I stumbled into a thought experiment, consisting of:
-Two guys
-One flashlight
-One 200,000-mile-long rod.
One guy holds the flashlight in one hand, a rod end in the other; 200,000 miles away, the other guy holds the other rod end.
Guy with the flashlight simultaneously flashes the flashlight and jerks the rod forward an arm’s length.
Speed of light=186,000 miles/sec, so the other-end guy sees the flashlight flash ~ 1-second later.
But he feels the rod jerk immediately, correct? [If not, that’ll be my next Q.]
So what’s the reason this rod-jerk that says “light will arrive in one second” is not a signal sent faster than the speed of light?
Is it because, despite the 200,000-mile distance between the two guys, the shared rod establishes some “continuousness,” so in a sense, the two guys aren’t “separate,” and are in the same “object space?” So this object [rod] doesn’t travel the distance the light does? How’s this work?