The Relative Simultaneity Of Special Relativity Is Only Plausible To Solipsists

[Moronium]

Also, I feel like it might bend your mind to learn that inertial systems are actually done away with in general relativity. General theory was built on the assumptions of flat space special relativity.

 

I'm afraid that this is just another mistaken impression that you harbor, Six.

 

For a variety of reasons, Einstein was never satisfied with SR.

 

The flat space of SR (Newtonian) was abandoned by (not incorporated into) GR, which posits that space is curved (non-euclidean).   With GR, Einstein also repudiated his earlier claims that the ether did not exist.   He said GR would be "unthinkable" without positing an ether.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

But to say the inertial frame is some kind of preferred reference frame is not the same thing - the same principle still goes to inertial systems, there is still no preferred inertial reference frame. Plus, I don't even know if a perfect inertial system actually exists in nature. Further, inertial reference frames are lost in general relativity.

 

You specifically said, that the inertial frame is a preferred reference frame, that is not what relativty says. There are simply no preferred frames at all.

 1. I said what I said, which I even re-posted for your convenience.  Don't impute statements to me which I didn't make, please.  It might help if you actually read the posts which you reflexively deny.

 

2. I agree that they are not the same things, and I never said or implied that they were.  YOU implied that, not me.

 

3.  I agree that, with one possible exception, there are no perfectly inertial frames.  Whenever SR fails, it's proponents always claim that it is inapplicable because it was not applied in an inertial frame.  Funny that they never bring that up when they are swooning on about how SR has been "proven" in those same frames.  Bottom line is that SR is utterly worthless as a theory of motion.  The cases where it is supposed to apply don't even exist.  Fortunately, theories which posit absolute simultaneity apply in ALL frames, inertial and accelerating, so there is no need to debate about whether any particular frame is "truly inertial" or not.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

. There are simply no preferred frames at all.

  Here's a friendly suggestion for you.  Type that 100 MORE times.  Then type it 1,000 times; then 10,000.

 

When you finally get tired of endlessly repeating that claim without any elaboration whatsoever, try revealing and explaining exactly what you base it on and what evidence you have for it.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Ok, you can believe me, or believe an article. I went and looked for this elsewhere, and I have found a wiki article which completely contradicts the article you referenced:

 

http://www.thefullwiki.org/Preferred_frame

 

''In theoretical physics, a preferred or privileged frame is usually a special hypothetical frame of reference in which the laws of physics might appear to be identifiably different from those in other frames.

In theories that apply the principle of relativity to inertial motion, physics is the same in all inertial frames and no single inertial frame is privileged or preferred above any other.''

 

So you're faced with a difficult decision. You can believe me, and this evidence I have referenced, or you can believe your own reference. It doesn't bother me.

 

I overlooked this post of yours until now.  The cite you are providing is the one I GAVE YOU.  Therefore it cannot be "a wiki article which completely contradicts the article you referenced," as you claimed.  A self-identical article cannot contradict itself.  You also say:  "You can believe me, and this evidence I have referenced, or you can believe your own reference."   Here you refer to "this evidence I have referenced," and claim it is DIFFERENT than the article I referenced,  It is not different.  It is the self-same article.

 

The article which we BOTH cite says what I said.  It  does not agree with what you said.

 

At the beginning, I said that the term "preferred frame" means different things in different contexts, and this article makes that very distinction, explaining that, as used in theories of relative motion, the term means something other than the laws of physics being simpler.  Here's an excerpt:

 

In theories that presume that light travels at a fixed speed relative to an unmodifiable and detectable luminiferous aether, a preferred frame would be a frame in which this aether would be stationary....All inertial frames are physically equivalent, in both theories (special relativity and Lorentz's theory, that is)

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_frame

 

Are you still claiming otherwise?  

 

The article does NOT say that there is no preferred frame.  If you can read what you copied and pasted, you will see that it is referring ONLY to the premises of particular theories of relative motion and not to OTHER theories.  In other words, SR claims there are no preferred frames (in this sense). Other theories postulate otherwise.

 

The articles which we have both cited makes no claims about what the "facts" are--it is simply describing the differences in different theories. There is no "difficult decision" to be made.  What is needed, I think, is for you try to read and understand the article you cite more carefully.

 

It would also be helpful to any discussion if you would make an effort to carefully read and understand the posts you respond to.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Here are some excerpts from a very authoritative scientific paper publshed less than a year ago:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.04426.pdf

 

This paper is quite technical, but, I have seen (what I believe is) this same study summarized in popular journals (I can find a cite later, if anyone wants it).

