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Relativists Vs Absolutists


ralfcis

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I'd like to glean some important points out of a discussion that went bad to help people understand the unending debate between relativists and absolutists. Of course I'll only present my perspective cleaned up.

 

There is a very subtle distinction between a preferred frame as an absolute frame and a preferred frame as one that is agreed to by all participants. This distinction only becomes important if there were only two inhabitants floating in space with stars way in the background. An absolutist would say, they could each measure their absolute speed with a high degree of accuracy by triangulating their position to the background stars. The stars are so far away they appear to be stationary and it doesn't matter how fast they are actually moving in relation to the astronauts. A relativist would say only the relative velocity between the two matters. They could still work out what that is relative to the background stars. 

 

Earth doesn't care what the GPS satellites'  perspective of our dilated clocks is. Earth doesn't care what a muon's perspective of our clocks is.Earth wouldn't allow every space ship coming into its port to impose its time frame on Earth's. Distance markers or time beacons would be set in advance according to Earth being stationary.  Earth doesn't care that a proton in the LHC sees the entire earth and LHC move around it. Relativity chooses to depict Bob as stationary and Alice moving at .6c because it's impossible to depict both as moving relative to each other at .6c in 1 STD. If you break up the depiction into 2 STD's and depict Alice as stationary and Bob as moving, you are adding the assumption that all of space is whizzing past Alice. That's impossible because space can't move past anything according to the MMX. Alice fired her engines and firing up the universe's engines so that it passes by Alice is not practical. Alice is just not sitting there like a record needle on a spinning universe because that would mean she is tethered to an arm outside the spinning universe. Let's just all agree the earth spins around the sun and not relatively vice versa. 

 

I like relative velocity from a mathematical standpoint. I can even mathematically draw an STD where both Bob and Alice are moving through space even though it looks like Bob is depicted as stationary. I'm not an absolutist that believes in referencing all velocity relative to the CMB. But I'm practical and will choose a common reference frame to the most immovable object. That will form my background cartesian coordinates that are inescapable in relativity. 

 

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You can't claim anything is motionless. You claim you are both moving with the same relative velocity but in order to work out the math, you depict the person not initiating a change in that relative velocity at a distance from you as stationary. Or not, it doesn't matter as long as one of you starts out depicted as stationary even though neither of you are. You're confusing depiction with reality. It doesn't matter who's really moving which is what you're hung up about. An absolutist won't allow one he establishes is really moving to be depicted as stationary. Both are really moving relative to each other. 

 

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As soon as relativity starts with an STD (which is a graphical representation of Lorentz Transform equations) it needs to put down Cartesian coordinates. This is what you're saying is a preferred frame as an absolute frame and this is what relativists deny is a preferred frame but is merely an agreed to reference frame. It's no more than a piece of paper on which you can use a pencil to draw on. The drawing is not reality, it is a stick man representation that is accurate enough to make the math work.

 

Your point, which you just don't come out and say, is you can try to draw the same relative velocity an infinite number of ways on that graph, and you'll get an infinite different coordinate points at which Bob and Alice will end up. .6c can be drawn as Bob on earth and Alice taking off from him or Alice on earth and Bob taking off from her, or Alice and Bob both taking off in opposite directions from earth at 1/3 c and they will not end up at the same cartesian coordinates on the graph. As I said, in a depiction of true relative velocity, there is no graph, there is no background, there are just 2 participants on a pitch black starless background with no other reference than each other. That leads to no math. So relativity makes one of them the basis for the cartesian coordinates. Once that's established, they are both free to move relative to that frame even though there's no physical existence to it. This is what you call your inescapable preferred, absolute frame and what relativists call the reference frame. Potato, patatoe.  

 

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 I say a reference frame is not an absolute frame. To me absolute means 1 but to you, absolute means any 1 you decide upon. This is how relativists define reference frame.

 

It's the same thing with your interpretation of perspective. You define it as mind power over distance like telekinesis. If I say reality is information, you define that as telegrams control reality. The sun's heat and light and gravity aren't telegrams, they're reality, that comes to us at the limit of the speed of information. Perception is the reception of that delayed information. Perception does not control the source of that information.

 

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Again, try to understand the difference between relative and absolute. In a universe of only 2 astronauts and no stars, what kind of absolute reference could there be? Absolutely none. There could be nothing between the two they could agree upon as an absolute reference. The only thing left in this extreme example is relative motion. They're both moving but each assigns themselves as stationary and the other as moving. This is a problem for you but not a problem for relativity. Things you need to work out can be easily worked out. You decree it's a paradox, it's impossible. It is indeed a paradox but knowing that, you can work around it. Absolute motion has no paradox but since it doesn't exist (in the example I gave), who cares.

 

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There is no such thing as "really" moving in relative motion whether it's detectable or not. Both are moving relative to each other even if they both started together and one jetted off from the other sideways. Starting together, and both assuming they're stationary, means they are both relatively stationary although you probably assume absolutely stationary.  You say the guy who jetted off is accelerating and therefore in absolute motion and the other isn't, so he's "really" moving. But the stationary guy is still in relative motion even though you can prove he's not really moving. "Real" absolute motion is absolutely irrelevant. 

