I would like to stay very narrowly focused on the ideas in your “Superior Special Relativity” thread (which has been merged into this one). We can come back to the thought experiments involving general relativity and more that you’ve been discussing over the past days. I would also like to take baby steps through the arguments. To save yourself some time, you might want keep each post in our exchange short and targeted. If I misunderstand something in the first paragraph of one of your replies, then your next twenty paragraphs will be wasted time. This is also why I am not addressing the older posts, as I do not understand them. I’d like to start fresh and go slowly, if you’re game.
I will stop here, at the second paragraph. My understanding of Lorentz contraction comes as a consequence of the constancy of the speed of light. Are you saying that Lorentz contraction is fundamental? If so, can you walk me through the arguments in more detail of why you measure light to go faster than c in some cases?
If I am reading correctly, you are okay with postulating an invisible substance but not with postulating a constant speed of light, correct? Can you elaborate on why these two possible postulates are on a different footing, where one is allowed but the other isn’t? Why “can’t it be” that photons are observed to travel at fixed speed, yet is can be that an undetected invisible substance is present?
Again, I’m looking for baby steps. Just give me the next few breadcrumbs so I can follow along, nothing more than a few hundred words.
The first thing that comes to mind is that you aren’t taking SR into account. The clock has a velocity relative to your observational frame of reference.
The same thing comes up in your analysis of the twin paradox. You typically gloss over important details.
"If the horse is moving, then it doesn’t occupy an agreed upon location in space. If the horse occupies an agreed upon location in space, then it can’t be moving.
But I feel conflicted about starting from this point if you want to go slow since it is so far from where my interest lies.
And at any rate I tried my best to answer a questions that I was not sure I understood.
And now you are asking another question about my answer that may have not even been based on the question you were really asking.
My preference is to move on later to where you gave 2 options for the speed of light, A and B, please read that part and reply if you feel compelled.
But I fear that is we are communicating at cross purposes we will likely get even more confused.
But to put the Lorentz subject in it’s place, I consider Lorentz contraction to do nothing to normalize the speed of light if it exists as a real effect, it will merely unbalance observations of light going each way.
If you are in a space ship with a slow clock and shortened length, but you realize neither of these things as real, then light going both ways will be made to seem faster as you will measure less time between light hitting the 2 sensors at each end, and you will not notice that your ruler has shrunk, which only corrects light slowed by motion, and makes light accelerated by motion worse.
Seriously, imagine in you room you have 2 different lengths both labelled a meter but one is shorter, and one clock that runs correctly and one that runs slow, and you measure the speed of light with the slow clock and the incorrect length meter rule(r). And with the correct length and correct clock.
You will find the speed of light calculates as faster with the short length and slow clock. Which is obvious except when in motion we are shortened and slowed so we have no comparison that is correct, so we no longer recognize the slow clock as slow of the short ruler as short.
Einstein simply said that the ruler isn’t changing, space is, and the clock isn’t running slow time is slow and therefore made them valid in that frame.
If our movement relative to light made light coming at us from the front move faster than light coming from the rear, then these slow clocks and short rulers only cause the light slowed by our motion to be corrected for.
Light that was too fast before is now waaay too fast.
But if you have a think about that and can’t see what I mean, or come to a different conclusion then I would drop that part.
Please read about my answers to A and B options you gave for light and observers.
The Higgs Boson is an invisible substance, so are virtual particles unless you look hard for them.
But a constant speed of light is on the face of it impossible, and requires sme explination for it.
If none exists for long then it is untenable.
So yes.
If I said that your hair is simultaneously brown and blue, that would be a contradiction that would need some kind of elplination of what I mean since that it impossible.
Now maybe different parts are brown and other parts are blue, maybe we are talking about microscopically and macroscopically.
Maybe I am talking about the plain colour it has and the reflective sheen as mant birds have.
But if all I have said that it is simultaneously brown and blue in the same location and point of view, if I am not talking abut the spectra of light coming off it.
