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The Twin Paradox Made Simple


A-wal

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The difference can be attributed to the W clock being in the air for an extra 7 hrs.

 

 

 

That's not the difference, and that difference was accounted for.

 

But assuming it was the difference, what difference would it make, per SR?  That would mean the westbound clock was travelling at a higher speed (relative to the other two) for a LONGER time.  Since clocks on moving objects run slower, not faster, that would mean that it should be the slowest ( i.e, show the least lapse of accumulated proper time) of all.  Yet it was the fastest.  Go figure, eh?

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Mo;

 

For anyone interested in the experimental support for SR,

www.edu-observatory.org has a FAQ page on SR.

 

 

OK, I'm looking at them, and there is a very short entry on the H-K experiment.  The author starts out by misstating the paradox, when he says:

 

5. Tests of the the “Twin Paradox"  The so-called “twin paradox” occurs when two clocks are synchronized, separated, and rejoined. If one clock remains in an inertial frame, then the other must be accelerated sometime during its journey, and it displays less elapsed proper time than the inertial clock. This is a “paradox” only in that it appears to be inconsistent but is not.

 

As I just said, and has I have explained at some length in a prior post,:

 

This is the modern method of purportedly "resolving" the paradox, i.e., to totally ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist. Pretend instead that the "paradox" is time dilation itself, which it (the paradox) never has been and never will be.  The cheapest straw man tactic in the book.

 

 

 

Going on, the author has this to say about H-K:

 

Hafele and Keating, Nature 227 (1970), pg 270 (proposal).

Science Vol. 177 pg 166–170 (1972) (experiment).

They flew atomic clocks on commercial airliners around the world in both directions, and compared the time elapsed on the airborne clocks with the time elapsed on an earthbound clock (USNO). Their eastbound clock lost 59 ns on the USNO clock; their westbound clock gained 273 ns; these agree with GR predictions to well within their experimental resolution and uncertainties (which total about 25 ns). By using four cesium-beam atomic clocks they greatly reduced their systematic errors due to clock drift.

 

 

 

Notice that he doesn't say a single word about the clocks agreeing with the SR (as opposed to GR) predictions.  Notice also that, to the extent he even purports to talk about SR at all, he is ONLY referring to the predictions of time dilation--i.e., the predictions made by the LORENTZ (not Einsteinian) transformations.

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As I just said, and has I have explained at some length in a prior post,:

 

 

 

Here's a repost of the "prior post" I was referring to (post # 28):

 

Posted 26 April 2018 - 10:04 AM

The accepted resolution to the twin paradox simply adopts the earth's frame of reference as the preferred (as between the two twins) inertial frame of reference.

 

The earth twin assumes that he is motionless, and calculates the time dilation experienced by his travelling twin accordingly.  As it turns out, his calculations are 100% correct, and his twin's calculations (which are premised on the incorrect supposition that HE is "at rest") are 100% wrong.

 

Many people who discuss this issue don't even know what the perceived "paradox" is.  Many claim the "paradox" consists of the fact that clocks on moving objects tick at a slower rate than stationary ones.  That is not a paradox at all, although the reasons for it might be mystifying.  

 

The true paradox, which has never been resolved (by SR, anyway), lies in the inconsistencies generated by SR itself.  If, as SR claims, all inertial frames are "equally valid," then why is the earth's frame preferred in this case?  That inconsistency is what creates the paradox.

 

Put another way, how is it possible to get an absolute answer from a theory which posits that all motion is strictly relative?  An absolute answer should be impossible to arrive at if the premises are correct.  

 

The term "paradox" has been defined and explained as follows:

 

Quote

a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory.

 

 

The way to resolve a paradox is NOT to accept mutually exclusive claims as both being true. That is what creates the paradox, not what resolves it. The solution is to determine what aspect of a claim is, despite being "apparently sound," actually unsound, and then reject, rather than accept, that aspect.

 

The twin paradox is easily resolved by rejecting the self-contradictory claim that "all inertial frames of reference are equally valid."  Once that's done, all of the numerous "paradoxes" generated by SR disappear.

 

An apologist for SR is prone to say that the stay at home twin and the travelling twin are "both correct" in their calculations.  But this is logically impossible, and so, not surprisingly, the accepted resolution denies that they are "both correct."  The resolution says that only one (the earth twin) is correct in his calculations and that the other (the travelling twin) is incorrect in his calculations. 

 

So then, SR "resolves" the paradox it creates in the only way it can--it denies the soundness of its own premises. In order to resolve the paradox, it must abandon the claim that all inertial frames are equally valid and that therefore absolute motion cannot be detected.

 

SR apologists are also prone to point out that the situations of the two twins are "not symmetrical."  This is absolutely true, of course, but does nothing to answer the question posed.  Of course they are not symmetrical--one is moving (relative to the other) and one is not.  What the SR apologist does not, and cannot, explain or reconcile, is the concomitant claim that absolute motion cannot be detected.

 

Feynman said that the answer to the twin paradox is simple:  The one which has accelerated is the one who experiences time dilation, he says.  He's undeniably correct, because it is the one who has accelerated that is moving (relative to the one who has not).  And in SR (and every other theory which adopts the LT, for that matter) it is the moving clock which slows down.  Acceleration is universally admitted (even by SR) to be absolute motion, not relative motion.

 

Edited by Moronium, 01 May 2018 - 01:43 AM.

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Feynman discusses the concept of absolute motion (and the twin paradox) at some length here:  http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_16.html

 

He makes it clear that the "false premise" which generates the twin paradox is the claim that motion is relative (instead of absolute, which he says it is).  The claim that "all inertial frames are equivalent," is, according to him, simply false insofar as anyone interprets it to mean that "you cannot detect absolute motion" (which is what some SR (A-wal, for example) advocates repeatedly--but mistakenly--claim).

 

A few excerpts:

 

 

When this idea descended upon the world, it caused a great stir among philosophers, particularly the “cocktail-party philosophers,” who say, “Oh, it is very simple: Einstein’s theory says all is relative!” In fact, a surprisingly large number of philosophers, not only those found at cocktail parties (but rather than embarrass them, we shall just call them “cocktail-party philosophers”), will say, “That all is relative is a consequence of Einstein, and it has profound influences on our ideas".... Newton believed that it was true that one could not tell how fast he is going if he is moving with uniform velocity in a straight line. In fact, Newton first stated the principle of relativity, and one quotation made in the last chapter was a statement of Newton’s. ...Now, is it absolutely, definitely, philosophically necessary that one should not be able to tell how fast he is moving without looking outside?