Edited by ralfcis
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I've already responded to, and pointed out the numerous errors, misconceptions, and flaws in, all those posts, Ralf.  I'm not going to do it again here.

 

Anyone who cares can look at this thread:  http://www.scienceforums.com/topic/35317-three-air-tight-reasons-why-no-object-can-ever-reach-an-event-horizon/page-6

 

Why did you start a new thread to massively repost about something you don't understand to begin with, i.e., the theoretical difference between absolute and relative motion, Ralf?  Just like hearing yourself repeat things, that it?

Edited by Moronium
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Well, I will take a moment to restate this comment:

 

You say:

 

But the stationary guy is still in relative motion even though you can prove he's not really moving

 

 

As I've already said, this statement is inherently self-contradictory, but you would never understand how or why that is.

Edited by Moronium
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Even though you still won't understand, I'll even spell it out for you a little.

 

If you can prove a guy is not moving, then he is simply not moving, relatively or otherwise.

 

Now some other guy may be moving relative to him, but even that would not be "relative motion."  It would be absolute motion.

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This brings to mind other misconceptions about relative velocity. Since the speed of light is the same for all frames, we could set all velocities relative to the speed of light which is the same for everyone. Another misconception is since the MMX proved we can't measure a relative velocity to the vacuum of space (there's no aether), that must mean space has 0 absolute velocity. Things in space might move but space itself doesn't. It expands by each immovable tile getting bigger. Einstein even said it himself, space is immobile. Hence just like a car tracking along a highway has a speedometer to measure its velocity, a ship tracking across space could either rig some sort of speedometer as an average space dust particle counter or merely note how much time it takes to move from planet to planet as an absolute velocity. I'm sure there are other ways to misunderstand this.

Edited by ralfcis
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This brings to mind other misconceptions about relative velocity.

 

 

That post was in reply to this one:

 

Even though you still won't understand, I'll even spell it out for you a little.

 

If you can prove a guy is not moving, then he is simply not moving, relatively or otherwise.

 

Now some other guy may be moving relative to him, but even that would not be "relative motion."  It would be absolute motion.

 

Are you suggesting that you do understand this, after all, Ralf?

Edited by Moronium
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 I'm hoping someone else with gravitas joins in to at least set one of us straight.

 

 

I've already explained all this, at substantial length, in the last thread, Ralf.  I have seen no indication that you read a word of it.  You certainly made no counter arguments or posed any questions about my explanations.  Why not?

 

You just declared that it was all wrong.  Why not think for yourself for a change, instead of waiting for more and more people to dispute you?  You would just say there were all wrong and lacked "gravitas" anyway.  If you understand what I said, but have doubts which you can't articulate directly to me or any one else, then get online and do some research to satisfy yourself.

 

You could start with something as elementary and easily available as wiki, ya know?  Wiki says this:

 

In theories that presume that light travels at a fixed speed relative to an unmodifiable and detectable luminiferous aether, a preferred frame would be a frame in which this aether would be stationary.

 

 

Here Wiki only touches on this lightly in passing, but it's a start.  What wiki doesn't mention is that, in all other frames, the speed of light would vary.  It is only isotropic in one frame--the preferred frame. An "aether" is not required.  The adoption of a preferred frame renders motion in all other frames as absolute, not relative.  The preferred frame itself is considered to be motionless, but no others.  All others are absolutely, not merely relatively, moving.

 

I quoted Dr. Smoot (now there's a person with "gravitas" as it pertains to this subject) in the last thread.  He says the CMB (not the "aether") is the preferred frame on a cosmic scale.  Other physicists have called the CMB the "rest frame of the cosmos." Since the CMB is not moving, the earth (and entire galaxy) must be moving (absolutely), because they are in motion relative to the motionless preferred frame (CMB).

 

It's really not that complicated.  But you can never hope to really understand SR or any other theory of relative motion until you understand the meaning of, and difference between, such fundamental concepts as relative and absolute motion

Edited by Moronium
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The adoption of a preferred frame renders motion in all other frames as absolute, not relative.  The preferred frame itself is considered to be motionless, but no others.  All others are absolutely, not merely relatively, moving.

 

 

 

Contrast this to SR.  As I've noted, for every calculation it makes, SR posits a preferred (motionless) frame.  It's always the one you are in.

 

But the problem is that there are not "no others."  On the contrary, EVERY other frame is also "motionless." Hence, relative motion. Is there any doubt about why irresolvable contradictory "paradoxes" are inevitable if you adopt such premises?

 

SR claims that motion is merely relative, not absolute.  But that's logically impossible, at least as a matter of physical reality (as opposed to merely being a matter of abstract, content-indifferent math).

 

Mathematically, SR is, at times, a "convenient" system,  The problem is that it's adherents try to pass it off as "objective reality" when it's self-refuting in that context.

