Many theists believe there is an objective morality to be discovered. However, since you can't uncover such a morality in the same way you can lift a stone and find a pill bug, empirical systems are not use for this process. Instead, many rely on various works that they give implicit trust to, except when the advice of such books goes against their innate beliefs. Hence, we see homosexuals barred from military service, but don't see single women non-virgins barred in such a fashion, much less executed for being a single non-virgin.
Some attempt a seemingly more sophisticated approach of creating a morality based upon a few accepted notions and creating a formal system to reflect it. That's when you see people like the Maverick Philosopher examining the details on what their basic positions entail when examined in detail. Below the fold, I'll go into why I think this helps to pinpoint the inherent lack of objectivity in this construction of a moral system.
I'm not really concerned with the particular argument that Dr. Vallicella is making in his post, rather, I want to highlight what happens when he finds his argument is inadequate. In particular, he doesn't like the breadth of the conclusion of the argument, so he proposes a new starting point. That is, in creating this supposedly objective moral position, he changed his starting point to get the conclusion that he felt was the right one.
Now, I have no objections to this activity per se. In fact, this is one of the better advantages of operating strictly within a formal system. If the starting positions lead you to a situation you can't use, changing the starting positions is to be expected. If you are tracking the movements of ships on the surface of the earth, you don't pretend that the surface of the earth matches Euclid's parallel postulate; instead you assume that no lines (aka great circles) are parallel and use a Riemannian geometry. It will have the tools you need to look at ship movements around a globe.
However, the process of choosing these starting positions is strictly based on the conclusions you want to derive. That makes the starting positions arbitrary, and those positions will be carefully chosen so the results conform to the desired outcome. So, far from getting some objective morality that can be applied to all, you get a tailored morality designed to support a specific set of positions. Some of these systems, like natural law, were debated for hundreds of years before they were codified, and even then still generate disagreements around the edges.
When people come up with another method of knowing things that can exhibit certainty, reality, and demonstrability, that method of know may indeed lead to an objective morality. Until that time, there will be no such creature. All the construction within formal systems will not be able alter the shaky foundation upon which they rest.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
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2,208 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 1601 – 1800 of 2208 Newer› Newest»One Brow said: "Once the acceleration is over, there is no longer an objective way to measure which clock clock is running slower without making the prior assumption that the pre-accelerated state is the rest state. You can't use the assumption of the prior state as the rest state to prove the prior state is the rest state."
No, you use the presumption of inertia, and it's implications,to "prove" that, which is NOT an "arbitary assumption," just as the experience of acceleration is not an arbitrary assumption. One is free to deny that inertia exists, but that does not make the concept itself "arbitrary," "unempirical" or "non-scientific."
One Brow said:"Once the acceleration is over, there is no longer an objective way to measure which clock clock is running slower..."
Are you suggesting that whatever you happen to have in mind when you refer to "an objective way to measure" DOES exist DURING acceleration, but ONLY during acceleration?
One Brow said:"Prove that treating acceleration as an absolute quantity implies the existence of a pre-acceleration rest state as being the only valid rest state."
I don't even know where the suggestion of "the only valid rest state" even enters this discussion. Where does that come in?
While a car accelerates from 0 to 100, it is an accelerating object. When it then cruises at 100 mph it is an accelerated object.
Prove that once a train accelerates to 60 mph, and then moves at a uniform speed (not inertially strictly speaking, of course) that all effects on the clocks on that train disappear and revert to the rates they maintained when the train was parked at the station, if that's your claim.
If that's not your claim, and you concede that the changes in the clocks persist, prove that there is no way to objectively measure the difference between the clocks on the train and those on the ground.
Isn't the whole theory behind SR that you can, and will, measure a difference in the clocks?
If you can't prove those things, then what sense does what you've said before make?
One Brow said:"Actually, I very specifically said that the traveling twin was moving in the twin paradox."
Actually you said SR says you can't tell if the floor or the bug crawling across it is what's moving in the closed cabin on a ship and actually you said SR claims that a sailor on deck can't tell if his ship or the boat is moving, as I recall. But the twin is different, eh? If you answer both "true" and "false" you can always claim you gave the "right" answer.
Dingle on!
Edit: Meant to say:
you said SR claims that a sailor on deck can't tell if his ship or the SHORE [not boat] is moving, as I recall
Say we blasted a Pioneer rocket off into space and it just now passed jupiter, travelling inertially. Are you saying we have no objective way of knowing that it didn't suddenly stop in it's tracks while the Sun and all the inner planets started moving away from it and the distant galaxies and the outer planets suddenly started moving toward it from one direction and away from it in another?
Inertia, and it's implications as explicated in Newton's laws of motion don't exist in SR, that the idea, Mr. Dingle?
Unlike Phipps, you seem intent on having SR make a fool of itself, as a matter of physics.
One Brow said: "You can't use the assumption of the prior state as the rest state to prove the prior state is the rest state."
Who said anything about a "rest state?" I am presuming the object was in motion in both states, not at rest. It's just that it can be verified that in the second state it is going at a higher rate of speed than the first state.
Back to Jack and Jill, you hopeless sophistic equivocater. In Scenario A Jill does not ever see, or ever "observe" Jack's clock to record less than 10 seconds elasped. Never.
She does use unsound arguments to DEDUCE (fallaciously) that 10 seconds did not really pass on Jack's clock, but her reasoning in clearly unsound (not to mention fallacious in a variety of other ways) by virtue of the hypothesis.
Why is it unsound? Because it is all based on the false premise that she is at rest. How do we know her premise is false? Because we have been told that she is moving, but that she is far too much of an ignorant slut to accept that simple fact in spite of the clear empirical evidence which demonstrates.
That, Mr. Dingle, is not "observation" on her part, sorry. It's is ignorant sluttiness, no more, no less. It is Dingality personified, ya might say.
I pointed out:"The professor, very clearly and very explicitly, at the very outset of his example, tells you what Jack and Jill both see."
One Brow said: "Yes, and he very explicitly describes 6.4 seconds passing on clock1 and Jack's clock while 8 pass on Jill's, as I noted."
Once again proving that you will (mis)read everyone you come across as having said what you want them to say even when they say the opposite. This is after I had already pointed out the what he really said once before.
I will quote his EXACT WORDS to you for about the 4th time:
"As Jill passes Jack’s second clock, both see that his clock reads 10 seconds, hers reads 8 seconds."
Read much, Eric?
It COULDN"T read anything else given the premises:
1. Jack at rest
2. Clock 6 light seconds apart
3. Clocks 1 and 2 synchronized
4. Jill moving at .6c
But you never give a second's consideration to the possible(or should I say blatantly obvious) logical inconsistency of the claims you assert when you think such an assertion proves your case. You don't think twice, you just blurt out whatever you think sounds good. And having said something once is enough to make it eternally true for you. You will then reiterate the bogus assertion forever.
One Brow said:"He's basing his analysis on clocks revolving aro9und another clock while not being accelerated. You think that's good science?"
I know enough about "science" to know that the scientists who designed the GPS did a brilliant job which produces highly accurate practical predictions and results. I don't base my conclusions on apriori deductions from a single word or a single consideration. Much less do I dismiss renowned scientists as "cranks" based on half-baked conclusions from semantics based on a misapprehension of premises.
If a question occurs to me and I want to answer it, the first thing I try to do is learn more about the topic to see if I can discover where my lack of understanding may have led me to ask the question in the first place.
More on the ECI that you may (or may not) care to incorporate into that vast store of scientific knowledge which you have the burden of toting along with you at all times, eh?:
"In an inertial frame, Newton's second law holds: force = mass•acceleration. Loosely speaking, acceleration is defined with respect to the distant cosmos, and an inertial frame is often said to be nonaccelerated with respect to the "fixed stars." Because the Earth and stars move so slowly with respect to one another, this assumption is a very accurate approximation."
http://www.mathworks.com/help/toolbox/aeroblks/f3-22568.html
Is a "very accurate approiximation" good science?
For some reason, not exactly sure just what reason, but some reason, I suspect that the Van Flandern crank knows and understands a little more about the GPS than you do:
http://metaresearch.org/solar%20system/gps/absolute-gps-1meter.ASP
Another excerpt from the last cite:
"This is a rotating, geocentric system. The toolbox ignores the Earth's motion around the Sun, the Sun's motion in the Galaxy, and the Galaxy's motion through cosmos. In most applications, only the Earth's rotation matters.
This approximation must be changed for spacecraft sent into deep space, i.e., outside the Earth-Moon system, and a heliocentric system is preferred."
In most applications it "doesn't matter" that the sun's motion in the galaxy and the galaxy's motion in the cosmos is ignored? Is that good science?
Not much time today, so I am posting on just a couple of things.
aintnuthin said...
I pointed out:"The professor, very clearly and very explicitly, at the very outset of his example, tells you what Jack and Jill both see."
One Brow said: "Yes, and he very explicitly describes 6.4 seconds passing on clock1 and Jack's clock while 8 pass on Jill's, as I noted."
Once again proving that you will (mis)read everyone you come across as having said what you want them to say even when they say the opposite. This is after I had already pointed out the what he really said once before.
I will quote his EXACT WORDS to you for about the 4th time:
"As Jill passes Jack’s second clock, both see that his clock reads 10 seconds, hers reads 8 seconds."
Read much, Eric?
Let's compare:
"both see that his clock reads 10 seconds"
"6.4 seconds passing on clock1 and Jack's clock"
Now, can you find the contradiction between those two statements? I can't. Jill observes 6.4 seconds to pass on Jack's clock, after which it reads 10 seconds.
So, it's not my reading ability.
With regard to the quesiton to colton, we absoutely do not agree that Jill will see 10 seconds pass on Jack's clock. We should not present a statement as something we agree upon when we do not agree.
Also, you have added "observations of clocks as ACTUALLY SEEN", but they are different things. As a simple example, Kack observes that his clock and clock1 are synchronized. However, Jack sees clock1 as runnig six seconds behind him. The differenceis that the observation accounts for light-speed delay (Jack observes light to take six seconds to travel from clock1 to Jack).
So, keeping in mind what we don't agree on and the difference between seeing and observation, I'll allow you to reformulate the question(s).
My point, about this whole GPS thing, Eric, is to point out your inclination to think exclusively in a priori terms, without further analysis, at least as I view your thought processes.
If you want to deny every (unfavorable) implication of SR by the simple expedient of claiming it "doesn't apply" to non-inertial frames, then, to be consistent, you should simply assert that SR is an untestable pseudo-scientific hypothesis that doesn't ever apply to any practical situation that we are aware of.
Ever ask yourself why your protestations are so selective in that regard? Ever ask yourself why Al assumed (he has been proven right) that acceleration plays no part in time dilation? Ever ask yourself if "it really matters," if two non-inertial objects are compared within the context of SR theory?
One Brow said: "So, keeping in mind what we don't agree on and the difference between seeing and observation, I'll allow you to reformulate the question(s)."
There is no need to consult a physcist about questions with pertain to the blatant misuse and abuse of the English language. Any dictionary will do.
As I said, wild-ass, illogical, unsound "reasoning" by an ignorant slut is NOT "observation" by the definition of anybbody except YOU.
You then want to pretend that I don't know how to use math.
Fuck you, Eric, I'm sick of your idiotic solipstic semantic games.
All you do with your semantic "solutions" (in your favor, or course) to every issue you encounter is to display (1) what a dull, unimaginative and confused thinker you are, (2) Your wild over-estimation of your own intellect; (3)your utter contempt for the intellect of every person you present your "arguments" to.
I've had enough. Not my idea of an honest,intelligent discussion, I'm afraid
One last observation:
One Brow said:"So, it's not my reading ability."
So it's strictly a lack of ability to comprehend, that it? Apparently, unlike even a young child who can't read, you can't even understand pictures.
His words are accompanied by pictures of the clocks, showing how they read.
So convinced that you understand the problem, when you don't, you are then convince yourself that the utterly illogical times you come up with are right when the scenario gets switched--because you think it agrees with what you think the "expert" said. Quite typical of a plodding thinker who cannot analyze the implications of his own statements.
For you own edification, ask Colton to read it and explain it to you.
I'll ask colton, and post the response.
Meanwhile, here's tidbit for you to consider: There is a difference between see, observe, and calculate.
See: changes visible to the eyes
Observe: uses what it seen, with corrections made as can be determined by measurements
Calculate: uses what is observed, combined with facts not available through observation, to arrive at a conclusion representing reality
Facts we agree upon: clock1 and Jack are synchronized. They are separated by 6 light-seconds (that is, it takes 6 seconds for light to travel from clock1 to Jack, and and vice-versa) . When Jill passes clock1, Jill's clock and clock1 both read 0. When Jill passes Jack, Jill's clock reads 8 and Jack's clock reads 10.
