Einstein's Special Relativity Fails?

[Mac]

Could it be fair to say that if the GPS clock saw the Earth clock running slow the GPS system would fail to function?

 

You are precisely correct. IF SRT were actually valid physics then it would be impossible to synchronize clocks that have relative motion.

[quantum quack]

Thank you for taking your time out to try to explain this to me Telemad.

 

So let's suggest that the speed of light is not always constant. I have read, in the last couple of days, that this is true in some forms of movement. So the satelite does see the earth's clock going fast at a velocity greater than 10% x c. There is an apparent time slowing and speeding as explained by euclidean geometry. But over all time does speed up. The effects are minimalised due to the close proximity of the satelite with regards to earth's surface. With a maximum discrepancy of 1 or 2 seconds when the satelite is at the horizon.

 

What do you think Mac and Quantum Quack? According to what I've just said reciprocation is not perfectly symetrical in this instance (of the satelite) and the speed of light is not always constant. This is what we had thought. It may not be the answer we were expecting but I suppose it is an answer. Does this contradict SR?

 

I have to consider how this effects bodies in uniform motion i.e. traveling in a straight line between two points.

 

Thanks again

Josie

just briefly,

of course it contradicts SRT. the speed of light must be invariant to all observers, and as this is the primary postulate any discrepancy would invalidate SRT.

 

Also it is this very postulate that creates the need for length contraction and dilation of time in the first place.

 

Lorenze transformations were necessary to maintain 'c' as constant and centeral to Einstien's universal view.

 

the probolem for SRT is that because it is all inclusive with it's references to light and time thus it applies to a closed univerese or should I say it must be circular in logic to be comprehensive it is exceedingly difficult to falsify because one aspect will always justify the other aspects.....this is as you would expect from such a theory with such large ramifications universally.

 

For example you may wish to argue that the satelite clock should see the Earth clock run slow. BUt it will be argued that they are no longer inertial frames, or the lack of simultaneousness means they don't. it will then be argied that the reason nonsimultaneousness exists is because the Earth clock appears slow....and so on.....each arguement justifying the apparent contradiction.

 

It has been declared in this thread that the use of preferred frame invalidates the need for the earth clock to be slow. but an obvious question is in all cases when determining an observation a prefered frame is established. Does this mean that the notion of both clocks being slower than the other is a furphy simply because it simply can't exist because we have chosen to measure from our rest frame?

So the arguement will continue and because of the complexity will never be resolved.

 

Does SRT require the satelite to see the Earth clock as slow? [ ignoring light info delays for a moment]

 

according to Paul no it doesn't......so I ask when does each clock see the other as slow?

 

and is this proven as physical fact by physical evidence?

 

can this ever be proven by physical observation?

 

I tend to think that by the very nature of SRT it is impossible to prove simply because an observer can never be at 2 different velocities simultaneously. and so SRT is unfalsifiable.

 

SRT provides predictions about what another observer will see when at a different velocity and that is essentially all it is about. Can the predictions be proven. yes but it seems only one way as in the case of the GPS issue.

 

also Damo I think you need to differentiate between light info delays and actual time dilation. time dilation as referenced by SRT is more about actual dilation of the observers tme frame [universe] and not so much about information delays.

 

Paul or telemad will correct me I am sure if i am mistaken

[Mac]

Just that your calculations are wrong! They are wrong because (1) of the method you used to calculate the relative velocity, which fails to model reality, and (2) your erroneous numerical values produced.

 

Totally false. You miss the point entirely. It is not necessary to replicate the actual geometry of the orbits to asscertain the error in SRT. The maximum dilation possible is at the equator and it falls short. The other compensations are extremely minor and for anyone looking to see the truth and not just wave their arms pretending to understand, they see that such adjustments do not equal lthe dispartity in the SRT calculation.

 

GPS does. You didn't.

 

I take it you are unfamiliar with the term gendankin.

 

You asked me - no, you practically begged me - to look over YOUR calculations. They are flawed. End of story.

 

Hardly. You blew it. Claiming I didn't calculate this or that does not show any error in the calculations done. My mathematics are correct for the scenario presented. You want to calculate some other scenario then have at it. In fact please do one as an observer aboard the GPS satellite and tell us the comparative tick rate of a surface bound clock at the equator.

[quantum quack]

You are precisely correct. IF SRT were actually valid physics then it would be impossible to synchronize clocks that have relative motion.

