| Title | Consider the Muon’s PoV |
|---|---|
| Contributor | David H. Silver(author) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0526.19 |
| Landing page | https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0526/chapters/10.11647/obp.0526.19 |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ |
| Copyright | David H. Silver |
| Publisher | Open Book Publishers |
| Published on | 2026-04-08 |
| Long abstract | Muons created by cosmic rays colliding with the upper atmosphere provide direct evidence for time dilation. With a rest-frame lifetime of approximately 2.2 microseconds and traveling close to light speed, classical physics predicts these particles should decay before reaching Earth’s surface. Instead, detectors routinely observe muons at sea level. Special relativity explains this observation: from Earth’s reference frame, the muons’ time runs slower by a factor of γ (approximately 10-50 depending on energy), extending their lifetime enough to reach ground level. From the muon’s perspective, relativistic length contraction reduces the distance traveled. |
| Print length | 10 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |
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| Landing Page | Full text URL | Platform | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0526/chapters/10.11647/obp.0526.19 | Landing page | https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0526.19.pdf | Full text URL |
David H. Silver is an industrial researcher whose career bridges computer vision, computational biology, and science communication. He studied mathematics, computer science, and biology at the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology as a Rothschild Scholar, and was awarded a Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship for his doctoral work in computational biology at Cambridge, UK. Silver’s peer-reviewed publications span multiple domains: computational biology in Nature and PNAS; computer vision systems in IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence; medical AI in Human Reproduction and MIDL; and entertainment analysis in PLoS One. He holds over a dozen patents in depth sensing, medical imaging, and generative AI. His industry positions include Algorithm Engineer at Intel Corporation, ML Researcher at Apple, and CTO/co-founder roles at several technology startups. Silver maintains academic collaborations with researchers worldwide and serves as a peer reviewer for Image and Vision Computing and PNAS.