The Red Shift without Expansion

@layman,

Quote:

To FIRST arbitrarily posit a supposedly "necessary" speed, and then re-define both time and distance to comply with your back-asswards postulation is nonsensical, really.

I will briefly try to illustrate the point I am making here. Let's say it's exactly 500 miles from Chicago to New Orleans.

Suppose I am a theoretical physicist and I say that every object travelling between Chicago and N.O. will ALWAYS travel at the rate of 100 mph.

Now, if a car leaving chicago drives 100 mph and reaches N.O. in exactly 5 hours, I look like a genius, eh?

But suppose a car leaving Chicago only goes 50 mph, and doesn't reach N.O. until 10 hours later. What do I say then?

Easy, I say that his watch was running slow and he only "thought" it took 10 hours when it actually only took 5.

Or, I say that his odometer was broken and that he went actually 1000 miles, not just 500, because he took a long route.

By making any combination of such claims, I can easily assert that he "really" travelled at the rate of 100 mph, even though he didn't think so.

Once I dictate the necessary "speed," then I only have to adjust the time elapsed and/or the distance traveled to make the facts fit my theory. Like SR does, ya know? It's easy.

MATH is great, eh!? It can tell you anything you want to hear.

1 Reply

@layman,

Richard Feyman is not the dumbass you are saying he is. And it is a little confusing that you call him "back-assward", when you call him "brilliant" in your previous posts.

Feynman explains the theory of Special Relativity as well as anyone. http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_15.html Of course, your reasoning doesn't match the theory at all.

You don't just make claims (as you suggest). That isn't what Feynman is doing.

There is a set of mathematical equations that will give you a correct answer that you can than test by experiement. And the theory of Special Relativity has been tested by experiement. This is why it was accepted by Feynman, and Hawking and the rest of the Scientific community. It has proven very useful for the advancement of science.

Of course, the situation you are describing has nothing really to do with Special Relativity. It is just a random silly example of nothing that you just made up.

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean that it isn't correct.

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A few pages back, Max, I asked you a very simple question which you went to extraordinary lengths to evade, ultimately asserting, as I recall, that you couldn't possibly address such a question because it was a "philosophical" one.

The question was: It is possible for there to be a difference in what you measure a thing to be, and what it actually is?

I asked that question for a reason.

Understanding that question, and being able to give an answer (any answer, yes or no) to it would be essential to understanding the difference between SR and LR, which you clearly don't, and never will.

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@maxdancona,

Max, any professor can "teach" SR, even if they think it's absurd (and many do just that).

You simply start out by giving Al's basic postulates. Then you say, "now, if you accept those postulates, then...."

And you go through the complete course that way, all with the implicit understanding that it's only "sound" IF you accept the postulates.

I can, for example, say that the following syllogism is completely valid:

1. All elephants are purple.
2. This animal is an elephant.
3. Therefore this animal is purple.

The argument is valid, and the conclusion is necessarily implied by the premises. I could teach that. It wouldn't mean I believe that elephants are purple though, ya know?

1 Reply

@layman,

By the way, Max, Feynman said that the explanation of the "twin paradox" was easy. He said that it would be the twin who was accelerated that would age more slowly (whose clock would slow down).

This is quite correct, but it is not SR. It is LR. What Feynman was saying was that the "traveling twin" was the one who was "really moving" and that therefore you would have to use the preferred frame (i.e., the "non-moving" earth frame) of reference to get the correct answer.

Only the earth's frame of reference gives you the CORRECT answer. Using the travelling twin's frame gives you "an" answer, but it is an INCORRECT one (according to SR, he will say the earth twin's clock is the one that slowed down, and therefore that the earth twin is aging more slowly).

Without him explicitly saying so, this demonstrates that he did NOT believe in SR.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

He accepted Special Relativity as fact. You are arguing that Feynmans belief in scientific laws and trust in mathematics is bogus.

No respectable physicist "accepts SR as fact," Max. If you knew anything about physics (or the philosophy of physics, anyway) you would know that.

And, needless to say, the prior couple of posts were directed against this absurd claim of yours. But, of course, you are absolutely cocksure that you are right.

Max, you are not unique in this (i.e. the following) respect, but you are particularly belligerent in the way you manifest it:

You are incapable of examining your own premises, so you accept them as fact. Since your premises are fact, you believe that anything you deduce from them (however fallaciously) must also be FACT.

Fraid not, homeboy.