 

 

 

 

It is important to note that Feynman is NOT suggesting that motion can't be detected, but only that we may be unable to detect it, without looking outside.  This is a point I have made, and was shouted down by some blowhards in the process.  Just because you can't detect motion by performing a physical experiment in a windowless inertial frame does NOT mean that you can never detect it.  It just means you would have to be able to look outside your prison to detect it.  Feynman goes on:

 

 

 

There is even a philosophy which says that one cannot detect any motion except by looking outside. It is simply not true in physics. True, one cannot perceive a uniform motion in a straight line, but if the whole room were rotating we would certainly know it, for everybody would be thrown to the wall—there would be all kinds of “centrifugal” effects. That the earth is turning on its axis can be determined without looking at the stars, by means of the so-called Foucault pendulum, for example. Therefore it is not true that “all is relative”; it is only uniform velocity that cannot be detected without looking outside.

 

 

16–2  The twin paradox; This is called a “paradox” only by the people who believe that the principle of relativity means that all motion is relative;  they say, “Heh, heh, heh, from the point of view of Paul, can’t we say that Peter was moving and should therefore appear to age more slowly? By symmetry, the only possible result is that both should be the same age when they meet.” 

 

 

To repeat, Feynman says: "This is called a “paradox” only by the people who believe that the principle of relativity means that all motion is relative."  Which is what I have been saying.  SR creates its own paradox by insisting that absolute motion can't be detected if you are moving inertially.

 

Because acceleration is absolute we can also (at least sometimes) confidently say that even inertial motion is also absolute.  Here's one (of many possible) example(s):

 

Suppose an astronaut blasts off and maintains a uniform rate of 1g acceleration for about 6 months until he reaches the speed of .5c.  Even SR will say this is absolute, not relative, motion.  Then he turns his thrusters off, stops accelerating and begins to "coast" at a uniform speed.   Now he no longer feels like he's in a gravitational field and feels like he is in "free fall."  Did he STOP ON A DIME, the second he turned off his thrusters?  Or did he, as the law of inertia would say, continue to move at the same speed he had reached before then (.5c)?  He may not, as a purely perceptual matter, be able to say that what he "sees" can tell him if he is moving away from earth, or if the earth is moving away from him.  That's OK.  He doesn't have to "see" it.  He can confidently deduce, from what he does know, that he is the one in motion vis-a-vis the earth and NOT vice versa.

 

He continues to move at an "absolute" velocity of .5c relative to the earth, obviously.  Knowing that he is moving, he would never make the mistake that the travelling twin did in the twin paradox, i.e, he would not assume that he was at rest.  He would therefore know that, as between his clock and the earth's, the earth's clock would be running faster than his, which is just another of saying he would know that his own clock was slower and not try to insist otherwise as the space twin did.

 

There is no more "paradox."  He and his earth twin will no longer disagree about who is aging slower.  All it took was for him to acknowledge his absolute motion.   He did, of course, have to violate the commands of SR to acknowledge this, but, them's the breaks.  

Edited by Moronium
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In a prior post I discussed some of the history of SR interpretations.  As I noted, after Minkowski came along, mathematicians were greatly attracted to the "beauty, symmetry, and simplicity" of his strictly mathematical/geometrical interpretation.  This interpretation was at least consistent (if physically suspect) on the issue of the relevancy of the Lorentz transformation.  It claimed that any appearance of time dilation and/or length contraction was strictly illusory.   It was merely an "apparent" effect, according to this interpretation, not a real one.

 

This interpretation raised its own serious questions about how it could possibly relate to the "real world," but not too many let that bother them at the time (lasting several decades).  But then the real world started intruding on their cozy little concoction.  Evidence (mu meson behavior) was discovered that strongly suggested that time dilation was "real," not merely apparent.  The mathematically disposed "physicists" then had to scramble to come up with an interpretation which did not conflict with the empirical evidence.

 

 

There has been a lot of confusion, even amongst physicists, since that time about what interpretation of SR is correct, and what It "really" means.  You can make just about any claim pertaining to SR and find that some physicist, somewhere,  has sometime made it and that others have denied it.

 

The wiki article on the twin paradox rather obliquely notes some of this disagreement/confusion.  It has a section, for example, that explicitly notes that there is  "No twin paradox in an absolute frame of reference."  In that section, it says (among other things) that:

 

In the relativity of Poincaré and Hendrik Lorentz, which assumes an absolute (though experimentally indiscernable) frame of reference, no twin paradox arises due to the fact that clock slowing (along with length contraction and velocity) is regarded as an actuality...

 

 

In it's introductory section wiki notes that clock slowing is, in fact, "an actuality:"

 

Time dilation has been verified experimentally by precise measurements of atomic clocksflown in aircraft and satellites. For example, gravitational time dilation and special relativity together have been used to explain the Hafele–Keating experiment.[A 1][A 2] It was also confirmed in particle accelerators by measuring the time dilation of circulating particle beams.

 

 

 

For the record, I will again note that even this statement fails to distinguish the Lorentz Transformation equation (time dilation) from SR itself (they are two different things which many mistakenly treat as being identical).  I'm not sure how meaningful the wiki section on a preferred frame of reference would be for some of the posters here.  I get the sense that they wouldn't even begin to understand it.  But they should at least get the idea that many, including Nobel prize winning physicists from this (21st) century, see Einstein's early rejection of the ether (which Einstein himself later retracted) as unfounded.  Here's another excerpt, for example:

 

More recently (in 2005), Robert B. Laughlin (Physics Nobel Laureate, Stanford University), wrote about the nature of space:

 

"It is ironic that Einstein's most creative work, the general theory of relativity, should boil down to conceptualizing space as a medium when his original premise [in special relativity] was that no such medium existed . . . The word 'ether' has extremely negative connotations in theoretical physics because of its past association with opposition to relativity. This is unfortunate because, stripped of these connotations, it rather nicely captures the way most physicists actually think about the vacuum. . . . Relativity actually says nothing about the existence or nonexistence of matter pervading the universe, only that any such matter must have relativistic symmetry." (i.e., as measured)."

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox

 

One should pay special attention to the last two words of this quotation, indicating that the symmetry of SR only need be "as measured" (which is entirely different proposition than that the symmetry must actually exist).

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The wiki article cited in the last post referred to John Wheeler, the author of a prominent textbook about relativity. The article I'm citing below draws heavily on the 2008 book "Relativity Trail" by Roger Leubeck, and further discusses some of the issues and problems which arise and elaborates on the meaning of the wiki article as it regards these.

http://relativitytrail.com/twin-paradox-relativity.htm


Einstein's treatment was limited to assigning symmetrica measures across inertial frames, such that his two postulates of would be satisfied.

Einstein's paper was published in 1905. As the years passed, a point of view took hold among many commentators that these symmetrical measured effects of relativity were confirmation that uniform motion is purely relative, and that there is therefore no meaning to be attached to absolute uniform motion, and therefore of course, to actual differences in clock rates, etc.