Edited by Moronium
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Mathematically, SR is, at times, a "convenient" system,  The problem is that it's adherents try to pass it off as "objective reality" when it's self-refuting in that context.

 

I think you have that back to front Moronium but you are entitled to your opinion.

 

IMO Einstein intended SR as a window that allowed the brilliant light of relativity to shine consistently on our Euclidean world but many general relativists like yourself don't seem to understand that and therefore your 'relativistic light' certainly doesn't shine on anything like a Euclidian world because you just put the window where it is considered 'most convenient' and don't care what type of 'world' your 'light' shines on..

 

It would be like, metaphorically speaking, if Charles Dodgson, professor of Mathematics at Cambridge who also used the pen name 'Lewis Carrol', left Alice 'down the rabbit hole' or still in 'looking glass land' at the end of all of his novels. It would also be exactly like, scientifically speaking, measuring visible/ordinary matter in the WMAP or PLANCK surveys in Standard Compton wavelengths, calculating the total universal matter in a model that used Reduced Compton wavelengths and then claiming the ratio/difference between the two (which is 2*Pi +/-1.1% in both) is due to something you cannot identify in modern physics instead of realizing that 2*Pi is just the difference between the Standard Compton wavelength and the Reduced Compton wavelength!

 

If general relativists realized this, much of our modern science could be salvaged (only the faulty total universe calculations and derivative 'dm' are wrong), the real garbage can be taken out, genuine science can have a new dawn and continue to be developed on solid foundations!

 

It just really peeves me that much of what is passed off as 'science' these days is just trite derivative/manicured 'stuff' that serves to reinforce the hubris of the status quo instead of actually determining the real reasons for the differences between the various genre's of science today and building solid bridges between them!

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I forgot another way to misinterpret relative velocity and it's in the twin paradox example. At .6c, Alice goes out 3 ly from Bob and turns around at .6c. At the turnaround she is accelerating hence she is engaging in absolute motion and therefore becomes the preferred frame. In retrospect she's always actually been the preferred frame; you've already drawn her as moving so that depiction was correct because her change in velocity proved that. I guess you can't change your velocity if you don't have any velocity to change, amiright? Anyway, as the preferred frame, Alice is obviously going to end up younger than Bob when they re-unite. The math all works out and agrees with empirical evidence so your assumptions are proven correct, Alice was always the one absolutely moving and there's no reason to consider the mumbo jumbo of reciprocal time dilation, amiright? See how easy it is to make up plausible explanations that are completely wrong and difficult to disprove to believers?

 

So what happens if stationary Bob decides to take off from earth to re-unite with Alice out in space? Relativity tells us in order to have a mirror image twin paradox to the first depiction where Alice turns around, Bob would have to sit on earth for 4 years and take off after Alice at 15/17 c relative to the "preferred" earth frame. 15/17 c relative velocity to earth works out to .6c relative velocity to Alice using the relative velocity combo law.

 

But everything is all messed up now. Bob was stationary and now he's moving so he couldn't have been the preferred frame in retrospect. The earth frame, on which the cartesian coordinates are based in this example, must have always been the preferred frame for both perspectives of the twin paradox and it has nothing to do with who eventually makes a velocity change.

 

PS. I wish I could understand what LaurieAG wrote but I haven't got a clue.

Edited by ralfcis
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When I have time, I'm going to show my technique for depicting relative velocity on a single STD. It's a copy and paste of previous work and it's very long and mathematical and boring to explain but it is relevant to the discussion here. I just don't want to suck all the air out of the room with it quite yet.

Edited by ralfcis
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If general relativists realized this, much of our modern science could be salvaged (only the faulty total universe calculations and derivative 'dm' are wrong), the real garbage can be taken out, genuine science can have a new dawn and continue to be developed on solid foundations!

 

It just really peeves me that much of what is passed off as 'science' these days is just trite derivative/manicured 'stuff' that serves to reinforce the hubris of the status quo instead of actually determining the real reasons for the differences between the various genre's of science today and building solid bridges between them!

 

I agree that modern physics has gone astray and that much of this is due to relying on mathematical abstraction uisng fanciful imagination to provide the "reality," AG.

 

I don't know why you think I'm a GR acolyte, because I'm not.  I don't even believe in "spacetime."

 

I also can't see why you're so fond of SR, though.  It was SR which started the whole subjectivist trend which Einstein completely rejected when he matured as a philosopher of science.  The mathematical abuse started with Minkowski, using SR as a prop. Unfortunately, Einstein also began to rely more and more on the Minkowskian approach to "truth and reality."

 

Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity I do not understand it myself any more. (Albert Einstein)
Edited by Moronium
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...she's always actually been the preferred frame; you've already drawn her as moving so that depiction was correct ...

 

 

As usual, Ralf, you have it completely backwards.  In the twin paradox it is the earth twin who is in the preferred frame, not the spacetwin who is moving (absolutely).

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