The Relative Simultaneity Of Special Relativity Is Only Plausible To Solipsists

[Moronium]

I do agree with some of your arguments. You obviously are intelligent and have given this a lot of thought.

Let me ask you this; do you honestly think you can overthrow the theory of special relativity, by posting on some internet forum?

If not, why do you do it?

 

 

Good questions, Popeye.

 

In response to your first question.  No, I, personally will not "overthrow" anything, whatever the forum.  Nor do I think there is even a snowball's chance in hell of converting a "true believer" to my point of view.  I am realist, an ontological stance which can't be scientifically proven.  Solipsists seem to be innately incapable of even understanding, let alone adopting, a realist point of view.  SR is in the process of being "overthrown" by physicists themselves, actually. As I said, it is generally ignored anyway (such as when the CMB is accepted as a preferred frame).

 

Second question:  as I have stated elsewhere, this forum seemed to offer a place for an open and honest discussion of ideas.  I got that mistaken impression by observing a poster (AnnsiH), who is no longer here,discuss similar issues.  I enjoy discussion, even with (or, really, especially with)  people who disagree with me.  I was sorry to see you, too, refuse to discuss the issues.  Prior to that refusal, you seemed be the only candidate for a reasoned exchange.  But you never know who else might come along, eh?

Edited June 1, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Einstein never claimed to have discovered some physical truth when he came up with SR.  In fact, he expressly denied that suggestion.  He stressed that his theory was NOT an inevitable conclusion dictated by the empirical facts.  He also said that his postulates were simply freely chosen, basically arbitrary, assumptions that were the result of a "creative" process, not a descriptive one.

 

All the same, with many people, the postulates of SR seem to be touted as being absolutely necessary and essentially proven "facts."  I find this position to be interesting in and of itself.  How do people reach such conclusions, i often wonder?

 

Einstein was struggling, intellectually, because a position which he did not want to believe (i.e.,that the relativity principle might not, in light of recent discoveries, be universally valid) seemed to be the case. It's not an accident that his first postulate was to assert, in essence, that the validity of the "principle of relativity" was an inherent "law of nature."

 

His desires to make things "different" eventually over-powered his sober reflection of the facts.  It happens often with people, whether scientists, or not.  Einstein later admitted that he was an "epistemological opportunist" who would adopt one epistemological position when it suited his needs (desires) and an opposite one when it fit his needs.

Edited June 1, 2018 by Moronium

[OceanBreeze]

Good questions, Popeye.

 

In response to your first question.  No, I, personally will not "overthrow" anything, whatever the forum.  Nor do I think there is even a snowball's chance in hell of converting a "true believer" to my point of view.  I am realisist, an ontological stance which can't be scientifically proven.  Solipsists seem to be innately incapable of even understanding, let alone adopting, a realist point of view.  SR is in the process of being "overthrown" by physicists themselves, actually. As I said, it is generally ignored anyway (such as when the CMB is accepted as a preferred frame).

 

Second question:  as I have stated elsewhere, this forum seemed to offer a place for an open and honest discussion of ideas.  I got that mistaken impression by observing a poster (AnnsiH) who is no longer here discuss similar issues.  i enjoy discussion, even with people who disagree with me.  I was sorry to see you, too, refuse to discuss the issues.  Prior to that refusal, you seemed be the only candidate for a reasoned exchange.  But you never know who else might come along, eh?

 

Good answers, thank you!

 

I am not a physicist, just a marine engineer. As such, I rely on the GPS system every day in my work and it has never failed me. I have also delved into the math behind SR and E=mc^2 and found it to be logically and mathematically consistent. I also know that spacecraft such as the Cassini probe, have tested and confirmed SR and GR to ridiculous levels of accuracy. Based on that, I don't see any reason to knock my head on a wall to challenge these theories.

 

Having said that, I don't see these theories as being written in stone, and in the history of science one thing is clear, scientific theories come and go as we make new discoveries and use more and more advanced technology. SR and GR will most likely be supplanted by something else, maybe a quantum theory of everything, and in time, that will be supplanted by something else and so on.

 

I am certainly not a sophist; being an engineer I deal strictly with reality.

