Why in the world would Einstein suggest....

@layman,

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Hnnnm, that would be quite a trick, seeing as how such forces are an artifact of (caused by) rotational motion.

It's done all the time to compute long trajectories in an earth-bound frame of reference. You just add these two forces and the system behaves as a Newtonian inertial system.

To me, it's almost a matter of definition, or a tautology that motion is relative. Indeed it's a minor point, derived from the concept of motion itself. To move is to move away from some stuff and get closer to some other stuff.

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To me it is rather astonishing to see special relativity so staunchly and dogmatically defended as being "correct" in the face of having it's basic premises empirically undermined.

As previously noted, nobel prize winning physicists such as George Smoot have denied that motion through space cannot be detected, flatly rejecting a basic premise of SR.

The Hafele-Keating experiment, as well as the data collected by implementing the GPS, has shown that time dilation is NOT reciprocal, and that only a theory of motion which incorporates a standard of absolute simultaneity can correctly predict time dilation, etc. in those circumstances.

All this is on top of the inherent conceptual contradictions which generate all sorts of "paradoxes" in SR to begin with. It never was credible, from any realistic (as opposed to merely mathematical) standpoint.

As has been shown in this thread, abandoning SR in favor of an AST would seem to eliminate some existing theoretical problems in both QM and cosmology (eliminating the need for such preposterous speculations as "dark matter" and "multi-universe" resolutions of suspended states).

It's not like there have been no known alternatives. Since the time of Einstein, physicists have known that an absolute simultaneity theory made all the same predictions that SR does, and later, that Bohm's pilot wave theory of QM provided a deterministic theory of quantum mechanics--avoiding the "measurement problem" which plagues QM (but needed an absolutely simultaneous theory of motion).

Many brilliant physicists have bemoaned the "subjectivist" path which physics has taken since Einstein ushered it in (to his great subsequent regret) with his positivistic, subjectivist theory of special relativity.

To me, this simply demonstrates how "science" is by no means "objective." Philosophical and metaphysical commitments greatly influence the choice of an "acceptable" theory in science. Nobody actually uses SR to make basic measurements in astrophysics. Instead "preferred frames" (such as the CMB or the barycenter of the solar system) are employed with an AST theory of relative motion. But neither practice nor empirical findings seem to undermine the faith in SR that most physicists have.

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@layman,

I have followed with intense interest and think you have won this one . Cheer up! There's lots a dumb fools out there, it aint your fault and you dont need to educate them .

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@layman,

That's trying to change the subject. SR is not a religion, it's in fact a very imperfect theory, in that it's not applicable most of the time, other than as a crude simplification.

That doesn't change the fact that all motion is relative. As i showed, this (minor) point derives simply from the definition of motion. Let's agree with that (minor) point and then we can move forward to another point.

Otherwise if you change the subject every time you are about to understand something, you will never learn. Only deniers do that, to keep avoiding the truth.

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@layman,

Consider what Einstein was trying to do, i.e. adjust modern physics to account for the presumed failure of the MM experiment and the equally presumed refusal of light to obey normal additive laws for velocities...

And so Emperor Ming (from Mongo) goes by in this gigantic space ship which is 10 LY long and a LY wide and, to tell time, he has mirrors on both side of the ship a LY apart; he holds a flashlight on front of the one and aims it at the other, and turns the light on for about 20 seconds, and you get this 20 LS beam of light bouncing back and forth between the mirrors forever, i.e. Einstein's mirror clock.

Now, Ming sees the light beam travel one LY in one year and tells time that way but he's going by us at .5 C; we see the beam travel considerably further in that same year since we need to add the two vector components for the distance the beam actually traveled.

Normally we'd assume that this greater distance was due to the beam we saw simply traveling faster i.e. that we'd need to add the proper component of the ship's motion to the velocity of the beam but, wait a minute, we all just agreed that light doesn't obey that sort of law!! The only thing that leave is believing that time itself simply is proceeding differently for us and for Ming i.e. Voila! relativity and deformable time!!! Nobel prizes everywhere!!!!

But wait a minute again: In space, there is no difference whatever between you passing ME at 100mph, and me passing YOU at 100mph going the other way!!!!