Then I have just said something that is impossible.
I shouldn’t expect to tell you that without clarification.
Because the latter requires nothing more complex than the observations of fish in water and us in air, it is straight forward that a substance exist that isn’t obvious.
The other however can’t be modelled!
It can’t be ported into reality, you can’t plot it out.
I have conceived of 2 ways, one fictional and one you have not read that is actually possible.
But it must be explained or is a nonsense.
**Sorry, I honestly try not to rant. but as people don’t understand me I try to explain myself more conclusively which leads to people not reading 90% of what I say, viscous cycle.
Please read my replies to you A and B options in my previous reply and go from there.**
I said these things happen immediately, instantly, in the moment.
I was very clear about that.
So 1 Yoctosecond after you let go of the clock it is no longer accelerating.
If it is no longer accelerating it is no longer time dilated from acceleration.
1 Yoctosecond however is not enough time for you to have accelerated away from it very much or get very fast unless we have some extraordinary acceleration going on.
So I can ignore SR time dilation as it has not gained much relative velocity yet.
I have already said all of this, when other people or you brought up the objection many times before.
I’m not exactly sure what you’re talking about here, but it sounds like you’re claiming that length contraction and time dilation imply that the light must travel above c inside moving frames. That is completely false; the entire point of relativity is that speed of light is constant in any inertial frame. It was developed to reconcile that experimental fact (and other theoretical considerations) with what was then considered to be the correct way of switching between frames. (“Speed of light” is a bit of a misnomer here; I actually mean the universal speed limit c; massless particles of any variety (e.g., gluons) travel at that speed in a vacuum, and light doesn’t travel at c in all media. But whatever, it’s just a name.)
Fix a frame F’ we take as being at rest. To simplify notation, I’m going to set c = 1, as in common in this sort of calculation. Take a frame F travelling along the x-axis (with respect to F) at a speed v < 1. There are sensors at points x1 and x2, at rest with respect to F, and they report seeing an incident photon travelling along the x-axis at times t1 < t2. In the frame F, we calculate the speed of light to be (x2 - x1)/(t2 - t1) = 1.
What about the original frame F’? According to relativity (in fact, this is exact statement of special relativity, at least in the case of motion along the x-axis), we record:
t2’ = g(t2 + v x2)
t1’ = g(t1 + v x1)
x2’ = g(x2 + v t2)
x1’ = g(x1 + v t1)
where g (gamma) is the Lorentz factor1/sqrt(1 - v^2). (This is the factor of time dilation and length contraction). Putting this all together, we measure the speed of light in F’ to be:
(x2’ - x1’)/(t2’ - t1’) = [x2 - x1 + v(t2 - t1)] / [t2 - t1 + v(x2 - x1)] = 1,
since t2 - t1 = x2 - x1. So the speed of light is the same in both inertial frames.
Part of creating a logical argument is that it should help to uncover the truth or facts of the matter - its a reasoned argument.
You have yet to validate or prove any element in any of your syligisms.
Therefore, the reasoning and logic in your ‘proofs’ is invalid.
If one part of you’re syligism is wrong, then the logic that flows from it - EVEN if it can be used to come to a correct conclusion is still faulty logic.
Deal with it.
As stated before - back up your claims with cites and or evidence - do the work - simply stating that these are ‘FACTS’ does not make it so.
And, FTR, I’m not ignoring the ‘physics’ - you are - but that is beside the point - if you want to be taken seriously, then you need to do more than assert the ‘facts’.
Let me give you an example of whats wrong in your 1st ‘fact’ - Time does not slow down within the gravity field - it appears to slow down to the observer OUTSIDE of the field. To the person inside the field, time remains constant. Until you get that right - the rest is a waste of time.
I come to a different conclusion, so I will drop that part.