 

I am always ready to have an open and friendly discussion with anyone who displays the level of intelligence that you display, but I also think that time is too important a commodity to spend it knocking my head against a wall.

 

Don't think that I am not reading and enjoying your posts simply because I am not joining in the discussion.

[Moronium]

I also know that spacecraft such as the Cassini probe, have tested and confirmed SR and GR to ridiculous levels of accuracy. Based on that, I don't see any reason to knock my head on a wall to challenge these theories.

 

Don't think that I am not reading and enjoying your posts simply because I am not joining in the discussion.

 

Well, I'm glad you are at least enjoying the posts.  That's all any of us are really here for, I suppose, some entertainment.

 

I've made a lot of posts on this topic in a lot of places.  Several times I've made the point that what is "confirmed" in these tests is NOT the theory of SR, but rather the fact of time dilation.  The extent of the time dilation depends upon speed and varies according to the formula provided by the Lorentz transformations (LT).  The accuracy of that formula has indeed been confirmed to an amazing degree of accuracy.

 

That said, the LT are not a "product" of SR.  They were developed by Lorentz in conjunction with his theory, which posits absolute, not relative, simultaneity.  SR "borrowed" the equations, but proving them does not prove SR.

 

That's one point I have tried to clarity, because people often get the impression that SR has been confirmed when it's merely the LT that have been confirmed.  It's not their fault, really, because that distinction is never really explained by the experts.  They just say that SR has been confirmed and ignore the fact that those tests also completely "confirm" other viable theories.

 

On the other hand, the GPS system you mention utterly disproves the element of SR which claims that time dilation is "reciprocal."  The GPS does NOT use SR.  It relies on a PFT which posits absolute simultaneity.  

Edited May 31, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Since you don't seem to be all that well acquainted with SR and its implications, Popeye, let me explain what I mean by "reciprocal," just in case you don't know what I'm referring to.

 

I assume that you know that, in SR, if A and B are moving relative to each other, each will claim that the other's guy's clock has slowed down (because each will claim that he is at rest and that the other guy is the one moving).  Again, it is the "moving" clock which slows down, according to the LT.

 

This is the "reciprocal" clock retardation.  You really don't need any experiment to reject it out of hand because it's logically impossible for each of 2 clocks to be running slower than the other.  If the clocks involved don't read the exact same thing (which would show that clock rates don't change with motion, contrary to what the LT say will happen), then whatever time one reads will necessarily be either earlier or later than the other, but not both.  That said, the GPS (and other empirical evidence) proves, just in case there is any lingering doubt, that the logically impossible doesn't somehow occur.

 

With a PFT the prediction is that only one clock will slow down, because only one is moving (faster).  This clock retardation is "non-reciprocal" or "directional."  That's what actually happens in the H-K experiment (and others).  This means that simultaneity (and motion) is absolute, not relative.

Edited May 31, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

SR is in the process of being "overthrown" by physicists themselves, actually. As I said, it is generally ignored anyway (such as when the CMB is accepted as a preferred frame).

 

 

Here are a few excerpts from a 48 page academic paper published in the journal "Physics Essays" 10-12 years ago.  It analyzes the GPS and most other experiments in the last 80 years, including  Gravity Probe B.

 

Remodeled Relativity Theory

 

This remodeled form of Einstein's relativity theories retains and incorporates only experimentally proven principles...  From space age ephemeris generation experience and following nature's way to conserve energy and momentum, we found reason to replace the concept of "relativity of all frames" with that of "nature's preferred frame", which helped us to escape Einstein's dilemma till 1912, when he concluded that 'there is no way of escape from the consequence of non-Euclidean geometry, if all frames are permissible'....

 

Based on above principles, a comprehensive remodeling led to this theory that uses Euclidean space to consistently and successfully simulate numerically the results of all the "well-established" tests of gtr (as in our earlier papers), and for the precise calculation of relativistic effects observed in case of the GPS applications, and other tests of str. It combined the essential essence of gtr/str, and the experience of relativity experiments, and has been shown to avoid the inadequacies of the former....

 

 

It is seen that Hafele-Keating, Vessot et al, and GPS relativists have all found the non-rotating ECI frame useful and hence chose it as a preferred frame..