 

The actual time differential between reunited clocks, a physical reality which necessarily favors one party over the other, does not fit with that interpretation.
 

...As noted even by John A. Wheeler (a promoter of the purely relative approach), special relativity developed in absolute terms is completely consistent with Einstein's purely relative development....

Space-time, being dependent on Einstein's clock synchronization, is nothing but a geometrical construct that has no physical reality. Identically, there is no actual world along which someone travels. Space-time, identically with Einstein's clock synchronization, is limited to the symmetrical observations made across inertial frames. It cannot address the time differential between reunited clocks.

 

...The renowned physicist, John A. Wheeler, in his book, Spacetime Physics, made three attempts to resolve the twin paradox and failed three times.  After claiming to have solved it on page 131 of his book, he writes on page 170 that he will finally! solve . But he gets hopelessly stuck again.

 

He never stood a chance, as he limited himself to Einstein's narrow interpretation - that of simply assuming symmetrical measures across inertial frames. Wheeler, in his book, mocks his own second failed attempt:  Wheeler has his astronaut proclaim "as I turned around, a whole bunch of Earth clock ticks went from my future to my past. This accounts for the larger number of total ticks on the Earth clock."  Wheeler continues: "The astronaut renounces her profession and becomes a stand-up comedian."

Wheeler was attempting to claim that the simple act of starting a watch as an inbound astronaut passes an outbound astronaut could make 162 years disappear on a distant planet (earth).

 

Realizing he has failed again, and in an attempt to salvage the discussion, Wheeler, in a footnote, refers his readers to an old journal article which he purports does solve the riddle of the time differential, obviously hoping no-one would actually look up the article.

 

The article is The Clock Paradox in Relativity Theory, American Mathematical Monthly, January 1959. See pages 9 and 10 of that article. Even though its author, Alfred Schild, in his informal and incorrect verbiage, feels compelled to claim acceleration for the returning twin, Schild in fact, in his diagram and math, specifies an instantaneous turnaround at the event C, and of course cannot provide any explanation for the ultimate time differential. It is simply the precise nonsense that Wheeler had just twice engaged in and was defeated by.

 

Until one acknowledges that a clock's rate is dependent on its actual (albeit experimentally indiscernible) state of motion, one cannot explain the time differential between reunited clocks. Only an actual difference in clock rates can bring about the actual difference in clock readings which exists between reunited clocks.

 

One need not, and in fact should not, consider the existance of an immutable aether. Nor should one consider the concept of absolute space. Rather, the totality of the cosmos,the very thing that imparts inertial properties to objects, serves as the absolute frame of reference. In other words, we need to consider a system at rest with respect to the totality of the universe. (i.e. - a system at rest with respect to the barycenter of the universe.)

 

 

If you compare the two, you can see how similar the observations of this author are to those made by Feynman, e.g.:  "As the years passed, a point of view took hold among many commentators that these symmetrical measured effects of relativity were confirmation that uniform motion is purely relative, and that there is therefore no meaning to be attached to absolute uniform motion, and therefore of course, to actual differences in clock rates, etc.

 

 

This author says:  'Rather, the totality of the cosmos, the very thing that imparts inertial properties to objects, serves as the absolute frame of reference. In other words, we need to consider a system at rest with respect to the totality of the universe. (i.e. - a system at rest with respect to the barycenter of the universe.)

 

Nobel prize winning physicist George Smoot, who I have quoted in an earlier post, essentially says ;(along with the mainstream) that this is what the CMB is:

 

"This would seem to violate the postulates of Galilean and Special Relativity but there is a preferred frame in which the expansion of the Universe looks most simple. That frame is the average rest frame of the matter and CMB and from that frame the expansion is essentially isotropic." (Dr. George Smoot)
 

 

The only reason it might "seem" to violate Galilean postulates is that the true import of his relativity does NOT require one to say that absolute motion cannot be detected, yet SR advocates assert that is does.

Edited by Moronium
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... there is therefore no meaning to be attached to absolute uniform motion, and therefore of course, to actual differences in clock rates, etc. 

 

The actual time differential between reunited clocks, a physical reality which necessarily favors one party over the other, does not fit with that interpretation.

 

 

 

 

What is being said here, exactly?  Well, several things actually, but here's one:  If one clock (say the travelling twin's) ends up recording the lapse of less proper time than another (say the earth-bound twin's), then SR itself provides you with a way to determine, as an absolute matter, which one was moving (the slower one).

 

You can no longer claim that "both are correct."  Yet SR wants to deny that absolute motion can be detected and also claim that "both are correct" in their respective calculations (when only one is correct).

 

The earth's frame is therefore "favored"  by SR in this case.  It is treated by SR as the preferred frame in this case, even though, in other circumstances, SR will insist that there can be no preferred frames.

 

Note that even all the ridiculous hocus pocus at turn-around injected by relying on a minkowski graph for explanation does NOT purport to change how the travelling twin's actual clock reads (it remains slower), nor does it change his calculations that his earth twin, not himself, will be younger.

 

One might also contemplate the fact  that the decision to put the earth twin on the "t" axis completely determines the conclusion at the outset--it proves nothing, it just assumes.  Why not put the travelling twin on the t axis?  There is a reason, but not one SR wants to acknowledge, i.e., because the space twin's motion is absolute, not relative.

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Fictional, indeed.  Quite so.

 

Fictional, indeed.  Quite so.

 

 

This is wrong.  Even a "gradual" turnaround supposedly produces a HUGE jump, which could, for example, supposedly "cause" one million years to pass on earth in a single day.  99.999% of all the time elapsed supposedly occurs "during the turnaround."  Totally beyond reason for anyone to believe that this is a "credible" explanation in terms of objective reality.

 

 

 

There are the types of problems that led Einstein to reject the "spacetime diagram" explanation as a legitimate resolution of the twin paradox. Because they make no physical sense.

 

Some people actually believe that some pointy-headed nerd with a retractable lead pencil, a piece of graph paper, and a slide rule can alter the whole universe, and the natural laws in it, if he just draws for a short spell.

.

 

144 explains the problem with the gap. You reject it because you don't understand it, or you read it and all those references and don't comprehend.

The diagrams are geometric  applications of the LT. The reference you cite shows their ignorance of the difference between clock rates and aging.

After watching the video on H-K, the accompanying text portrayed it as a failure. They were informed enough to know they were using an earth centered reference. Forty+ years ago, and without you instructing them.

 

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144 explains the problem with the gap. You reject it because you don't understand it, or you read it and all those references and don't comprehend.

 

After watching the video on H-K, the accompanying text portrayed it as a failure. They were informed enough to know they were using an earth centered reference. Forty+ years ago, and without you instructing them.