I like your brown/blue analogy, so I will extend it. If someone says “Your hair is simultaneously brown and blue”, then I cannot say whether this is impossible unless we agree on the definitions of all the words in the sentence, including common ones like “is”. On the face of it, the statement is impossible, but you point out a few ways that is could be actually possible once definitions are cleared up. Maybe the speaker means “You hair is blue to people without sunglasses and brown to people with sunglasses”, or maybe he means “You hair is blue when viewed from above but brown when viewed from the side.” These subtleties are hidden by a lax choice of words from our speaker: “is brown and blue”, and to say that the claim is impossible might be premature.
You say that the claim “The speed of light is independent of reference frame” is on the face of it impossible. Could it be that, like the brown/blue example, the claim is possible if the definitions are carefully laid out such that there are no internal inconsistencies? If it is stated with more words, like “An observer will measure the speed of light between source and observer to be constant regardless of the relative speed of source and observer,” does it become less impossible? From a completely abstract point of view, the words in that sentence make sense. That is, a valid physical idea is expressed. Whether or not it is true is a separate question from whether or not it is even valid to claim. I believe, though, that you are “killing” it from Step 0 – saying that those words do not make sense as written, right?
If your reason for killing it isn’t as basic as an inconsistency in the statement itself, and in fact comes from the Lorentz faster/slower example that we dropped, then we’d have to go back to that.
Roger.
I asked:
You replied “No. There may be other possibilities…” I am lost at this statement already. Can you write an option (C) that isn’t covered by (A) or (B)? My aim was to include all possible options in those, since one is the negative of the other. Or maybe this isn’t critical to your argument?
(I have no quibble with your breakdown of A into A1 and A2, of course, if I set aside the details of the aether theory for now.)
Maybe we are talking cross-purposes. I am saying that if you assert that the speed of light is to be measured the same for all observers – an assertion that I know you haven’t granted as valid – then an immediate physical consequence is that observers will also measure time dilation and length contraction. For now, neverminding that you haven’t agreed to the axiom “constant speed of light”, do you agree that if you do assert that axiom then time dilation and length contraction are immediate consequences? If the answer is ‘no’, then I think we will need to understand our different conclusions here before making further progress.
This might already be an answer my previous question. At the risk of getting ahead of myself: are you familiar with the “light clock” thought experiment that shows time dilation as a consequence of the constancy of the speed of light? One version of the thought experiment is here (the link should go to the second major section of that page, “Simple inference of…”), but if you find that source or its references ([5] through [8]) unsatisfying, let me know why or where.
Sorry I don’t do equations, nice if I could but no.
I drew a word picture for Great Antibob, maybe you could read it to understand my argument, and then formulate your argument, or one based on my argument with words, I only do math with actual numbers in it, once it gets to letters my range on comprehension is very short. That is my weakness, sorry.
Imagine in you room you have 2 different lengths both labelled a meter but one is shorter (incorrect), and one clock that runs correctly and one that runs slow, and you measure the speed of light with the slow clock and the incorrect (short) length meter rule(r). And with the correct length and correct clock.
You will find the speed of light calculates as faster with the short length and slow clock. Which is obvious (and obviously an error) except when in motion we are shortened and slowed so we have no comparison that is correct, so we no longer recognize the slow clock as slow of the short ruler as short.
This would cause us to measure all light as faster, and if some light, or race horses are slowed by our relative motions these will now seem to be moving at the same speed as stationary observers would, neat.
But horses (and light) running the opposite way we are having a head on with and adding velocities are now also seen as running faster with our short ruler and slow clock which makes the problem worse as there were already effected by our relative motion.
I can accept your math works as math, I have no idea if it relates to reality, even as a possibility.
Imagine I take your incorrectly marked meter stick and I measure my bedroom. Since it’s incorrect (short,) my bedroom will measure, say, 13 meters long.
Does that then make my bedroom 13 meters long? Of course not, because I’m using a flawed measuring device. Hence, none of the data collected by that device is valid or useful to draw any conclusions.
What you’re trying to do is basically measure something in degrees C by using degrees F, with no conversion factor. Your thought experiment is based on a false analogy. Garbage in, garbage out.
