@layman,
I posted this just for you, Ollie, and you have ignored it, so I'm reposting it. Care to comment? I mean other than your standard "I know **** and you don't" claim? Any substantive thought on the matter? At all?
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According to Al:
Quote:We suppose a very long train travelling along the rails with the constant velocity v and in the direction indicated in Fig. 1. People travelling in this train will with advantage use the train as a rigid reference-body (co-ordinate system); they regard all events in reference to the train.
Do you understand the import of what's being said here, Ollie? He's saying that the people on the train will use the train's reference frame to judge things (which, it turns out, will be treated as absolutely motionless).
Quote:Are two events (e.g. the two strokes of lightning A and B) which are simultaneous with reference to the railway embankment also simultaneous relatively to the train? We shall show directly that the answer must be in the negative.
The answer "must" be negative, because,
and only because, of the condition first mandated, i.e., that they people on the train assume that the earth's surface is moving while they remain motionless.
Quote:If an observer sitting in the position M’ in the train did not possess this velocity, then he would remain permanently at M, and the light rays emitted by the flashes of lightning A and B would reach him simultaneously, i.e. they would meet just where he is situated. Now in reality (considered with reference to the railway embankment) he is hastening towards the beam of light coming from B, whilst he is riding on ahead of the beam of light coming from A.
Here Al acknowledges that the train passenger is "really" moving, and says the events would be simultaneous for the train passenger IF HE WASN'T MOVING. The point here is that Al is first acknowledging the trains "real" motion down the tracks. Now what? Here's what (as amazing as it is):
Quote:Hence the observer will see the beam of light emitted from B earlier than he will see that emitted from A. Observers who take the railway train as their reference-body must therefore come to the conclusion that the lightning flash B took place earlier than the lightning flash A.
He MUST conclude the two are NOT simultaneous, Al says. He doesn't say he "can" conclude that, he says he MUST! But he wouldn't IF he had merely acknowledged that he was moving. Then he would have realized that he subjectively saw the flashes at different times than the earth observers ONLY BECAUSE he was moving.
So because he is REALLY moving, but nonetheless (
erroneously) considers himself to be motionless, he now (
falsely) concludes that the strikes were NOT simultaneous.
You say "psychology" has nothing to do with it. But according to Al it has plenty to do with the "physical explanation" (as opposed to the mathematical formalism) of SR. It is the guy's MISTAKEN notion that he is not moving (remember, Al has already said he really is moving), that "explains" the "relativity of simultaneity." That whole concept (and hence the very essence of special relativity itself) is based on a fool's mistake, if you take Al at his word.
http://www.bartleby.com/173/9.html
If it isn't already clear, all quotes are from Al.
THIS was the passage (and problem) from Al that I raised in the ORIGINAL POST. I see now that few, if any, who have commented in this thread had any idea of what Al actually said or what I was referring to. I had mistakenly assumed that people who cared to comment would know.