 

 

 

#144 explains nothing.  Apparently you don't even understand the problem.  Don't feel bad, Wheeler couldn't explain it in any sensible way either:

 

Wheeler, in his book, mocks his own second failed attempt:  Wheeler has his astronaut proclaim "as I turned around, a whole bunch of Earth clock ticks went from my future to my past. This accounts for the larger number of total ticks on the Earth clock."  Wheeler continues: The astronaut renounces her profession and becomes a stand-up comedian.

 

Wheeler was attempting to claim that the simple act of starting a watch as an inbound astronaut passes an outbound astronaut could make 162 years disappear on a distant planet (earth).

 

 

 

He knew the supposed "explanation" was laughable.

 

Re H-K:  Of course they knew they were using a preferred frame.  That's why it is completely misleading to say they confirmed the "predictions of SR" regarding time dilation, or "resolved the twin paradox."  

 

They were using the LT, as applied in a Lorentizian model, NOT an SR model.  That is NOT "Einstein's equations."  Some people get confused because the form of the LT is identical in both types of theories.  However the application is not.  In SR, the "v" is relative; in a PFT the "v" is absolute.

 

They set out expecting to confirm SR's predictions, but couldn't.  The only way they could find to have the actual clock readings make sense was to resort to a PFT.  In that context, the clock readings matched the (PFT) predictions for them.

 

They did confirm that time dilation is real, not merely apparent.  But, as I have explained in other posts, this just killed the Minkowski  geometric spacetime model, which held that time dilation was merely "apparent," i.e,, illusory, not real.

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Re H-K:  Of course they knew they were using a preferred frame.  That's why it is completely misleading to say they confirmed the "predictions of SR" regarding time dilation, or "resolved the twin paradox."  

 

They were using the LT, as applied in a Lorentizian model, NOT an SR model.  That is NOT "Einstein's equations."  Some people get confused because the form of the LT is identical in both types of theories.  However the application is not.  In SR, the "v" is relative; in a PFT the "v" is absolute.

 

There was a major experiment coming out of Europe last year which dealt with so-called "time dilation"  (a far more accurate phrase would be "clock retardation").

 

Here's the headline of, and a very brief excerpt from, a popular recount of the experiment which was published in Physics World.

 

Fibre-linked atomic clocks put special relativity to the test

 

07 Jun 2017 Hamish Johnston

 

  Atomic clocks in France, Germany and the UK have been used to perform the best-ever confirmation of time dilation as set out in Einstein’s special theory of relativity.   The clocks have been connected recently by optical-fibre links, which let the devices be compared to each other to an extremely high degree of statistical resolution. The work was done by an international team of physicists....this puts limits on the violation of the special-relativity concept of time dilation, which spells out how the elapsed time between two events can be different when measured by observers in two different situations  .

 

https://physicsworld.com/a/fibre-linked-atomic-clocks-put-special-relativity-to-the-test/

 

Those with a confirmation bias, sloppy reading habits, and an inadequate understanding of the fundamental premises of SR would probably quickly conclude that SR had been "confirmed" by this experiment when the exact opposite is the case.  

 

Using highly accurate methods, this experiment compared the rates of clocks located in different cities (London, Paris, and a  German city), and found that they did not tick at the same rate.  This does indeed confirm "time dilation" in accordance with the predictions of the LT, but NOT as the LT are used in SR. This article calls it the "special-relativity concept of time dilation," when it is no such thing.  As used in this experiment, and also from a historical perspective, "time dilation" is a concept primarily of Lorentz, not SR. This experiment involved the application of the LT in the context of a preferred frame theory--the RMS model. i.e., a Lorentzian model.

 

These cities never move an inch relative to each other.  Assuming that SR applied, it would therefore predict that there could be no difference in the clock rates, because SR says time dilation is a result of relative motion. If one wants to argue that SR doesn't apply, then, likewise, no confirmation of SR is possible.  However, the experiment DOES confirm a theory of relative motion, either way, and, either way, it's not SR.

 

This experiment was based on the assumption of absolute motion and rejected the assumptions of SR.  Since the cities are not located at the same longitude and latitudes, they are, from the perspective of the ECI (preferred frame), moving at different speeds (of rotations) and in different absolute directions.  Therefore their clocks should tick at different rates--but ONLY IF you assume that their motion is absolute, rather than merely relative

 

Notwithstanding it's multiple references to testing "SR," the article does reveal (to a careful reader, anyway)  that SR was NOT used and not confirmed by this experiment.

 

Some further excerpts:

 

The study uses the “Robertson–Mansouri–Sexl” (RMS) framework for violating special relativity. RMS assumes that there is a preferred reference frame in which the average speed of light measured on a return journey (there and back again) between two points is constant in all directions. RMS contradicts special relativity in all other reference frames by assuming that the average speed of light of a return journey varies according to a formula involving the velocities of those frames relative to the preferred frame.[/size]

 

As the Earth rotates, different points on its surface have different velocities relative to the centre of the Earth. Points at different longitudes, for example, move in different directions, while points at different latitudes move at different speeds. As a result, sending signals between atomic clocks at two different points on Earth could reveal RMS violation....In the RMS framework, the shift in frequency of the returned signal will contain a term that involves the difference between the velocities of the atomic clock locations. 

 

These comparisons let the team place an upper limit on the RMS violation of special relativity at about one part in 100 million. Specifically, this puts limits on the violation of the [inappropriate reference to SR omitted here] concept of time dilation, which spells out how the elapsed time between two events can be different when measured by observers in two different situations.

 

This study involved the assumption of absolute motion, as determined by a hierarchy of preferred frames, at EVERY TURN.  It assumed that the earth was rotating, orbiting the Sun, which was revolving around the barycenter of the Milky Way, which was moving toward the "great attractor" at a rate of over 1,000,000 k/h.  The "absolute" speed of all these various movements were factored into the final analysis.  Each and every use of such preferred frames and absolute motions were done in violation of the strict prohibitions of SR.  For these reasons, it was entirely misleading and improper for the text of the article to refer to " time dilation as set out in Einstein’s special theory of relativity. '  The time dilation being tested here is that of Lorentz, not Einstein, and not SR.

 

This experiment did NOT confirm SR, yet one could understand how a casual reader could, based on reading the headline and skimming the text, conclude that it did, somehow.

 

Even editors of science magazines seem to want to put an unwarranted "slant" on things which creates a false appearance of "validating" SR for some reason(s), conscious or unconscious.

Edited by Moronium
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I should not have encouraged you when I said that the beauty of scientific theories is that they're always being doubted and tested. I thought that was all you were doing. But now I see that you are in fact preaching your own unfounded, untested theories as if they are fact. I could point out the many mistakes you are making, but it is evident that are not here to have a discussion, only preach, so I will just ignore you.