 

i am glad we agree, :friday:

[Mac]

Irrelevant, and your method is still flawed, just as I said. Let me explain with a simple example.

 

There's a party, but no beer, and worse, the school's board-1 chess player isn't there (can't have a party without him!). So Alice goes to get beer and Bill goes to get the chess player, while everyone else stays in the dorm. From the dorm, Alice drives due east as 40 mph, so her velocity relative to the dorm is 40 mph due east. From the dorm, Bob drives due north at 30 mph, so his velocity relative to the dorm is 30 mph due north. The dorm stays where it is.

 

Now, according to your too simplistic method of calculating the relative velocity between Alice and Bill, it would be 40 mph - 30 mph = 10 mph. That's not correct. You can't simply subtract two velocities to calculate the relative velocity between two objects when they are traveling in directions that are at right angles to each other.

 

And yet that is exactly what you did to find the relative velocity of the satellite clock to the ground clock: simple subtraction. And now you've even explicitly asserted that simple subtraction would work even when the two were traveling in paths that are perpendicular to each other.

 

Sorry to see you have no concept of mathematics. The case yo just cited the relative velocity is 50 Mph and that is not what I did. If you do not understand that moving in a cicular orbit around the center of the earth in any direction you have a perepheral velocity. That veloicty does not change because it is at 90 or any other degrees angel to another circular orbit. The two perepheral velocities are infact subtractable regardless of angle.

 

These are the true local absolute velocities. The ones that cause time dilation. Not the relative velocity between the two as the crow flies.

 

You go ahead and believe whatever you want but you cannot properly compute time dilation in the manner you suggest. In yourcase above if those were perepheral velocities of orbit the correct time dilation would be based on 10 Mph and not the 50 Mph relative velocity along the hypotenuse. That is precisely what GPS has taught us and where SRT fails.

 

In fact if you put two clocks in orbits which are equatorial, one ging east and one going west, each moving at 20Km/sec (excluding Velocity Addition) your method would claim they have a relative veloicty of 40Km/sec. The facts are for time dilation purposes they have the same velocity and each will stay synchronized with each other. HOW ABOUT THAT YOU ARE WRONG AFTER ALL.

[Mac]

Reciprocity applies only to comparisons between inertial frames. Once one frame is turned into a perfered frame(at some artifically constructed rest) then that frame is no longer considered an inertial frame because its actual motion has been canceled out.

 

You seem to have your facts backwards. Its actual motion is not canceled out it is identified. It is in the SRT view where each assumes to be at rest and that the other has all motion that true motion has been canceled out.

 

As such, Reciprocity is no longer valid.

 

It is ot that reciproicty "Is no longer valid" it is not valid in any instance. Which is why SRT is invalid.

 

I think what you are messing is that its not the whole of relativity that GPS supports. Its aspects of it.

 

Correction GPS supports all relativity, it just isn't Einstien's relativity.

 

For one, without the corrections the clocks in orbit have a different time than those on earth. The system was never designed to do anything but tract position on the earth with all the clocks appearing in sync via an artificial introduction of a perfered rest frame. I would grant that saying all of relativity is supported by such would be a stretch. But since GPS was not designed as an experiment to prove all of it to begin with and since the guidelines by which one can assume Reciprocity to hold do not apply because of the way GPS had to be set up its not logical to assume its lack of Reciprocity is evidence SRT is wrong. If anything it only proves that the statement that Reciprocity can only be applied in real inertia frames is true.

 

You miss the point if SRT were valid then surface clocks and orbiting clocks could not be synchronized due to reciprocity. Since reciprocity is false and only ONE clock is ever dilated it then becomes possible to synchronize them..

[quantum quack]

 

In fact if you put two clocks in orbits which are equatorial, one ging east and one going west, each moving at 20Km/sec (excluding Velocity Addition) your method would claim they have a relative veloicty of 40Km/sec. The facts are for time dilation purposes they have the same velocity and each will stay synchronized with each other. HOW ABOUT THAT YOU ARE WRONG AFTER ALL.

 

I may add to this if i can.

the clocks would have identicle time dilation as viewed from an earth reference but different dilationsv/velocities as viewed from either clock.

 

The figure 20 km/sec is obtained from an earth based rest frame yes?