Using only these facts, and no others, you can deduce the following:
a) When Jill passes clock1, she and clock1 are seeing jack's clock as it was six seconds ago. That means they both see Jack's clock to read -6. Since Jill sees Jack's clock read 10 when she passes it, Jill actually sees 16 seconds pass on Jacks clock (I posted the wrong number on the previous page of comments, my apologies for that). So, Jill sees 8 seconds pass on her clock for 16 seconds passing on jack's clock.
b) Jack does not see Jill pass clock1 at the same time Jill actually passes clock1. He sees that event six seconds later. At the time Jill passes clock1, Jack sees clock1 reading -6 seconds and Jill still six seconds away. When Jack sees Jill passing clock1, Jill has already completed six seconds of the journey Jack measures as ten seconds. Jack sees 8 seconds tick off on Jill's clock as he counts off another 4.
c) While Jill is appraching Jack, each sees the other clock to be ticking twice as fast as their clock.
d) Jill sees four seconds tick off on clock1 between when she passes it and when she passes Jack.
e) Jill sees Jack's clock tick four times as quickly as clock1 while she is in between the two clocks.
Again, that just using basic subtraction and facts we agree upon to describe what each sees.
Now, Jill can make observations that Jack and clock1 are ticking at the same rate, using SR. She cn make calculaitons that they are ticking more slowing, using LR and the assumption Jack is at rest. But neither is what she sees.
aintnuthin said...
As I said, wild-ass, illogical, unsound "reasoning" by an ignorant slut is NOT "observation" by the definition of anybbody except YOU.
I'm not sure Jill's caution, logic, knowledge, or sexual habits affect her measurements in any way.
You then want to pretend that I don't know how to use math.
Not at all. I'm just responding to your refusal to do so. I have no opinion on whather you can do the math or not.
Fuck you, Eric, I'm sick of your idiotic solipstic semantic games.
I recognize differences you refuse to, but they are not idiotic, solipsitic, semantical, nor gamish.
I've had enough.
As you wish.
For you own edification, ask Colton to read it and explain it to you.
I'll compose scenarios and questions, incorporating some of your suggestions and specifying the difference between what Jill sees, observes, and calculates. I'll post them here, perhaps Thursday, and them a few days later present them to colton. I'll post his response word-for-word. I'll eat any crow required.
One Brow said: "... I'll allow you to reformulate the question(s)."
You'll "allow" me, eh? Do you think I'm an utter fucking idiot, or are you?
Question: How tall is Jerry Sloan
My answer: Not sure, but over 6 feet, and less than 7 feet.
Your answer: Over 70.
Me: Wanna bet, and let Colton be the judge.
You: Yeah.
You (to Colton): He says the answer is under 7, and I say the answer is over 70. Who's right?
Colton: What's the question?
You: The question is how OLD is Jerry Sloan.
Colton: In that case, you are right.
You (to me): Colton says the correct answer is over 70 and that i'm right.
Changing the question can't make your wrong answer right, sorry.
One Brow said:"I'll compose scenarios and questions... specifying the difference between what Jill sees, observes, and calculates.
You do that, if that entertains you. My suggestion was that you ask Colton to explain the answer to the orginial question, the one we were disputing, to you, not some other question. You probably don't want to do that.
I don't know if you come up with this stuff out of pure idiocy, pure sophistry, or just some combination of both.
This question came up in two different context, and it was NOT about the difference between "seeing and observering." What Jill does in this question is NOT observation, but let's just assume it is. That's irrelevant to the question(s).
First Context: You said the answer would be "the same" (i.e. that Jill would still see 8 seconds or her clock and 10 seconds on Jack's, and that Jack would see the same) even if their motion was reversed.
You have since changed your answer to that, implicitly conceding that you were wrong, but you don't concede. Instead you act as though some other question was the issue--not your mistaken assertion about getting "the same answer."
Second Contexy: You claimed that the reciprocity (each "sees," not observes, the other's clock as running slow) was empirically real.
To begin with, this claim contradicts your other assertion (that the non-reciprocal answer in the Jack and Jill case would always be "the same").
Secondly, it is absurd to think that both will "actually see" the other's clock running more slowly than their own, let alone that any such perception could be "objectively true."
===
Jill's "reasoning is along these lines:
Jill: I see that only 8 seconds have passed on my clock and that 10 seconds have passed on Jack's clock. That's IMPOSSIBLE!!!!
Who told you it was impossible?
Jill: Al did.
No, Jill, you are mistaken. Al in fact said that one clock would always read slower than the other, that's all.
Jill: Yeah, but he said the moving clock would be slower.
Yes, he did. How does that make it impossible for your clock to read 8 while Jack's reads 10?
Jill: The moving clock is that one that runs slow so it's IMPOSSIBLE. Jack is moving, I am stationary!!
You're wrong, Jill. The professor knows that, you don't. Under the circumstances, why in the world would you think you're stationary and that Jack is moving?
Jill: Because I'm an ignorant slut in an "illustration" of an SR example, and the prof. say I MUST make erroneous assumptions about my state of motion.
OK, Jill. I won't blame you. This is all the prof's fault.
Many many warnings have been given by professors to students that they should NOT
1. Confuse the "time dilation" of SR with an effect caused by a doppler shift, and/or
2. Confuse the "time dilation" of SR with an effect caused by a delay in light signals.
That is mainstream SR, something that you don't seem to be familiar with, Eric.
In SR time dilation depends on relative speed only, and is totally independent of direction. On the other hand, doppler effects are entirely different depending on direction. They are two completely different phenomena, and one does not explain or cause the other. If you want to ascertain the quantity of the doppler effects, you must CORRECT for the relativistic time dilation and subtract it out. Conversely, if you want to ascertain the quantity of the time dilation, you must CORRECT for any doppler effects and subtract them out.
These necessary "corrections" form the basis of the distinction Hogg made between "seeing" and observing. You seem to think that refusing to correct for them and then reaching some totally fucked-up answer based on the failure to correctly "observe" is what Hogg was advocating. Fraid not.
The same analysis applies for any effects of signal delay.
I said: "Secondly, it is absurd to think that both will "actually see" the other's clock running more slowly than their own, let alone that any such perception could be "objectively true."
I meant in these particular circumstances, of course, i.e. when they are both looking at the same thing(s), at the same time, from the same place.
One Brow said:"Facts we agree upon:...When Jill passes Jack, Jill's clock reads 8 and Jack's clock reads 10."
And it just so happens that these figures (8 for her, 10 for him) are exactly what the formula for SR predicts must occur with mathematical certainty.
So both parties see EXACTLY what SR predicts as a matter of accumulated time shown on each respective clock.
They SEE it, with their own two eyes (from the same place at the same time).
Of course you keep changing your answers with every response you make. Just one example: One Brow said: "Due to Dopper shift, she will see 11.2 seconds pass on Jack's clock but observe 6.4 (subtracting from light-speed delay across a distance she measures as 4.8 light-seconds)."
She SEES that 10 seconds have elapsed on his clock in his frame, precisely as SR predicts.
But now you have her "observing that only 6.4 seconds elapsed on his clock. Any such "observation" is clearly wrong according to SR, since it contradicts the dictates of SR.
The question is about what the clock reads, and what she sees it read, not about her fallacious assumptions. Given the right assumptions, she could come to any conceivable conclusion. She could say 80 seconds passed for her, if she assumes her clock runs at 1/10th the true rate, and that only 1/10 of a second has passed for Jack if she wants to haul off and assume, without basis, that his clock runs fast by a factor of 100. What would any of that baseless "deduction" have to do with "observation" to begin with? It is deduction, a subjective thought process, and cannot change the objectively verifiable readings on each clock.
Of course this line of reasoning (that subjective deduction = empirically confirmed fact), fits in well with your typical conclusion that if YOU believe it, then it is a fact.
If the often-asserted "reciprocity" were in fact "empirical and objectively true," as you assert, then, under these circumstances, she would have to SEE (that's empiricism) Jack's clock read 6.4 seconds, not DEDUCE it (fallaciously). She doesn't SEE that. Nor could she SEE his clock as reading 6.4 while he sees 10, under any but the most mystical, self-contradictory, and hallucinatory premises.
Conclusion: The "reciprocity" is merely formal, not actual. It is NOT an empirically verifiable, objective fact. Logically, it couldn't be, but for those who deny logic there is other evidence. This is proven by the necessary implications of raw, empirical GPS data, as Phipps (and many others) has pointed out.
Take two identical clocks, on earth. Set one of them to run 20% fast so that it records 72 minutes to pass when the other records 60 minutes.
After one hour they will be out of sync by 12 minutes. After 2 hours, 24 minutes. After 3 hours, 36 minutes out of sync, and so on.
Now take the fast-running clock and accelerate it to a speed where SR says it will slow down by a factor of 20%. From then on it will be, and will remain, in perfect synchronization with the clock still on earth.
Did both clocks slow down? Of course not. Only one did, the moving clock, as predicted by SR. SR does NOT predict that both clocks will slow down, or that each will be slower than the other. This is a unilateral, non-reciprocal phenomenon.
To the extent anyone claims otherwise, well, then, to that extent they are wrong. They understand neither the predictions of SR nor the evidence of empirical observation.
If the accelerated clock could think, and if it wanted to insist that it's frequency had not changed, how would it explain that it is now in sync with the clock that was always slow compared to it? Would it conclude that the other clock had slowed down? No, it would conclude that the other clock speeded-up, not slowed down.
I said: "No, it would conclude that the other clock speeded-up, not slowed down."
Which would, once again, prove, within the parameters of SR, that the accelerated clock was the one moving.
Why? Because, relatively-speaking, it is always the stationary clock which "speeds up" relative to the moving clock.
In SR is the distance between two objects greater or lesser for the moving party than it is for the stationary party?
Well, that depends on what point you are trying to prove, I spoze. As the greek physicist/mathematician pointed out, in SR you can prove or refute just about any position you want by shifting between the ambiguities the theory creates.
In SR, does distance (the space between two objects) contract, or does the length of material objects contract?
SR is just vague enough to "permit" either assertion, although only one makes physical sense.
If you take Eddington's view (objects--i.e., length--contracts) you get one answer. In that view, shorter measuring intruments cause the traveller to see what are in fact shorter distances to be longer, because the space itself does not contract.
If you say "space" (distance) contracts, then what are in fact longer distances to appear shorter. In this view, objects, such as rulers, apparently remain unfazed. Of course the question arises: If the space formerly occupied by the same ruler has contracted, then, in effect, hasn't the ruler itself contracted?
Although SR is too ambiguous to literally preclude either scenario, only one interpretation makes sense. Of course that does not prevent authors at wiki, or the Prof who cooked up the Jack and Jill scenario, from asserting the senseless interpretation if they think it helps them prove the point they are trying to prove.
Without a clear specification of how "length contraction" works, you can argue it either way. Wait...what am I saying? I forgot--the greek was just spewing garbage.
I could include myself in the same category as the Prof., since I presented what I consider to be the "senseless" interpretation to you as an argument.
But I really wasn't making the assertion as a correct or accurate one. I anticipated that your response would be to assert the Eddington (and Einstienian) view. I figured that would assist you in analyzing the vagueness of the theory.
All this vagueness really stems from the assertion that the speed of light is constant in all frames, thereby redefining both time and distance so that they have no independent meaning. This was one of the problems with SR that Essen pointed out.
If I say all objects must average 100 mph when travelling from Chicago to New Orleans and you tell me it took you 5 hours, then I say the distance "must be" 500 miles.
But what if you tell me you drove it again and this time it took you 10 hours? To be consistent, I would now say the distance has changed to 250 for you.
But time is always changing too, so I could just as easily say that the distance is still 500 miles, but that time slowed down for you during the second trip. Which is it?
It depends on what I want to prove, I spoze.
Edit. Should have said:
"To be consistent, I would now say the distance has changed to 1000 [not 250] miles for for you."
In the alternative, I could dump the presumption that all objects always travel at 100 mph and simply say that neither the distance(500 miles) nor the rate at which time passes, changed at all.
Then the answer would simply be that you averaged 100 mph the first trip, and only 50 mph the second trip.
But, then, where would the mystery be? That would be too understandable for me to be able to pretend that I had the special ability to understand something incomprehensible, ya know?
Latest version, based on your recommendaiton and our current discussion.
Colton,
Could you please resolve an analysis for aintnuthin and I?
You may want to read the published example this is based on, which can be found at http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/Kayed/eBooksLectureNotes/Modern%20Physics%20By%20Michael%20Fowler/01.Special%20Relativity.pdf starting on page 37.
