The Relative Simultaneity Of Special Relativity Is Only Plausible To Solipsists

[Moronium]

I assume that anyone interested in reading this thread is already familiar with Einstein's explanation of "the relativity of simultaneity."

 

He discusses two observers and how their perception of simultaneity will differ with motion.  One observer is standing on the embankment next to the railroad tracks and the other is a passenger on a moving train who is sitting at the exact midpoint of the train.

 

At the very moment when the two observers are eye to eye, and both are exactly equidistant from the front and rear of the train, bolts of lightning strike both ends of the train.

 

Einstein properly deduces that the resulting flashes of light will NOT reach the eyes of both observers at the same time. 

 

1.  The embankment observer will see the two flashes simultaneously because he is motionless with respect to them.

 

2.  The train passenger, however,  will perceive the light emanating from the bolt which struck the front of the train first, because he is moving toward it, and will perceive the light from the bolt which struck the rear of the train at a later time, because he is moving away from it.

 

Fair enough, and there is nothing unusual about this.   The same type of difference in perception could result  if neither observer was moving with respect to the source of the light.  If, for example, the two observers were 10 miles apart from each other, one due east of the other, and they were stationary relative to each other, they would not see a flash coming from the east (or the west, for that matter) simultaneously either.  The westernmost observer would see a flash of light generated by turning on a flashlight coming from the west before the easternmost observer did, for example.  They would not both see the flash "simultaneously." Would that mean the flashlight was turned on at different times? 

 

Of course not.  It was turned on only once, and whatever "time" that happened would always be identical to itself regardless of when some observer "down the road" ends up seeing it.  If we "suddenly" see the explosion of a supernova in the sky, no scientist would conclude that the explosion happened "now" just because we first perceive it "now."  They would rightfully deduce that the explosion occurred centuries, or even eons ago, depending on it's distance from earth.

 

Why would any scientist riding on a train fail to make the same type of "correction" to his raw and immediate sense perceptions?  He bought a ticket, settled into his seat, felt himself gradually and continuously accelerate until he levelled off at a constant, uniform speed.  He KNOWS that, as between himself and the earth, he is the one moving, not the earth.   The fireman who is constantly shovelling coal into a furnace to generate the steam required keep the train moving at a uniform speed is NOT causing the entire earth to move while the train stands still, and he knows it.  So do his passengers. One would have to accept the violation of all known laws of conservation of mass/energy/momentum, the notion that F=MA, etc., to ever think otherwise.

 

Since any reasonable passenger on a train knows he is moving, then he would also know, if he accepts the premises of SR (and of other theories of relative motion), that HIS watch has slowed down because, as between him and the stationary observer on earth, HE is the one moving, and it is the moving watch which slows down.

 

Einstein goes on to say that the train passenger is just as "entitled" to consider himself at rest as is the observer on the embankment.  

 

1.  Given the circumstances, no, he is NOT equally entitled to make such a claim.

 

2.  Even assuming he was "equally entitled" to believe he was "at rest," that is not what SR allows.  SR mandates that he MUST remain ignorant of his own motion and MUST insist that he is "at rest.  He can NEVER concede that he is, or even  "might be," the one moving. He is not "equally entitled" to arbitrarity choose either frame (train or earth's surface) because they are purportedly "equally valid." If he did that, the whole theory of SR would fall apart.  A conflict between observers is required for everything to "work out" within the system of SR.  Two observers who are moving relative to each other can NEVER agree on which one of them is actually moving relative to the other.

 

Einstein explains the whole "relativity of simultaneity" concept by positing (and hence knowing) that the train passenger is the one moving.  But, in order for his theory to work out, he must insist that the train passenger deny what Einstein knows to be true, i.e., that the passenger is moving.  He mandates that the train passenger remain ignorant of, and hence mistaken about, his own motion.  

 

Valid theories of physical science are simply not founded upon enforced error, nor are they based on what an "observer" subjectively perceives.  They are based on what is purportedly happens in the objective "real world," not in the subjective mind of some mistaken chump.

 

 

Only a solipsist like Berkeley can believe that all "reality" is subjective and that there is no objective state of affairs.  For Berkeley,"to be is to be perceived."  Put another way, only mental perceptions exist, and there is no "real world" out there.  For the solipsist, a tree "exists" if he is looking at it (imagining it is more like it), and it ceases to exist the second he looks away from it.