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@layman,

layman wrote:

Only the earth's frame of reference gives you the CORRECT answer. Using the travelling twin's frame gives you "an" answer, but it is an INCORRECT one (according to SR, he will say the earth twin's clock is the one that slowed down, and therefore that the earth twin is aging more slowly).

If we blast a rocket off toward the moon, we all know that igniting the rocket fuel did NOT suddenly push the earth away from, and start attracting the moon toward, the rocket, while the rocket itself remains perfectly motionless.

We can say that, while he is accelerating, the astronaut feels enhanced "g forces," and therefore knows that he is the one moving (SR concedes this). So why, then, would he assume that, as soon as he quits accelerating and begins "coasting" at a uniform speed that, suddenly, he is no longer moving and that then (and only then) the earth is now moving away from him, rather than him moving away from it?

Wouldn't the law of inertia, which says that a body in motion tends to stay in motion, "tell" him that he was still "moving" even if he was no longer accelerating and could no longer "feel" his motion?

Uhhh, yeah it would. So, then, why doesn't he say to himself "I'm moving, so I know my watch has slowed down, not the one's on earth."

He does do that, in real life, of course. Astronauts are not stupid. But he doesn't do that in the theoretical structure of special relativity. There, he must act stupid, and deny that he could possibly be moving.

Why? Because the whole theory would fall apart if he didn't play the fool, that's why. He would no longer calculate the speed of light to be constant in every inertial frame of reference, for one thing. But THAT would contradict a basic postulate of SR, so SR does not, and cannot, allow it. If he does that, he is accepting the validity of LR, and rejecting SR.

SR "depends on" claiming that the obviously false claims of deceived fools are actually "correct." But, since when has what someone "thinks" been the least bit relevant to the behavior of physical objects in the "real world" anyway? Since never, if you ask me, even if what they think is true, rather than false.

Solipsism and "objective reality" are incompatible.

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@maxdancona,

I have no idea what point hes driving at other than to collect and throw rocks at all areas of science that "Threaten" an unspecified worldview.
When we use gravimeter measurements and GPS measurements the systems are corrected for SR because (functionally) LR (and the t transformations) do not technically limit us to (c). I awalys thought that was the definable difference that really mattered

In our atomic absorption/Mass Spectrometers (ion analyses) equip we have built in Ives/ STilwell recognition that ions radiate at frequencies that are a function of their speed of motion which is a vector addition that includes the "local distance from the center of the earth" which is consistent with LR. (Ive never heard the SR explanations for this because the LR one is "Simpler"

I have Lay on ignore because , as I found out in his discussions of genetics and evolution, he gets his information from some clip site and then tries to make wacko assertions(because he really doesnt understand the science and therefore, like an idiot, Im teaching a squirrel) .Usually he catches himself and just quits because he sees that he is inconsistent with himself. Then he will try insults on you (I am old or suffering from Alzheimers) . to which I say "Maybe so but how smart do I have to be to point our where youre wrong?

Ive been away for a couple days at a conference so Ive missed much of the sites I was reading.
Vladz

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Max, you incessantly tout your "education" and pretend that it answers all questions. Here's something about education that you might not be aware of:

Quote:

"Education, n.: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding."

It seems that "education" has different effects on people, depending on the depth of their wisdom, eh? Think about it.

You would also do well to think about this, I figure:

Quote:

"To be positive: To be mistaken at the top of one's voice."

Both quotes come from Ambrose Bierce, by the way.

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@Olli S,

Why nobody replies to my post here? They just talk of the importance of mathematics for the cosmology.

1 Reply

@Olli S,

Olli S wrote:

Why nobody replies to my post here? They just talk of the importance of mathematics for the cosmology.

Max doesn't "reply" to anybody, Olli. He just makes pronouncements of his own choosing to the world at large. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and.......

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From the short video of Feynman that I posted here: http://able2know.org/topic/363445-14

Quote:

I must say that it is possible--and I've often made the hypothesis--that physics ultimately will not require a mathematical statement. That the machinery will ultimately be revealed...an so I've made the hypothesis often that the laws are going to turn out to be in the end, simple...

He also says that mathematical symbolism must be turned into "English" by the physicist and notes that physicists must be familiar with concepts, not just numerical symbols. It is the concepts, not the numbers, which give physics content and meaning, he says.

Yet Max, who claims to be familiar with Feynman's insights, just keeps screaming "MATH!" Go figure, eh?

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Quote:

Cargo cult science comprises practices that have the semblance of being scientific, but do not in fact follow the scientific method. The term was first used by physicist Richard Feynman during his 1974 commencement address at the California Institute of Technology....