I'm using words in the following way:
See: changes visible to the eyes and other censes, pehaps with the aid of a telescope, and similar raw data. Does not use any notions of light-speed delay, doppler shifts, the Lorentz equations, etc.
Observe: uses what it seen, with corrections made as can be determined by measurements with rulers, clocks, protractors, scales, etc. Uses the tools such as the Lorentz equations, light-speed delay, and doppler shifting, but does not use any concepts that do not affect measurements. For example, this would not include using principles like the conservation of mass-energy.
Calculate: uses what is observed, combined with facts and principles not available through observation, to arrive at a conclusion representing reality. This would include principles like the conservation of mass-energy.
These are the points we agree upon:
Scenario A: Clock1, at point A, is 6 light-seconds away from Jack as measured by Jack in his frame of reference. Jack is a point B with Clock2, which is faithfully synchronized with Clock1 in his frame. Jack and both clocks are at rest. Jill is moving inertially relative to Jack and both clocks at .6c. Jill passes by clock1 and synchronizes her clock to clock1, and then by Jill passes by Jack and they compare clocks. Jill agrees that she is moving and that Jack and clock1 are at rest. When Jill passes clock1, clock1 shows 0, and Jill sets her clock to 0. When Jill passes Jack, her clock read 8 and his clock read 10.
Scenario B: Jill is at rest. Clock1 and Jack are moving relaively to Jill at .6c in the same direction. Clock1 and Jack are 6 light-seconds apart as measured by Jack. Jack has Clock2, which is faithfully synchronized with Clock1 in his frame. Jill synchronizes her clock to clock1 as it passes by, and then as Jack passes by Jill they compare clocks. Jack agrees that he and clock1 are moving and that Jill is at rest. When clock1 passes Jill, clock1 shows 0, and Jill sets her clock to 0. When Jack passes Jill, her clock read 8 and his clock read 10.
We agree on the answers to some of these questions, and disagree on others. By "difference in values", we mean the difference in the clock values seen/observed/calcuated by the observer between Jill and clock1 meeting and Jill and Jack meeting.
Q01: What is the difference in values on clock1 that Jill sees in scenario A?
Q02: What is the difference in values on Jack's clock that Jill sees in scenario A?
Q03: What is the difference in values on Jill's clock that Jill sees in scenario A?
Q04: What is the difference in values on clock1 that Jill observes in scenario A?
Q05: What is the difference in values on Jack's clock that Jill observes in scenario A?
Q06: What is the difference in values on Jill's clock that Jill observes in scenario A?
Q07: What is the difference in values on clock1 that Jill calculates in scenario A?
Q08: What is the difference in values on Jack's clock that Jill calculates in scenario A?
Q09: What is the difference in values on Jill's clock that Jill calculates in scenario A?
Q11: What is the difference in values on clock1 that Jack sees in scenario A?
Q12: What is the difference in values on Jack's clock that Jack sees in scenario A?
Q13: What is the difference in values on Jill's clock that Jack sees in scenario A?
Q14: What is the difference in values on clock1 that Jack observes in scenario A?
Q15: What is the difference in values on Jack's clock that Jack observes in scenario A?
Q16: What is the difference in values on Jill's clock that Jack observes in scenario A?
Q17: What is the difference in values on clock1 that Jack calculates in scenario A?
Q18: What is the difference in values on Jack's clock that Jack calculates in scenario A?
Q19: What is the difference in values on Jill's clock that Jack calculates in scenario A?
Q21: What is the difference in values on clock1 that Jill sees in scenario B?
Q22: What is the difference in values on Jack's clock that Jill sees in scenario B?
Q23: What is the difference in values on Jill's clock that Jill sees in scenario B?
Q24: What is the difference in values on clock1 that Jill observes in scenario B?
Q25: What is the difference in values on Jack's clock that Jill observes in scenario B?
Q26: What is the difference in values on Jill's clock that Jill observes in scenario B?
Q27: What is the difference in values on clock1 that Jill calculates in scenario B?
Q28: What is the difference in values on Jack's clock that Jill calculates in scenario B?
Q29: What is the difference in values on Jill's clock that Jill calculates in scenario B?
Q31: What is the difference in values on clock1 that Jack sees in scenario B?
Q32: What is the difference in values on Jack's clock that Jack sees in scenario B?
Q33: What is the difference in values on Jill's clock that Jack sees in scenario B?
Q34: What is the difference in values on clock1 that Jack observes in scenario B?
Q35: What is the difference in values on Jack's clock that Jack observes in scenario B?
Q36: What is the difference in values on Jill's clock that Jack observes in scenario B?
Q37: What is the difference in values on clock1 that Jack calculates in scenario B?
Q38: What is the difference in values on Jack's clock that Jack calculates in scenario B?
Q39: What is the difference in values on Jill's clock that Jack calculates in scenario B?
Let me know if I left out any pertinant information.
I am including my predictions for colton's answers below. I'll be interested to see if you're willing to produce a list of predictions. Also, if you do present such a list and if you so wish, I'll give him both lists of predictions (without identify who produced which list) and see if he thinks one list is more accurate,
Q01: 4 seconds
Q02: 16 seconds
Q03: 8 seconds
Q04: 6.4 seconds
Q05: 6.4 seconds
Q06: 8 seconds
Q07: 10 seconds
Q08: 10 seconds
Q09: 8 seconds
Q11: 4 seconds
Q12: 4 seconds
Q13: 8 seconds
Q14: 10 seconds
Q15: 10 seconds
Q16: 8 seconds
Q17: 10 seconds
Q18: 10 seconds
Q19: 8 seconds
Q21: 4 seconds
Q22: 16 seconds
Q23: 8 seconds
Q24: 6.4 seconds
Q25: 6.4 seconds
Q26: 8 seconds
Q27: 6.4 seconds
Q28: 6.4 seconds
Q29: 8 seconds
Q31: 4 seconds
Q32: 4 seconds
Q33: 8 seconds
Q34: 10 seconds
Q35: 10 seconds
Q36: 8 seconds
Q37: 6.4 seconds
Q38: 6.4 seconds
Q39: 8 seconds
aintnuthin said...
One Brow said:"The earth-centered frame is inertial."
No, it is not. It is co-moving with the earth in it's revolution around the sun, the solar system's movement within the galaxy, presumably under the influence of an "external force" imposed by gravity, the galaxy's movement with respect to other galaxies, etc.
You are correct, a more appropriate phrase would have been "used as inertial". So, why do you think the GPS system is being used as a proof of LR is the frame is not inertial?
Your argument proves too much. If SR only applies in frames that are 100% inertial, then it never applies to anything.
This is like saying "if F=ma only applies in situations where there are no friciton and heat absorption, then it never applies to anything".
In practice, it is a uniform speed, not an absolutely uniform velocity, that is used to calculate time dilation, and even that calculation can ignore linear acceleration as such.
The Lorentz equations use speed, the magnitude of velocity, to calculate the amount of dilation; I completely agree. This does not detract from the need to use a single, inertial frame for all calculations in relativity theory. LR accomplishes this by dictacting that a particular inertial frame must be use. SR allows for any inertial frame.
You might want to get a little better acquainted with your topics before pronouncing promenient physicists to be cranks because they don't share your misunderstandings.
If I ever refer to a physicist as a crank for saying the ECI is not inertial, I will deserve any castigations you care to offer. On the other hand, you may wish to take your own advice, and learn a little more about relativity before assuming that 95% of the world's physicists are proposing the discredited ideas of Mach.
The only caveat there is that the prof. assumed that clocks 1 and 2 were "started" (at"0") in some mysterious way.
I agree that it is a weakness in the explanation. There is no way to synchronize the clocks, in the their-person omnisicent fashion envisioned by Fowler, without assuming teh speed of light is always c.
One Brow said: "Jack will observe ten seconds to pass on his clock. Jill will observe 6.4 seconds to pass on Jack's clock."
Now you have completely changed the problem in your head. I'm still not sure you ever saw it correctly.
You are forgetting what Fowler said: Therefore, Jill will conclude that since C2 reads 10 seconds as she passes it, at that instant C1 must be registering 6.4 seconds. It's on page 39 of the link. I have understood all along that 6.4 seconds have passed for clock1 and for Jack. I apologize if I have not made that clear.
In the orginal problem, there was no disagreement whatsover, by either party, about what either their own or the other's clock read.
There is no disagreement about Jill setting her clock match clock1, both reading 0, as she passes clock1. There is no disagreement as to Jill's clock reading 8 when Jack's clock read 10 as Jill passed Jack. Neither of those statements is in conflict with Jill observes 6.4 seconds to pass on Jack's clock.
Now you have Jack and Jill reading Jack's clock differently, while they both read Jill's clock as the same.
Not at all. There is a difference between reading a value on a clock and determining how much time has passed for a clock. The second requires reading at least two values, for one.
My question is about clock readings and observations of clocks as ACTUALLY SEEN by the parties at the time they pass each other. I WANT THAT MADE CLEAR TO COLTON.
It is now included.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is the one making the mistake. As I've pointed out about 6 times now, the prof says they BOTH see Jack's clock as showing 10 seconds elapsed.
However, they see those ten seconds on Jack's clock as having elapsed from different starting points.
... giving a word your own meaning while knowing the other party rejects your meaning...
I've been trying to use "see" and "observe" in the manner that Hogg used them. I am trying to be precise and careful in my language. Feel free to substitue different definitions.
The question is about your ability to even distinguish between the concepts of an objective versus subjective reality, which has nothing to do with any objective reality anytime, anyplace.
What trouble do you think I have distinguishing these concepts? In particular, what view of mine would confuse these concepts?
The issue is about NOT conflating epistemology with ontology, which you just continue to do with every post.
Actually, whet I'm doing is distinguishing what can be measured with what must be assumed without measurement evidence.
One Brow said: "SR: All moving objects in an inertial state are equally entitled to be considered as at rest."
That is Dingle's SR (i.e. relationalism), which the mathguy denies is accurate because it fails to understand that SR is based on inertia, no less than Newtonian mechanics.
Do you see a difference between "All moving objects are equally entitled to be considered as at rest." and "All moving objects in an inertial state are equally entitled to be considered as at rest."? Relationalism was clearly the first. Relationalism can be easily disproved by the spinning bucket example. In what way does the second statement deny absolute inertia? Does the spinning bucket example disprove the second statement? How so? If the spinning bucket example does not disprove the second statement, is it truly accurate to characterize it as relationalism? Can you point to any relationalist proponents that held to the second statement but not the first?
You can't just take a small part of the implications of inertia and call them the whole.
What are the "implications of inertia" that conflict with "All moving objects in an inertial state are equally entitled to be considered as at rest."? Can you show that yourself? Can you point to a website that demonstrates this for you?
One Brow said: "Once the acceleration is over, there is no longer an objective way to measure which clock clock is running slower without making the prior assumption that the pre-accelerated state is the rest state. You can't use the assumption of the prior state as the rest state to prove the prior state is the rest state."
No, you use the presumption of inertia, and it's implications,to "prove" that, which is NOT an "arbitary assumption," just as the experience of acceleration is not an arbitrary assumption.
Please demonstrate how the assumption of inertia proves that the pre-accelerated state is the rest state, and the post-accelerated state is not the rest state; or at least link to a site which has such a proof.
One is free to deny that inertia exists, but that does not make the concept itself "arbitrary," "unempirical" or "non-scientific."
I don't deny inertia exists. I agree inertial is absolute. What I deny is that the acceptance of inertia allows one to determine a true rest, as opposed to a convenient rest frame.
One Brow said:"Once the acceleration is over, there is no longer an objective way to measure which clock clock is running slower..."
Are you suggesting that whatever you happen to have in mind when you refer to "an objective way to measure" DOES exist DURING acceleration, but ONLY during acceleration?
During acceleration, there is no valid way to treat the observer under acceleration as if they are in an inertial state. So, in SR theory they have no objective viewpoint where they are at rest.
One Brow said:"Prove that treating acceleration as an absolute quantity implies the existence of a pre-acceleration rest state as being the only valid rest state."
I don't even know where the suggestion of "the only valid rest state" even enters this discussion. Where does that come in?
If you are not arguing that there is only one valid rest state, in what way to you consider "All moving objects in an inertial state are equally entitled to be considered as at rest." to be false?
While a car accelerates from 0 to 100, it is an accelerating object. When it then cruises at 100 mph it is an accelerated object.
The rest state is the surface of the earth.
Prove that once a train accelerates to 60 mph, and then moves at a uniform speed (not inertially strictly speaking, of course) that all effects on the clocks on that train disappear and revert to the rates they maintained when the train was parked at the station, if that's your claim.