 

No reasonable person subscribes to solipsism.  Einstein himself, in his mature years, ridiculed the notion of "essi est percipi" as propounded by Berkeley..

 

Put another way, any fool knows that things do not occur only if and when an observer perceives them.  Things in the objective world happen when they happen, whether any observers knows it or not.  Reality does not ride upon the mistaken perceptions/interpretations of some random observer.

 

That's obvious, isn't it?

 

Relative simultaneity is simply a bogus concept founded upon utter subjectivity.  Theories of relative motion which posit absolute simultaneity are free of all the "paradoxes" caused by SR's subjective treatment of "reality;" comport with common sense; and make accurate predictions in every case that SR does, and also in many cases where the application of SR does not make accurate predictions.  Why does anyone even subscribe to SR, I wonder?

Edited April 15, 2018 by Moronium

[pzkpfw]

Essentially, that's argument from incredulity. (As is most of your anti-relativity crankery).

 

Ignoring the learnings of relativity and insisting on a naive pre-relativity view won't get you far.

 

 

Your point 1 skips much of what was explained prior to the R.O.S.; and if you want to go down that path, you'd be better off starting there.

 

Your point 2 completely misses the point. Both observers are entitled to consider themselves as at rest - and they do. Ergo, each considers the other to be moving. There is nothing absolute about any of this, and both views are equally valid. It's stipulated that the strikes happen to be simultaneous in the embankment frame, and shown that they can't be considered simultaneous by the train observer. So it's shown that simultaneity is relative.

 

Both observers agree the strikes occurred. They just don't agree that they occurred at the same time.

 

Two other strikes could occur that the train observer considers simultaneous, but which the embankment observer won't. It works both ways, there's nothing "special" about either observer.

[Moronium]

Essentially, that's argument from incredulity. (As is most of your anti-relativity crankery).

 

Ignoring the learnings of relativity and insisting on a naive pre-relativity view won't get you far.

 

 

Your point 1 skips much of what was explained prior to the R.O.S.; and if you want to go down that path, you'd be better off starting there.

 

Your point 2 completely misses the point. Both observers are entitled to consider themselves as at rest - and they do. Ergo, each considers the other to be moving. There is nothing absolute about any of this, and both views are equally valid. It's stipulated that the strikes happen to be simultaneous in the embankment frame, and shown that they can't be considered simultaneous by the train observer. So it's shown that simultaneity is relative.

 

Both observers agree the strikes occurred. They just don't agree that they occurred at the same time.

 

Two other strikes could occur that the train observer considers simultaneous, but which the embankment observer won't. It works both ways, there's nothing "special" about either observer.

1.  Spoken like a true, dyed-in-the-wool solipsist.  Whatever I believe to be true, by God, IS TRUE, for me, anyway, and I'm the only thing that matters.  As long as it's true "for me" then it can't possibly be disputed, right?

 

2.  Physics is NOT about the mental states of subjective "observers."  The subject material is "matter in motion," not how a rose smells to a pygmy, know what I'm sayin?

 

3.  What was learned prior to the absurd R.O.S. conception was correct then and it still is now.  You apparently have no familiarity with alternate theories of relative motion, eh?  Maybe you should try learning something about (and from) them sometime, eh?

 

Your say:  "It's stipulated that the strikes happen to be simultaneous in the embankment frame, and shown that they can't be considered simultaneous by the train observer. So it's shown that simultaneity is relative."

 

Wrong, they can absolutely "be considered to be simultaneous" by the train observer.  All he has to do is to acknowledge that he is moving.  He won't "perceive" them, with his eyes, simultaneously but that in no way proves, or even suggests, for that matter, that they did not occur simultaneously.    You can't look at a single star in the sky and see how it looks "now,"  and no reasonable would argue that what we see "now" when looking at stars is what is now.

 

I find it amazing that so many people seem to lose all sense of distinction between objective and subjective phenomena.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

I wonder if your devotion to relativism extends to moral relativism?  Like, for example, ISIS members may believe that it's not only "right," but actually demanded by God, that they chop off the heads of babies by the hundreds, maybe?  No one can be said to be right or wrong about their personal preferences.  No action is better or worse than another.  All views are equally valid, and a person who tortures, mulilates, sexually molests, and then kills a child is "right," in his mind and therefore beyond question or reproach--you believe that kind of tihng, too?