 

Strictly speaking, SR would say that there can be no difference in clock rates between London and Berlin, because all such time dilation is due to "relative motion" in SR, and there is NO relative motion between London and Berlin (or any other of the cities involved in the study).

 

However, clock rate differences can be detected (and predicted), but ONLY by using extremely precise atomic clocks and employing an RMS model of  motion which relies on an analysis of absolute motion with respect to a preferred frame of reference (the ECI).  This difference is caused by the difference in rotational speed resulting from the fact that the various cities involved in the study are located at different latitudes on the surface of the planet.

 

Here is another excerpt from this technical paper:

 

By exploiting the difference between the velocities of each clock in the inertial geocentric frame, due to their different positions on the surface of the Earth, we are able to improve upon previous tests of time dilation.

 

 

A few points are relevant to the point I am making, viz:

 

1.  This experiment purports to test SR, but it doesn't, and certainly not in any way that is peculiar to SR.  It tests TIME DILATION, not SR per se.  Anyone who can't understand the difference (and there seem to be many such people) need to study the difference between  SR and alternate theories of relative motion, such as RMS.  Put another way, it tests the accuracy of the Lorentz Transforms (LT).  But the LT are by no means exclusive to SR, and to the extent this experiment "confirms" the time dilation predicted by SR, it also confirms the time dilation predicted by other theories, such as RMS, which incorporate those same equations.

 

2.  In particular, one must understand the difference between relative simultaneity and absolute simultaneity.  Here, in this context, the word "absolute" simply means "not relative," i.e., not frame-dependent.  It does NOT entail a reference to some universally recognized preferred frame. In Mansouri and Sexl's terms, it uses external synchronization, not the "internal synchronization" employed by SR (which generates the concept of relative simultaneity").

 

It simply posits a particular (preferred in this context) frame to which all relative motion is compared to determine the speed and direction of moving objects. The word "posits" does not actually have the right connotation, however.   The preferred frame used is actually "discovered' by determining which frame of reference, if used as the preferred one, will give predictions which match the empirical observations.  It is not arbitrarily "posited."  It is the ONLY frame which can be used and still derive accurate predictions of clock behavior.  It is not merely "convenient" in the sense that one could have picked just "any old" inertial frame to use as THE preferred frame.  It must be the ECI.  The ECI is the "preferred" frame because it is the only one which generates the correct "answers" (predictions which match observation).

 

3.  If you read the excerpt I cited above, it should be abundantly clear that the experimenters are using absolute motion, not relative motion, to detect the speed and direction of motion of various clocks relative to the preferred frame (NOT relative to each other, as SR would require).

 

In short, time dilation is confirmed by this experiment, but NOT SR.  On the contrary the predictions of RMS (which posits a preferred frame) are confirmed.  The premises of SR are "disproven." This was summarized in the prior post I quoted, and I will reiterate it here to summarize:

 

Strictly speaking, SR would say that there can be no difference in clock rates between London and Berlin, because all such time dilation is due to "relative motion" in SR, and there is NO relative motion between London and Berlin (or any other of the cities involved in the study).

 

However, clock rate differences can be detected (and predicted), but ONLY by using extremely precise atomic clocks and employing an RMS model of  motion which relies on an analysis of absolute motion with respect to a preferred frame of reference (the ECI).  This difference is caused by the difference in rotational speed resulting from the fact that the various cities involved in the study are located at different latitudes on the surface of the planet.

Edited April 21, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

I should make a slight correction to my last post, I guess  In the process I will also elaborate on the points made there by making reference to the classic Hafele-Keating experiment.

 

In that experiment, 3 clocks were used.  All were synchronized at a Naval station, and two were each put on airplanes.  Both of these planes then flew around the world at the same speed while the 3rd clock stayed put..  But one flew east and the other flew west.

 

If you assumed that SR applied, then you would get different predictions for the ultimate readings of the various clocks depending on which clock you chose to use as the "at rest" (calculating) frame.  If for example, you used the Naval Observatory clock, then you would predict that both of the airplane clocks would slow down, relative to it, by equal amounts.  Without tediously going through it all, you can see that if you used either of the plane clocks as a supposedly 'equally valid" frame, then you would make dramatically different predictions about what the elapsed each of the other clocks would show when all 3 were re-united.  Each plane clock would see itself as "stationary" and therefore see the earth clock as moving away from it, and the other plane's clock as also moving away from it at an even greater rate of speed.

