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#1620188
Avram in MD
Participant

Doing my best,

Why? The light in front of him moved closer to him when the train moved towards it. (the same way when two cars go towards each other they meet other faster then when only one moves.) however, he is sort of running away from the photons behind him, so it will take them longer to hit him, however they are still there.”

Why are the photons playing “catch-up” with the man on the train, and not the man on the platform? What’s special about the platform man that you take his side? Let’s dispense with the train and the platform, and say our two men are in spaceships whizzing past each other out in open space. And let’s say each man believed his spaceship to be at rest (“Full stop, ensign!” “Yes, captain!”). One man therefore thinks that he is “stopped”, and the other ship is moving past him, and the other thinks that his ship is “stopped”, and the other ship is moving past him! And suddenly there are two flashes of light nearby both ships. Both men think that his own ship is stopped, and the light from both flashes is moving towards each of the men at the speed of light. For one, the flashes were simultaneous, and for the other, they were not. Which is right? Both, relative to their own inertial frame of reference!