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Yes, You Can Go Faster Than Speed Of Light


hazelm

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I'll go ahead and ask you a question, Dave.  When you're jogging down the sidewalk at a steady clip, do you conclude that you are not moving at all, but you're just running to keep your place in space, like you're on a treadmill?  That the sidewalk is what's moving, along with the houses, etc., you see passing, because the earth has suddenly started moving "backwards" under you, for some unknown reason?

 

If not, and if you understand SR, then you would understand that your time has indeed been distorted.  You would understand that it is your wristwatch which has slowed down, not the clock on the front porch of one of the houses you're passing.

 

No doubt there are some people, whom I consider to be insane, who take the idea of relative motion to such extremes. I, for one, do not ever consider the entire planet has suddenly started moving backwards instead of my car, or train or boat moving forwards. (When I say that, I am not including the incredibly tiny motion of the earth that is calculated in order for conservation of momentum to hold true)

 

I am talking about the insane claim that a train moving at a constant velocity with respect to the ground, is exactly the same as the ground moving at that same velocity under the train. It is not, and cannot, be the same. For one thing, if the tracks started moving under the train they would more than likely drag the train along with it or just spin and slide the wheels in place instead of making the wheels roll smoothly as they do when the train is moving. A rolling wheel is not in uniform translational motion anyway.

 

I also do not think that either Einstein or Galileo claimed any such thing; it is mostly people who think they understand Galilean relativity and special relativity, but actually do not have a clue, that make such absurd statements.

 

The whole point of Galilean relativity, and the inertial frame part of SR, is simply that uniform motion, at a constant velocity (an inertial reference frame) is indistinguishable, via any experiment, from no motion at all. It certainly does not mean that you cannot look out the window and know that it is your train that is moving, and not the ground!

 

 

 

By the way, Einstein himself addressed this question at one point.  He acknowledged that "no one" would think that the moving train they're riding is not moving, and that it would be absurd for them to think so.  Of course the implications of that admission destroy his theory of SR.

 

 

Well of course Einstein would say that; he was not insane like many of the people who totally do not understand the principle of relativity (but religiously believe they do) But I disagree that the implications you mention, destroy the theory; it only destroys the insane interpretations of his theory that many people have.

 

 

 

So what was his justification?  He said that the important thing was that, in principle, it could be that the train was motionless and that it was the tracks that were moving.

 

Not a very satisfactory answer. The important thing is what it could, in theory, be?  In principle, we could all just be brains in vats.

 

 
 

It is just a principle about inertial reference frames, that no experiment can be dome in one and get results that differ from the same experiment done in another. The fact that some people have given it an interpretation that is insane does not make his theory insane.

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Popeye, they now have atomic clocks so precise that they can measure the difference in the rate at which two clocks tick when the difference in speed in only 20 mph. Guess which clock slows down?  It aint both, as SR would tell you.  It aint the one which isn't moving either, of course.

 

 

https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2010/09/nist-pair-aluminum-atomic-clocks-reveal-einsteins-relativity-personal-scale

 

Again, the clock hypothesis says that acceleration has no effect on time dilation, so it doesn't save the theory to say it's not in an inertial setting.  Furthermore, you can trust that these scientists have factored in such considerations.  As predicted by the LT, it is the moving clock which runs slower.  This means, of course, that the stationary clock runs faster.  How the moving clocks "sees" itself is irrelevant.  What it "sees" (thinks) is NOT what determines it's rate of ticking.  It's objective speed does that.

 

At 20 mph, you can look at both clocks at once.  One is ticking slower.  If you want to know which of two clocks is moving relative to the other, see which one ticks more slowly.  THAT will be the one that's moving, according to the LT, which SR adopts, anyway.

 

As this article notes, the twin's clock in the twin paradox really slows down BECAUSE it is the one that is really moving. The earth clock does NOT slow down because, relative to the twin's clock, it is really stationary.  If the travelling twin thinks otherwise, then he is just plain wrong, that's all.  There is no "reciprocal" time dilation.