You claim that time dilation and length contraction force the speed of light in SR to be greater than c in moving frames. I went through the algebra to show you that that’s wrong: a particle travelling at speed c with respect to one inertial frame will travel at c in every other initial frame. Again, that is the entire point of relativity. The theory of SR shows that you’re wrong, experiments (most notably but not exclusively, the Michelson-Morley experiment) show that you’re wrong, and the calculation I just went through shows that you’re wrong. If you go through your thought experiment and did the calculation, as I just did, you get the opposite result that you claim. Is there anything anyone here could offer that would actually make you change your mind?
What if when a photon is emitted it exists in each possible frame of motion and at C in that frame.
Not this requires that the same photon is not in the same place at the same time in different frames, literally a photon could come toward you, you don’t get out of it’s way but instead accelerate or decelerate and change your frame such that you enter an inertial frame where is not so close to you yet, or already passed.
Or you could detect a photon, change your velocity and have another crack at that same photon!
Now you could also argue that it exists as a wave in each of these frames too until detected, but that does not change the fact that the photon of travelling faster that the speed of light in other frames if you could observe a frame other than yours.
An observer entrained aether can do that too.
That is not the same as constant speed of light unless you specify the observer moves through the medium he would normally carry (entrain) with him.
Not killing it, I am killing it because in 109 years it has had no explanation.
It is based on the fact that it does not explain anything.
One more shot.
If motion relative to light did change it’s velocity making some light slower and some faster, how could rulers getting shorter and clocks slowing down correct our observations to we measure it as C?
I said ‘may’ because I am unsure, I can’t be bothered contemplating it, but I can think of 3 variations of A which are all different.
Sure, but could you not accept that is is a more sensible theory?
Even if you don’t care about what our senses say about the SR, at least the aether concept you could be explained to a vaguely intelligent 5 year old.
In the example you gave based on the most obvious model of that, the observer would measure the speed as C.
However it is possible to have the observer either not carry the aether with them, or to have their sensors outside the aether they do drag. Then it would not be C.
Much the same as with the speed of sound in air.
But they aren’t since firstly why just create those?
And their presence can’t correct the measured speed of light.
no.
I have seen that one.
First off it is actually a disproof of the constancy of the speed of light mascaraing as proof of time dilation, very funny.
So we can agree that the tangential motion makes the path light is seen to take in one reference frame seem longer than the other, so let’s try this experiment in the following form, and I will take it super slow.
Let’s take a light source able to shoot a single photon at C, or if you like a single electron at near light speed directly across some train tracks.
Then we will put a clock in the middle of the tracks that is able to keep accurate enough time that we can detect any slight variation in the speed of light over this short distance.
The clock will be connected to 2 transparent sensors the light/electron passes through.
The sensors will be precisely the right separation apart to let our train pass between them with a fraction of a mm clearance.
And we will have sensors on opposite windows of the train too, and another clock on the train with tiny clearance to the stationary sensors.
And with fibre optics (or sliding electrical contacts) so the signals from the train sensors are communicable to the earth clock.
So before we start the experiment do you have any questions or objections?
Your (math) argument might as well be in Sumerian.
The Michelson Morley experiment however shows only that the earth is either not moving though the medium of space, or IF I a wrong about Lorentz that a static aether would fit the evidence, as would SR’s reality twisting solution.
Q:Why would the same experiment but done with sound not prove that there is no air and the speed of sound is a constant based on your reasoning?
A:Of course the speed of sound isn’t effected by the motion of the earth around the sun, that would be ridiculous you say.
And I would agree.
So how does it tell us anything about the constancy of the speed of light if it would not be interpreted to tell us the speed of sound is constant?
If the ruler is shortened by length dilation and so is your bedroom, then yes.
In which case if I am moving the speed of light and length contracted, then my measuring stick is wrong so even though I measure light to be C, it isn’t because my stick is wrong.