Do you mean that the clocks sensitive to the effects of acceleration (such as a pendulum clock would be)? Why wouldn't they revert?
Are you referring to the rates of the clock observer by people on the ground? The clocks in the train are in a different inertial state than the people on the ground, so the people on the gournd observe teh clocks to be slowed.
If that's not your claim, and you concede that the changes in the clocks persist, prove that there is no way to objectively measure the difference between the clocks on the train and those on the ground.
Assuming you meant the second option, of course the difference between train clock and ground clocks can be measured by the people on the ground, and by the people on the train. Both sets of measurements are objective in the sense they will be based on reading numbers and using pre-determined formulas. Do you think one measurement is more "objective"?
One Brow said:"Actually, I very specifically said that the traveling twin was moving in the twin paradox."
Actually you said SR says you can't tell if the floor or the bug crawling across it is what's moving in the closed cabin on a ship
If the ship is moving forwards at 5 mph, and the bug is crawling astern at 5 mph, the bug is not moving (with respect to the ocean). Is that what you meant?
and actually you said you said SR claims that a sailor on deck can't tell if his ship or the shore is moving
The sailor determines this based on the assumptions the propellers move the boat, not the earth. Conservation of energy.
But the twin is different, eh? If you answer both "true" and "false" you can always claim you gave the "right" answer.
On the other hand, you can say "true under conditions A, B and C; and false under conditions not-A or not-B or not-C", and them some unlearned person will come along and claim you are saying true and false about the same thing.
Say we blasted a Pioneer rocket off into space and it just now passed jupiter, travelling inertially. Are you saying we have no objective way of knowing that it didn't suddenly stop in it's tracks while the Sun and all the inner planets started moving away from it and the distant galaxies and the outer planets suddenly started moving toward it from one direction and away from it in another?
No. Acceleration is an absolute.
Now, are you saying we have a way of knowing that the Sun, inner planets, etc. weren't all moving to beging with, and when Pioneer blasted off, it blasted to stop and let everything else go by? What's that way?
Inertia, and it's implications as explicated in Newton's laws of motion don't exist in SR, that the idea,
Incorrect. Inertia and acceleration are absolute. This is consistent with "All moving objects in an inertial state are equally entitled to be considered as at rest."
It's just that it can be verified that in the second state it is going at a higher rate of speed than the first state.
How can you verify it's going to a higher rate of speed as opposed to a lower rate of speed?
Back to Jack and Jill, you hopeless sophistic equivocater. In Scenario A Jill does not ever see, or ever "observe" Jack's clock to record less than 10 seconds elasped. Never.
Describe for yourself: what Jill sees on Jack's clock as she passes clock1? As she passes Jack? How much time clicked off on Jack's clock?
aintnuthin said...
One Brow said:"He's basing his analysis on clocks revolving around another clock while not being accelerated. You think that's good science?"
I know enough about "science" to know that the scientists who designed the GPS did a brilliant job which produces highly accurate practical predictions and results.
No disagreement.
I don't base my conclusions on apriori deductions from a single word or a single consideration. Much less do I dismiss renowned scientists as "cranks" based on half-baked conclusions from semantics based on a misapprehension of premises.
Instead, you dismiss scientific consensus as being lock-step dogma, not sound thinking, based on the cranks.
Is a "very accurate approiximation" good science?
Yes.
For some reason, not exactly sure just what reason, but some reason, I suspect that the Van Flandern crank knows and understands a little more about the GPS than you do
Yup.
In most applications it "doesn't matter" that the sun's motion in the galaxy and the galaxy's motion in the cosmos is ignored? Is that good science?
Depends. The reason it doesn't matter in most applications is that the effects of these motions will result in defferences below the margins of error. When you are conducting experiements or apying science , you typically ignore effects that are degrees of magnitude smaller than your error bars. For example, every day cummters flood into NYC in the daytime, and to the subarbs at night. This changes the gravitaitonal pull of NYC, and has a small effect on how the earth's gravity acts on GPS satellites. This effect is so small that it falles below the threshold for measurement error, so the GPS scientists would not have incorporated this effect into the GPS system. If you can only measure something to a millionth of a second, you generally don't worry about effects that cause a difference of a billionth of a second.
If you want to deny every (unfavorable) implication of SR by the simple expedient of claiming it "doesn't apply" to non-inertial frames, then, to be consistent, you should simply assert that SR is an untestable pseudo-scientific hypothesis that doesn't ever apply to any practical situation that we are aware of.
Because you can never construct an inertial frame for the purpose of making calculations? That seems ridiculous. Again, you might as well be saying that since you can never have an object that is perfectly rigid, F=ma doesn't ever apply to any practical situation.
Ever ask yourself why your protestations are so selective in that regard?
Because SR was designed to work in inertial frames. You don't use a monkey wrench to a screw on a computer.
Ever ask yourself why Al assumed (he has been proven right) that acceleration plays no part in time dilation?
Because the difference in inertial states is suffcient to explain time dilation.
Ever ask yourself if "it really matters," if two non-inertial objects are compared within the context of SR theory?
Sure it matters, and you can compared by using an inertial frame. Even if no object is in an inertial state, you can construct the frame (mathematically) to use SR.
Question: How tall is Jerry Sloan
...
You (to me): Colton says the correct answer is over 70 and that i'm right.
Changing the question can't make your wrong answer right, sorry.
The last time we went to colton, we were able to agree on the question to be asked. I think we can do so again.
You do that, if that entertains you. My suggestion was that you ask Colton to explain the answer to the orginial question, the one we were disputing, to you, not some other question. You probably don't want to do that.
I believe that question is among the questions being asked. If you disagree, let me know.
This question came up in two different context, and it was NOT about the difference between "seeing and observering." What Jill does in this question is NOT observation, but let's just assume it is. That's irrelevant to the question(s).
First Context: You said the answer would be "the same" (i.e. that Jill would still see 8 seconds or her clock and 10 seconds on Jack's, and that Jack would see the same) even if their motion was reversed.
You have since changed your answer to that, implicitly conceding that you were wrong, but you don't concede.
That answer has not changed. When Jill passes Jack, her clock reads 8 seconds and Jack's clock reads ten seconds, either way. You are confusing "what the clock says" with "how much time has passed on the clock".
Second Contexy: You claimed that the reciprocity (each "sees," not observes, the other's clock as running slow) was empirically real.
To begin with, this claim contradicts your other assertion (that the non-reciprocal answer in the Jack and Jill case would always be "the same").
Not at all. Jill's clock reads 8 seconds and Jack's 10 as Jill passes Jack. Jack observes 10 seonds to have passed for himself and 8 for Jill. Jill observes 8 seconds to have passed for her and 6.4 for Jack.
Secondly, it is absurd to think that both will "actually see" the other's clock running more slowly than their own, let alone that any such perception could be "objectively true."
I offered an analysis of what each one sees at July 12, 2011 7:07 PM. Each sees the other's clock running at twice the rate their clock does. I don't see you disputing those numbers anywhere.
Jill: I see that only 8 seconds have passed on my clock and that 10 seconds have passed on Jack's clock. That's IMPOSSIBLE!!!!
Jill actually sees 16 seconds pass on Jack's clock.
Many many warnings have been given by professors to students that they should NOT
1. Confuse the "time dilation" of SR with an effect caused by a doppler shift, and/or
2. Confuse the "time dilation" of SR with an effect caused by a delay in light signals.
That is mainstream SR, something that you don't seem to be familiar with, Eric.
That's part of the distinction I'm making between 'see" and "observe", as Hogg did.
These necessary "corrections" form the basis of the distinction Hogg made between "seeing" and observing.
Exactly.
I said: "Secondly, it is absurd to think that both will "actually see" the other's clock running more slowly than their own, let alone that any such perception could be "objectively true."
I meant in these particular circumstances, of course, i.e. when they are both looking at the same thing(s), at the same time, from the same place.
Jill and Jack are not in the same place at them same time until they meet at the end ot the scenario.
One Brow said:"Facts we agree upon:...When Jill passes Jack, Jill's clock reads 8 and Jack's clock reads 10."
And it just so happens that these figures (8 for her, 10 for him) are exactly what the formula for SR predicts must occur with mathematical certainty.
So both parties see EXACTLY what SR predicts as a matter of accumulated time shown on each respective clock.
They SEE it, with their own two eyes (from the same place at the same time).
What neither of them sees is Jack's clock reading 0 when Jill passes clock1. You are so focused on the end you ignore the beginning.
Of course you keep changing your answers with every response you make. Just one example: One Brow said: "Due to Dopper shift, she will see 11.2 seconds pass on Jack's clock but observe 6.4 (subtracting from light-speed delay across a distance she measures as 4.8 light-seconds)."
I acknowleged that error already and corrected.
She SEES that 10 seconds have elapsed on his clock in his frame, precisely as SR predicts.
Incorrect. She doesn't see Jack's clock to read 0 when she passes clock1.
But now you have her "observing that only 6.4 seconds elapsed on his clock. Any such "observation" is clearly wrong according to SR, since it contradicts the dictates of SR.
Which dictate?
If the often-asserted "reciprocity" were in fact "empirical and objectively true," as you assert, then, under these circumstances, she would have to SEE (that's empiricism) Jack's clock read 6.4 seconds, not DEDUCE it (fallaciously). She doesn't SEE that. Nor could she SEE his clock as reading 6.4 while he sees 10, under any but the most mystical, self-contradictory, and hallucinatory premises.
Why is the deduciton of 10 superior to the deduction of 6.4, since she sees 16?
Conclusion: The "reciprocity" is merely formal, not actual. It is NOT an empirically verifiable, objective fact.
Your conclusion is based on a false premise,
This is proven by the necessary implications of raw, empirical GPS data, as Phipps (and many others) has pointed out.
The GPS systems match the predictinos of LR, so they must match the predictions of SR, which uses the same equaitons to generate those predicitons.
Only one did, the moving clock, as predicted by SR.
How do you prove that the accelated clock was not accelerated from being to motion to being at rest?
If the accelerated clock could think, and if it wanted to insist that it's frequency had not changed, how would it explain that it is now in sync with the clock that was always slow compared to it?
The accelerated clock would observe the other clock to be running mcuh, much slower than the accelerated clock. Why would it try to explain what it does nto observe?
In SR is the distance between two objects greater or lesser for the moving party than it is for the stationary party?
Depends on how the the objects are moving. If the objects are in the same inertial state as the stationary party, the stationary party will observe the greatest distance. If the objects are in the same inertial state as the moving party, the moving party will observe the greatest distance.
If you meant that object A is moving toward object B, each will observe the distance to be the same as the other observes it.
In SR, does distance (the space between two objects) contract, or does the length of material objects contract?
Technically, neither. The path you take in spacetiime between two objects changes.
SR is just vague enough to "permit" either assertion, although only one makes physical sense.
Neither asertion of yours makes physcial sense. The first makes no sense because your independent movement between two objects does not affect those objects. The seond makes no sense because none of the physical effects of contraction (heat increase from friction, etc.) appear.
Although SR is too ambiguous to literally preclude either scenario, only one interpretation makes sense. Of course that does not prevent authors at wiki, or the Prof who cooked up the Jack and Jill scenario, from asserting the senseless interpretation if they think it helps them prove the point they are trying to prove.
How nice it would be to see you give the professional scientists who support the aminstream interpretation all the respect and consideration you expect me to give to the cranks. I suppose that's too much to expect from you.
All this vagueness really stems from the assertion that the speed of light is constant in all frames, thereby redefining both time and distance so that they have no independent meaning. This was one of the problems with SR that Essen pointed out.
I agree to a degree with Essen. It is better for we laymen to think the constancy of c as a physical property of light, not a defintion. That keeps things clearer for us laymen.
If I say all objects must average 100 mph when travelling from Chicago to New Orleans and you tell me it took you 5 hours, then I say the distance "must be" 500 miles.
Nothing is stopping you from pulling out a stick we both agree is a yard long, and counting off the miles that way.
One Brow said:"Both sets of measurements are objective in the sense they will be based on reading numbers and using pre-determined formulas. Do you think one measurement is more "objective"?
Yes, I think that, after correcting for any distortions caused by light delay, etc., both the observers on the train and the observers on the ground will agree that the clocks on the train are running faster than those on the ground. Just as in the GPS system.
The slowing of clocks is a unilateral, not a reciprocal, effect. Same thing with gravitational time dilation. Raise a (suffienctly precise) clock a few feet and it will immediately be seen to run faster. Lower it, and it will run slower, leave it where it is, and it will not change. Same with two clocks, side by side, when you alter the position of only one of them.
With respect to the Colton thing, this is wrong: "Jill agrees that she is moving and that Jack and clock1 are at rest."