Not only did time just slow down for Ming wrt us, but it just slowed down for us wrt Ming at the same time!!!!!

I mean, didn't somebody in the room back there in 1912 or whatever need to stand up and yell "HEY, THAT'S BULLSHIT!!" or something like that while the opportunity was there??

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@Olivier5,

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As i showed, this (minor) point derives simply from the definition of motion. Let's agree with that (minor) point and then we can move forward to another point.

Heh, Ollie, you're incorrigible. "As i showed," eh? As usual, you take your mere assertion to be equivalent to an indubitable demonstration.

Google the topic. Do some research. As I have repeatedly told you, ALL motion is NOT relative. Can you find anyone reputable who says it is?

It that other thread I quoted Richard Feynman (ever hear of him?), just for one example, who, when addressing the subject of the twin paradox said:

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"Just as the mu-mesons last longer when they are moving, so also will Paul last longer when he is moving. This is called a "paradox" only by the people who believe that the principle of relativity means that all motion is relative...the one who comes back must be the man who was moving... that is the difference between them in an "absolute" sense, and it is certainly correct

As any physicist will tell you, in SR, accelerating motion is absolute, not relative.

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@gungasnake,

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I mean, didn't somebody in the room back there in 1912 or whatever need to stand up and yell "HEY, THAT'S BULLSHIT!!" or something like that while the opportunity was there??

Of course. Many did. But for historical reasons, Einstein's theory came to be accepted after World War I.

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After Wilhelm Wien had tried to impress Ernest Rutherford (1908 Nobel Prize winner) with the splendours of relativity, without success, and exclaimed in despair "No Anglo-Saxon can understand relativity!", Rutherford guffawed and replied "No! they've got too much sense !"

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/academ/whatswrongwithrelativity.html

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@layman,

Please define motion in a way that's not relative, if you think it can be done...

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@Olivier5,

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Please define motion in a way that's not relative, if you think it can be done...

Read the thread. I have previously quoted physicists who explained it in detail. In the passage from "Feynman's Lectures of Physics" which I just quoted, he said:

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When he turned around, all kinds of unusual things happened in his space ship - the rockets went off, things jammed up against one wall, and so on

Einstein knew this, of course, as does everyone but you. That's precisely why SR supposedly applies ONLY in inertial frames.

Can you find anyone who says otherwise?

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@layman,

Ollie, you are confusing epistemology with ontology. What we might need in order to KNOW something (epistemology) says nothing, per se, about what is (ontology).

I used a simple example to explain this before. I'll do it again. We cannot see in the absolute dark. We require light to see. But that doesn't mean everything in the room "disappears" when I turn the light off (unless you're an utter solipsist like Berkeley).

But that's not your only mistake here. It's just one of them.

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@Olivier5,

Even Ernst Mach, the prototypical positivist who Einstein devoutly admired in his early days (but whose views he later totally rejected), acknowledged that logic put some constraints on speculation and on what "cannot be known."

Mach said that geocentric and heliocentric postulations about the nature of motion in the solar system were "equally valid." Nonetheless he went on to add: "but the universe is only given once."

In other words, it could, according to him, be one or the other, but not BOTH, as a matter of elementary logic. The universe is not "given twice."

But don't try telling that to some modern phyicists who now claim that there are an infinite number of universes, eh? Again, just another product of abandoning all constraints imposed by logic, empirical testability, and common sense which are normally imposed on "physical" explanations. Again, it was SR that ushered in this era of divorcing empiricism from theoretical (metaphysical and mystical) speculation in physics.

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@layman,

When he turned around (RELATIVE TO HIS PRIOR TRAJECTORY)... things jammed up AGAINST ONE WALL, and so on...

An acceleration is in essence a change in velocity across time, so by definition, it is relative to velocity. There's no way around it because the very mathematical concepts one uses (distance, speed, trajectory, acceleration) are necessarily relative to some frame of reference. You can't measure anything before you establish some 'beacon', some frame of reference against which to measure distances.

Where do you want to go, lay? Back to a pre-Newton, pre-Galileo view of the world? Or fast forward to a post-relativist form of physics? What modern physicist do you agree with?