 

 

Gravitational time dilation in General Relativity is asymmetrical, it is only velocity time dilation that is claimed to be reciprocal. As I said before, the reciprocal case of velocity time dilation has never been put to the test, and I am not sure how it could be. Certainly it was not tested in the paper you linked to. I don't understand how they simulated one clock was moving, by tinkering with the ions either.

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Gravitational time dilation in General Relativity is asymmetrical, it is only velocity time dilation that is claimed to be reciprocal. As I said before, the reciprocal case of velocity time dilation has never been put to the test, and I am not sure how it could be. Certainly it was not tested in the paper you linked to. I don't understand how they simulated one clock was moving, by tinkering with the ions either.

 

I'm not real clear on how they reached their conclusions either, but they seem to be.  Yet you seem to be quite certain that it wasn't tested.  Only one of the two clocks ran slower, they say, and it ran slower for some reason.  That sounds like a test of (non) reciprocal time dilation to me.

 

I've made a few other posts which were directed to some of your prior comments about time dilation. Do you have any comment on those posts?

 

P.S.  I just now noticed that you have made some other comments.  I'll review them now.

Edited by Moronium
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 But I disagree that the implications you mention, destroy the theory; it only destroys the insane interpretations of his theory that many people have.

 

Would it influence you at all if I quoted a Professor of physics from Harvard to the contrary?

 

I made a post, #449 as I recall, that started out by saying "do the math yourself," and then elaborated on it some in subsequent posts.  Any comment on those?

 

I'm not sure how to respond, because you don't say WHY it doesn't "destroy the theory."  It is absolutely critical and essential to (the mathematics of) SR that different observers make mutually contradictory claims about motion (and for SR to then contend that "both are right").  Do you disagree with that?

 

Why is it so important for SR to claim that there are no preferred frames, do you think?  Can you see how that would destroy all the alleged symmetries and reciprocities which SR depends on?  Can you see why it mandates that all observers must insist that they are not moving (even if they are)?  The "insane views" that you speak of are strictly implied by SR.  If you reject those "insane interpretations," then you are thereby rejecting SR as a theory.  If A and B both agree that A is (as between the two)  stationary and B is moving, then they have just agreed that A is the preferred frame (which has no distortions, and which therefore gives the correct answers/predictions).

Edited by Moronium
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Popeye, here's one question I posed to you that I would be especially interested in hearing your answer to:

 

Well, let's assume that somehow, somewhere, circumstances exist where reciprocal time dilation could be tested.  Are you even of the opinion that, as a matter of physical reality, some test could show two clocks being compared, each one of which has lost more time than the other?

 

Put another way, can't we rule out that possibility a priori, without a test, on the basis that such a result is logically impossible?

 

Edited by Moronium
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No doubt there are some people, whom I consider to be insane, who take the idea of relative motion to such extremes. I, for one, do not ever consider the entire planet has suddenly started moving backwards instead of my car, or train or boat moving forwards. (When I say that, I am not including the incredibly tiny motion of the earth that is calculated in order for conservation of momentum to hold true)

 

I am talking about the insane claim that a train moving at a constant velocity with respect to the ground, is exactly the same as the ground moving at that same velocity under the train. It is not, and cannot, be the same. For one thing, if the tracks started moving under the train they would more than likely drag the train along with it or just spin and slide the wheels in place instead of making the wheels roll smoothly as they do when the train is moving. A rolling wheel is not in uniform translational motion anyway.

 

I also do not think that either Einstein or Galileo claimed any such thing; it is mostly people who think they understand Galilean relativity and special relativity, but actually do not have a clue, that make such absurd statements.

 

The whole point of Galilean relativity, and the inertial frame part of SR, is simply that uniform motion, at a constant velocity (an inertial reference frame) is indistinguishable, via any experiment, from no motion at all. It certainly does not mean that you cannot look out the window and know that it is your train that is moving, and not the ground!

:) You're as bad as Moronim! Of course the train moving and the ground moving are the same, they're just different ways of saying the exact same thing. It's like saying no A is not taller than B, B is shorter than A. There is only relative motion, not the train moving or the ground moving, the train and the ground are moving relative to each other.