 

The decade after 1905 saw a number of experiments confirming SRT but which did not develop that deeper understanding of relativistic time that could have removed its mysterious and counter-intuitive aspects..... The GPS application may be said to have led to a sweeping change in the comprehension of relativistic time, as unlike all other previous experiments the GPS application in its true sense may be considered a continuous or ongoing experiment over a wider region of space.

5. Conclusion

 

RRT, supported by strong reasons, adopted the concept of “nature’s preferred frame” in lieu of the concept of “relativity of all frames”...          

 

Hence, RRT abandoned the concept of “relativity of all frames”, that was central to both Einstein’s theories and Mach’s principle, and adopted the concept of “nature’s preferred frame”, and this helped the authors to satisfy Einstein’s unfulfilled desire to retain ‘the simple interpretation of co-ordinates’.

 

The fact that variation in energy level is the deeper underlying cause for relativistic effects, was adopted as one of the fundamental principles of RRT. This principle helped the authors to formulate RRT as a more consistent theory avoiding the Lorentz transformation, that has paradoxical direction-dependent nature.

 

Among other fundamental principles adopted in RRT are the conservation laws of energy, linear and angular momentum, and the well-proven relativistic energy equation from Einstein.

 

With these few basic principles, it was possible to formulate RRT with Euclidean space, which could then be used consistently and successfully for numerical simulation of the results of “well-established” tests of GRT at their current accuracy levels, and also for the precise calculation of relativistic effects observed in case of GPS applications, the accurate macroscopic clock experiments and other tests of SRT, as presented in this paper and our earlier papers.

 

 

 

 

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0711/0711.1575.pdf

 

The were plenty like it before and plenty like it afterwards.  More and more, physicists are realizing that a preferred frame is necessary. They realize that the modern experiments with today's technology show results that are not consistent with SR, and that relativity needs to be re-thought.  This particular article also claims that a superior version of relativity (both special and general)  can be achieved by abandoning "spacetime" in favor of good old 3 + 1 space and time.  It's worth reading, if the topic is of interest to you.

Edited June 2, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

A more abstract way of stating the differences between SR and LR is this:

 

1.  SR posits the speed of light to be constant in every inertial frame, and therefore, in order to mathematically accommodate this assumption, time must be variable.

 

2.  LR posits time to be constant, and therefore, in order to mathematically accommodate this assumption, the speed of light must be variable in different inertial frames.

 

Mathematically, you can get the same results either way, so math can't answer this question:  Which is it?  Which hypothesis reflects what is "really" happening physically?

 

The paper I am citing below purports to answer that question in favor of LR, and, on the basis of very good reasons, thoroughly spelled out, argues that time is absolute and that all empirical and logical evidence leads to the inevitable conclusion that there is only one frame in which the speed of light is truly isotropic and constant.  I am merely quoting the conclusions here.  Those interested in the reasoning behind the conclusions can read the entire article.

 

Conclusions:

 

It is often argued that the predictions of Special and General Relativity have been continuously verified and that therefore the theory is unquestionable. However, other theories, such as Lorentz ether theories modified to take into account gravitational effects, can also make similar claims. There are in fact multiple mathematical routes by which a correct prediction can be arrived at, but these theories may imply very different interpretations of what our physical reality is. And this is at the heart of what is wrong with the theory of relativity – it may make successful predictions based on math, but implies a nature of time and space which are not only inconsistent with logic and reason, but are even contradictory.

 

.... So when countered with the argument that General Relativity can explain the Sagnac effect, we might ask, why bother? If time dilation is an illusion, then the entire 4D time-space continuum of Einstein should be considered, to use his own word for the aether, “superfluous.”

 

 

http://www.conspiracyoflight.com/SagnacRel/SagnacandRel.html

 

To understand this you need to note that "time dilation" is NOT the same as "clock retardation."  This article says that "time dilation" (the SR view) is an illusion which is created by "clock retardation."  There is a difference between clock rates slowing down (LR) and "time" itself changing (SR).

Edited June 2, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Another excerpt from this paper deals with the same issues I have been raising in this thread, and perhaps does so in a way that is more understandable than my comments are:

 

As Murray pointed out, Hafele and Keating interpreted their result by following a revised form of relativity attributable to Builder, who they reference in their first paper in 1971....Builder’s conclusion that there must be "an absolute inertial system" re-introduces the preferred frame of Lorentz back into relativity, the very thing that Einstein sought to eliminate.

