Why in the world would Einstein suggest....

@FBM,

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Not to my knowledge, no, and that's not entailed by SR. That's entailed by the assumption of an absolute frame in which either or both maybe be omnisciently judged as either true or false.

What does SR entail, exactly? Is it not that each observer is totally at rest and in an absolute frame which gives him an "omniscient" view that entitles him to judge?

If all this is so relative and unknowable, on the part of SR, then why doesn't the observer just say: "I have no clue about who's moving here. I may be at rest, he may be at rest. I may be in motion, he may be in motion. We might both be moving Nobody can know. Therefore I am in no position whatsoever to speculate on what his watch says, or how long his yardsticks are"?

Hmmm? Why not that, if we want to take a standardless, all is hopelessly relative and unknowable, stance on the topic?

1 Reply

@layman,

You've obviously undertaken other things, FBM. You may never return, I don't know. But assuming you might, I'll go ahead and answer one of your questions a little more fully. You asked me why I might want an absolute frame.

I have no problem whatsoever with SR as a strictly mathematical proposition. That's not my problem.

But why don't SR instructors just tell students something like: " Look, these are the formulas we use to calculate some things. They have nothing whatsoever to do with "reality," necessarily. We're not even going to try to say how they relate to the "real world." They make no sense, as regards the physical world. We just use them. And we're going to teach you how to rotely apply them, like we do."

But they don't do that. They try to tell you how utterly contradictory things are perfectly consistent, so they can act like it applies to the physical realm. They claim that illusory fiction is "truth." They tell you that if you don't understand their incoherent gibberish on such matters, then you just don't understand "physics." They throw out red herrings and non sequiturs left and right to avoid the embarrassing questions. They equivocate to beat all hell--"but, you see, from B's perspective..." etc.

That is what's "criminal" about SR. You have guys like Thomas, an intelligent guy, insisting that "downtown comes to you, you don't go to it," and such. Because he wants to uphold the integrity of "science," I suppose. He repeats thing he was told, as if they were self-evidently and irrefutably "true."

1 Reply

@layman,

I'm sorry, but I've sat through my fair share of physics, calculus and other science classes, as well as philosphy/logic classes, and I did not emerge from them with the perception that anything criminal was going on in the realm of mainstream cosmology.

On the other hand, I've sat through a practically uncountable number of Sundays and Wednesday nights in church and other faith-based gatherings and emerged convinced that there was a clearly fraudulent element underlying them all, witting or not.

I guess my message at this point in this thread to you is, if you don't like SR, then all you have to do is present something better. My understanding of science and scientists is that they are consistently aware that the current theories are not final. They, like you, are actively looking for something better. They are as aware as anyone else of the difficulties in the current understanding of things. But the only way to supplant the existing theories is to present something more consistent, with more empirical evidence and explanatory power than the current Standard Model. Simply pointing out already well-acknowledged gaps in the current model does nothing to forward an unspecified alternative. Specify the alternative so that we can do the work needed to decide which of them presents the stronger case. Pointing out vaguely towards proposed ASTs isn't doing very much at all to resolve the issue. Which AST, exactly, specifically, offers something competitive with SR?

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@FBM,

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Which AST, exactly, specifically, offers something competitive with SR?

That's not the significant thing to me at all. Frank Tangherlini, in his 1958 doctorial thesis at Stanford came up with some alternate transformations (which he called ALT's--absolute Lorentz transformations) that work just as well as SR, I'm told. Robertson came up with slightly different transformations. There are some based (somehow, don't ask me how), on the standard model in QM. More recently Chang came up with some which combined all three and said any AST must reduce to one of those 3.

Again, not my forte. I just deal in the concepts, not the deep mathematical details. But, from what I understand, they ALL work when SR doesn't and appear (to some at least) make accurate predictions where SR doesn't. I posted one of those right before we picked up talking again.

Like I said, I'm not trying to change science--I'm not even a scientist. But I do hate to see the type of muddled thinking and utter subjectivism which I've seen SR create a lot of.

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@FBM,

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I'm sorry, but I've sat through my fair share of physics, calculus and other science classes,...

Ever take a course in SR?

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@FBM,

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My understanding of science and scientists is that they are consistently aware that the current theories are not final. They, like you, are actively looking for something better.

Another common theme I've heard (from guys like Kuhn as well as contemporary physicists) is just about the opposite. They say change in science is generally strongly resisted--at least once a given paradigm has become generally accepted.

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@FBM,

Quote:

On the other hand, I've sat through a practically uncountable number of Sundays and Wednesday nights in church and other faith-based gatherings and emerged convinced that there was a clearly fraudulent element underlying them all, witting or not.

