Who is your favorite Physicist?

You quote the question I asked, Max, but you refuse to answer it. Do you have an answer? Do you see your self-contradiction?

Layman,

I have taught Physics, in both high school and in college. I have taken years of Physics study, and I have used this knowledge in the lab. I don't know how to convince you of this, but you are wrong. You are stuck with an idea that you can't seen to get past because it what I am saying doesn't seem right to you. But I am right.

Anyone who is educated in Physics understands Galilean relativity. It is introduced in high school. We use it in laboratory experiments, we use it in problem sets. All of do. You can't understand modern physics without first having grasped Galilean relativity. If you took a year of college Physics (or college high school Physics, my students grasped this), you would understand why you are wrong.

We keep going around in circles... but I have done my homework on this one. I have actually done the problem sets, read the texts, learned the math, done experiments in the lab.

My big problem with philosophy is that it is too much based on conjecture... what feels right. And you are having problems accepting a core part of physics that doesn't feel right to you.

You are doing Physics by Google, you are googling quotes that you think support your misunderstanding. But you can support any crazy theory by google.. that isn't the way to learn Physics. The way to learn Physics is to sit down and actually work though the math in real problems.. You are rejecting a core part of Physics. I get that you want insult your way out of this, to say that education doesn't matter. And to claim that everyone who disagrees with you doesn't understand what makes perfect sense to you.

I have tried to answer all of your questions, in multiple cases. You are stuck in a rut and unable or unwilling to see things from a scientific perspective (rather than a philosophical one).

The answer to this latest question... the answer is that the Earth orbiting the Sun is not an inertial frame. You may not understand what "inertial frame" means, or why the Earth orbiting the Sun isn't an "inertial frame"... but that isn't my fault. I would explain it to you if you want. But I think you are more interested in disproving Physics than understanding it.

Heh, once again your "response is just a long-ass ramble claiming what an expert you are (all while disproving it as you go). Just answer the question: Do you see your own self-contradiction?




That's not an answer to the question, that's simply your way of avoiding it via obfuscation. Frames of reference were not even conceived of, as such, until long after Galileo, for one thing, and more importantly, they have nothing whatsoever to do with the issue here. The question was about what galilean relativity implies, NOT about the "frames of reference" you drag in as a red herring.

Just answer the question for once, why doncha? Believe it or not a claim of superior knowledge, is NOT a response to the question. It is simply hollow and transparent bluster.

Education matters. If you want to do Physics, you should get some education. Google searches don't count as education. You could be learning real Physics, there are all kinds of real resources... from college courses to talking to people who have taken the time to learn Physics.

Instead you have invented your own ideas about Physics without any education. And you are fighting anyone who tries to explain real Physics instead of learning from them.

The practice of science involves study, and mathematics and working through problems. You don't just come up with ideas and stubbornly stick to them because they feel right to you.

As always, Max, you refuse to engage in honest discussion. I presume it's because you're incapable of it. You still haven't responded to the question, and I know you never will.

Instead you will claim that anyone who questions you is an uneducated fool. That M.O. has been demonstrated DOZENS of times by you, and it never varies.

Nice try.

You claim you were a teacher. I've had teachers like you, myself.

How they ever got their positions, I don't know, but they were not well-versed in the subjects they taught. Nor were they analytical thinkers by any stretch of the imagination. And they knew it. And all the brighter students knew it.

They would frequently make contradictory statements and/or nonsensical claims. When questioned about something they couldn't answer, especially if it was a question about something illogical they had just said, they would always go on a long rant about how THEY were the teacher, and as such, they obviously were correct and knew more than their students, and that, time being short, they couldn't respond to" stupid" questions, so everyone should just shut up and listen.

They actually thought they had bluffed their way out of their predicament, but everyone could see through it.

They were a sorry lot, I can tell ya that.

No, Galilean relativity doesn't "tell you" that at all, either. With Galileo, both the guy on the ship AND the guy on the shore will say that the guy on the ship is the one moving. SR prohibits this.

Einstein, not Galileo, is the one who imposed that arbitrary requirement on just how things MUST be "seen" by different observers. With SR (and only SR) the guy on the ship is strictly prohibited from concluding that, as between the ship and the shore, the ship, not the shore, is what's moving--billowed sails be damned.

Again, that is a matter of "philosophy," which SR is chock-full of, not empirical science.

Well, do ya, Max?

I expect no answer, but, who knows, you might surprise me.

(.....shaking head in disbelief........)

If you are too dumb to see that the words 'shore' and 'ship' already encapsulate a preferred observational reference frame then that would explain your complete misunderstanding of SR.
Any 'mustness' applies ONLY to measurement of the speed of light irrespective of relative motion of observers at constant velocity. ONLY FROM THE LIGHT AXIOM does OBSERVATION OF differential 'time passage' follow. THERE IS NO INDEPENDENT ENTITY CALLED 'TIME'.
As far as the 'twins' are concerned is the tangible experience of FORCE/ ACCELERATION OF ONLY ONE OF THEM which makes age comparison an empirical 'reality'.Obviously since 'twins' MUST BY DEFINITION at least start in the same reference frame the word 'twins' is exactly like the words 'ship' and 'shore'. Any hypothetical looking at clocks through telescopes in the constant relative velocity mode is completely irrelevent to a tangible/empirical 'aging comparison'.