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:) You're as bad as Moronim! Of course the train moving and the ground moving are the same, they're just different ways of saying the exact same thing. It's like saying no A is not taller than B, B is shorter than A. There is only relative motion, not the train moving or the ground moving, the train and the ground are moving relative to each other.

 

 

Yeah, right.  Just like me smashing your face with my fist with brass knuckles on with a roundhouse haymaker is the same as your face smashing my fist, eh?

 

I could sue you for assault, ya know?  Come to think about it, I probably would, too.

Edited by Moronium
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Yeah, right.  Just like me smashing your face with my fist with brass knuckles on with a roundhouse haymaker is the same as your face smashing my fist, eh?

No, the same as each other yes but also equally absurd. You'd be unconscious before you finished your swing.

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I've heard the faithful recitation of the SR gospel a million times, and have responded to it all it other threads.

 

You just recite the tenets of your creed, without giving it any thought, it seems.

 

You mean other than pointing everyone at the tests that have demonstrated excellent correlation with the theory (tests you don't know about, apparently).

 

 

You've gone full science-denier. It jives with what I realized before. You're not arguing relativity; you're arguing your own pet idea of it. And being a science-denier would explain why you haven't bothered to read up on it.

 

 

That's OK. I'm not here for you. I'm here to ensure the rest of the readers understand the difference between science and the fiction being peddled here.

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I'll go ahead and ask you a question, Dave.  When you're jogging down the sidewalk at a steady clip, do you conclude that you are not moving at all, but you're just running to keep your place in space, like you're on a treadmill?  That the sidewalk is what's moving, along with the houses, etc., you see passing, because the earth has suddenly started moving "backwards" under you, for some unknown reason?

 

If not, and if you understand SR, then you would understand that your time has indeed been distorted.  You would understand that it is your wristwatch which has slowed down, not the clock on the front porch of one of the houses you're passing.

If this is where you're starting from; if this kind of analogy is what you're using to compare to relativistic velocities, then I stand by my assertion that this thread is insufficient to teach you physics from the ground up.

 

Even in Galileo's time, relativity aside, they understood how it is possible to do perfectly good physics assuming that you are at rest while the Earth moves under you. They can, and they haven't had

four centuries of knowledge like we have. Why can't you?

 

But I'm so substitute for a high school education. No forum discussion is. You need to be untaught you first.

 

It's good that you're asking questions though, that's the place to start. You have to start smaller though, Unlearn what you've learned in error.

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:) You're as bad as Moronim! Of course the train moving and the ground moving are the same, they're just different ways of saying the exact same thing. It's like saying no A is not taller than B, B is shorter than A. There is only relative motion, not the train moving or the ground moving, the train and the ground are moving relative to each other.

 

 

You demonstrate, once again, that you are one of those people who thinks you know something about this subject, when in fact you do not.

 

What is true: If you take one situation of uniform translational motion, let’s say it is a train moving smoothly at a constant velocity on the tracks, you can examine that same situation from different inertial frames of reference, and no frame is any “better” or more valid than any other.

 

What is not true: You cannot say that two entirely different situations are one and the same thing! A train that is moving smoothly at a constant velocity on the tracks is one situation. Moving the tracks under the train at a constant velocity is a different situation entirely. Saying they are one and the same is insane.

 

A good example of this is running on a treadmill. If you just jump up and down vertically on the running belt surface, according to the frame of reference of the belt, you are moving at the velocity of the belt! If you cannot see how this differs from actually running on a stationary surface, you are already insane.

 

I am guessing you cannot even comprehend what I am talking about because you think you know something when in fact you know very little.  I suspect you have no understanding at all of how a wheel rolls on the ground without slipping. If you are interested in learning, (which you obviously are not), you can go here and study the subject before you next decide to opine on the subject.

 

 

In the situation where the train is moving on the tracks, with the wheels rolling without slipping, there is no relative horizontal motion at all at the point of contact between the wheel and the tracks (no slipping). The rolling wheel lays down a contact patch on the track and then, by deforming, the wheel rolls over that contact patch and repeats this process over and over. The wheel deforms as it rolls, even the most rigid steel wheels on a train must do this in order to roll without slipping.