 

Like the one I just summarized, this experiment did in fact confirm "time dilation" (i.e, the proposition that clocks on moving objects tick at different rates if travelling at different speeds).  But it did not, and could not, confirm the 3 different predictions that using the "relative motion" of SR would generate.

 

As a matter of empirical fact, when then clocks were re-united one gained time relative to the Naval Clock and one lost time (with the Naval Clock being "in between").

 

The actual clock readings observed could only be predicted if a hypothetical clock located at the non-rotating ECI was used as a preferred frame (i.e. the"master clock," which which was treated as motionless and which therefore kept the "correct" time).

 

Here's the correction:  It would probably be more accurate to say that SR makes NO predictions is this case, because it is inapplicable to rotating frames (which the earth's surface is).  But the result is the same.  The "predictions" (if any were made) of SR were NOT confirmed, although time dilation was. 

 

Nonetheless, H-K has been widely touted as "confirming" SR. But that is only because no distinction is being made (as it should be) between the LT, as an accurate equation, and SR, as a theory of relative motion.

Edited April 21, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

If you assumed that SR applied, then you would get different predictions for the ultimate readings of the various clocks depending on which clock you chose to use as the "at rest" (calculating) frame.  If for example, you used the Naval Observatory clock, then you would predict that both of the airplane clocks would slow down, relative to it, by equal amounts.  Without tediously going through it all, you can see that if you used either of the plane clocks as a supposedly 'equally valid" frame, then you would make dramatically different predictions about what the elapsed each of the other clocks would show when all 3 were re-united.  Each plane clock would see itself as "stationary" and therefore see the earth clock as moving away from it, and the other plane's clock as also moving away from it at an even greater rate of speed.

 

Like the one I just summarized, this experiment did in fact confirm "time dilation" (i.e, the proposition that clocks on moving objects tick at different rates if travelling at different speeds).  But it did not, and could not, confirm the 3 different predictions that using the "relative motion" of SR would generate.

 

As a matter of empirical fact, when then clocks were re-united one gained time relative to the Naval Clock and one lost time (with the Naval Clock being "in between").

 

 

Nonetheless, H-K has been widely touted as "confirming" SR. But that is only because no distinction is being made (as it should be) between the LT, as an accurate equation, and SR, as a theory of relative motion.

 

I wanted to take a minute to elaborate on this--although it's not so much a matter of "elaboration" as it is just stating the obvious, to wit:

 

The problem encountered by the SR adherents who glibly state that each (or all) clocks are "correct" is those damn clocks themselves.  They simply won't cooperate and give the readings SR would predict for them.  Not surprising, actually, since it would literally be impossible for them to do so.

 

Again, I am simply amazed at the number of people who will eschew all fact and logic in their endeavor to defend the dogma they so zealously subscribe to. It seems unfathomable to me that purely solipsistic premises are so widely accepted, (and indeed, adamantly endorsed) by so many, without any critical thought whatsoever.

Edited April 22, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Since there is no such thing as a rest frame all things are in fact moving relative to everything else. 

 

 

I really don't mean to "pick on" you in particular, Six, but can't you even begin to see the implicit contradictions in your own statements?  For example:

 

1.  While you insist, ad infinitum, that there is no preferred frame and that all motion is strictly relative, you nevertheless presume (in the sentence I just quoted) to know what is moving, and what (nothing, I guess) isn't.

 

2.  While you seem to tout the efficacy of SR as a "true" theory which corresponds to objective reality, you "argue for" it in a way that proves far too much.  In SR, every observer is required to posit himself as being at absolute rest.  Yet you claim no such status exists for any observer, anywhere, ever.  How then, can you claim that the fundamental assumptions of SR correspond to "reality?"

 

Without positing , either explicitly or surreptitiously, that, as between two objects, one thing is (for purposes of calculation) moving and one isn't (relatively), you can never make any meaningful claims or predictions about reality whatsoever.  If SR actually adopted and adhered to its own tenets, it would be absolutely worthless as any kind of scientific theory.

 

But SR doesn't do that (adopt and adhere to its own tenets).  Instead it treats every observer as being, in Lorentzian terms, the absolutely motionless ether.

 

It must do so in order to arrive at any predictions whatsoever, that's understood.  But in doing so, it ALWAYS employs a "preferred frame" (which you insist does not exist).  The preferred frame?  Always the one you're in, boy.  You cannot treat any other frame as "valid" when assessing your own motion (lack thereof, actually).