So let's see if you will ever 'get it' ! I doubt it because you have invested so much of yourself in your misunderstanding.

Hahahaha. The self-proclaimed geniuses abound in this joint, eh? Maybe you're smart enough to explain how that is, eh, Fresky? Wanna try? But, even assuming it did, so what? Of course there is a way to tell which one is "preferred" (i.e., relatively motionless), as Galileo himself made clear.

No, it doesn't apply "only" to that at all, fool. And no, "observation" of time differential does NOT exist only because of the light axiom. It was predicted and quantified by Lorentz a decade before Al came along with his light postulate. You're batting 1.000 on your incorrect claims so far.

What the hell is all that supposed to mean? You're making no sense. But, yeah, it is the acceleration which permits you to know which one is moving, relative to the other. Too bad Al claimed that this couldn't be detected...well, until he did claim it, I mean. And of course, it's the difference in speed which causes one clock to slow down relative to the other. But, again, what's your point? Why make an obvious statement like that? Is that relevant to something you think you are arguing about?

Yeah, sure, telescopes are irrelevant, but that's obvious. Why would you even mention it?

Your pretentious, yet pathetic, attempts to "prove" something by supposedly "deconstructing" a scenario via linguistics are actually laughable, eh, Fresky?

Nothing depends on any two people being "twins." They could be complete strangers who had never met each other, and that would not change anything one iota. One would still age less, and one more, by the exact same amount as any "twins" would.

I suppose it all boils down to what "to be moving" means.

In modern scientific parlance it means: "given a certain frame of reference, an object is moving if and only if its coordinates in the frame of reference change over time."

IOW, one cannot conceive of movement without a frame of reference. In even simpler terms: you need at least two objects to speak of "movement", and the movement one can speak of here is that of one of the objects relative to the other.

If you imagine an empty space with only one object in it, it means nothing to say that this object is "moving" or "at rest". You'd need to imagine another object for these words to mean anything: a frame of reference.

So the question: "which object is really moving means: is there a frame of reference that is real, as opposed to relative to a given observer who choses freely to adopt this or that frame, and can opt for any frame of reference in his mental maps of the world?

Is a frame of reference something that is in the eye of the beholder? Or can we humans find the one true frame of reference of the universe, the "frame of God" so to speak?

For mechanical objects, Galileo and Newton said (in essence): "all inertial frames of reference are equivalent to describe movements. You can chose any of them to calculate movement and the laws of mecanics will work. There is an infinite number of intertial frames, so that's handy. The price to pay is that there's no telling which inertial frame really moves.

On the contrary, non-inertial frames (accelerated in the physical sense, ie including slowed down, rotating, and/or not moving in straight line) are sub-par, not good frames, in that if you use them to map movements, the laws of mecanics seem to fail. And that's not posible so we're sure that they are non-inertial, and thus we're sure they are "moving".

You seem to be confusing absolute movement with relative movement, Ollie.

And by that I don't mean confusing inertial motion with non-inertial (accelerated) motion. You are not confusing those two things. Even in SR, accelerated motion is "absolute" (i.e. not frame-dependent).

Both I and the beer can on my desktop can be moving in a multitude of ways which we both share. We are both orbiting the sun at a high rate of speed. We are both rotating with the earth's surface. We are both moving through "space" (the CMB) at a high rate of speed toward the "great attractor." But we are not moving relative to each other.

When ALL of our motions are NOT commonly shared, then AS BETWEEN THE TWO OF US, at least one can be said to be "moving." Maybe we are both moving, but there is "relative motion" between us. If I throw the beer can across the room, then obviously it has moved (differently), not me.

We're saying the same thing here, with different words. Non-inertial movement is the only type of movement we can be sure of, in Galileo's mechanics.

Eppure si muove.

I don't think we are quite "saying the same thing."

To repeat what I just said in a different way: If I go to my refrigerator to get another beer, I can BE SURE that I moved toward the refrigerator and that we didn't happen to end up at the same place because it moved toward me. And that would be just as true if I moved toward it at a perfectly uniform rate of speed.

If I get on a plane in NY and fly at a uniform rate of speed to LA, I can BE SURE that LA did not come to me as I remained motionless.

You're quite the agreeable type...

As expected.! Looks like 'sleep laughing' could be as frequent as sleep walking !
That complete lack of understanding of Einstein's unique contribution to the 'shocking ' paradigm revolution centred on the counter intuitive demise of 'time' as an independent parameter, gives the lie to your earlier apparent appreciation of philosophical zeitgeist. Consequent convoluted thinking on your part dressed up with a shallow understanding of mathematical modelling and selectively trawled references usually from 'renegade' journals, serves merely as a complementary self deception technique.

As I recall, Descarte contended that there was no way he could "be sure" that "he" was not just a "brain in a vat" created and controlled by some "demon."

In the most abstract, theoretical (philosophical, if you will) way you could say he was right. But you would also be showing yourself to be a damn fool if you said that.