Not saying you're one of them, but the absolute "rationality" of science is a common banner waved by militant atheists. They will defend ANY claim of "science" (to reveal no weakness) when they bash "stupid Christians." It's just part of their polemical game and aids them in their pose of being intellectually superior.

Some of these "scientific realists" show every bit as much "faith," reverence, and dogma about their creed as does any Christian.

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@FBM,

Quote:

I'm sorry, but I've sat through my fair share of physics, calculus and other science classes, as well as philosphy/logic classes, and I did not emerge from them with the perception that anything criminal was going on in the realm of mainstream cosmology

I first came across SR when I was around 14-15 years old. I read one of those "special relativity for laymen" types of books. I found it to be utterly fascinating. It all seemed (and was designed to seem) like utter genius and it was very intellectually stimulating for me. I started talking to friends about it, and trying to explain it all to them.

As much as I wanted to embrace the topic, I could never quite shake the feeling that subtle logical tricks were being played on me, but I just couldn't spot them and pin down what they were. There was just so much equivocation involved that, it seemed' you could make almost anything sound "true."

I later talked to professionals, most of whom assured me that SR was indisputably "true." But they could not give satisfactory answers to some of the questions I posed. Obvious logical inconsistencies (in the supporting arguments, not the math) were met with hand-waving dismissals and cocksure assertions.

It just never set right with me, but I wasn't sure why. Later, I tried to look at the topic anew, with a more critical approach. Little by little I recognized where I had been misled (deliberately, or not). So, I guess my experiences have been a little different than yours. But nothing has really changed. I've seen the same "methods" and long-discredited "arguments" surfacing here that I've seen everywhere else.

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@FBM,

Dr. Louis Essen, D.Sc., F.R.S., has spent a lifetime working at the NPL on the measurement of time and frequency. He built the first caesium clock in 1955 and determined the velocity of light by cavity resonator, in the process showing that Michelson's value was 17km/s low. In 1959, he was awarded the Popov Gold Medal of the USSR Academy of Sciences and also the OBE.

From Louis Essen, so-called "father of the atomic clock.

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The mistakes [made by SR] have been exposed in published criticisms of the theory but the criticisms have been almost completely ignored; and the continued acceptance and teaching of relativity hinders the development of a rational extension of electromagnetic theory. It could be argued that the truth will eventually prevail but history teaches us that when a false view of nature has become firmly established it may persist for decades or even centuries. We cannot afford to wait that long.

Students are told that the theory must be accepted although they cannot expect to understand it. They are encouraged right at the beginning of their careers to forsake science in favour of dogma. The general public are misled into believing that science is a mysterious subject which can be understood by only a few exceptionally gifted mathematicians.

Relativity and Time Signals (1978) http://gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Journal%20Reprints-Relativity%20Theory/Download/3297

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Rutherford treated [SR] as a joke; Soddy called it a swindle; Bertrand Russel suggested that it was all contained in the Lorentz transformation equations; and many scientists commented on its contradictions. These adverse opinions, together with the fact that the small effects predicted by the theory were becoming of significance to the definition of the unit of atomic time, prompted me to study Einstein's paper. I found that it was written in imprecise language, that one assumption was in two contradictory forms and that it contained two serious errors.

Hundreds of thousands of words have been written about the paradox but the explanation is simple, arising from Einstein's use of the expression, "as viewed from". ..Einstein's use of a thought-experiment, together with his ignorance of experimental techniques, gave a result which footed himself and generations of scientists. He convinced himself that the theory yielded the result he wanted, because the contraction of time is accompanied by the contraction of length needed to explain the Michelson-Morley result....

Why have scientists accepted a theory which contains obvious errors and lacks any genuine experimental support? It is a difficult question, but a number of reasons can be suggested. There is first the ambiguous language used by Einstein and the nature of his errors. Units of measurements, though of fundamental importance, are seldom discussed outside specialist circles and the errors in clock comparisons are hidden away in the thought experiments....

"RELATIVITY - joke or swindle?" (1988) http://www.ekkehard-friebe.de/Essen-L.htm

You can read more about Essen's substantive criticism of SR at those links, if you care to. Here I have just included a few excerpt which I think bear on the "philosophy of science" questions. Essen said he was told early in his career that he would be ruined if he criticized SR.

Of course it helped me a lot, when analyzing SR, to read the criticisms of true experts. Nowadays, as then, any critic is simply quickly branded as a "crackpot," and ignored by "mainstream" physicists. You have to "go out of our way" to read anything critical of SR, it seems.

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@FBM,

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FBM... scientists is that they are consistently aware that the current theories are not final. They, like you, are actively looking for something better. On the other hand, I've sat through a practically uncountable number of Sundays and Wednesday nights in church and other faith-based gatherings...