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@Olivier5,

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You can't measure anything before you establish some 'beacon', some frame of reference against which to measure distances.

That has nothing to do with it. In relativity, "absolute" motion is simply motion that is not "frame-dependent." In other words, accelerating motion will be seen as such from any and every conceivable frame. On a related note, as previously noted, acceleration will create the appearance of fictitious forces, i.e., pseudo forces which "appear" solely due to absolute motion.

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@Olivier5,

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You can't measure anything before you establish some 'beacon', some frame of reference against which to measure distances.

I agree with this, and it illustrates other problems with special relativity. Speed (whether of light, or anything else) is a function of time and distance, two separate measures. Speed is determined from those, not vice versa. Speed is (1) the distance travelled, divided by (2) the time required to traverse that distance.

SR turns that concept on it's head, and makes time and distance dependent on an arbitrarily postulated and dogmatically pre-determined speed. This is simply backwards and nonsensical.

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@layman,

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SR turns that concept on it's head, and makes time and distance dependent on an arbitrarily postulated and dogmatically pre-determined speed. This is simply backwards and nonsensical.

A theory of relative motion which posits absolute simultaneity (AST) is quite different, and actually makes sense. The difference may seem to be irrelevant, but it isn't.

An AST says that the speed of light is NOT constant in all inertial frames. It does, however, readily concede that light will "appear" to be (i.e., be measured to be) constant in all such frames. However, this a mere appearance which does not reflect the actual facts, and it is caused by the phenomenon that lengths shorten and time dilates in inertially moving frames (and any other moving frame as well, including accelerated frames).

In contrast, SR says the speed of light REALLY IS constant in all inertial frames (although it is NOT so in accelerated frames, even within SR). This premise then generates preposterous implications.

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@layman,

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SR turns that concept on it's head, and makes time and distance dependent on an arbitrarily postulated and dogmatically pre-determined speed. This is simply backwards and nonsensical.

Because of the Michelson Morley experiment, which showed speed of light to be constant.

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@Olivier5,

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Because of the Michelson Morley experiment, which showed speed of light to be constant.

Michelson Morley doesn't explain anything as far as this issue goes. It's not "because" of that. That experiment did NOT " show the speed of light to be constant."

Do you have any idea of what's being said in the next post? Michelson Morley does not require that length and distance be determined by speed (which makes no sense) rather than speed being determined by distance and time. It certainly did not require the postulate that the speed of light actually IS constant in all inertial frames.

I don't think you even grasp the concept that there can be a difference between what you measure and what actually is.

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@layman,

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I don't think you even grasp the concept that there can be a difference between what you measure and what actually is

Rubbish !

You obviously don't grasp the pragmatists' point that "what you measure" cannot be philosophically distinguished "what actually is". (Any student of statistics knows that the first level of "measurement" is nominal - i.e. human naming of "what is".) You are consequently doomed to be stuck in a naive realistic hole wittering about nebulous "actualities"... a position, despite its cosmetic scientificism... which has no more status than an axiomatic religious one.

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@Olivier5,

The Michelson Morley INDICATED that "the speed of light was constant" (aether free) by Occam's razor. That well established epistemological principle was Einstein's seminal launchpad. Layman's multiple pages of drivel are a direct consequence of the failure to understand that elementary point.

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@fresco,

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You obviously don't grasp the pragmatists' point that "what you measure" cannot be philosophically distinguished "what actually is". That well established epistemological principle was Einstein's seminal launchpad.

Heh, back again with your self-contradictory buffoonery, eh, Fresky? And here I thought you said you were NEVER coming back. Do you happen to remember how you were, earlier in this same thread, lecturing on the deficiencies of the positivism which you now embrace so whole-heartedly?

Einstein later completely rejected Mach and his ilk, calling his early adherence to positivism "nonsense." Since that time EVERYBODY (well, everybody but you, anyway) has joined Al in rejecting positivism.

Even AJ Ayer one of the founders of the positivism which dominated science for decades later said:

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...the most important defect of positivism was that nearly all of it was false

Looks like no one sent you the memo, eh? That was 50 years ago.

Rave on.

1 Reply

Why in the world would Einstein suggest....

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