 

Popeye won't read, or think about, any of this, because he has chosen to "ignore" me.  I find that unfortunate, because out of every poster I've encountered here, he seemed to be the only one who wasn't just a straight-up, zealous cheerleader for SR. 

 

As I previously commented, none of the theories I've discussed here are (1) mine, (2) unfounded, or (3) untested.  His attitude, as expressed here, is certainly not a "scientific" one, but what else is new, eh?

Edited by Moronium
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Here are some excerpts from another popular article summarizing different experiments proving the fact of time dilation to a high degree: The headline:

 

Einstein's "Time Dilation" Prediction Verified

 

Experiments at a particle accelerator have confirmed the "time dilation" effect predicted by Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity

 

 

 

Here again the suggestion (by omission)  is that any and all "time dilation" is "Einstein's," and  that it was only predicted by Einstein, which is simply not true.  Lorentz predicted time dilation about 15 years before Einstein ever wrote a word about it.  Lorentz also derived the precise equation used to calculate it, the accuracy of which this experiment is now confirming (yet again), and which Einstein lifted from Lorentz's theory, whole cloth.  Lorentz, however, posited a preferred frame theory (PFT) of relativistic motion (antithetical to SR).

 

That said, what was tested, and what happened here?

 

Sep 19, 2014

 

Physicists have verified a key prediction of Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity with unprecedented accuracy. Experiments at a particle accelerator in Germany confirm that time moves slower for a moving clock than for a stationary one.

 

 

The work is the most stringent test yet of this ‘time-dilation’ effect, which Einstein predicted. One of the consequences of this effect is that a person travelling in a high-speed rocket would age more slowly than people back on Earth.

 

 

...the mathematics describing the time-dilation effect are “fundamental to all physical theories”, says Thomas Udem, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, who was not involved in the research. “It is of utmost importance to verify it with the best possible accuracy.”

 

The paper was published on September 16 in Physical Review Letters. It is the culmination of 15 years of work by an international group of collaborators including Nobel laureate Theodor Hänsch, director of the Max Planck optics institute.

 

The researchers measured the time-dilation effect more precisely than in any previous study, including one published in 2007 by the same research group. “It’s nearly five times better than our old result, and 50 to 100 times better than any other method used by other people to measure relativistic time dilation,” says co-author Gerald Gwinner, a physicist at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada.

 

 

 

 

Note:  This says  "Experiments at a particle accelerator in Germany confirm that time moves slower for a moving clock than for a stationary one." This is precisely what Lorentz (and others) predicted long before Einstein.  This experiment is NOT designed to confirm SR--merely time dilation.

 

OK, so they are culminating a 15 year study designed to prove to the Nth degree that the Lorentz equations are correct, eh?  How?

 

To test the time-dilation effect, physicists need to compare two clocks — one that is stationary and one that moves.

 

How do they know which one moves?

 

The scientists made the moving clock by accelerating lithium ions to one-third the speed of light. Then they measured a set of transitions within the lithium as electrons hopped between various energy levels. The frequency of the transitions served as the ‘ticking’ of the clock. Transitions within lithium ions that were not moving served as the stationary clock.

 

 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/einsteins-time-dilation-prediction-verified/

 

Obviously they are treating the motion of the accelerated "clocks" [lithium ions] as absolute. They are the ones that are moving. The unaccelerated clock [ions] are treated as the preferred frame here (the one which gives the "right" answer).  They are the ones that are "stationary."  SR says there is no such thing as absolute motion.  PFT's say the opposite.  Go figure, eh?

 

Obviously, this experiment did NOT directly test what an observer on the moving ions would "see".  SR says they would "see" (a complete misnomer, because they "see" no such thing--they only assume). the stationary ions as moving.  A PFT says they would "see" themselves as moving, and "see" the stationary ions as stationary.  This is the required consequence of a PFT, and is also the necessary implication (indeed a presupposition) of designating one as moving and the other as stationary, as the experimenters do here.

Edited by Moronium
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The Doppler effect is merely apparent, and not real, according to Prof. Hogg.  As such, it in no way influences or affects actual time dilation.  This is mainstream physics.  The author you cite apparently is not.

 

This is a lie. Being part of mainstream physics wouldn't prove it's validity but it's still a lie. In mainstream physics time dilation and length contraction are most certainly not "merely apparent". Is very ironic that you attempt to use the endorsement of mainstream physics when it suits you and ignore it the rest of the time.

 

Hafele and Keating board a plane in London and fly to New York.  As they are in flight, they are looking at their atomic clock.  Based on the assumption that, due to the velocity effect, their (NOT THE EARTH CLOCK) has slowed down, they make predictions about what the earth clock it was synchronized with is then reading. They periodically confirm (via radio signals) the accumulating difference with a earth observer as they go.  Their (confirmed) findings, as they go, show that the earth clock is running FASTER (not slower) than their clock.

 

In short, they are not "seeing" that time dilation is reciprocal and they are assuming that it is completely false.  When they land and compare clocks,  Their predictions are correct.  This proves time dilation is NOT reciprocal.

 

Who knew? I woulda thought for sure that each clock would be slower than the other, ya know?   :innocent:

How many more times? Each clock was slower than the other while they were in relative motion. The one who was on the plane is the one who was in a frame where they were length contracted and time dilated once they're back on the ground and in the same frame as the other other clock so of course their one is the one that's behind.

The one that stayed on the ground wasn't time dilated and length contracted in this frame so of course more time has passed on their clock. It doesn't matter that the one who stayed on the ground was time dilated and length contracted from the other one's perspective while they were in a different frame because they're not in a different frame now, in this frame the one the who was on the plane was time dilated and length contracted so less time has passed on their watch.

 

A repost (#26)  which has, no doubt, long been forgotten

If you're just going to repost the same BS I'll repost the same replies. Maybe it will sink in this time, wishful thinking I know.

 

There is an interesting video on youtube where Hafele and Keating repeat their classical experiment with even more modern, more accurate, atomic clocks.

 

At every stage of their journey they are (accurately) announcing the precise amount by which their (moving) clock differed, at that point,from the earth clock which it was synchronized with before they took off.

 

When they land, their final calculations do in fact agree with the observed difference in the clocks.

Yes, but while they were moving at a constant rate relative to the ground, from their perspective the clocks on the ground were running slower than their own.

 

What the video does not reveal is that, in order to make their precise calculations, they assumed at all times that their clock was the one moving, and that therefore the earth clock was running FASTER, not slower, than their airborne clock.  In other words, they refused to adopt "reciprocal dilation" assumption of SR and the concomitant  mandate that they "assume" that they are stationary.  That would have forced them to conclude  that the earth clock was running slower than theirs, not faster.

 

The narrator in the video says they are using "Einstein's equations."  But in fact they were using Lorentz's equations.