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Layman: Another common theme I've heard (from guys like Kuhn as well as contemporary physicists) is just about the opposite. They say change in science is generally strongly resisted--at least once a given paradigm has become generally accepted.

That Essen post was made, in part, to illustrate my response to you, FBM. I've heard it said that virtually no journal will publish any paper questioning SR because they consider it "settled science."

Also in part because I thought, since you majored in philosophy, you might find this aspect to be of some interest. One more quote from Essen on the topic, which I could have included the first time:

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Since the time of Einstein and of one of his most ardent supporters Eddington there has been a great increase in anti-rational thought and mysticism. The theory is so rigidly held that young scientists who have any regard for their careers dare not openly express their doubts.

http://gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Journal%20Reprints-Relativity%20Theory/Download/3297

There is dogmatisim in science too. It's not the sole domain of the religiously inclined. I don't think he's using "anti-rational" as a synonym for "irrational" here. On the other hand, I don't think he literally means "anti-rational." I'm guessing he meant something closer to "anti-empirical."

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@FBM,

FBM, I said:

Quote:

I've already addressed the issue of whether an ABSOLUTE frame is necessary to know whether it is the train or the earth that's moving relative to the other. The answer is NO, whatever some relativist may want to lead you to believe.

You have not really responded to this, but, after re-reading your posts, I see that it is a MAJOR point of disagreement between us. You repeatedly assert, and obviously base most of your conclusions on, the premise that, without an absolute frame, there is no way to tell who is moving relatively.

For you this makes "both," or more broadly stated, ALL, "correct" when they claim that they are not moving (which you have asserted). As an alternative, you have at times said that the question is "meaningless'." Nothing I say seems to be able to shake you from that (mis)conception. You've never elaborated on WHY you think that, you just repeatedly assert it, as far as I can tell.

I'm going to repeat an excerpt from a post I directed to Thomas, when he basically made the same claim, to see if that helps you think about the matter is any different light. The entire post can be seen here: http://able2know.org/topic/265997-35#post-5895071

Quote:

However, the term 'absolute acceleration' _does_ have a meaning. If you were on a roller coaster, even on one which has closed cars with no windows, you would still be able to tell you were moving -- you'd be thrown every which way, and you would even be able to feel the motion in your guts, given you were securely fastened in your seat. Now, when riding a roller-coaster, you definitely know it is YOU that is moving, and not your friend standing on the ground waving to you...

Similarly the same kind of situation exists between the earth and the moon -- the two rotate around the center of mass of the earth-moon system, but this point lies well within the earth, so it makes sense to say the moon is moving around the earth, and not vice versa.
http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae118.cfm

Does that alter, or even stimulate, your thinking about this issue at all?

To give more context to the answer quoted above, let me add the part I omitted. The question was: "If the term 'absolute motion' has no meaning, then why do we say that the earth moves around the sun and not vice versa?" In response, prior to the part I quoted, the answer included this preface:

Quote:

The term 'absolute motion' has no meaning in the following sense; if you were moving in a straight line, with constant velocity, and there were no windows to see the outside, there is no way you can tell what speed you are moving at (or, for that matter, whether you are moving at all) with any measurement. Thus, speed has only meaning relative to something else.

I think it is important to note here (among other things) that this guy makes a distinction here between "what speed you are moving at" and "whether you are moving at all."

1 Reply

@layman,

To further stimulate your thinking (I hope) let me ask you this question. The physicist I quoted says:

Quote:

there is no way you can tell what speed you are moving at (or, for that matter, whether you are moving at all)

Do you there any difference between these two statements?

1. there is no way you can tell if you are moving at all
2. If you claim that "you are not moving at all," then you are correct

Put another way, is it proper to conclude that "if you can't tell if you are moving at all, then it is correct to conclude that you are not moving at all."

Alternately, is it proper to conclude that "if you can't tell if you are moving at all, then it is meaningless to even ask if you moving at all."

Thomas claimed that, based on Galileo's analysis, claim #2 from above, necessarily followed from statement #1. He was wrong. What he apparently doesn't realize is that Galileo forcefully argued that such a proposition was NOT true.

Galileo's whole analysis of relative motion was designed to show (in support of his heliocentric thesis) that "even assuming you can't tell if you are moving, that certainly does not imply that you are not moving."

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@Thomas,

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You get to pick your frame of reference in the beginning. But once you have, you need to be consequent about it. Once you picked the city's frame of reference, the cars are really moving. Once you have picked one of the car's frame of reference the city and the other car really move toward it.

I keep hearing this being said, but no one seems to have a sensible (consistent) answer to some obvious questions, to wit:

Take a situation where we have launched a rocket toward mars. The rocket is now halfway to mars, and is no longer accelerating--it is moving inertially.

