@dalehileman,
The same physicist I quoted before went on, in that same article, to say:
Quote:He [being the terrestrial, stay-at-home twin] knows that, being inertial, he is entitled to say that all moving clocks run slowly, and that includes Stella's....What about Stella? If she could claim to have been inertial for the whole trip, then she would maintain, correctly, that Terence should be younger than herself (because moving clocks run slowly in an inertial frame!), and there would then be a real problem.
Source:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/movingClocks.html
Don't a couple of questions immediately arise in your mind? For example:
1.Why is anyone "entitled" to say he is stationary, simply because he is a moving at a uniform speed?
2. Even more puzzling is how Stella could be deemed to "correctly" claim that the other guy is younger (if she had maintained an inertial state the whole time)? I mean, she can make that "claim" all she wants, even if she is mistaken, but how can a mistake be "correct?"
Stella was inertial for the vast majority of the duration, yet they were still moving, relative to each other during that period. Therefore they can't BOTH be "at rest" during those periods. So why is each "entitled" to claim the other's clock is slower, while the their clock is faster? Acceleration or not, they are not moving the same speed (i.e., they are not is the SAME inertial frame). Therefore one must be wrong when they claim that they are not moving.
There is nothing "paradoxical" or inherently "contradictiory" about each "claiming" they are at rest. People often make mistaken assumptions and claims. But there is an inherent contradiction is saying each is also "correct" in their respective assertions, isn't there?
Doesn't this very guy acknowledge that, when he says: "...she would maintain, correctly, that Terence should be younger than herself (because moving clocks run slowly in an inertial frame!), and there would then be a real problem." A real problem, yes.
