Can someone explain the following equation to me? It's supposed to explain length contraction, but doesn't make sense to me.

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Question

Can someone explain the following equation to me? It's supposed to explain length contraction, but doesn't make sense to me. 

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anonymous · Answer

$$\frac{ l }{ l0 } = \frac{ vt0 }{ vt } = \frac{ t0 }{ t } = \frac{ t0 }{ \Gamma t0 } = \frac{ 1 }{ \Gamma }$$

anonymous · Answer

is this for relativistic contraction or due to thermal expanding. its been a while for each

anonymous · Answer

It's supposed to be an effect of time dilation, but I'm trying to understand this myself so can't say much more. :)

anonymous · Answer

well since it has velocity im guessing the first

anonymous · Answer

okay yeah. all of these depend on the point of reference. i think the lorentz transformation in its original form depicts this a bit better http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/ltrans.html

anonymous · Answer

i wish i could help much more but im still fairly novice myself. might be better off in the physics section with this question. im not the best at explaining it and i will probably mess it up. i tried but cant put it into words well..

anonymous · Answer

Hmm, I'll try that, not sure if it's really physics or maths. Thanks though. :)

anonymous · Answer

this is a math equation but to explain it requires the physics knowledge of why it works

anonymous · Answer

but if you look at the first term and the final term. the change in the length or time changes by a factor of 1/gamma. which is shown in the lorentz equation. why though is a whole different reason

anonymous · Answer

This comes to mind http://xkcd.com/435/