 

If we are to accept Builder's hypothesis of a universal preferred frame for motion (ether), then we are compelled to accept the other critical tenet of Lorentz over Einstein, that it is the speed of light, and not time, which is the fundamental variable in our universe. In accepting a notion of absolute motion, or a preferred frame, we are as Dingle says, rejecting the notion of "relative motion".  Despite Einstein borrowing heavily from Lorentz's equations and theory, and the fact that both theories predict similar results for the same experiments, the two theories are philosophically antithetical - and as such the conclusions about the nature of space and time result in entirely different models of the universe.

 

 

Einstein had such a powerful  a priori conviction that the relativity principle (that the laws of physics must be the same in all inertial frames) should be universal and invariant that he simply made it his first postulate.  He made no attempt to "prove it," he simply asserted it.  To make it work, he then had to add a second postulate, i.e., that the speed of light is constant in all inertial frames.

 

It all sounded good at the time, but when you follow the necessary implications through, then it becomes clear that his theory cannot conform to any "realististic" (objective) view of the world.  A "solipsistic" (subjectivist) metaphysical ontology is required for the theory to be deemed reflective of "reality."  Hence, as this scientist notes, "the two theories are philosophically antithetical."

Edited June 3, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

http://www.conspiracyoflight.com/SagnacRel/SagnacandRel.html

 

To understand this you need to note that "time dilation" is NOT the same as "clock retardation."  This article says that "time dilation" (the SR view) is an illusion which is created by "clock retardation."  There is a difference between clock rates slowing down (LR) and "time" itself changing (SR).

 

I guess this distinction is an obstacle for some.  They can see no difference.  I'll resurrect an analogy I've used elsewhere, in the hope that it might help.

 

We know that cold temperatures can slow down physical processes, including life processes.  Extended periods of suspended animation have  been recorded, so this is not speculation.  The same happens with increased speed, for reasons that are not really understood.  But that's not the point.  The point is this:

 

For a person in suspended animation physical processes have slowed down, or even stopped.  But we don't say that "time" has changed because of their state, even if it can be considered to have changed "for them."  Likewise, the fact that clocks (and all other processes) slow down with speed does not mean that "time" has changed either.  The ticking rate of clocks has slowed down (along with all other physical processes), that's all. There's a difference.

Edited June 3, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

This thread is (or at least started out to be) about SR's 'relative simultaneity."  Several posters have (quite erroneously) suggested that relative simultaneity is a necessary,  empirically verified fact of nature, discovered by Einstein.  Einstein knew better, and didn't try to pretend otherwise.

 

In the section entitled "On the Idea of Time in Physics" in his 1917 paper on relativity, Einstein said:

 

That light requires the same time to traverse the path A to M as for the path B to M is in reality neither a supposition nor a hypothesis about the physical nature of light, but a stipulation which I can make of my own free will in order to arrive at a definition of simultaneity."

 

 

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/einstein/works/1910s/relative/ch08.htm

 

The one-way speed of light has never been tested and cannot be tested, even theoretically.  The only "constant" speed of light we can measure is the "round-trip" value.  But that is merely an average and cannot possibly tell us  if the speed is constant on each leg of the round trip.  If I throw a rubber ball as hard as I can at a brick wall, it will hit the wall and come back toward me, and eventually slowly roll to a stop.  After noting the time it took to stop, I can measure the distance it travelled to determine its (average) speed.  If I do this thousands of times, each time throwing the ball with the same initial force and hitting the wall in the same place, etc., I will always measure the speed to be "the same."  But that doesn't mean it was travelling at the same speed the whole way.  In fact, we know it wasn't.

 

For SR to be valid, the one-way speed MUST be same each way.  LR says it is NOT the same each way in moving frames, and that, therefore, simultaneity is absolute, not relative.   

 

Again, with light, nothing has, or can be, tested about actual travel speed during the round trip.  So Einstein acknowledges that his "constant speed" postulate is "neither a supposition nor a hypothesis about the physical nature of light,"

 

It is, instead, he says, merely "a stipulation which I can make of my own free will in order to arrive at a definition of simultaneity."