My question on only about what the clocks will ACTUALLY read if the state of motion is reversed. All the rest is irrelevant.
One Brow said:"You are forgetting what Fowler said: Therefore, Jill will conclude that since C2 reads 10 seconds as she passes it, at that instant C1 must be registering 6.4 seconds."
I'm not forgetting that at all. I addressed this claim at some length when we first discussed it.
1. It turns out she is wrong--they take pictures to determine this.
2. The statement is self contradictory, upon analyis. Why is the word "since" in there? What if clock 2 read one millions seconds? What would she think clock one read then? Why would she think clock 2 is in any way related to clock 1?
Because she understands that the clocks are synchronized in Jack's frame, that's why. Given that knowledge, the only possible conclusion she can reasonably draw is that clock1 now also reads 10, not 6.4.
Given that knowledge, she can only reasonably conclude that her clock is running slower in her frame than Jack's clock is in hers.
So, now what? SR tells her she is moving, since her clock is slower. And guess what? She's absolutely right when she draws that conlusion, which is the only logical one, given the premises
Edit: Meant to say: "Given that knowledge, she can only reasonably conclude that her clock is running slower in her frame than Jack's clock is in his [not hers]."
Not sure it makes any difference. Given the information available, it is clear that Jack's clock is running slower than hers as viewed from either/both frame(s).
The prof. in the Jack and Jill thing, to his credit, is elucidating the problems inherent in the standard claim that "each will see the other's clock as moving slower."
To his discredit, he tries to justify this incoherent claim by using poor logic, switching back and forth between frames (on behalf of Jill) and other fallacious methods and deceptive reasoning.
My question was this: Why doesn't he just say that, given the premises of SR, Jill must conclude that she is the moving party?
There are ulterior reasons for this, but they are not valid reasons.
One Brow said:"That answer has not changed. When Jill passes Jack, her clock reads 8 seconds and Jack's clock reads ten seconds, either way. You are confusing "what the clock says" with "how much time has passed on the clock".
First you claimed that, if the motion was reversed, Jack's clock would still read 10 and Jill's would still read 8. Then you said:
"This is reflected (from the LR perspective you prefer, when Jill is not moving) by the fact that Jill sees them pass in 8 seconds while seeing 6.4 seconds pass on Jack's clock."
You clearly say here that Jill will see only 6.4 seconds will pass ON HIS CLOCK.
What did you mean to say? Did you mean to say that she will "see" 10 seconds pass ON HIS CLOCK if the motion is reversed. I agree with that, but claim that she will then see 12.5 seconds pass ON HER CLOCK. That is the only question I have of Colton. All the crap about what parties may or may not subjectively deduce from seeing those readings is irrelevant to our difference. All talk of light delays, doppler effects is irrelevant. Just take the original problem, where those "concerns" were taken care of, and reverse the motion. You say Jill's will always be 8. I say otherwise, when the clocks are synchronized in Jack's frame in both instances.
My question on only about what the clocks will ACTUALLY read if the state of motion is reversed. All the rest is irrelevant.
What does "actually read" mean? What Jill reads? What Jack reads? What the third-person omniscient reads?
Elsewhere you say: "Jill will see 12.5 of her seconds pass for every ten of Jack's. However, she will still observe 6 seconds between when clock1 passes her and when jack passes her, which will be 6.4 seconds she observes to pass for Jack's clock.
I assume that you meant to say 8 seconds (not 6) would pass for her.
There seems to be one obvious problem with your claim, as I have explained repeatedly. If Jill is stationary, then Jack's clock will be running slow, compared to hers, per SR. You have his rnnning faster. Ask Colton.
aintnuthin said...
First you claimed that, if the motion was reversed, Jack's clock would still read 10 and Jill's would still read 8.
I stand by that claim.
Then you said:
"This is reflected (from the LR perspective you prefer, when Jill is not moving) by the fact that Jill sees them pass in 8 seconds while seeing 6.4 seconds pass on Jack's clock.
"See" is the wrong verb there. Jill would see 4 seconds pass on clock1 and 16 pass on Jack's clock. Jill would observe 6.4 seconds to pass on Jack's clock, at which point it would read 10.
You clearly say here that Jill will see only 6.4 seconds will pass ON HIS CLOCK.
With the correct to "observe", she observes Jack's clock to move from 3.6 seconds to 10 seconds.
What did you mean to say? Did you mean to say that she will "see" 10 seconds pass ON HIS CLOCK if the motion is reversed. I agree with that, but claim that she will then see 12.5 seconds pass ON HER CLOCK. That is the only question I have of Colton.
I'm sure you did not mean to ask colton what I meant to say.
Just take the original problem, where those "concerns" were taken care of, and reverse the motion. You say Jill's will always be 8. I say otherwise, when the clocks are synchronized in Jack's frame in both instances.
OK, but I think you are missing out on a lot of informaiton that would prove illustrative. I'll make another try next comment.
Well, the real problem, in the last quote, is that, once again, you do NOT say that 10 seconds will pass on Jack's clock, as you now claim you said. You repeat that only 6.4 seconds will pass "on this clock" (as opposed to say "6.4 secons as measured in her time frame").
If you did mean to say 8, instead of 6, then his clock would be running slower.
Colton,
Could you please resolve an analysis for aintnuthin and I?
You may want to read the published example this is based on, which can be found at http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/Kayed/eBooksLectureNotes/Modern%20Physics%20By%20Michael%20Fowler/01.Special%20Relativity.pdf starting on page 37.
These are the points we agree upon:
Scenario A: Clock1, at point A, is 6 light-seconds away from Jack as measured by Jack in his frame of reference. Jack is a point B with Clock2, which is faithfully synchronized with Clock1 in his frame. Jack and both clocks are at rest. Jill is moving inertially relative to Jack and both clocks at .6c. Jill passes by clock1 and synchronizes her clock to clock1, and then by Jill passes by Jack and they compare clocks. Jill agrees that she is moving and that Jack and clock1 are at rest. When Jill passes clock1, clock1 shows 0, and Jill sets her clock to 0. When Jill passes Jack, her clock reads 8 and his clock read 10.
Scenario B: Jill is at rest. Clock1 and Jack are moving relaively to Jill at .6c in the same direction. Clock1 and Jack are 6 light-seconds apart as measured by Jack. Jack has Clock2, which is faithfully synchronized with Clock1 in his frame. Jill synchronizes her clock to clock1 as it passes by, and then as Jack passes by Jill they compare clocks. Jack agrees that he and clock1 are moving and that Jill is at rest. When clock1 passes Jill, clock1 shows 0, and Jill sets her clock to 0. When Jack passes Jill, his clock reads 10.
In scenario B, what will Jill's clock read when Jack passes Jill?
One Brow said: "What does "actually read" mean? What Jill reads? What Jack reads? What the third-person omniscient reads?"
I mean the same thing the prof did. In his examaple Jack will see 10 seconds on his clock and Jill will see 10 seconds on his clock(accompanied by pictures) while Jack will see 8 seconds on her clock while Jill also sees 8 seconds on her clock (also accompanied by pictures).
That what I mean by "actually read" even if both clocks are badly miscalibrated for some reason.
A clock which is an hour slow "actually reads" 4 P.M. when it's 5 P.M, whether it actually "is" 4:00 P.M. or not.
Yes, I think that, after correcting for any distortions caused by light delay, etc., both the observers on the train and the observers on the ground will agree that the clocks on the train are running faster than those on the ground.
Then you're wrong. The obsrevers on the train will see the gournd clocks running more slowly. This is an prediciton of LR and SR.
Just as in the GPS system.
In the GPS system, the statellites are in a gravity well and in orbit. However, at any given instant, after correcting for gravity, each satellite sees the clocks on earth as slowed.
The slowing of clocks is a unilateral, not a reciprocal, effect.
Except, it isn't in any form of relativity.
Same thing with gravitational time dilation.
Yes.
Same with two clocks, side by side, when you alter the position of only one of them.
The one you alter is no longer moving inertially.
1. It turns out she is wrong--they take pictures to determine this.
The picture she takes when she is with Jack does not show what clock1 is registering at that time.
Why would she think clock 2 is in any way related to clock 1?
They click at the same rate, for her.
Because she understands that the clocks are synchronized in Jack's frame, that's why. Given that knowledge, the only possible conclusion she can reasonably draw is that clock1 now also reads 10, not 6.4.
The clocks are not synchronized for Jill, and she does not need to use synchronization to know what clock1 reads.
To his discredit, he tries to justify this incoherent claim by using poor logic
I see you feel no need to offer mainstream physicists the same respect you insist I give the cranks.
My question was this: Why doesn't he just say that, given the premises of SR, Jill must conclude that she is the moving party?
Because that statement is untrue.
Elsewhere you say: "Jill will see 12.5 of her seconds pass for every ten of Jack's. However, she will still observe 6 seconds between when clock1 passes her and when jack passes her, which will be 6.4 seconds she observes to pass for Jack's clock.
I assume that you meant to say 8 seconds (not 6) would pass for her.
Yes, that is what I meant.
There seems to be one obvious problem with your claim, as I have explained repeatedly. If Jill is stationary, then Jack's clock will be running slow, compared to hers, per SR. You have his rnnning faster. Ask Colton.
6.4 is smaller than the 8 you noted as what I intended. Jack experiences less time.
Well, the real problem, in the last quote, is that, once again, you do NOT say that 10 seconds will pass on Jack's clock, as you now claim you said. You repeat that only 6.4 seconds will pass "on this clock" (as opposed to say "6.4 secons as measured in her time frame").
Jill observes 6.4 seconds to pass on Jack's clock.
If you did mean to say 8, instead of 6, then his clock would be running slower
Yes.
I mean the same thing the prof did. In his examaple Jack will see 10 seconds on his clock and Jill will see 10 seconds on his clock(accompanied by pictures) while Jack will see 8 seconds on her clock while Jill also sees 8 seconds on her clock (also accompanied by pictures).
That what I mean by "actually read" even if both clocks are badly miscalibrated for some reason.
Whether Jack is at rest or Jill is at rest, both read 10 seconds on Jack's clock and 8 seconds on Jill's clock as Jack passes Jill.
As I said before, this part is wrong:" Jill agrees that she is moving and that Jack and clock1 are at rest."
In the prof's example Jill definitely does NOT agree that she is moving.
This too is wrong.
"Jack agrees that he and clock1 are moving and that Jill is at rest."
Here you are not asking for an answer, you are giving one:
"When Jack passes Jill, his clock reads 10." (from Scenario B, which we are asking about).
I had a sentence noting that a change in motion was the ONLY change, pointing out that the clocks would still be syncronized in Jack's frame and would still be 6 light seconds apart in his frame. I would like to include those sentences, just to make sure he understands the limited changes that we are contemplating
One Brow said:"Then you're wrong. The obsrevers on the train will see the gournd clocks running more slowly. This is an prediciton of LR and SR."
Not, it is not. The "predictions" of SR are provided by the Lorentz transformation. The "relativity priniciple" as postulated by Al, might imply certain things, I'll grant you that. They might imply, for example, that there will be no age difference between two twins. Then again, they might not imply that.
The mathematical formulas provide the "predictions" and those formulas say the time dilation effects are NOT reciprocal. Twin paradox, for example.
LR does NOT predict that "the obsrevers on the train will see the gournd clocks running more slowly."
Can you see the difference between a postulate and a "prediction" based on a formula?
That's a problem with SR (as noted by Phipps and many, many others, myself included). It's predictions do NOT match it's postulates, even though the predictions are correct.
To their dying day, neither Lorentz nor Poincare, both brilliant mathematicians and scientists, ever accepted Einstien's relativity principle as being valid.
This is IN SPITE of the fact that Poincaire, a conventionalist in philosophy, understood and articulated the "relative" aspects of the Lorentz contractions before Al did. Poincaire, and most other physicists of that era, continued to refer to "Lorentz's relativity principle" for many years after Al adopted it (in a different form).
Lorentz himself always disavowed any association with any "relavity principle" associated with him, but Poincaire and others saw it otherwise.
The point? The "relativity" which results from the Lorentz transformations is NOT fixed by the formulas themselves. The postulates do that, not the math.
The math of SR (and Lorentz) says that if two clocks are moving with respect to each other, one and ONLY one will run slower than the other. And it will always be the moving clock, not both.
I've been trying to point this out to you for years now, but you act as though you think that the postulates of SR constitute "facts" and that the predictions of SR follow from the postulates (as opposed the LT).
Scenario:
1. Guy on train measures speed of light to be 186,000 mps.
2. Guy on ground also measure light to be 186,000 mps.
Are both right, as a matter of objective reality (as opposed to the artifacts of measurment)?