Edited April 22, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

I didn't ''presume'' anything, these are the facts of relativity. I did not presume to know what is moving, I am simply stating that everything in the universe is in relative motion to each other. This is quite a simple assumption and provable - I do not see any contradiction, only misunderstanding on your behalf.

 

 

I don't necessarily disagree with your claim of "facts."  Just not your claim that it is a fact "of relativity."  Nowhere does SR claim that "everything is moving."  Einstein, following Newton, did not believe that any truly motionless point (which Newton claimed would be the center of all mass in the universe) was detectable, that's all.  That is different that saying it "doesn't exist."

 

I think it is quite reasonable to assume that every material object is moving.  But that is just an assumption, not a proven fact.  And it is certainly not a "fact of relativity."

Edited April 22, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

It is a fact of relativity that everything possesses a motion relative to everything else. So while in principle you think you are sitting at rest on a rock called earth, that rock too is moving. The idea is quite simple, everything is actually moving.

 

 

Here again, Six, you don't seem to readily recognize your own internal contradictions.  You say:

 

1.  That a rock I'm sitting on is NOT moving, relative to me, while simultaneously claiming that:

 

2.  everything possesses a motion relative to everything else.

 

Which is it?

 

Then you say:  "everything is actually moving."  Whether you realize it, admit it, or not, you are making a claim about ABSOLUTE motion here, not relative motion.

Edited April 22, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Then you say:  "everything is actually moving."  Whether you realize it, admit it, or not, you are making a claim about ABSOLUTE motion here, not relative motion.

 

 

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not disagreeing with your claim that the earth is "actually moving."   Mainstream physical theorists agree that the earth  (and the whole galaxy, for that matter) IS ACTUALLY moving.

 

Relative to what, you might ask?

 

Relative to the rest frame of the CMB, which they posit as a preferred frame (in violation of the dictates of SR).

Edited April 22, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

 

Relative to what, you might ask?

 

Relative to the rest frame of the CMB, which they posit as a preferred frame (in violation of the dictates of SR).

 

 

I have already given some authoritative citations for this proposition in another thread.  See, for example, post 19 (and following) in this thread:

 

http://www.scienceforums.com/topic/30976-the-twin-paradox-made-simple/page-2

 

For your convenience, I will repost a quote from Nobel Prize winner Dr. George Smoot here:

 

 

We attribute the dipole anisotropy to the motion of the Earth and Solar System relative to the universal CMB radiation field and thus the distant matter in the Universe. This would seem to violate the postulates of Galilean and Special Relativity but there is a preferred frame in which the expansion of the Universe looks most simple. That frame is the average rest frame of the matter and CMB and from that frame the expansion is essentially isotropic.

 

 

http://aether.lbl.gov/www/projects/u2/

 

Einstein and Newton were right.  With the technology available to them, they could not possibly have detected an "ether" frame.  But with modern technologies physicists have in fact detected what is commonly called a "cosmic rest frame," i.e., the CMB.

Edited April 22, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Here's another interesting (and relevant) quote from Smoot's team of distinguished phyicists (from the same site I previously linked):

 

To our surprise the direction of motion determined from these observations was not aligned with the orbital motion of the Solar System around the Galaxy. Instead it was nearly in the opposite direction. That means that our Galaxy, in fact the whole local group of galaxies, is moving with a speed of more than one million miles per hour. A big question at the time was what was causing that motion? A proposed answer was it was the effect of the gravitational pull of the "Great Attractor". The "Great Attractor" was postulated to explain our motion and its predicted location was near to our Galactic plane so that it would have been obscured by stars and dust. A search was started and as an eventual result it was found that such large clumps of matter as the hypothesized "Great Attractor" are regularly found through the Universe. It is now believed that summing over the mass in our "neighborhood" (within a 100 million light years) one finds the net unbalanced attraction that explains our motion as detected in this experiment. The CMB is then the standard frame of reference for cosmology work.

 

 

They not only detected the speed and direction of the absolute motion of the Milky Way, they also discovered the cause of it, i.e., the "great attractor."  A million miles an hour aint no insignificant speed, neither, eh?

Edited April 22, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Back to SR and it's postulates for a minute.  Einstein never actually said that there could be no ether or no preferred frame of reference (he said it was "superfluous" for purposes of his theory, that's all).  That said, he did tend to scoff at the notion back around the time that he came up with SR in 1905.

 

Later, he expressly adopted the notion of an ether, saying that his earlier stance had been "too radical."  He expressly said that GR would be "unthinkable" without positing an ether.