 

The narrator also says that the result was in accord with what "Einstein predicted."  This too is inaccurate.  Einstein would have told them to "predict" that the earth clock was running slower than theirs, not faster.

It was!

 

Another thing that this video doesn't reveal is that they were not using the "relative motion" of SR to reach their (accurate) conclusions.  They were using the "absolute" motion posited by Lorentz.  Their calculations were achieved by using the ECI as a preferred frame for calculating what the difference between the readings on the earth clock and their clock would be.  In this analysis, both the earth clock and the plane clock are moving, actually.  It is the one which is moving faster (with respect to the ECI, not each other), which will run slower

Any choice of frame is an arbitrary one.

 

As I've said many times, today's prevailing model (RMS--for Robertson, Mansour, & Sexl) DOES reject this postulate, and all the (non-beliefworthy) baggage which comes with it, such as reciprocal time dilation, innumerable "paradoxes,"  relative simultaneity, etc.

This is another lie. This is NOT the prevailing model, and SR contains no paradoxes.

Reciprocal time dilation and relative simultaneity are what happens when the speed of light is the same in every inertial frame. The model you're talking about uses a variable rather than constant speed of light. This is known to be false, it's been well established through experiments that the speed of light is unaffected by relative inertial motion, that's what lead to the formulation of SR in the first place. A model that ignores the constancy of the speed of light does not reflect reality.

 

Guess what?  It makes accurate predictions in experiments like the H-K and in practical uses like the GPS.  SR does NOT make accurate predictions.

Another lie! SR always has and continues to make correct predictions.

 

From wiki:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_theories_of_special_relativity

 

All of the prominent physicists mentioned in this excerpt preceded Einstein, in producing their theories.

Other models may be able to match the SR predictions but those models use a variable speed of light across inertial frames and it's well established by experiment that the speed of light is constant across inertial frames.

 

Sorry, A-wal, it aint the Koran.

What the fcuk are you on about. What if I was Muslim? How would that have any baring on the validity of SR?

 

Here's some excerpts from a wikiversity synopsis, which includes substantial footnotes citing  other scholarly papers.  There are many more similar papers out there, of course:

 

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Extended_special_theory_of_relativity

 

I provide this excerpt  (and the post before it).for the benefit of "theorists" like A-wal, who insist that ONLY SR can explain the phenomenon..  Not that I really think it is possible for him to realize any benefit from it, but others mightNo amount of evidence would ever get him to reconsider his mistaken views, I've found that out.

 

Those interested can read the whole article at their leisure.

You haven't provided any evidence, you just keep repeating the same BS over and over. Only SR matches all observed phenomena because it not only makes correct predictions, it does it in the framework of a constant speed of light across all inertial frames. Models that use a preferred frame are ignoring an experimentally proven fact and aren't describing the actual universe.

 

Here's some excerpts from another article by Prof. Muller entitled:  "The Problem of Reciprocity and Non-Reciprocity in Special Relativity Theory":

 

 

http://www.cartesio-episteme.net/episteme/epi6/ep6-mull.htm

 

I personally don't think that the tenet of reciprocal dilation is unfalsifiable, as this physics professor does.  On the contrary, it has been falsified.

Don't be silly, of course it hasn't. If you make you're text even bigger it will make you seem even more credible, it won't serve only to exaggerate you're stupidity, honest. If you want to start making sense you need to really shout!

 

I give no credence to allegations of "imaginary observers" and assertions of what they "must" have seen.  "Observers" do nothing to control matter in motion in the material world to begin with, so they're irrelevant.  The actual clock readings tell the full tale.

They certainly do, and in every instance they match the predictions of SR. They might also match the predictions of other models that use a variable speed of light as a postulate but those models contradict known reality.

 

I had asked:

Does that distance, whatever ever it is, change if some rocket flies past near the speed of light?  Would that cause  the two posts to move closer together or farther apart from each other, do you think?

 

In response, A-wal said (in post 132)

Of course the distance between the posts is unaffected by a rocket flying past them, it's simply a different distance for an observer in the rocket who's in motion relative to the posts than it is for an observer on the ground who's at rest relative to the posts. The distance between objects doesn't change for an observer if another object is motion to them, that's not how time dilation and length contraction work. It's just that objects that are in motion relative to each don't agree about the distance of lengths in time and space, if they did then the speed of light couldn't possibly be the same for observers in motion relative to each other.

 

Your answer contradicts the one I was originally given, which is good.

No it doesn't, not an answer given me at least.

 

For the first time you seem to be getting an inkling that there is an objective world, with tangible 3 dimensional objects (like posts) out there, and that such objects are not influenced by the opinions or perceptions of subjective observers.  Likewise, mathematical formulas don't make physical objects what they are.  It's the opposite.  It's "what they are" that makes any math applied to them either appropriate or inappropriate.  That's what Prof. Muller was getting at in that last post I made.

 

I agree that the "distance" doesn't change (the posts don't move).  It's only the (mis)measurement of that self-identical distance which changes.  This is merely an apparent effect, not a real one.

 

Again, It is NOT the distance which changes, it is the instruments used to measure that distance which change.

 

If I, here on earth, measure the distance, I will come to a different conclusion about the distance than will the high-speed traveller.  But that doesn't mean there are now two different distances.  The distance remains constant and unchanged at all times.  We merely have two different measurements (but only one distance).

If the distance between two objects is measured to be different in two different inertial frames then the distance obviously is different depending on the frame the observer is in when the make the measurement. It is true that the distance between two objects (assuming the two objects are in the same frame as each other) is the same in their own rest frame, obviously the distance doesn't change if the frame that the measurement is taken from doesn't change. You could argue that the 'true' distance between any two objects is the distance measured in the frame of reference of those objects, but this only works with objects that are at rest relative to each other.

I think you're problem here is you're under the impression that SR says that distances between objects actually changes when an object is in motion relative to them, that's not technically true. No distance actually changes, it's just the distance depends on the inertial frame of the observer, in other words the motion of the measuring instruments relative to what's being measured. If an observer accelerates then they're moving into a different inertial frame so the distance will 'change' in the sense that the distance will be different in their new inertial frame but nothing actually changes (assuming again that the two objects you're measuring the distance between are at rest relative to each other).

 

A-wal said:

It's just that objects that are in motion relative to each don't agree about the distance of lengths in time and space, if they did then the speed of light couldn't possibly be the same for observers in motion relative to each other.

 

And yet you continue to fail to make this crucial distinction between measurement and "reality" in your statements.

 

If you hadn't been sloppy (which ends up confusing you) you would have said  ".... if they did then the speed of light couldn't possibly be [MEASURED TO BE] the same for observers in motion relative to each other."  But you didn't say that.  Instead you omitted the part I inserted for you in CAPS and brackets.

 

The two different statements don't "boil down to the same thing."  They have radically different content and logical implications.