 

It's a little ironic that many of those who pretend to know so much about SR don't even know this, know what I'm sayin?

Edited June 9, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

 

The one-way speed of light has never been tested and cannot be tested, even theoretically.  

 

 

Some elaboration on why this is the case, courtesy of wiki:

 

The "one-way" speed of light from a source to a detector, cannot be measured independently of a convention as to how to synchronize the clocks at the source and the detector. What can however be experimentally measured is the round-trip speed (or "two-way" speed of light) from the source to the detector and back again. Albert Einstein chose a synchronization convention (see Einstein synchronization) that made the one-way speed equal to the two-way speed. The constancy of the one-way speed in any given inertial frame is the basis of his special theory of relativity...

 

Experiments that attempted to directly probe the one-way speed of light independent of synchronization have been proposed, but none has succeeded in doing so...Those experiments don't directly establish the isotropy of the one-way speed of light, because it was shown that slow clock-transport, the laws of motion, and the way inertial reference frames are defined, already involve the assumption of isotropic one-way speeds and thus are conventional as well.[4] In general, it was shown that these experiments are consistent with anisotropic one-way light speed as long as the two-way light speed is isotropic.  [A typical case of purporting to "prove" your premises by tacitly assuming them to be true].

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-way_speed_of_light

 

It is an established fact that New York and Los Angeles are not in motion relative to each other (well, until California breaks off into the ocean, anyway). It is also an established fact (by the GPS) that it takes light takes less time to travel from NY to LA than it does to travel from LA to NY.

 

Why?  Because even though there is no relative motion between them, the earth itself is moving (rotating) absolutely.  On an absolute basis LA is moving "toward" NY and NY is moving "away" from LA. 

 

The light travels at c+v in one direction, and at c-v in the other, just as Galilean relativity would predict.  The "round trip" time would be the essentially same in either direction, because the time lost or gained going one way would be offset on the return trip.  As noted in the OP, SR requires each observer to be ignorant of his own motion.  So much for the speed of light being independent of the speed of its source, eh?

Edited June 9, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

It is an established fact that New York and Los Angeles are not in motion relative to each other (well, until California breaks off into the ocean, anyway). It is also an established fact (by the GPS) that it takes light takes less time to travel from NY to LA than it does to travel from LA to NY.

 

Why?  Because even though there is no relative motion between them, the earth itself is moving (rotating) absolutely.  On an absolute basis LA is moving "toward" NY and NY is moving "away" from LA. 

 

 

In essence this is just the same situation that Einstein used in his example to illustrate the putative "relativity of simultaneity'" with the train that was moving toward one source of light and away from the other.

 

But that is easily explained by the additional/decreased distance travelled by the light in each case.  There is absolutely no reason to say that "time has changed" or that a subject's idiosyncratic perceptions (as opposed to the absolute motion of the train, which the passenger, in SR, is required to deny) dictates "true" simultaneity.

 

If light signals were simultaneously sent to some guy 1/2 between NY and LA they would not reach him at the same.  Why?  Because, even if he is standing still, by the time each one reached him he would no longer be at the "midpoint" (because the earth has moved while the light was travelling).  We are hardly required to radically change all our fundamental conceptions of space and time in order to explain this. On the contrary it's nonsensical to think otherwise.  The GPS doesn't even use SR.  It uses a preferred frame approach which excludes both "spacetime'' and relative simultaneity.  It all works out magnificently, whereas SR would not (for reasons previously discussed).  In the GPS every moving observer doesn't have his own "special" time.  Time is the same for everyone, satellites, cars, moving horses, whatever.

 

We need only acknowledge the fact that the guy on earth is moving, i.e., rotating right along with the surface he is standing on.  SR prohibits him from acknowledging this, however.

 

Einstein's argument to the contrary is merely a fallacious one relying on the well known "fallacy of equivocation."   The term "midpoint" is treated as though it is constant, but it isn't.  The "midpoint" at the time the two signals were simultaneously sent is no longer the same point (equivocally treated as though it were the same "midpoint") at the time light signals actually reach him.

