Why in the world would Einstein suggest....

@layman,

Motion, by definition, must be relative to something. Image an empty universe, and you appear in it by teleportation or something. How can you tell if you going somewhere or staying static?

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

It has nothing to do with the question I asked, Ollie. Have an answer to that question?

But I will respond to your question (will you now respond to mine?). Being able to "tell" if you are moving is an entirely different question from whether you are, in fact, moving. You are treating them as if they were the same thing. It seems to me that you have a knack for giving "answers" to questions other than the ones being asked.

Quote:

How can you tell if you going somewhere or staying static?

A second answer (for a second time): You would certainly know if you were accelating, because you would "feel"it.

3 Replies

@layman,

Alright. Ask your question again.

0 Replies

@Olivier5,

I've asked several that you have managed to "duck" actually, but here's an entire repeat of one of them:

Quote:

What part of "relative to one another" did you not understand?

This part:

Quote:

The only thing they can reasonably claim...

Back to me on the train. Would it be reasonable, once the train started moving, to insist that, instead of moving north, I have remained completely motionless while the man, the lamppost, and everything else attached to the earth started moving south? Would it be reasonable for me to say that, as between the two of us, I cannot possibly tell who started to move? Would THAT be reasonable?

I don't think so! Homey don't play dat. (Neither did Galileo, by the way).

1 Reply

@layman,

But even that was just a follow-up question directed to one of your evasive responses. The prior question was this:

Quote:

What don't you understand? Do you want to make the same bet Parados did?

Try this (the same thing said a different way):

A and B are moving relative to each other, and they both acknowledge this, but, as between the two

1. A claims he is motionless and that only B is moving, whereas,
2. B claims he is motionless and that only A is moving.

Can they both be motionless, and still have relative motion between them?

I mean, there is a real world out there, isn't there? Or do you, like Parmenides, claim that all motion is an illusion?

1 Reply

@layman,

Quote:

Being able to "tell" if you are moving is an entirely different question from whether you are, in fact, moving. You are treating them as if they were the same thing.

This, by the way, is the very point Galileo was establishing with his "parable of the ship." One long outstanding objection to any claim that the earth was moving was that "if it was, we could tell." His point was that you can, in fact, be moving, even if you can't "feel" it. Basically he was showing the existence and applicability of what was later called Newton's "law of inertia."

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@layman,

Quote:

Can they both be motionless, and still have relative motion between them?

No, that is impossible.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Quote:

No, that is impossible.

Thank you for the answer.

Now, let's go back a step, to where we were asking if each of two clocks can actually run slower than the other. In SR, each concludes (by inference and deduction, not "observation") that the other's clock is running slow. The logic goes as follows:

1 .SR tells me that I am not moving, but that only the other guy is.
2. SR also tells me that the moving clock is the one which runs slow.
3. Therefore, his clock, not mine, is running slow.

Impeccable logic, given the premises, but....

Needless to say, an additional (but unstated) premise here is that "what SR tells me is correct."

1 Reply

@layman,

Quote:

1 .SR tells me that I am not moving, but that only the other guy is.

That premise is wrong. SR says no such thing.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Quote:

That premise is wrong.

No it is not wrong. It is correct.

Quote:

. SR says no such thing.

That's exactly what it says.

Do you understand the meaning of an "inertial frame of reference" as defined in SR? If you think you do, can you explain to me what it entails regarding the motion (or lack thereof) of observers in that inertial frame of reference?

1 Reply

@layman,

You keep asking question but you don't like the answers... SR makes no claim about the psychology of twins, remember?

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

The question was:

Quote:

Do you understand the meaning of an "inertial frame of reference" as defined in SR? If you think you do, can you explain to me what it entails regarding the motion (or lack thereof) of observers in that inertial frame of reference?

Have an answer?

1 Reply

@layman,

Quote:

Do you understand the meaning of an "inertial frame of reference" as defined in SR?

I believe I do.

Quote:

can you explain to me what it entails regarding the motion (or lack thereof) of observers in that inertial frame of reference?

The concept entails nothing whatsoever regarding the motion of observers (or anything else for that matter, as it's basically a mathematical concept).

2 Replies

@Olivier5,

It does INDEED imply things for observers, but let me change the question.

The frame of reference, for purposes of this question: A point exactly 50 yards due north of the center of the statue of liberty in NYC at midnight on Dec. 21, 2014.
OK?

Now then:

1. You are a physicist, who wants to employ SR to make calculations concerning the rate of clocks on the moon.
2. You choose the above-described frame of reference as the one you will use to make your calculations from.
3. What do you, as a physicist, assume about the motion (or lack thereof) of your chosen frame of reference when employing the Lorentz transformations to arrive at your mathematical conclusions?

1 Reply

@layman,

Where is this seemingly infinite series of question going, Lay? Do you feel compelled to ask them, again and again, even though you don't listen to the answers? A form of manic depression or something?

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

The question was:

Quote:

The frame of reference, for purposes of this question: A point exactly 50 yards due north of the center of the statue of liberty in NYC at midnight on Dec. 21, 2014.
OK?

Now then:

1. You are a physicist, who wants to employ SR to make calculations concerning the rate of clocks on the moon.
2. You choose the above-described frame of reference as the one you will use to make your calculations from.
3. What do you, as a physicist, assume about the motion (or lack thereof) of your chosen frame of reference when employing the Lorentz transformations to arrive at your mathematical conclusions?

Have an answer?

1 Reply

@layman,

Please explain why you feel compelled to ask all these questions. There's nothing more annoying than pointless questions.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Do you have an answer, or not?

YOU"RE the one who just made absolute claims about what SR entails. Can you answer the simple question, or not?

1 Reply

@layman,

Do you have an answer or not?

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Do you have an answer to the question to the question or are just going to continue to evade it?

Put another way: Are you all hat, and no cattle?

1 Reply

Why in the world would Einstein suggest....

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