LR: No, both are not correct, objectively speaking.
SR: (Some versions, a la Dingle) YES, both are correct as a matter of objective reality
LT (Lorentz transformations): NO, both are not correct, and couldn't be. As between two clocks, only one is running slower. It is BECAUSE only one is running slower (and because only one has contracted lengths) that they both measure 186,000 mps for the speed of light.
I said: "The slowing of clocks is a unilateral, not a reciprocal, effect."
You responded: "Except, it isn't in any form of relativity."
See my last few posts for my response to this assertion on your part.
For the 3rd time now, this is NOT correct:"Jill agrees that she is moving and that Jack and clock1 are at rest."
Nor is the corresponding assertion made in scenario B.
I asked: "Why would she think clock 2 is in any way related to clock 1?"
You responded: "They click at the same rate, for her."
See, Eric, this is another example of where you contradict yourself by constantly changing your assumptions to accomodate your preferred conclusions.
Jill "sees" Clock 2, which she is approaching at the rate of .6c, click "at the same rate" as she "sees" clock 2 (which she is receding from at .6c)?
All your answers based on light delay and doppler effects are totally irrelevant. They have NOTHING to do with causing or explaining time dilation in SR. These red herrings and inconsistencies just tell me that you don't understand the basic concepts.
The professor has created a "problem," one which is says is difficult to solve. What is the problem? Does it have ANYTHING to do her "looking at" clock 1 or clock 2 as she travels.
She knows clocks 1 and 2 are synchronized in Jack's frame. It's just that she doesn't see them synchronized in HER frame. This is implied by the words "therefore" and "since" in the statement below.
Prof said: "Therefore, Jill will conclude that since C2 reads 10 seconds as she passes it, at that instant C1 must be registering 6.4 seconds."
As a sidelight, contrary to you claim when analyzing the "correct" solution to this problem, the prof. did NOT assume that the distance is "greater for the moving party." Instead he applied the notion that "space itself (distance) contracts. He says: "To Jill, the clock C1 is actually only 4/5 x 18 x 108 meters away (she sees the distance C1C2 to be Lorentz contracted!).
The assumption are shifting all over the place and the Prof tries to justify Jill's "reasoning," which had to have occurred in her framework for it to be reliable to her, by appealing to the "objective" facts. Here, "objective facts" means as seen from Jack's standpoint, since he is the moving party.
As an example, the length is not contracted "for her." She sees her instruments to be perfectly fine. Jack will see her distance as shortened (compared to his) but she won't! She will see Jack's distance as being shortened, compared to his.
The frame-shifting is obvious and omnipresent.
This is simply incorrect: "To Jill, the clock C1 is actually only 4/5 x 18 x 108 meters away (she sees the distance C1C2 to be Lorentz contracted!)."
She does NOT "see the distance to be Lorentz contracted," according to SR. She sees it as being the "correct" distance.
Per Eddington, the distance she sees is NOT correct, it is much LESS (not greater) than she perceives it to be. Again, you can prove or disprove just about any proposition you want by applying the vague premises of SR and shifting assumptions virtually at will.
The point is that she cannot draw valid conclusions from premises which orginate in ANOTHER frame, which she denies is the correct one to begin with.
There may be some way to consistently articulate the point the prof. is trying to make, I don't know. I simply know that his attempt to explain it fails due to the types of deficiencies I have identified.
Even if there is, the bottom line is still this: Even if her logic were correct, she can only come to the conclusions she does if she FALSELY assumes she is stationary.
No matter how valid her arguments are (or could be), they still remain unsound.
One Brow said: "The Lorentz equations use speed, the magnitude of velocity, to calculate the amount of dilation; I completely agree. This does not detract from the need to use a single, inertial frame for all calculations in relativity theory."
Yes, which is just another way of saying that you must have a "preferred frame," with "proper time" as a standard, to reach ANY conclusions whatsoever. In effect, SR must fully and immediately revert to the basic premises of LR (that there is a time which applies to both--or all-frames under consideration).
Why is that? Well, in part it's because Al stole Lorentz's equations whole cloth. These equations are valid only in a theoretical system which presupposes a univeral standard for time.
Hence the equation predicts, as I've noted many times, that, as between any two given clock, one, and ONLY one, is running faster than the other. The "formal" claim of SR is that each sees the other's clock as moving slow. This is inconsistent with the LT transformations he stole.
LR (actually it's postualtes) agrees with the predictions generated by the equations (SR's don't). Per LR, an observer travelling at a slower relative speed will see the other (higher speed) clock running slow AND that an observer travelling with the faster clock will see it EXACTLY the same way---his clock will be slower, not the other guy's.
I said:"For the 3rd time now, this is NOT correct:"Jill agrees that she is moving and that Jack and clock1 are at rest."
It really doesn't make any difference whatsover what Jill thinks. Given the premise that Jack is stationary, the LT gives the answers of 8 and 10 seconds without any regard whatsoever for Jill's thoughts on the matter.
I just don't want to confuse Colton by making assertions that are in clear contradiction to the problem we are referring him to. It is quite clear, in that example, that, even though Jill is moving as a matter of fact, she still maintains that she is stationary.
I say the prof's claims necessarily imply that Jill believes that clocks 1 and 2 are synchronized in Jack's frame. You deny this.
Let's quit arguing about what the prof means for a minute and just assume that Jill is not the ignorant slut you want her to be. Let's assume that she has been in radio contact with Jack prior to reaching him. Let's further assume (as I believe the prof does) that Jack explains his set-up to her and INFORMS her that clocks 1 and 2 are synchronized in HIS frame.
Given that assumption, would you then agree that, given the observed facts with respect to the final reading on clock 2 (10 seconds) as contrasted with her final reading (8 seconds), she would have to conclude that she is moving (if she knows SR)?
I said: "The question is about your ability to even distinguish between the concepts of an objective versus subjective reality, which has nothing to do with any objective reality anytime, anyplace."
You asked: "What trouble do you think I have distinguishing these concepts? In particular, what view of mine would confuse these concepts?"
Let me use a simple example to demonstrate.
I put a coin on my desk, heads up, and cover it with my hand. You come in and I tell you there is a coin under my hand, and ask you if it is heads or tails. Now, you could answer in more than one way, for example:
Answer 1. How should I know? I don't have x-ray vision.
This response implicitly assumes that there is a coin under my hand, and that it is either heads or tails, but merely acknowledges your inability, given the circumstances, to determine the true state of affairs.
This response is epistemological in nature, i.e., it merely asserts your inability to KNOW the answer.
Answer 2. Since I can't see it, it can be neither heads nor tails. The question doesn't even make sense. Either answer I give, heads or tails, is equally valid and is equally entitled to be considered as correct.
This answer is subjective in nature, and it confuses epistemology with ontology. The assumption is that your personal knowledge controls what is the case. Any possibility open to you, in your limited state of knowledge is a "possible" one, and therefore a "valid" one.
On the other hand, I KNOW that it is heads, because I have seen it. Therefore, to me, it is not "possible" for the coin to be tails. But, in truth, it is heads whether you or I know it or not. That does not depend upon either our perception or our knowledge, or even our theoretical ability to perceive it.
To the extent that you say that the question of which of two objects is moving is unanswerable (as opposed to merely unanswered) until such time as you decide which one you want to arbitarily designate as moving, you are assuming that the so-called "objective facts" are a mere by-product of your mental state. You are, in effect, giving answer 2 to the question above, and rejecting answer one.
In answer one, it is presumed that there is an objective, pre-existing, actual state of affairs, even if you don't know what it is. In answer two, the assumption is that "objective reality" is completely dependent upon what you know, or what you posit.
In another context we discussed recently, you claimed that, because there are phyical facts which can explain why a guy walking away from me appears to get smaller, that makes the appearance a "real, objective physical" matter. If you did not make that particular claim in that case(I can't remember for sure) you have made it in other contexts.
This confuses objective versus subjective reality in a different way.
In this context, an "objective, physical" change means a change which affects the object being perceived (hence "objective) as contrasted with a change which merely affects the "subject" (i.e., the person viewing the "object").
So, in that case, there is no objective change. The object (the guy walking)does not "really" get smaller with distance, he merely "appears" to get smaller with distance to the subject viewing him.
The fact that physical explanations can be given for the subjective changes in one's perception of the object does NOT make it an "objective" change.
Another context,and another example: A shadow is not a physical object, even though there are physical explanations for it's appearance. There is nothing "objective" about it in that sense. You can pick up a yardstick, and carry it across the street, if you wish. You can't do that with a shadow. It has no materiality. It does not have a tangible lentgh, width, and depth, for example. It does not have the qualities of a physical object, and it is not a physical object even if it can sometimes have the appearance of one, and even though there are objective, physical reasons for the appearance of a shadow. The shadow remains a subjective appearance, not a physical object. In that sense, it is not "objective."
I said: "There seems to be one obvious problem with your claim, as I have explained repeatedly. If Jill is stationary, then Jack's clock will be running slow, compared to hers, per SR. You have his rnnning faster. Ask Colton."
You said: "6.4 is smaller than the 8 you noted as what I intended. Jack experiences less time."
Yes, but if, despite all your mistatements, you still maintain that Jack's clock will read 10, then hers will not "still" read 8 if SHE not JACK, is stationary. Ask Colton.
Here again, you confuse the time a subject supposedly "experiences" (a subjective question) with the actual reading on a clock. It could possibly be that the "experience" is accurate and the reading on the clock is inaccurate, but that's not the point. The point is that one must distinguish one from the other and not treat them as the "same" thing.
I said: "It really doesn't make any difference whatsover what Jill thinks. Given the premise that Jack is stationary, the LT gives the answers of 8 and 10 seconds without any regard whatsoever for Jill's thoughts on the matter."
I made this assertion in a prior post. Just curious: Do you agree? Or do you think that what an observer might "see" or "think" alters the predictions of the Lorentz transformations?
This is a very important question with regard to the explanations I have been giving you for years. If you disagree with this assertion, then you would naturally disagree with many of my assertions.
As far as the phrasing of the question to Colton goes I would be satisfied with this simplified from.
We agree that if person A is stationary and encounters an object (person B) moving at a speed of .6c relative to him tranverses a distance that he perceives to be 6 light seconds, then person A's clock will indicate that 10 seconds have elapsed in that interim while person B's clock will register only 8 seconds.
Do you agree? Assuming you do, here's the question:
Now, reverse the parties respective motions so that person B is now stationary and person A is the one moving at .6c. No other changes are contemplated. For example, the "distance" will still be 6 light seconds in person A's frame (even though he is now the moving party).
Given this change,
1. How much time would elaspe on Person A's clock now. This question is about what his clock would actually read, not about his perceptions, and
2. How much time would elapse on Person B's clock now.
Thanks.
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There is no real need to refer him to the orginal website if we don't obscure the question with all kinds of irrelevant, collateral questions.
I said: "Any possibility open to you, in your limited state of knowledge is a "possible" one, and therefore a "valid" one."
This error goes way back. Remember our discussion about probabilities, as it concerned the sex of two children?
1. If the order of birth is important, then there are four possiblities to consider (bb, gg, gb, and bg)
2. If order is unimportant, there are only 3 possibilities to consider, since bg is the equivalent of gb in that context.
3. These 3 possibilities reduce to only 2 if you already know the sex of one child. If the known one is male, for example, that totally eliminates the gg "possibility" and leaves only bb and bg as remaining possiblities.
There is a major difference between "theoretical" possibilities and practical possibilities, depending on the context. As between heliocentricism and geocentricism, there are two "theoretical" possibilities, as far as which one is true goes.
But, as even the notorius Ernst Mach said, after noting that (in his view) the two views were "equally valid,:" "But the universe is only given once."
In other words, although there are two "theoretical" possibilities, the is ONLY one practical (actual) possibility. Same with two moving objects: As a practical matter, only ONE can be moving faster.
On a more general level, bringing up "theoretical" distinctions (like whether a frame is--or at all times remains--inertial) does not mean there is a practical distinction to make. That is a question for further analysis, and does not follow automatically.
When originally commenting on this prof's explanation I "dismissed it as illogical without going into great detail. I thought that was self-evident and didn't bother elaborating. You apparently see no flaws in his argument on behalf of Jill. I have already pointed out some flaws, but here's another: He says:
"The story so far: she has a photograph of the first ground clock that shows it to be reading 4 seconds. She knows that the light took three seconds to reach her. So, what can she conclude the clock must actually be registering at the instant the photo was taken? If you are tempted to say 7 seconds, you have forgotten that in her frame, the clock is moving at 0.6c and hence runs slow by a factor 4/5."