 

Howver if one clock is arbitarilly declared at rest then the other clock has all the v and dilation......so essentially it's the same paradox. What earth records for our two clocks and what each clock would record.....

[Mac]

I've noticed you tend to take definitions of everything from math sources. Physics uses math. But physics unlike math requires more than the math as its proof. Basically, in physics a theory is designed around what nature shows us. At least that is the way things are supposed to work. SRT applies only to inertia frames period. It does not apply to every type of frame there is.

 

Usually, in what's considered non-inertia frames one uses Newton since in general there is little difference between Newton and a non-accelerated frame under SRT as far as results goes. More of the relativistic effects out there untill one gets up nearer to C(at least past say 1/4C) really do not amount to much of a difference to begin with. What the GPS system does via its programming is force the situation or condition to where when it comes to the presented values on the clocks its as if Newton fully applied. But the behind the public view via programming that's done translates between the two so that things like the requirement you mentioned no longer apply since one is no longer comparing two inertia frames anymore. What you are comparing is a non-inertia frame to an inertia one. In short, they invoke an engineered via programming version of Newton's absolute rest frame to get the job GPS was designed to do done. Anytime one has even an artifical version of an absolute rest frame the certain aspects of SRT do not apply anymore.

 

In short, don't always rely upon math sources to explain a physical theory. Even Einstein himself was not always clear on the entire SRT picture. With GR the model we use today is not exactly Einstein's original static model. SRT has been somewhat itself subject to a evolution of sorts when it comes to thought also. But, you might be interested in knowing that the subject of when certain aspects of SRT apply and do not apply is discussed from time to time on the math forums out there and the aspects I have mentioned are brought up there also.

 

In general, a lot of the crap one reads about SRT on the Internet is misleading to say the least. There are a lot of closet aether supporters out there on the net. I sometimes think Beardon's ideas have rather crept into the net in full force though the idea you raised is not his idea. Einstein's SRT does start with Lorentz. But it goes a bit beyond Lorentz. A lot of people never bother to notice that Einstein started out a believer in the aether and eventually gave the idea up since he could find no evidence for such. Yet, while one time saying the baby was dead, he later says long live the aether. I will not get into the debate about weither Newton's absolute spacetime is a correct way to look at Newton. But its also true that modern quantum theory rather filled up the empty spacetime Einstein first designed so perhaps those words of Einstein have some truth behind them. The difference is the aether of quantum theory has no absolute frame of reference. With the GPS system an artifical one is built into the system.

 

You are incorrect to assert that orbit is not an inertial frame. Technically I agree it isn't truely inertial. However, all physicists today treat it as inertial since the error is totally insignifigant. The only thing non-inertial about an orbit is what is called "Tidal Forces".

 

They are about as minor as the fact that objects of different weight do not fall from the same height and contact earth in the same amount of time.

[Mac]

Yes! Which is why it is not technically "correct" to call length contraction Lorentz contraction: it is relativistic lenght contraction.

 

The MATH of Lorentz (or Lortentz and Fitzgerald) works, but their PHYSICS does not. Lorentz argued that length contraction occurs because an object is moving through the luminiferous ether, which is an absolute reference frame; when something moves through the ether, it - and it alone - gets physically compressed in the direction of motion.

 

Einstein used their MATH but did away with their PHYSICS. In special relativity, the object is not physically compressed because it is trying to move through the ether, instead, there is no ether, and space (and time) itself - not just the object - is contracted.

 

So if one wants to be technical about it, when doing the pure mathematical calculations one can say they are basing their work on Lorentz - that is, on his equation - but when doing physics and trying to explain what is occurring in nature, it is not correct to attribute the basis of the work on Lorentz: then one has to give credit to Einstein.

 

Interesting to note that the Lorentz view is upheld physically and Einstien's isn't.

[Mac]

That is a key issue and I believe it deserves its own thread, because it is likely to be an extensive discussion.

 

However, in examining possible problems of reciprocity in SPECIAL relativity, we should really STOP discussing GPS and orbits and instead switch to talking about standard uniform motion: where we perceive objects as moving in a straight line at constant speed.

 

 

If you were searching for the truth why on earth would you suggest giving up on a physical reality such as GPS and return to gendankins where proofs are all but impossible.

 

Remember, you nor anybody else have ever seen reciprocity observed or recorded. IT DOES NOT EXIST and HENCE SRT is false. If it did exist then no systemic measureable time dilation could ever have been recorded. It is really pretty stright forward and simple.