SR is based on precisely such a flawed measuring stick. (though it blames it on space).
Well, tough shit. SR is a mathematical theory that makes very specific mathematical predictions about phenomena. In order to understand it, you have to have at least a high-school level of understanding of math. It isn’t simply saying that “time slows down when things go fast” or “distances contract when things go fast”; it’s giving the precise factors by which those phenomena occur. As I tried to show above, those two factors effectively cancel when dealing with particles that travel at speed c, and they travel at c in every inertial frame. If, as many people have suggested above, you actually go through your thought experiments and write down the predictions of SR, you’ll get the same result.
But, one more time: Is there anything anyone here could offer that would actually make you change your mind?
As a mathematical theory I can fully accept it.
As a physical one relating to reality I cannot.
And you can’t use math to explain what will happen in the physical experiments I suggest.
If it doesn’t make physical predictions about reality in my example it is worthless.
Bull. it is not like I am harping on about the degree to which it contracts being insufficient to keep the speed of light constant, I am sayng that is it occurs at and possibly level it can’t work unless it does so differentially somehow which requires something to change in 2 contradictory ways simultaneously like the Doppler effect making an approaching object look longer then shorter despite no change n frame for either. (based on direction)
Isn’t it absolutely hilarious, I present thought experiments, ask people to do the math on them and then present what would be seen.
But no one replies.
But it is funny you do the math on something that isn’t my thought experiment of mine. And you don’t describe it in words.
Sure, answer my thought experiments!
And since I won’t understand your argument if you just present the math, then do the math if you must and then you can give me the actual results, like observer A sees observer B’s clock run 23.2% slower when they are moving at 40,000 meters an second while Observer B sees A’s clock…
And maybe check with me that you understand the thought experiment first and have a good one.
My prediction: You will ignore this and not do it!
I am in my bedroom, which is at rest. I use the short stick and come up with 13 meters.
The Great Spaghetti Monster in the Sky then snaps his fingers, and my bedroom, with me in it, is now hurtling through space at half the speed of light.
I notice absolutely no change. Time moves for me exactly as it has before. The sticks and clocks in the room do not slow down or shrink. I see them at half the speed of light exactly as I saw them at rest. I measure my room with the short stick, and I get…again…13 meters.
GSMitS snaps his fingers and I’m suddenly at 99.9% the speed of light. Time moves for me exactly as it has before. The sticks and clocks in the room do not slow down or shrink. I see them at this speed exactly the same way I saw them at rest. I measure my room with the short stick, and I get…again…13 meters.
Switch the frame of reference to a stationary observer.
To him, my bedroom and the short stick have length contracted. However, if he takes a screenshot of me, photoshops out the short stick, and then pastes the stick along the wall of my bedroom, he’ll get…13 meters. Both the stick and my wall have contracted by the same ratio.
Use the ‘correct’ stick, and your measurements are 10 meters, every time.
The measurement device is arbitrary. The only thing we have to do is agree that an inch, or a foot, or a meter, is the same for you and me while we’re in the same frame of reference.
Here’s something mindblowing:
If you were able to ‘ride’ a photon of light…say from our sun to the surface of the Earth, from your perspective, you would be created and destroyed at the same instant.
For me, watching you from Earth, it would take a little over 8 minutes for you to get here.
I just tried to do that for a simpler thought-experiment, and you summarily rejected it, then claimed that the math was irrelevant and that you were right anyway. I’m not going to bother doing any calculations for a larger one, particularly when (as many people here have pointed out) they’re just rehashes of the twin paradox, ladder paradox, the Ehrenfest paradox, etc.
I don’t know what your purpose is here. You’ve managed to convince no one despite writing three or four long threads; your response to any objection is either dismissing it it out of hand or proposing yet another unnecessarily complicated; you refuse to substantiate your experiments with any numbers or data, and you refuse to read it when it’s given to you; and you react to criticism by ranting about skeptics and zealots. I’m done with this thread; I suggest you give up as well.