This may be true as viewed FROM JACK'S FRAME. But Jack's frame assumes that she is in motion, which Jill denies. Furthermore, she is not even in that frame, and can hardly base valid "deduction" on "facts" not available to here. Now he goes on to "explain:"
"Including the time dilation factor correctly, she concludes that in the 3 seconds that the light from the clock took to reach her, the clock itself will have ticked away 3 × 4/5 seconds, or 2.4 seconds."
Just a cotton-pickin minute. She "deduces" that 3 seconds is "really" only 2.4 seconds, BASED ON the assumption that her time is slowed down? That's the equivalent of saying she knows she is the one moving, and therefore knows her clock runs slow. But that is the very fact(that she is moving) that she is trying to deny by virtue of this "deduction."
This type of equivocation and frame-switching is inevitable in just about every "explanation" of the premise that "each sees the other's clock moving more slowly," and is very typical, as I have often noted.
I am not "dismissing," without further analyis or thought, this guy as a crank. But I generally know an illogical argument when I take the time to reflect on one. Unfortunely, these types of "arguments" are so convoluted that the average student just figures that the prof must be right and therefore assume that their inability to follow his logic is their fault, not his.
Note also that Jill has the supposedly "slow" clock recording the time required to cover a "true" distance of 3 light seconds in only 2.4 seconds--i.e., FASTER than the speed of light. What about the hypothesis that the speed of light is measured to be constant in all inertial frames of reference, I wonder?
You wanted details, so let's get into them. The prof.'s example is basically trying to consistently compare, contrast, and reconcile 3 different sets of hypotheses. They are:
1. What Jack thinks
2. What Jack thinks Jill (mistakenly) thinks, and
3. What Jill (mistakenly) thinks Jack thinks.
Could it get any more confusing? How much "objectivity" is there to what Jill "thinks" that Jack "thinks?"
Let's look at these different sets of hypotheses one at at time as they relate to time and distance.
1. Jack thinks the distance is 6 light seconds, and that the time elasped is 10 seconds.
According to the prof., Jack is correct.
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2. Jack thinks that Jill thinks, that the distance is 4.8 light seconds, and that the time elapsed is 8 seconds, but that she is mistaken.
Once again, according to the Prof., Jack is right on both counts. Jack is right about what Jill thinks, and he is right about thinking she is mistaken in thinking that.
Now we get to the really remote set of hypotheses, i.e. what Jill thinks Jack thinks.
A. Jill thinks that Jack thinks the distance is 3.84 light seconds. According to the Prof., Jill is mistaken, because Jack actually thinks (knows) the distance is 6 light seconds, not 3.84.
B. Jill thinks that Jack thinks the time is elapsed is 6.4 seconds. Once again, Jill is wrong about what Jack thinks, because Jack thinks the time elapsed is 10 seconds, not 6.4 seconds.
So Jill is wrong on all counts:
1. She is wrong about what the distance actually is (she thinks it's 4.8 LS when it actually is 6)
2. She is wrong about what the elasped time actually is (she thinks it's 8 seconds when it's actually 10)
3. She is wrong about what Jack thinks about the distance. She thinks that he thinks that the distance is 3.84 LS, when he actually thinks it is 6, and
4. She is wrong about what jack thinks about the time. She thinks he thinks the elapsed time is 6.4 seconds, when he actually thinks it is 10.
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On the other hand, Jack is right on all four counts. He is right about what the time and distance actually is, and he is right about what Jill (mistakenly) thinks the time and distance is.
The prof tells us the "reality" but, by linguistic implication, he starts advancing contrary assumptions about the reality.
An example of this occurs when he says: "She knows that the light took three seconds to reach her."
We do not say someone "knows" x to be the case when we know he is mistaken, and that, in fact, x is NOT the case. In those circumstances we will say that the other person "believes" x to be the case. Linguistically speaking, he can't "know" a falsehood, although he can believe it.
So, in effect, he treats known falsehoods as facts (which by definition would be true) in the course of his struggle to make Jill's attempt to make her (false on all counts) assumptions about the situation sound plausible.
This is inevitable when someone tries to insist that wrong is right.
The Prof. tries to imply that Jill bases her assumptions about what clock 1 says on what she sees clock 2 reading. He says:
"To Jill, C1, C2 are running slow, but remember they are not synchronized. To Jill, C1 is behind C2 by Lv/c2." He elaborates on this, and in the process includes some absolute numbers. He proceeds to demonstrate that: "(L/c) x (v/c) = 6 x .6 = 3.6 seconds." We can come back to this, but one thing to note is that he is deriving an absolute result (3.6 seconds) from absolute data (6 light seconds and .6c). This gives one the impression that she reaches her conclusions by way of some meaningful, mathematically certain, "formula."
Now, based on these absolute numbers, he then says:
"Therefore, Jill will conclude that since C2 reads 10 seconds as she passes it, at that instant C1 must be registering 6.4 seconds."
Again, the use of the words "therefore" and "since" indicate a process of logical deduction based on specified premises. And all of this "logic" is presumably implied and summarized by the use of the word "synchronized."
Yeah, and the sleep-inducing qualities of opium are explained by it's dormative properties, too, eh?
What is the connection that Jill supposedly sees between clock 1 and clock 2 that allows her to "deduce" what clock 1 must now say?
If clock 2 had said 20 seconds, would she have said that clock 2 is 13.4 seconds behind clock 1? Presumably not, because the 3.6 second lag came from some "hard numbers" based on some "hard math."
In effect, she is saying that when she passed clock 1, clock 2 MUST have read 3.6 seconds, not 0. But why should she think that?
How is clock 2 in any way related to clock 1 in Jill's mind?
What is this introductory statement of the Prof. supposed to tell us? In what way does Jill conclude, from looking at clock 2, what clock 1 must say "now."
Coming back to the "formula:"
One curiosity about the prof.'s mathematical "explanation" of Jill's thought process is that it relies on data (6 light seconds) that in no way relates to Jill's interpretation of the situation.
Jill thinks the distance between the clocks is 4.8 light seconds, and she therefore thinks that Jack must see that same distance as 3.84light seconds.
At no time does the distance of 6 light seconds EVER enter into any part of her analysis of the situation. So why does she use and rely on the (to her irrelevant) distance of 6 light seconds to calculate a 3.6 second "time lag" between clock 1 and clock 2?
Is this prof making any real sense, based on the consistent application of assumptions? I don't think so. Homey don't play dat.
I asked: "How is clock 2 in any way related to clock 1 in Jill's mind?"
One possible answer to this question is that is absolutely NO connection between the two clocks in Jill's mind. Under this interpretation, Jill is simply asserting that clock 1 MUST now read 6.4 seconds, irrespective of what clock 2 says. Clock 2 could say 20 million seconds, and she would just ignore it. There is no connection, in her mind. NONE whatsoever. She is simply asserting that only 6.4 seconds could have passed on clock 1, even if that means hell just froze over.
This interpretation would make sense, but it raises another disturbing question. Why would the prof. pretend otherwise? Why would he suggest that there is a connection, which "connection" is supposedly based upon a symbolically-expressed formula which he then translates into hard numbers? Is he simply trying to give the false impression that Jill's conclusions have some independent origin, justifiably based on hard scientific and mathematical analysis, when the supposed analysis is irrelevant?
I would see no other explanation, based on this interpretation of the relationship Jill (doesn't) sees between clock 1 and clock 2.
You can often see apologists for SR making claims such as: "You are forgetting about the relativity of simultaneity! Once you consider this, it all makes sense."
The same "point" is often made by the alternative phrasing: "You are forgetting the the clocks are not synchronized in person A's frame! Once you understand that, it all works out."
They actually seem to think that they are saying something new and different, something which "adds" something to their claims, when they say this.
I've never seen why they think this adds something. It is just an alternative way of saying what they've already said, i.e., that time dilates and length contracts for the moving party. It "adds" nothing, it merely repeats what they have already claimed. But this way they "double up" their claims, and hence they thereby double up the consequences.
These kinds of claims are generally made it the context of trying to explain why it is supposedly appropriate and natural for each to see the other's clock as slowing down, etc. In other words, they are used to "prove" to suggest that someone who is, by hypothesis, clearly wrong, "actually right."
Apparently their own duplication of premises convinces them of the righteousness of their cause. It don't convince me of nuthin.
The LT do NOT predict a "mutally reciprocal" dilation of time and contraction of length. Resort to the use of "magical" words (such as "synchronize") and phrases (such as "the relativity of simultaneity") can't change that fact.
LR does NOT posit any relativity of simultaneity. It assumes absolute simultaniety. It does NOT assume that each party will see the other's clock slow down. It assumes the opposite, i.e,. that each party (the one moving slower and the one moving faster) will both see the (relatively) moving party's clock as being slower than the "stationary" clock.
Under the postulates of LR, Jill in this example would NOT falsely assert that she is motionless and unsoundly conclude that Jack's clocks have slowed down. When each saw her clock read 8 and his read 10, that is exactly what they would expect, and what each would affirm as being the actual case. Under LR Jill would not be compelled to make convoluted arguments in an attempt to "justify" erroneous claims.
This is just one difference between LR and SR that you want to deny.
I said: "[LR] does NOT assume that each party will see the other's clock slow down. It assumes the opposite, i.e,. that each party (the one moving slower and the one moving faster) will both see the (relatively) moving party's clock as being slower than the "stationary" clock."
I don't expect you to take my word for it. The following is an excerpt from the famous Mansouri and Sexl study:
"Summarizing these results we may say that the following statement is in perfect agreement with all experimental evidence: A preferred system of reference, the ether system, exists. Clocks are slow when moving with respect to the
ether system and measuring rods shrink. As seen from a moving system clocks in the ether system are fast and measuring rods elongated."
The last sentence quoted makes the point. The notion of the "relativity of simultaneity" is a subjective one, not an objective one. The dogma of reciprocity (each sees the other's clock to move more slowly) is a consequence of the unproven postulates of SR, not of it's mathematical predictions. It's maintenance requires, even within the confines of SR, that assertions which are false by hypothesis be asserted and maintained by way of circular argument.
As I have noted before, these scientists are not advocates of an ether theory and prefer SR. Nonetheless their ultimate conclusion is that:
"A theory maintaining the concept of absolute simultaneity can be obtained in this way which is [when the coefficients
a (v) and b (v) are chosen appropriately] empirically equivalent to special relativity, at least as far as kinematics is concerned. Thus the much debated
question [29, 30] concerning the empirical equivalence of special relativity and an ether theory taking into account time dilatation and length contraction
but maintaining absolute simultaneity can be answered affirmatively."
http://ivanik3.narod.ru/Eather/MANSOURI/MANSOURI1.pdf
Other excerpts of interest:
"The discovery of the cosmic back-ground radiation has shown that cosmologically a preferred system of referencedoes exist. This system is defined and singled out much more unambiguously to be a candidate for a possible "ether frame" than was the solar rest frame in Einstein's days."
===
One of the most debated problems in special relativity is the role of convention in the definition of the simultaneity of distant events and the related question of first-order experiments (first order in v/c)...In these {previously cited] papers "synchronization" was not discussed as a theoretical problem
requiring a definition, but rather as an experimental difficulty to be overcome.
H. Poincare seems to have been the first one to recognize the synchronization of
distant clocks to be a fundamental problem...His considerations culminated in a talk given in 1904 at the International Congress of the Arts and Sciences [10b]
at St. Louis, in which he also formulated a relativity principle (see also [10e, f]. Poincare never abandoned "absolute time."
====
Einstein defined simultaneity by postulating the constancy of the velocity of light. When
clocks are synchronized according to the Einstein procedure the equality of the velocity of light in two opposite directions is trivial and cannot be the subject of an experiment... Einstein's procedure to synchronize clocks at different space points is but one of several possible alternative conventions. Another convention which has been discussed frequently in the recent epistemological literature is the synchronization by (slow) clock transport...
We thus arrive at the important result that the Einstein procedure in general differs from the synchronization by clock transport...there will be in general only one preferred
ether frame in which synchronization by slow clock transport and by the Einstein procedure will agree."
===
All of these quotes are also from Part I (entitled "Simultaneity
and Clock Synchronization") of the series of papers written by Sexl and Mansouri on the topic, previously cited.
As I read this paper, what they are calling an "ether" system has nothing to do with an ether, per se. Rather it is the preferred frame (such as the CMB) where a slow transport method of synchronization agree with Al's method of synchronization.
"In this series of papers we consider theories where a privileged system of reference ("ether") exists. This ether system is defined by the requirements that the Einstein and
the transport synchronization of clocks agree and that, furthermore, light propagation is isotropic in the ether system."