 

Nonetheless, many people (A-wal is one of the worst offenders in this respect) endlessly spout the claim that "there is no preferred frame of reference," and present it (without any elucidation) as indisputable, absolutely proven, fact.

 

Why?  Because it is a basic premise of SR that the use of a preferred frame must be prohibited, I guess, and because he has an unshakable faith that SR is "true."  No amount of fact or logic could ever shake that faith, as far as I can tell.

Edited April 22, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Relativity is one the most tested theories. The equivalence principle, stands as the most tested theory in science and is well understood.

 

 

1.  You are mistaking tests of the Lorentz Transforms with a test of special relativity, I'm afraid, as I have amply demonstrated in prior posts.  Or maybe you're just mistaking GR for SR, I can't really tell due to your unspecified use of the word "relativity."

 

2.  The topic here is SPECIAL relativity, not GR.  The equivalence principle has nothing to do with SR, only GR.

 

It might also be worth noting here that Einstein aspired to (and, for a time, at least, was convinced he had achieved) a general theory of relative motion.

 

Few modern physicists accept this.  With GR he did, however, come up with a comprehensive and marvelous theory of gravity (but not relative motion).

 

Along these lines, it can also be noted that the speed of light is NOT constant in every frame under the postulates of GR.

 

As far as the "equivalence principle" goes, modern physicists agree that (due to detectable "tidal effects") it is not literally true.  It is, however a good approximation in the sense that, in certain aspects and situations, at least, gravitation is not perceptibly distinguishable from uniform acceleration

Edited April 22, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Notwithstanding all the technical jargon and seemingly complicated, interrelated competing claims, it is not hard to understand the difference between relative simultaneity and absolute simultaneity.

 

1.  Relative simultaneity "measures" the time and distance (and hence speed) by determining how one or more objects are moving relative to each other.

 

2.  Absolute simultaneity "measures" the time and distance (and hence speed) by determining how one or more objects are moving relative to a standardized (preferred) frame.

 

We know that, just like changes in speed, changes in temperature can cause the length of objects to contract and the rate of physical processes to slow down (to nothing at absolute zero).  Do we therefore say that for every fraction of a degree of temperature change, we must establish a whole new standard for measuring clock rate and length?

 

Of course not.  We always keep the same standard.  If a person were put in suspended animation for a century, then revived, would we say that "no time has passed," just because, in a subjective sense "no time passed for him?"  Of course not.  Many people would have been born and died and had (collectively) many billions of experiences and adventures during that century and those wouldn't be non-existent just because one guy was "suspended."  Likewise, the whole universe doesn't disappear when you die (even if you're a solipsist who believes otherwise).

 

---

The boiling point of water changes with altitude (atmospheric pressure).  Do we therefore say that we must create a whole new celsius thermometer for every faction of an inch we go up?  Of course not.  We keep our standard for the boiling point (sea level).  In every realm of measurement, we set a standard, however arbitrarily, and then refer all differences (in time, length, temperature, whatever) to that standard.  Without maintaining such standards, we can never make meaningful comparisons of differences.

 

That's all absolute simultaneity does--it sets a standard for measuring time and distance.  This is essential to science.  It's not necessarily a universally applied standard, and it need not be.  You don't need to discover an "ether" to employ absolute simultaneity.  "Absolute" does not mean "universally valid" in this context.  It just means frame-independent.  And all that means is that objects in motion relative to each other will agree, rather than disagree (as in SR), about which of the two is moving faster and hence whose clock has slowed down. That's nothing new or unusual. We have always, both before and after the advent of SR, treated accelerating clocks in this way, because accelerated motion is, even by SR's definitions, absolute, not relative, motion.  An accelerating clock will be treated as though it (not the other's guy's clock) has slowed down.

 

Whenever projects (like the GPS and the H-K experiment, for examples) use the ECI as the frame to which the time of every other object is compared (and measured with respect to), they are utilizing absolute simultaneity, which results in radically different (but accurate) measurements than relative simultaneity would yield.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Moronium

[Moronium]

You cannot talk about special relativity in most cases... that is why Einstein sought a more general theory. And he did. You say we are talking about special relativity here, well I am sorry, but the issue of inertial reference frames vanish in general relativity and is most pertinent to this discussion.

 

The speed of light is very much constant no matter what the frame, this has been experimented and varified as well.

 

Heh, as always, Six, you don't respond in any substantive way to anything I say.  You just make another unsubstantiated (and erroneous) assertion, which is an irrelevant non sequitur to begin with, as though that settles the whole matter.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Moronium