Edited June 9, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Suppose you were looking at 1,000 different watches on a rack, each of which gave a slightly different reading.  Who knows, one of those 1,000 may be reading the correct time, but how would you know?

 

What's the solution?  I know!  Let's just say that there is no such thing as a "correct time" and that all those watches are equally correct.  How's that!?

 

Homey don't play dat.

 

What any rational person would do is set some standard for time (relying on things such as the position of the sun in the sky), and then "standardize" those watches which by resetting (synchronizing) them all to match the standard you have established.  

 

But if you move any distance (say one inch) from the  spot you're on, the the position of the sun in the sky will appear different, so the only possible conclusion is that every point on earth has its own 'special' time and that there are billions of different times--one for each point on the planet.  All of them are equally correct.  You just have to abandon the notion that there is any such thing as a "correct" time, see?

 

No, I don't see.

 

But what if the battery on one of those watches later runs down and it starts running slow.  Then you're back to having more than one correct time, right?

 

I don't think so.

Edited June 10, 2018 by Moronium

[exchemist]

[Moronium]

I did it!

 

 

Nothing like a brilliant, extremely-insightful, mature, well-reasoned post to refute all arguments, eh?

 

Got anything of substance to say, Chem?

 

I didn't think so.

 

That's OK, though.  That cheer-leading outfit you're wearing is mighty cute.  What more could anyone ask for?

Edited June 10, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Ex-chem is the kind of cheerleader who pretends to instruct me by saying:

 

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?...There are no grounds for preferring any of these to the others.

 

 

So I respond to his suggestion by posting this:

 

 

Posted 15 April 2018 - 01:53 PM

 

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 credibly 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.

 

 

What does he have to say then?  Absolutely nothing, whether good, bad, or indifferent. 

 

Another cheerleader, who called me a "crank," had already asked me:

 

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?

 

 

He too offered no further response.  

 

Galileo's relativity principle would seem to imply that there is no way to determine an absolute speed for a given object.  But speed is not motion.

 

The proposition that if you can't know an absolute speed, then you can't know which of two objects is moving relative to the other is obviously completely illogical and unfounded, yet it seems to be widely believed amongst relativists.  That's what they've been taught to say, so they give it no further thought, apparently.  They just repeat it, like a parrot.  Even in SR, non-inertial motion is deemed to be absolute (which means that you can tell the accelerated object is moving).  You can easily say that even without EVER knowing any absolute speed.

 

Before SR, and to this day, scientists assert, with innumerable good reasons, that, relatively speaking, the earth revolves around the "sun" (solar barycenter) NOT vice versa and not that "we can't know."  After the Michelson-Morley experiment, nobody, and I do mean NOBODY who was rational, said:  "Well, OK, then.  This experiment proves that the earth is absolutely motionless after all.  We have hitherto been mistaken."  Granted, flat-earthers and relativists might still try to make that claim, but.....

 

Relativists then actually try to amplify this fallacious reasoning.  They may start by saying that "we can't know" if the earth orbits the moon or vice versa.  But in order for their theory to "correspond to reality" they need to go beyond that.  So "we can't know" which one is correct, then gets turned into the ridiculous proposition that "both views are correct."

 

Ex-chem doesn't give a single thought to that before asserting that the simple heliocentric "fact" is "unknowable."  He's a cheerleader; he aint no playa.

Edited June 13, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

According to the relativist view:

 

When the engineer on a train hits the throttle, the wheels begin to turn, that's all true.  But that's NOT because he is moving.  He is, and at all times remains, completely motionless.  The wheels have to turn to keep him in place because the railroad tracks, not the train, is what begins to move when he hits the throttle. It's really not just the rails, though. The whole earth suddenly begins to "move backwards" when he hits the throttle.  And everything attached to the earth, for that matter--railroad tracks, trees, houses, stop signs, whatever.

 

Yeah, right, eh?

 

The funny part is, after having insisted that it is impossible to know which of two objects is moving, they now suddenly know for a fact that it is the earth moving, not the train.  How do they know this?  Well, it's simple.  That's what has to happen if SR is "true,"  Since they, being good cheerleaders, KNOW that SR is true, they know that's what happens.  If you have a throttle, and a little steam, you can make the whole earth reverse its rotational direction, see?

Edited June 13, 2018 by Moronium