[Mac]

Hi,

 

The funny thing is that if we think in terms of Euclidean geometry time still does appear to slow down. If I travel away from you the light is taking longer to get to me so I see your time as slower. What light as a constant brings to the table is that time doesn't slow down as much as in Euclidean geometry due to length contraction and time dilation. This is a limiting factor. Yet it also becomes apparent that the effects on time are permanent i.e. any relative movement brings about time changes that cannot be reversed in our current understanding. Now I was first struck with the in comprehensibility of Special Relativity when I was 16 yet had only recieved half the story. I had learnt that a ray of light bouncing perpendicular on a train is the same for all observers. I pondered this for years. Now I realise that this is the same for the light bouncing next to all observers as well. Suddenly it made even less sense.

 

So the SOL is a limit with regards to time. The limit being zero (or frozen) time. All other times can be gained through understanding this as a fact. The speed of light could be stated therefore as an absolute constant timespeed.

 

So we can say that you cannot observe light (in vacuo) to be travelling slower than this constant. Therefore time and distance is relative proprtionately to the SOL (this is a clue to explanation). So as I am travelling away from you (stationary) time slows and distance shortens for both of us proportionately to the speed of light. If I am orbiting the earth at 99.99% the speed of light I should see the light bouncing next to you as the same speed you see the light bouncing next to me. Everything happening in your reference frame appears so slow to me and the same for your observations of me.

 

At this point we fail in our understanding because my time is a fraction of your time yet I still see your time going slowly. So according to me travelling almost the speed of light time on the ship appears perfectly normal. According to me it is you who is traveling at 99.99% x c and therefore your time appears slower.

 

Logically we consider, like on the movie 'the time machine', that everything stationary should appear to be going in fast forward. So when we slow down to a crawl we have just watched the future hurry along and now we can meet our great great..great grand children at a respectable age.

 

Is it that everything appears to slow down yet when we start decelerating time speeds up in an awful hurry? Well this couldn't make sense either.

 

This is where we have a problem and the GPS thing is part of the explanation we are seeking. On one hand we have time slowing down and for observerA time does appear to slow down. We can handle that easily. The situation in reverse is that time speeds up yet for observerB it appears to slow down.

 

There is no way Mac or I can understand this without finding fault. No matter how much I try to understand the math it remains incomprehensible to me.

 

Reciprocation, the speed of light as a constant and 'actual' time dilation don't all fit together simultaneously.

 

Thanks

Josephine

 

Please do ot continue to talk yourself down. It is not you or I that have a problem. It is SRT that has the problem and relativists refuse to acknowledge it.

[Mac]

Stop looking at GPS for SPECIAL relativity.

 

Special relativity pertains only to reference frames in uniform motion. And when comparing two different frames in relative motion to one another, they must both be in uniform motion from both points of view. THIS DOES NOT HOLD FOR GPS.

 

Consider a clock on the Earth's surface at the equator. In its reference frame it is in uniform motion. But when it looks up at the satellite, that satellite's motion relative to the ground clock is constantly changing velocity: the ground observer sees the satellite's speed and/or direction of motion changing all the time. For example, as the satellite dips down over the horizon in its curved trajectory, both its direction and speed relative to the ground clock changes.

 

The same things happens from the perspective of the satellite clock. In it's frame of reference it is at rest, moving uniformly (free fall). But when it looks to the ground clock, the satellite sees the other clock accelerating ... NOT in uniform motion.

 

If you are having problems understanding special relativity then you need to change what you are looking at. Try using the simplest example.

 

 

 

 

I've said this before and I'll say it again. THERE IS NO CONTRADICTION.

 

Simply stated, observer A can say "I'm at rest and observer B is in motion, so his clock runs slower than mine", and observer B can say "I'm at rest and observer A is in motion, so her clock runs slower than mine", WITHOUT THERE BEING ANY CONTRADICTION. There only APPEARS to be a contradction.

 

The way out is how I've been saying all along: it relies upon understanding the relativity of simultaneity: two events that are simultaneous in one inertial frame of reference are (generally) not simultaneous in a second inertial frame of reference in relative motion to the first. There's the key.

 

To explain in detail why that solves the apparent contradiction would require a lot of typing and a lot of explaining on my part: and since I'm banging my head against the wall to get people to see simple things, I'd also be encoutering a lot of resistance, making it all the harder on me.