Now some questions arise, such as:

1. If you (Thomas) "pick" the rocket, is it that (your arbitrary, subjective choice) which determines that it is "at rest?" If you (Thomas) "pick" the earth, is it that (your arbitrary, subjective choice) which determines that now (and only now) the rocket is "really moving?" Do you (Thomas) control, with your thoughts or choices, what "really" moves in the external world? Sounds solipsistic to me.

2. Let's say the rocket accelerated steadily for whole day, but then the thrust ceased and the rocket settled into "inertial motion." Does that (the cessation of acceleration) somehow serve repeal the law of inertia? Does the rocket continue to move, even after the accelerating force ceases? Or does it suddenly, immediately, and automatically come to a complete stop?

I have noted your repeated claim that the "acceleration" is absolute in SR, but that the resulting motion is still "relative." I also note that you have provided no source or argument in support of that claim.

You also claimed, at one point, that it was only AFTER a dragster quit accelerating that one "entered the realm of SR" (or however you put it exactly), which seems to conflict with your claim that accelerating motion is relative. Furthermore, as I recall, you also said that both the driver and the people in the bleachers would perceive the car as partaking in accelerated motion, which again undermines your statement that such motion is "relative" (frame dependent).

I will finally note that such a claim (i.e., that accelerating motion is relative motion) is contrary to what physicists say, some of whom I have already cited to you on that point (by necessary implication), and with whom you said you agreed.

Do you have any other answer?

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layman wrote

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This may be a little off-topic, but I can remember sitting in geometry class when I was told that a "point" had no length, breadth, or depth.
I just said: What?
I quit school the next day

That says it all !

1 Reply

@fresco,

Off-topic and irrelevant, but...

I find it intriguing that there appear to be some puppy dogs following me around to indiscriminately "downvote" every post I make, all while hiding in the shadows and not making a single comment in the thread.

It's gotten to the point where if a poster says something (which naturally gets voted up) and all I say is that "I agree," my agreement gets voted down.

What's up with that I wonder?

Any ideas, Fresco? Is that you?

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@layman,

Which question were you most wanting a response to?

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@FBM,

Quote:

Which question were you most wanting a response to?

Well, I guess I did pose more than one, eh?

Basically this one: "Does that alter, or even stimulate, your thinking about this issue at all?"

http://able2know.org/topic/265997-44#post-5897560 But see also the post which immediately follows.

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@FBM,

Even though you haven't answered for yourself yet, FBM, I will throw in another "observation" (contention, suggestion, whatever) of mine. If you want to assert that an "argument from ignorance" is fallacious, then apply that standard consistently. Even to those relativists who tell you in an authoritative manner which suggests that they are revealing an empirically verified fact that "because there is no preferred frame, you can't tell who's moving."

The supposed lack of a preferred frame is NOT even the reason they are telling you that. They are telling you that only because the whole theory would fall apart if they admitted otherwise. Yet, they DO admit otherwise, when forced (e.g., their resolution to the twin paradox), although, even then, they try to get real cagy and deceptive about it. They only want to "admit" it by way of obscure (tautological) references and sophistic deceptive language.

Mathematically speaking, if all frames were truly "equivalent," thereby allowing two parties to AGREE on who's moving, the theory self-destructs. Therefore the theory FORCES you to adopt a "preferred frame" in every case. It's always the one YOU are in. In an attempt (itself logically fallacious) to "justify" this mandate, they tell you that "you can't tell if you're moving." But, there again, even if it were true, how would that tell you that you are NOT moving, I wonder?

1 Reply

@layman,

Gallileo asserted that all inertial frames were equivalent, so did Newton. Gallileo did not claim to have discovered some "absolute" frame of reference, nor did Newton (Newton explicitly disavowed the possibility of discovering such a frame). Al did NOT "somehow" see something they failed to see in this respect. Yet neither Gallileo nor Newton ever insulted your intelligence by suggesting that you could NOT know if you were (the one) moving as between two observers moving relatively with respect to the other.

What's up with that?

1 Reply

@layman,

Hmm. To answer the initial question, yes, it has inspired me to think more about it, and I only wish I had more time to devote to catching up on it. But like I said in the other thread, I'm juggling several projects/duties at the moment that have to take priority on my time management.

So, let me propose something. How about explaining the basic problem you see first, as if you were explaining it to an idiot. That's me. Wink

Then we can work our way through arguments-counterarguments. I guess I'm asking you to slow down a bit.

The reason I ask is that you're making references to lots of things I haven't read and don't presently have the time to read and cross-reference. I don't know of any professional physicist who has strong disagreement with SR, but like I said earlier, I haven't spent that much time on the topic. So, if you don't mind, let's do an "Problems with Special Relativity for Dummies" kinda thing. One simplified step at a time...

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Why in the world would Einstein suggest....

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