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“Intuitive explanation. While I hope you can accept, as did FitzGerald and Lorentz, that length contraction happens because the field equations require it, it would be nice to have some intuitive insight into the phenomenon. We must recognize that even if the molecular configuration of an object appears to be static, the component fields are always interacting with each other. The EM field interacts with the matter fields and vice versa, the strong field interacts with the nucleon fields, etc. These interactions are what holds the object together. Now if the object is moving very fast, this communication among fields will become more difficult because the fields, on the average, will have to interact through greater distances. Thus the object in motion must somehow adjust itself so that the same interaction among fields can occur. How can it do this? The only way is by reducing the distance the component fields must travel. Since the spacing between atoms and molecules, and hence the dimensions of an object, are determined by nature and configuration of the force fields that bind them together, the dimensions of an object must therefore be affected by motion.”

Rodney A. Brooks, Fields of Color: The theory that escaped Einstein
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Fields of Color: The theory that escaped Einstein Fields of Color: The theory that escaped Einstein by Rodney A. Brooks
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