 

Saying the speed of light IS constant is (in this context) quite different than saying the speed is "measured to be" constant.

You think I'm the one who's confused. :) The speed of light is measured to be constant in all inertial frames in the sense that relative to themselves, all inertial observers measure light to be moving at the same rate. In other words the speed of light actually is constant in all inertial frames of reference, that's why all inertial observers measure it to moving at the same speed. Saying it moves at a different speed than the one the inertial observers measure doesn't make any sense.

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In previous posts it has been noted that, in physics, inertial frames, as a class  (i.e. all inertial frames), are PREFERRED frames (preferred over the class of accelerating frames).  This is because the laws of physics are simpler in inertial frames.  There is no need to account for "fictitious forces" (e.g., centrifugal force) and other phenomena (e.g., the Coriolis effect) caused by accelerating motion.  It should be noted, however, that this does not make the laws of physics, as altered, in accelerating frames, invalid or "wrong."  The are merely more complicated and different, that's all.  Even according to SR, the speed of light is not constant in an accelerating frame, for example.  That doesn't make the calculated speed "wrong," just different.

You're misusing the term 'preferred' again. If would be extremely silly if that was the context of the no preferred frame postulate of SR. It does make the laws different in accelerating frames, how could it not? It doesn't mean the laws themselves actually change, it means that you need to use different laws. A lot of your problems seem to stem from misinterpreting what SR actually says.

 

In the case of the two posts in the ground, the preferred frame is the one the posts "reside" in, i.e. the earth's surface, with respect to which they are motionless.  The distance measurement made on earth will therefore be the "real" distance, and measurements made by parties moving with respect to the earth's surface would merely be "apparent," not real, measurements.

 

So if I accurately measure the distance between the posts to be one mile, then that's what it "really" is.  It is not "really" 2 miles, just because someone moving relative to me might "think" it is.

:) I honestly hadn't read this when I replied to your previous post. You're almost there. You could in the case of two objects that are at rest relative to each other, view the distance between them as measured by an observer who's at rest relative to those objects as the 'true' distance between them but this still isn't a preferred frame in the context that a preferred frame is talked about in SR.

 

Now take this one step further, two of posts that are also at rest relative to each other but are in motion relative to the first two posts. Now the 'true' distance between those posts can be thought as the distance between as measured by an object that's at rest relative to those posts, not the first pair. The distance between the second pair of posts will be different for an object that's at rest relative to the first pair of posts and the distance between the first pair of posts will be different for an object that's at rest relative to the first pair of posts than it is for an object at rest relative to the second pair. This is what's meant by no preferred frame.

 

This is wrong.  Even a "gradual" turnaround supposedly produces a HUGE jump, which could, for example, supposedly "cause" one million years to pass on earth in a single day.  99.999% of all the time elapsed supposedly occurs "during the turnaround."  Totally beyond reason for anyone to believe that this is a "credible" explanation in terms of objective reality.

There's no 'jump', that's implies an instantaneous jump forward in time and that can never happen, it would require infinite acceleration. There's no limit to acceleration but it can never be infinite. Yes, one million years could pass in a single day from the perspective of an accelerator, it would take a shitload of acceleration but yea. Why is beyond reason? So it's not beyond reason for clocks that are in relative motion to slow down by any amount that doesn't stop them completely but you think it is absurd for a clock to speed up by any amount that doesn't make it infinitely fast?

 

The Twin Paradox: The Spacetime Diagram Analysis:

 

Minkowski said "Henceforth Space by itself, and Time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality."  Minkowski recast Einstein's version of Special Relativity (SR) on a new stage, Minkowski spacetime.  The Twin Paradox has a very simple resolution in this framework.  The crucial concept is the proper time of a moving body. 

 

http://math.ucr.edu/..._spacetime.html

 

Yes, there is no paradox.

 

The Twin Paradox: The Time Gap Objection

 

Try this on for size.

 

Make the turnaround instantaneous.  Relativity puts an upper on speed, but no upper limit on acceleration.  An instantaneous Turnaround Event is the limiting case of shorter and shorter turnarounds, and so the theory should handle it.During the Outbound Leg, Terence ages less than two months, according to Stella.  (12 Stella-months / time dilation factor of 7.)  During the Inbound Leg, Terence also ages less than two months, according to Stella, by the same computation.  The Turnaround Event is instantaneous.  Total Terence ageing: less than 4 months, it would seem.  Yet Terence is supposed to be over 14 years older when Stella returns!  Where did the missing time go?

 

http://math.ucr.edu/...x/twin_gap.html

 

The turnaround can never be instantaneous. There's no upper limit to acceleration but that doesn't mean it can be infinite, it can be any finite amount of acceleration. Not a valid objection.

 

The Twin Paradox: The Distance Dependence Objection

With our "standard example" (see the Introduction), Stella's accounting of Terence's ageing runs like this: one-seventh of a year on the Outbound Leg, one-seventh of a year on the Inbound Leg, and the rest — 14 years minus two-sevenths — during the turnaround.  You may recall she does the turnaround in a day, according to Terence, or about 15 hours by her own clock.  (Let's just say 15, and hang the minutes; the exact figure won't matter.)

 

Say Stella takes a longer journey, spending 2 years on both the Inbound and Outbound Legs, for a total of 4 years of her time, or 28 years according to Terence.  But she still takes the same 15 hours for the turnaround.

 

So when Stella and Terence have their joyous reunion, Terence is 28 years older (plus a day).  This time Stella's accounting of Terence's ageing runs like so: Terence aged two-sevenths years on the Outbound Leg, ditto for the Inbound Leg, and so Terence must have aged over 27 years during the [one day] turnaround.

 

Summing up: according to Stella, Terence ages around 13 years 7 months on the turnaround for the shorter trip, but over 27 years on the turnaround for the longer trip.  Yet Stella says the two turnarounds took the same time.

 

http://math.ucr.edu/...n_distance.html

 

This is true, so what? The amount of Time Terence ages from Stella's perspective when she does the turnaround has nothing to do with how long it takes her to do the turnaround. If a third observer were to leave Terence after Stella does and catches up to Stella so that they do the turnaround together then Terence will be the same age when they start the turnaround and will age the same amount from both of their perspectives during and after the turnaround.

 

There are the types of problems that led Einstein to reject the "spacetime diagram" explanation as a legitimate resolution of the twin paradox. Because they make no physical sense.

Utter bollocks again!

 

The time dilation caused by velocity (predicted by both SR and preferred frame theories) has been widely confirmed, to an extremely high degree of precision.  That's because it is predicted by a very exact formula, the Lorentz Transformation, which was designed for, and is native to, a preferred frame theory (with absolute simultaneity).

 

SR's first postulate, enshrining the "principle of relativity" (aka Lorentz covariance), has likewise been proven many times over.  It too originally emerged from a preferred frame theory.