Edited April 15, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

A guy standing right under a cloud struck by lightning will see the light and hear the thunderclap sound virtually simultaneously.

 

A guy standing 3 miles away will see the light virtually immediately, but not hear the sound for a good long while.

 

Would any physicist actually argue that this means the the two events (1. lightning hitting cloud, and 2. sound generated) did not occur virtually simultaneously?

 

Of course not, because the subjective perceptions of a guy 3 miles away don't change time, distance, simultaneity, or anything thing else objective.  A physicist would simply explain why the distant observer doesn't perceptually experience them simultaneously.   He would not argue the the sound was generated at different times for every guy in between.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

 

 Both observers are entitled to consider themselves as at rest - and they do. Ergo, each considers the other to be moving. 

 

 

You can include me out on this proposition.  When I'm on a train I never ask the conductor if Chicago stops here.  I acknowlege that I am moving toward Chicago, and that Chicago is not coming to me while I remain motionless.  I would go so far as to assert that anyone who actually believes otherwise is mentally unbalanced.

 

Face it, no reasonable person does that.  I agree, however, that pursuant to the protocols of SR, they are REQUIRED to maintain such absurd claims in SR.  This does not make it true, it just makes the premises of SR highly suspect.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Moronium

[pzkpfw]

You can include me out on this proposition.  When I'm on a train I never ask the conductor if Chicago stops here.  I acknowlege that I am moving toward Chicago, and that Chicago is not coming to me while I remain motionless.  I would go so far as to assert that anyone who actually believes otherwise is mentally unbalanced.

 

Face it, no reasonable person does that.  I agree, however, that pursuant to the protocols of SR, they are REQUIRED to maintain such absurd claims in SR.  This does not make it true, it just makes the premises of SR highly suspect.

 

Again, that's simply incredulity on what's actually going on.

 

While on that train, if it's moving smoothly at some constant speed, what experiment could you do to conclude you were "really" moving and someone standing on the ground was "really" not moving?

[exchemist]

You can include me out on this proposition.  When I'm on a train I never ask the conductor if Chicago stops here.  I acknowlege that I am moving toward Chicago, and that Chicago is not coming to me while I remain motionless.  I would go so far as to assert that anyone who actually believes otherwise is mentally unbalanced.

 

Face it, no reasonable person does that.  I agree, however, that pursuant to the protocols of SR, they are REQUIRED to maintain such absurd claims in SR.  This does not make it true, it just makes the premises of SR highly suspect.

As pzkpfw points out, this is simply Dawkins's  "Argument from Personal Incredulity".  

 

I invite you to consider the motion of the moon round the Earth, and the planets round the sun, and the sun round the Milky Way galaxy. Who is to say that any of these is at rest, while the others are in motion around it? You can choose any of them as the origin of a coordinate system, relative to which the motion of the others can be observed and quantitatively measured. There are no grounds for preferring any of these to the others.

 

It is just the same a train and a landscape in relative motion at constant speed. You can have a coordinate system with its origin in the train, or one with its origin at a point in the landscape. Both are equally valid choices, from the point of view of physics.

 

What of course makes a difference, and may well be the unacknowledged extra information you use to determine which frame of reference you prefer in practice, is that the relative motion is not at constant speed throughout the journey. You feel a series of accelerations when you are in a train. Some of these are along the direction of travel and some are along other axes, due to irregularities in the track and the wheels etc. Accelerations are not merely relative. You can feel them, due to the effects of inertia.       

[Moronium]

Heh, if you want to call my rejection of the philosophical hogwash known as solipsism in favor of realism a "mere argument from incredulity," then I can just as easily call your ready and naive acceptance of that philosophy an argument  from "personal gullibility."  I have made some arguments at to why the physical world is not merely an illusory mental delusion created by subjective observers, "brains in vats," ya know, but those are ignored.

 

As exchem notes, and as I have noted in other threads, acceleration is acknowledged to be absolute (not "frame-dependent"). even by SR.   This is absolute motion.  Once accelerated, an object will tend to keep moving, so this is another clue to who's moving, relative to who(m).  This was my point about a scientist buying a train ticket.

