not!

You’re hanging out at a train station, savoring each sip of your coffee as you watch the trains go by.

This is no ordinary train station, though. While the coffee is at the scale of human existence, everything else runs a lot faster. Every train that goes by is nearly moving at the speed of light, but your brain allows you to process the trains as though you’re watching them at a much lower speed.

You watch as one of these trains whooshes past you. As it does, lightning strikes both ends of the train. To you, standing still on the platform, the bolts appear to hit simultaneously.

This really gets you thinking: what would a person sitting in the middle of the car see? They’re speeding by at 99% of the speed of light. What do they see?

The somewhat shocking conclusion is that they see things differently. Flying forward at such an insanely fast pace, they see the lightning strike the front of the car well before they see it strike the back of the car. After all, the train car is moving …