 

SR's second postulate, the "light postulate" has never been proven and, in theory, it never can be.  A preferred frame theory rejects this postulate and incorporates a variable light speed hypothesis.

 

One of these makes accurate predictions in ALL frames of reference (both inertial and non-inertial).  One doesn't.  Try and guess which one doesn't.

The first postulate of SR is that the is no preferred reference frame! :)

 

It's kinda strange that advocates of SR who scream "THERE ARE NO PREFERRED FRAMES!!" 24/7 fail to recognize that each and every calculation made in SR adopts a preferred frame which it treats as being at "absolute rest."  Without doing that, it couldn't make any predictions whatsoever, not even wrong ones.

That makes no sense! If all frames are preferred then none are, it's the same thing. A preferred frame is one that's measurements are used regardless of the motion of the observer relative to that frame, a preferred frame can't by definition depend on which observer's perspective you use.

 

It doesn't take much thought to realize this.  Suppose two objects, A & B, are converging on each other at .8c.  That's the relative speed between them.   But how is it to be allocated?  Is each going .4c in the direction of the other, so that they will eventually "meet in the middle?"  If so there should be no  time dilation between them.  There are an infinite number of possibilities for allocating some or all of the speed of motion to either A or B.  Until you know what that is, you can't even begin to make a prediction about whose clock has slowed down, and by how much.

Urgh, count the errors. If their speed relative to each other is 0.8c then that's their relative velocity and both are time dilated and length contracted by the same amount from the perspective of the other, it doesn't even make sense to ask how that velocity is distributed. If two objects are moving towards each other at 0.4c from the perspective of an observer inbetween them then the relative velocity between those two objects would be less than 0.8c, from either of their perspective's the centre object is moving towards them at 0.4c and the more distant object is moving towards them faster, but not at 0.8c.

 

So, how, if you're A, do you allocate it in SR?  Answer:  You attribute ALL the motion to B, and claim that you are motionless.  OK, now you know who's travelling at what speeds, and you're in a position to use the LT to calculate the amount of time dilation, (since you know whose clock is slow).  But where does SR get this "knowledge" about who is moving, and how fast?  It "detects" the relative speeds by merely positing a preferred, motionless frame (that of A) from which to proceed.  But, wait, I thought that "THERE ARE NO PREFERRED FRAMES!!"

In SR there is no "who is moving?", they're simply in motion relative to each other. That's why no frame is preferred.

 

It is an obvious fiction to just declare, without any kind of evidence, that A is "at rest" relative to every other object in the universe.  Yet posters like A-wal want to insist that SR is indisputably true, as a matter of fact.

What? No object is at rest relative to every other object in the universe, if that were the case then there would be no relative motion at all, everything would be in the same frame.

 

That's bad enough, but it gets much worse.  As it turns out, B will insist that HE is the one at rest, not A.  So now there is a direct conflict between their respective claims, which are mutually exclusive.

 

It is bad enough that A-wal wants to declare (with no physical foundation whatsoever) that is TRUE that A is "at rest."  But now he will also tell that B is ALSO "absolutely correct," as a matter of objective fact, when he makes the opposite claim for B.

No, A and B are either at rest relative to each other or in motion relative to each other.

 

And all of these supposedly indubitable truth claims about the absolute motion of individual objects are made while also claiming that "you can never know who's moving."  Go figure, eh?

And you've got the nerve to accuse others of making strawmen? :)

 

Anyone who thinks that any (let alone all) such claims MUST be true cannot be talking about objective physical reality.

Okay, you know better. You're not at all a clueless nutjob who's simply too dumb to understand but would prefer to remain in denial and to continue the delusion that the only reason they don't get it is because there's something wrong with the model. It's the model's fault that you can't grasp it.

 

As I've said before, if SR were to be true to its own premises, then it could only tell you that every possible question that could be asked about objects in motion can never be answered, because the answers are inherently unknown and unknowable.  Instead its proponents undertake to dispense "absolute truth" pertaining to such matters.

Okay, SR makes no predictions then? It can't answer any question about the differences in elapsed time between objects that are in motion relative to each other? All such apparently predictions follow no formulated methods, there are no equations in SR. Predictions given by SR cultists only agree because they're all in collision with each other and it's all just a big conspiracy.

 

I can't read any more of this ****.

Edited by A-wal
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 The speed of light is measured to be constant in all inertial frames in the sense that relative to themselves, all inertial observers measure light to be moving at the same rate. In other words the speed of light actually is constant in all inertial frames of reference, that's why all inertial observers measure it to moving at the same speed. Saying it moves at a different speed than the one the inertial observers measure doesn't make any sense.

 

  Heh, you just go in endless circles.  Now and again you'll back off, quite temporarily, from your solipsism, but soon you're right back in it again, even in the course of the same paragraph, like the one above.  You seem incapable of distinguishing subjective phenomena from objective ones.

 

One more time:  With the two posts, there is ONE distance and TWO measurements.  It doesn't make a damn bit of difference what the "real" distance is.  The statement is true regardless.  You consistently fail to see the difference.  In post after post (I mean ALL of them, throughout this whole thread,  but right now I'm just talking your most recents ones) you say "distance" when you should say "measurement."  You say "speed IS" when you should say "speed is measured to be."  You can't for two seconds seem to grasp that these are (or at least can be) radically different statements.  You're hopeless.

 

You just can't see the difference, even though it's a very elementary concept.  You are blinded by solipsism.

Edited by Moronium
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That makes no sense! If all frames are preferred then none are, it's the same thing. 

 

 

 

I agree, and I agree that it makes no sense.  But it's what SR does, leaving it absolutely without any standards that persist.  It can make no predictions, given it's premises.  The problem is, it's premises just keep changing, ad hoc, to meet the exigencies of the situation, so you can't really say it has any meaningful premises.

 

In one second, A is in the ether.  His frame is absolutely preferred, He is completely "at rest."  Everything in the universe [which obviously includes B] which is moving with respect TO HIM is moving, he aint.

 

The next second, it's B who is the ether, and A is now travelling at .8c or some such speed.  Then C, then D, ad infinitum.

 

SR can make some predictions for only one reason:  In violation of it's own mandates, it mimics a PFT. It commandeers a frame and claims that frame is absolutely at rest.  Lorentz had his ether.  SR has millions of them, and they are always YOU, whoever you happen to be.

 

Think of the awesome power that gives to some pointy-headed nerd with a retractable mechanical pencil, a piece of graph paper, and a slide rule.  He can, by just sitting on his *** at his desk, make everything in the universe change it's speed just by arbitrarily choosing one point or another to be at rest.  How? and Why?  Because SR is absolutely true as a matter of objective fact, that's why.

Edited by Moronium
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