 

Who here is audacious and foolish enough to proclaim that the copernican view of the solar system and the Ptolemic view that the entire universe revolves around the earth are "equally valitd?"  Just what power, gravitational or otherwise, would a minute amount of mass like the earth have to cause the entire universe to revolve around it at speeds greatly exceeding the speed of light?  If you don't buy my assertion that this an acceptable viewpoint, then you're simply arguing from personal incredulity, right?

 

You want to know who is moving relatively faster?  See which clock runs faster and which one slower.  Beginning with the Hafele-Keating experiments, decades ago, it has been repeatedly proven (as if it needed proof) that moving clocks do not slow down reciprocally, i.e., that each clock does not run slower than the other--a logical absurdity to begin with.  The GPS also proves this on a daily basis.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Moronium

[exchemist]

Heh, if you want to call my rejection of the philosophical hogwash known as solipsism in favor of realism a "mere argument from incredulity," then I can just as easily call your ready and naive acceptance of that philosophy an argument  from "personal gullibility."  I have made some arguments at to why the physical world is not merely an illusory mental delusion created by subjective observers, "brains in vats," ya know, but those are ignored.

 

As exchem notes, and as I have noted in other threads, acceleration is acknowledged to be absolute (not "frame-dependent"). even by SR.   This is absolute motion.  Once accelerated, an object will tend to keep moving, so this is another clue to who's moving, relative to who(m).  This was my point about a scientist buying a train ticket.

 

Who here is audacious and foolish enough to proclaim that the copernican view of the solar system and the Ptolemic view that the entire universe revolves around the earth are "equally valitd?"  Just what power, gravitational or otherwise, would a minute amount of mass like the earth have to cause the entire universe to revolve around it at speeds greatly exceeding the speed of light?  If you don't buy my assertion that this an acceptable viewpoint, then you're simply arguing from personal incredulity, right?

 

You want to know who is moving relatively faster?  See which clock runs faster and which one slower.  Beginning with the Hafele-Keating experiments, decades ago, it has been repeatedly proven (as if it needed proof) that moving clocks do not slow down reciprocally, i.e., that each clock is slower than the other--a logical absurdity.  The GPS also proves this on a daily basis.

Suit "ya"self. 

[Moronium]

Some people mistake Galileo's "parable of the ship" as a argument that relative motion cannot be detected, but that's hardly the case.  He noted that in a windowless cabin below deck you would not be able to sensibly detect lack of motion from uniform motion, sure.  But he was also quick to point out that once the sailor went up on deck, felt the wind blowing, saw the sails billowed, and saw points on the shoreline in motion relative to him, he would know he was moving.

 

Galileo is celebrated for muttering "and yet it [the earth] moves," on his way out of the inquisition chamber after being forced to renounce copernican theory.  He knew motion when he saw (i.e., could crediibly deduce) it.  If you're on a train and want to know if you've left the station while you were sleeping, just look out the window.  Nothing complicated about that, eh?

 

When I hit a ball with a baseball bat, I have plenty of "evidence," both sensory and logical, which tells me I don't suddenly start moving away from the ball while it remains motionless.

 

Once again, I would assert that anyone who actually believes otherwise is mentally unbalanced.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

I invite you to consider the motion of the moon round the Earth, and the planets round the sun, and the sun round the Milky Way galaxy. Who is to say that any of these is at rest, while the others are in motion around it? You can choose any of them as the origin of a coordinate system, relative to which the motion of the others can be observed and quantitatively measured. There are no grounds for preferring any of these to the others.

 

 

I accept your invitation, thanks.  According to Dr. George Smoot, of Berkeley (and many others), who recently won a Nobel prize in physics for his research regarding the CMB, the CMB is a preferred frame, indeed virtually a "cosmic rest frame," which can be used to determine what  objects are moving, how fast, and in what direction.

 

He argues that this may "seem" to violate SR and Einstein's concomitant prohibition against the use of preferred frames, but that it actually doesn't because Einstein never said that no such frame existed but only that he didn't think it could be detected if it did exist.

 

Smoot is right about that part, but the use of a preferred frame is still tantamount to a complete and utter rejection of the premises of SR.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

 

 

Again, that's simply incredulity on what's actually going on.