 

So, as I have alluded to before, if anyone really wants to see how the relativity of simultaneity destroys the APPARENT contradiction, they can find this clearly explained; they just have to fork over the mere $13.95 to buy Richard Wolfson's book "Simply Einstein: Relativity Demystified" and read chapter 10, "The Same Time?".

 

Hog Wash.

[Mac]

It remains incomprehensible because noone can provide raw data from multiple frames of refrence for study. Thus theory and not fact.

 

 

I would take exception to this. The H&K Atomic Clock Experiment for example gives you time tick rate of both the surface and clocks in motion, just as GPS gives you both views. The jproblem is the recorded times from such views is that only ONE clock is dilated relative to the other (as it should be) but that isn't in accordance with SRT.

[Mac]

Einstein's special relativity is a theory, but it's also a scientific fact.

 

Careful how you use the term "fact".

 

Again, there is no contradiction: simply put, both observers can see the other's clock running slow.

 

 

Who said anything about "Seeing" we are talking about physical time dilation - i.e the "Twins" and aging, etc.

 

I've pointed out several times now where anyone can obtain the information needed to see this. Anyone who continues to claim there is an actual contradiction is just too lazy (or whatever) to bother doing the work needed to find this out.

 

You have pointed to misleading information that fails to highlight or address the issue. Why don't you just say read Einstien's work. My point is you do not and cannot prove a theory by merely quoting the theory. The theory must be defending based on actual observed physics. SRT fails that test.

[Mac]

Thank you for taking your time out to try to explain this to me Telemad.

 

So let's suggest that the speed of light is not always constant. I have read, in the last couple of days, that this is true in some forms of movement. So the satelite does see the earth's clock going fast at a velocity greater than 10% x c. There is an apparent time slowing and speeding as explained by euclidean geometry. But over all time does speed up. The effects are minimalised due to the close proximity of the satelite with regards to earth's surface. With a maximum discrepancy of 1 or 2 seconds when the satelite is at the horizon.

 

What do you think Mac and Quantum Quack? According to what I've just said reciprocation is not perfectly symetrical in this instance (of the satelite) and the speed of light is not always constant. This is what we had thought. It may not be the answer we were expecting but I suppose it is an answer. Does this contradict SR?

 

I have to consider how this effects bodies in uniform motion i.e. traveling in a straight line between two points.

 

Thanks again

Josie

 

To make it simple you should start by rejecting outright any claims jof "Observer altered Physics of events". Observers do not and cannot alter events. Clocks always tick at their own local proper time and no observer at any veloicty alters that. My point is and has been that all this crap is really about nothing but "Illusion" and no true affect on aging, etc.

 

Clocks do not measure time. They mark the time interval at a frequency. If that frequency changes due to external enflunce of the clocks process it has not altered time perse.

[Mac]

I may add to this if i can.

the clocks would have identicle time dilation as viewed from an earth reference but different dilationsv/velocities as viewed from either clock.

 

The figure 20 km/sec is obtained from an earth based rest frame yes?

 

Howver if one clock is arbitarilly declared at rest then the other clock has all the v and dilation......so essentially it's the same paradox. What earth records for our two clocks and what each clock would record.....

 

Careful, you are letting yourself be sucked in. There is only one physical reality. It is the one recorded by the clocks. Funny the clocks didn't really seem to care that they have 40Km/sec relative velocity but continued to tick the same as though the other clock wasn't there at all. :friday:

[Mac]

So far those here that defend Special Relativity have said:

 

1 - SR and GR are integral and necessary parts of the adjusment to make GPS work.

 

But when confronted with the issue of reciprocity;

 

2 - They now want to claim that orbit is non-inertial and SR and reciprocity do not apply.

 

 

They should make up their mind either SR applies or it does not. If SR applies then reciprocity applies, it is inherent in the basis for SR where all motion is relative and there is no absolute motion.

 

Further I know I have mentioned the ECI and ECEF frames more than once in this thread. Perhaps I should not use the acronym and spell it out:

 

ECI is an "Earth Centered Inertial" frame. That is what it stands for.

 

http://www.aoe.vt.edu/~cdhall/courses/aoe4140/refframes.pdf

 

If you expect to defend a theory you should understand it and also understand terms associated with GPS. Otherwise you are just blowing smoke and waving your arms.