 

If you change the situation to moving the tracks under the train, the most likely outcome is the tracks drag the train backwards with the wheels slipping and spinning, not rolling as in the first situation.

 

Bottom line is: Do not conflate looking at one situation from two different reference frames, with looking at two entirely different situations!

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You mean other than pointing everyone at the tests that have demonstrated excellent correlation with the theory (tests you don't know about, apparently).

 

 

You've gone full science-denier. It jives with what I realized before. You're not arguing relativity; you're arguing your own pet idea of it. And being a science-denier would explain why you haven't bothered to read up on it.

 

 

That's OK. I'm not here for you. I'm here to ensure the rest of the readers understand the difference between science and the fiction being peddled here.

 

 

My take on all this is that Moronium is primarily questioning the validity of reciprocal time dilation. He does agree that time dilation is a fact, but he suspects it is non-reciprocal, and he is not alone in thinking that.

 

Of all these tests that you mention, can you point to ONE that validates reciprocal time dilation? I have searched around and could not find any and in fact have found references that say this has never been tested.

 

If that is true, it is perfectly reasonable to question it.

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You demonstrate, once again, that you are one of those people who thinks you know something about this subject, when in fact you do not.

 

What is true: If you take one situation of uniform translational motion, let’s say it is a train moving smoothly at a constant velocity on the tracks, you can examine that same situation from different inertial frames of reference, and no frame is any “better” or more valid than any other.

 

What is not true: You cannot say that two entirely different situations are one and the same thing! A train that is moving smoothly at a constant velocity on the tracks is one situation. Moving the tracks under the train at a constant velocity is a different situation entirely. Saying they are one and the same is insane.

 

A good example of this is running on a treadmill. If you just jump up and down vertically on the running belt surface, according to the frame of reference of the belt, you are moving at the velocity of the belt! If you cannot see how this differs from actually running on a stationary surface, you are already insane.

 

I am guessing you cannot even comprehend what I am talking about because you think you know something when in fact you know very little.  I suspect you have no understanding at all of how a wheel rolls on the ground without slipping. If you are interested in learning, (which you obviously are not), you can go here and study the subject before you next decide to opine on the subject.

 

 

In the situation where the train is moving on the tracks, with the wheels rolling without slipping, there is no relative horizontal motion at all at the point of contact between the wheel and the tracks (no slipping). The rolling wheel lays down a contact patch on the track and then, by deforming, the wheel rolls over that contact patch and repeats this process over and over. The wheel deforms as it rolls, even the most rigid steel wheels on a train must do this in order to roll without slipping.

 

If you change the situation to moving the tracks under the train, the most likely outcome is the tracks drag the train backwards with the wheels slipping and spinning, not rolling as in the first situation.

 

Bottom line is: Do not conflate looking at one situation from two different reference frames, with looking at two entirely different situations!

I knew you didn't have a clue what you were talking about most of the time but I didn't realise you were this clueless. All inertial motion is relative. The most fundamental aspect of relativity that all of SR and GR are based on is that they are entirely the same situations, there is absolutely no difference between the train moving and the ground moving. Wow!

 

My take on all this is that Moronium is primarily questioning the validity of reciprocal time dilation. He does agree that time dilation is a fact, but he suspects it is non-reciprocal, and he is not alone in thinking that.

 

Of all these tests that you mention, can you point to ONE that validates reciprocal time dilation? I have searched around and could not find any and in fact have found references that say this has never been tested.

 

If that is true, it is perfectly reasonable to question it.

OMFG there's two of them! :)

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I knew you didn't have a clue what you were talking about most of the time but I didn't realise you were this clueless. All inertial motion is relative. The most fundamental aspect of relativity that all of SR and GR are based on is that they are entirely the same situations, there is absolutely no difference between the train moving and the ground moving. Wow!

 

OMFG there's two of them! :)

 

So, you really don't know the difference between looking at the same situation, from two different frames of reference . . .and looking at two completely different situations. I call that DUMB.

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