 

While on that train, if it's moving smoothly at some constant speed, what experiment could you do to conclude you were "really" moving and someone standing on the ground was "really" not moving?

"Actually going on," eh?  I find it somewhat curious that you seem to simultaneously contend that relative motion is unknowable, all while purporting to know exactly what's "actually going on" with respect to relative motion, ya know?  How is it, I wonder, that each observer can "know" that he is absolutely motionless if motion is undetectable?

 

1.  What we know, or think we can know, does not necessarily say anything about what's "actually going on."  Say I flip a coin and slam it down on the desktop with my hand covering it.  What are the chances that the "tails" side will be facing up?  50%?

 

Buzz, wrong.  There is no "probability" to it.  It's a done deal and the outcome has been determined whether you or I or anyone else knows what that outcome is or not.  If it is tails, then the "chances" that it's tails are 100%, and 0% that it's heads.  This in no way depends on what any observer sees, knows, or can know.

 

One should not confuse epistemological issues with ontological issues.

 

2.  Beyond that simple truism, as I have repeatedly pointed out, there are a vast number of practical, physically correct, reasons to conclude that, as between the two, one has accelerated and is moving and one hasn't and isn't.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

 It's well known in relativity, that there is no preferred reference frame and so the duration of events are totally relative to each moving observer.

 

This means that no one can actually agree on when events happen in cases which there are no asymptotic observers that can agree on the time of something happening.

  I beg to differ.  No such thing is "widely known" (see, for example, my recent reference to the findings of Professor George Smoot).

 

It is, I grant you widely vociferously asserted, LOUDLY and ad nauseum, by solipsists.  But it is by no means an empirical fact.  It is a (dubious) metaphysical assertion, no more, no less.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

In the end of the day, the relativity of simultaneity is nothing but a concrete establishment of the rules of relativity to moving systems. It's in other words just a result of time delays which are proven through experiments. So there is no question of the relativity of simultaneity in the context of relativity. We are so sure of time dilation, our very satellites in orbit high above the Earth rely on the equations of general relativity to adust them to account for Lorentz contraction.

What you apparently don't know (don't worry, you're not alone) is that the GPS system manifestly eschews special relativity and adopts a theory of relative motion which incorporates absolute simultaneity as the theoretical foundation for it's engineering accomplishments.

 

The time dilation due to speed (not gravitation) and the Lorentz transformations which are used to calculate it are NOT the exclusive domain of special relativity.  In fact, Einstein lifted them, whole cloth, from Lorentz who developed and used them in conjunction with an AST, as I have discussed in more detail in other threads in this forum.

 

The accuracy of the LT has, most decidedly, been empirically confirmed.   The idiosyncratic SR theory, which is only one theory which uses them, has not been proven.

 

The LT is not SR, nothwithstanding the fact that Bertrand Russell once proclaimed that "special relativity IS the lorentz transformation."

 

Contrary to your contention, relative simultaneity is not beyond question.

 

Incidentally, GR has nothing to do with the lorentz transformations, as you suggest.  Those are relevant to SR, not GR.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

  I beg to differ.  No such thing is "widely known" (see, for example, my recent reference to the findings of Professor George Smoot).

 

It is, I grant you widely vociferously asserted, LOUDLY and ad nauseum, by solipsists.  But it is by no means an empirical fact.  It is a (dubious) metaphysical assertion, no more, no less.

  To clarify, yes it is widely known that clocks tick at different rates which vary with relative speed.  What is not "widely known" (in fact it is widely disputed) is that:

 

1.  There are no preferred frames, and

 

2.  The absence of a preferred frame is NOT the "cause" of time dilation as you suggest when you use phrase "and so."  Relative motion is the "cause" (or correlation, at least).

Edited April 15, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Contrary to your contention, relative simultaneity is not beyond question.

 

To elaborate a little, "relative simultaneity" would require the GPS engineers to posit, for example, that every clock in the system runs slower than every other clock which is not in it's precisely identical inertial frame of reference and vice versa.

 

Apart from being logically impossible, this would preclude the engineers from formulating/drawing any practical predictions/conclusions about the relative motion amongst the various clocks involved.

Edited April 15, 2018 by Moronium