Feynman cautioned that to avoid becoming cargo cult scientists, researchers must avoid fooling themselves, be willing to question and doubt their own theories and their own results, and investigate possible flaws in a theory or an experiment. He recommended that researchers adopt an unusually high level of honesty which is rarely encountered in everyday life...And it's this type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the research in cargo cult science.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_science

What!? Doubt your own theories!? Out of the question.

Investigate possible flaws in a theory? No, thank you. My chosen leaders have no flaws. They trained me. They know all anybody can know. I trust them. Completely.

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@layman,

Quote:

R. Feynman Quote:
The mathematical rigor of great precision is NOT very useful in physics.

I assume he was speaking about finding new breakthroughs in Physics. I'd have to agree. Every instance of those breakthroughs that I've heard personally described was done while well away from a blackboard or pencil & paper. I think I remember Einstein making his while driving and imagining how the clock in a tower would be affected by it's velocity relative to him.

Math is important to verifying those inspirations, but that's after the fact.

@Max:
Please allow us our musings about physics. That's where breakthroughs are actually made.

1 Reply

@Leadfoot,

Leadfoot wrote:

I think I remember Einstein making his while driving and imagining how the clock in a tower would be affected by it's velocity relative to him.

Math is important to verifying those inspirations, but that's after the fact.

Yeah, Leddy, Al came up with some funny stories about his scientific inspirations. When asked what led him to posit that gravity and acceleration were equivalents, he said it all started when his neighbor fell off his roof and broke his ankles.

Al asked him how he felt as he was falling.

His neighbor said: "I didn't feel anything."

1 Reply

@layman,

With respect to his invention of the (quite dubious, in my opinion) concept of the relativity of simultaneity, a friend of Al's had a story to tell.

He and Al were discussing the conceptual problems Al was struggling with and spent the whole afternoon discussing them. Al left, seemingly just as fretful as when he came in.

The next day Al told him: "I want to thank you for giving me the solution I have been desperately struggling to grasp."

The friend was, and remained, quite puzzled about how he could possibly give any solutions to a problem he didn't understand. Al never elaborated.

1 Reply

@layman,

That reminds me of how I finally figured out women. The woman who inspired the solution could not grasp how she was good enough to do that.
I never burst her bubble either.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

This means, for example, that if a space ship is drifting along at a uniform speed, all experiments performed in the space ship and all the phenomena in the space ship will appear the same as if the ship were not moving, provided, of course, that one does not look outside.

Here you are ironically using Feynman's words about "cargo cult science" (which is not mathematical, but you still are missing the point) to attack anyone who accepts Special Relativity as mathematically consistant and confirmed by experiment.

1. I agree with everything he says about the "principle of relativity." He makes one thing clear that you deny. The PR does NOT say that "you can't tell if you're moving," as you have claimed in the past. Often you need only look out that window to see that, as Feynman notes.

Galileo's "parable of the ship" also made this clear. And it was all propounded to support his contention that the earth does, in fact, "move" around the sun. The real import was that he established an early notion of "inertia" that was unknown to Aristotle (the "scientist" he was arguing against at the time).

2. I have never disputed the fact that SR is "logically consistent," nor that it has been "confirmed" in the scientific sense of the word. But you think "confirmed" means proven as a fact--a ridiculous claim on your part. And it appears that you also naively think that "logically consistent" means the logic must be sound (and not merely "valid').

1 Reply

@layman,

You are looking for "fact", as in "truth". This is a philosophical concept. Science doesn't care about "truth". Science only cares about what's confirmed by experiment and observation.

Physics gives a precise description of a current situation and can make accurate preductions about what is about to happen as long as it knows the input.

The correct Physics is the Physics that can create a testable mathematical model. Of there is more than one equivalent theory, then Occam's razor applies (which I suppose is philospohical)....

If the only disagreement we are having is over the word "fact", than this discussion is a little disappointing.

I will point out again that Physics has been uniquely impressive at creating the bases for modern technology and udnerstanding.

If you agree that General Relativity (and its older cousin Special Relativity) are logically consistant and confirmed by experiment.... that is all I can ask for.

Whe you want to land robots on Mars, or miniaturize semiconductors to make computers fit in your pocket, or find planets outside of our solar system, philosophy has nothing to do with it.

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@maxdancona,

Just curious, Max...did you read any of the posts I made regarding the theoretical structure of SR and/or those pertaining to Feynman and SR?

If so, do you dispute anything I said?

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The Red Shift without Expansion

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