This last quote gives a second requirement for the definition of the "ether system," that of isotropic light propation. But with LR it is isotropic ONLY in the ether frame (not all frames) and there is no "absolute limit" to the speed of light:
"One easily sees that this modified velocity addition theorem does not exclude super light velocities and in fact does predict anisotropic light propagation in all frames except [the ether system]."
Here is another explanation of the "relativity of simultaneity" composed by Dr. Gary Felder, whoever that is. I will interrupt his explanation with editorial comments.
"Reference frame A consists of a planet. Reference frame B consists of a series of rockets flying by this planet, all at rest relative to each other. From A's point of view all of the rockets are moving with the same velocity v. From B's point of view all of the rockets are at rest and the planet is moving with velocity -v."
[Clear enough, but notice that mutually exclusive assumptions are being made, i.e. each frame assumes that it is at rest when they can't BOTH be at rest. This will generate "apparent contradictions later].
"Now consider Bob, who lives in rocket number 0. At some moment Bob's rocket passes by planet 0, where Alice lives. Let's suppose that at that moment both Bob's clock and Alice's clock read 12:00.
Remember that Bob says the rockets aren't moving and the planet is moving to the left, but either way they both agree that some time later Alice will be next to rocket B:-1, where she'll meet Bruce."
[OK, now both frames anticipate the future event of Bruce--in the second rocket--passing A. So, now what?]
" Bob says that all of the clocks in all of the rockets are perfectly synchronized. From Bob's point of view none of the rockets are moving and they have had plenty of time to send signals back and forth getting all of their clocks perfectly in synch with each other. When Bob passes Alice, he therefore says that not only does his clock read 12:00, so does Bruce's"
[So, in frame B, the clock currently passing A says noon, and so does this distant clock--Bruce's]
"Let's imagine that according to Bob and Bruce it's going to take an hour before Alice is next to Bruce. In other words at the moment they pass each other, Bruce's watch will read 1:00. What will Alice's watch say? Since Bob and Bruce say her clock is running slowly, it will only say 12:30. To recap, when Alice is next to Bob their watches both say 12:00. When Alice is next to Bruce his watch says 1:00 and hers says 12:30."
[OK, so now the "facts" have been established. When Bruce passes his (and Bob's) clock both say 1:00 and Alice's says 12:30. Her clock does not also say 1:00 because, to them, her clock is running slow.] The Prof's very next question is:
"How does Alice resolve this seeming contradiction?"
[What "contradiction?." At this point no contradiction has been pointed out--but he goes on, of course].
"According to her Bruce's watch should be running slower than hers."
[Once again it is clear, by implication, that Alice understands that Bob and Bruce's clocks are synchronized in frame B. Otherwise, they would be no "contradiction."]
"Since her watch only ticked off half an hour in between the two meetings, she has to say that Bruce's watch only ticked off a quarter hour. And yet she sees that when they meet Bruce's watch says 1:00."
[No, she doesn't HAVE to say that Bruce's watch only ticked off a quarter hour. She only "has" to say that to be consistent with her dubious contention that she is at rest. But she sees that his watch says 1:00, precisely as Bob and Bruce predicted, and that her watch says 12:30, precisely as Bob and Bruce predicted. The easiest, and most obvious, way to reconcile all the facts is for her to acknowledge that they are stationary, and that she is moving. Her clock is running slower, hence she is the one moving. This reconciliation matches BOTH the facts, and the predictions of SR. But, noooooooo....]
"The only way Alice can reconcile these facts is to say that at the moment when she was with Bob, Bruce's watch said 12:45."
http://simple-modern-physics.150m.com/acceleration_effect.htm
[see next post]
So, the ONLY way Alice can "reconile" her false assumption that she is motionless is to posit yet another false "fact," ad hoc, in order to salvage her mistaken hypothesis? I don't think so. Homey don't play dat.
There is no "problem" with synchronization here. Bob and Bruce's watchs are, and stay, perfectly synchronized. Her's runs slow BECAUSE she is the one moving, not because there is a "synchronization" problem. Her assertion that Bruce's clock MUST have read only 12:45 at the time both hers and Bob's clock said 12:00 does NOT create a problem with "synchronization." It merely displays her stubbornness in unreasonably clinging to a false assumption, and relying on it to generate further assertions which are contradicted by the empircal facts. When Bruce passes, his clock does indeed say 1:00 and hers does indeed say 12:30, as they both see.
When both parties assume they are at rest, one MUST be wrong. The only question is "which one?" It is only the attempt by each to INSIST that he is right which creates a supposed "relativity of simultaneity," and the appearance of a "contradiction" elsewhere (rather than in their own heads). There is no contradiction once you stop asserting that mutually contradictory assertons are "both true."
Do you have any clue what I'm saying here, Eric? If you do, it will be the first time you have. I have made this point over and over, only to see you to deny the valdity of the point without further claboration.
Do you see the problem with the Jack and Jill explanation yet?
The prof. there tries to give the impression that a "lack of synchronization" justifies Jill's mistaken and false claims.
But upon analysis it is seen to be the other way around. It is her false and mistaken claims which create a false assertion of a "lack of synchronization."
But the Prof tries hard to give the impression that an objective, scientifically verifiable lack of synchronization is at the root of the probllem. It aint. Only subjective error, coupled with incorrigible recalcitrance in admitting that error, generates the "problem."
Perhaps the easiest way to show the Jack and Jill prof's contradiction is to merely read the very first statement of his "explanation." which is designed to suggest that Jill's view is "right." There he says:
"To Jill, C1, C2 are running slow, but remember they are not synchronized."
So he is now suggesting that, as a matter of fact, clocks C1 and C2 "are not synchronized." But they are, and he has previously shown that. His way of "defending" Jill's obviously erroneous assumptions about her state of motion is to start off by contradicting himself. It only gets worse, from there.
Jill's only "reason" for believing that the clocks are not synchronized it identical to Alice's "reason" in the second (similar) explanation from Dr. Felding.
Why does Alice later say that, at the time she and Bob (in the first rocket) encountered each other (and when both of their clocks read 12:00), that, at that very same instant, Bruce's clock (on the second ship) said 12:45?
Did she "observe" or "see" it to read 12:45 at that time? No. Did she even look at Bruce's watch and that time, and get some distorted reading due to a doppler effect and/or the effects of signal delay? No. Does she have any empirical basis whatsoever for asserting that Bruce's clock read 12:45 when hers read noon? No, none whatsoever.
So what, then, is her basis for making such a wild-ass claim, for which she has absolutely no empirical evidence? Two assumptions (one clearly false), that's all. They are:
1. That she is motionless (and therefore, by necessary implication, that Bruce is moving), and
2. That according to SR, his clock must be running at half the rate hers is, under the circumstances.
That's it. That's her entire reason and basis. From there she simply concludes that, since her watch reads 12:30, and since he was only 15 minutes away from her, given her assumptions, when she encountered Bob, Bruce's watch (now reading 1:00) HAD to have read 12:45 15 minutes ago.
GIGO, as you have yourself noted.
Edit: I neglected to remove some words from my last post as I intended to do.
Meant to say:
"From there she simply concludes that, since he was only 15 minutes away from her, given her assumptions, when she encountered Bob, Bruce's watch (now reading 1:00) Bruce's watch (now reading 1:00) HAD to have read 12:45 15 minutes ago."
[removes the words "her watch reads 12:30, and"]
To briefly summarize the points I claim to have established in this last series of points.
1. The postulates of SR do not lead to the concrete conclusions which the Lorentz Transformations predict. The LT do that all on their own, irrespective of the postulates.
2. The postulates of SR, in particular the "relativity" postulate, given the standard interpretation of them, contradict the concrete conclusions which the LT predict. This was Dingle's objection--a valid objection.
aintnuthin said...
As I said before, this part is wrong:" Jill agrees that she is moving and that Jack and clock1 are at rest."
In the prof's example Jill definitely does NOT agree that she is moving.
I'll take it out. It's not relevant.
"When Jack passes Jill, his clock reads 10." (from Scenario B, which we are asking about).
I had a sentence noting that a change in motion was the ONLY change, pointing out that the clocks would still be syncronized in Jack's frame and would still be 6 light seconds apart in his frame. I would like to include those sentences, just to make sure he understands the limited changes that we are contemplating.
OK.
One Brow said:"Then you're wrong. The obsrevers on the train will see the gournd clocks running more slowly. This is an prediciton of LR and SR."
Not, it is not. The "predictions" of SR are provided by the Lorentz transformation.
Exactly. The Lorentz transformations predict that the train observes measure the the ground clocks to be running more slowly. You can claim that their measurements are wrong based on the pre-determined notion of the proper rest state is the ground state and therefore the train has defective instruments, but that doesn't change the predictions.
The "relativity priniciple" as postulated by Al, might imply certain things, I'll grant you that. They might imply, for example, that there will be no age difference between two twins. Then again, they might not imply that.
Well, if you misuse and abuse and the relativity principle, you can predict different results. If you use SR as originally intended, There is exactly one answer to the twin scenario.
The mathematical formulas provide the "predictions" and those formulas say the time dilation effects are NOT reciprocal. Twin paradox, for example.
When applying the mathematical formulas in the manner intended by SR, the twin who changes inertial frames always ages less, by the exact same amount, regardless of how the calculation is done.
LR does NOT predict that "the obsrevers on the train will see the gournd clocks running more slowly."
Except, it does.
Can you see the difference between a postulate and a "prediction" based on a formula?
Yes. In neither SR nor LR is "the moving object has a slower measured time" a postulate.
That's a problem with SR (as noted by Phipps and many, many others, myself included). It's predictions do NOT match it's postulates, even though the predictions are correct.
To which postulate do you refer? The two in SR are:
1) Identical experiements in different inertial frames produce identical results.
2) As a result of 1), all inertial frames measure light at the same speed.
Which predicitons disagree with these postulates? Keep in mind that LR uses these same postulates, but adds in one about the existence of a preferred rest frame. It's really not possible to argue that a prediction can contradict two postulates but doesn't contradict those two when a third postulate is added.
Now, you may have some other postulates in mind, somewhere. You prabably read it in Phipps, or Dingle, or whoever. It doesn't really matter. It's not a postulate of SR, whatever it is.
To their dying day, neither Lorentz nor Poincare, both brilliant mathematicians and scientists, ever accepted Einstien's relativity principle as being valid.
So?
The point? The "relativity" which results from the Lorentz transformations is NOT fixed by the formulas themselves. The postulates do that, not the math.
I agree. The equations are meaningless without an interpretation.
The math of SR (and Lorentz) says that if two clocks are moving with respect to each other, one and ONLY one will run slower than the other. And it will always be the moving clock, not both.
I agree. One you determine which clock is moving, the math says that clock will run slower.
I've been trying to point this out to you for years now, but you act as though you think that the postulates of SR constitute "facts" and that the predictions of SR follow from the postulates (as opposed the LT).
The postulates of SR (the two I stated above) have been confirmed to the point that there is no reason to treat them as other than fact. LR certainly uses them. The Lorentz transforms actually follow from the postulates of SR. Since the transforms follw from the postulates, and the predictions follow from the transforms, it is unreasonable to say the predictions don't follow from the postulates.
1. Guy on train measures speed of light to be 186,000 mps.
2. Guy on ground also measure light to be 186,000 mps.
Are both right, as a matter of objective reality (as opposed to the artifacts of measurment)?
Depends on the interpretation of "objective reality". The measurements themselves are objective, in that they can be repeated by other observers and do not depend on the subjective preferences of the measurers.
LR: No, both are not correct, objectively speaking.
SR: (Some versions, a la Dingle) YES, both are correct as a matter of objective reality
Dingle would also say that a guy in an acceleratiing train was entitled to treat his measurements as if they were at rest, which is not SR (as proposed by Einstein). So, yor characterizatiohn of "a la Dingle" is inaccurate. I'd accept "a la Fowler", "a la Hogg", or "a la mathguy".
LT (Lorentz transformations): NO, both are not correct, and couldn't be.
The equations are meaningless without an interpretation, and are not in and of themselves an interpretation. To try to invoke them to support LR vs. SR "a la Fowler" is futile.
I thought you were opposed to trying to dictate reality from mathematical equations? Yet, here you try to fall back on it. How can I take your criticisms of my philosophical interpretations seriously when you continually violate your own philosophical standards in your arguments?
I said: "The slowing of clocks is a unilateral, not a reciprocal, effect."
You responded: "Except, it isn't in any form of relativity."
See my last few posts for my response to this assertion on your part.
Nothing in your last few posts resued your incorrect assertion, you just doubled-down instead.
I asked: "Why would she think clock 2 is in any way related to clock 1?"
You responded: "They click at the same rate, for her."
See, Eric, this is another example of where you contradict yourself by constantly changing your assumptions to accomodate your preferred conclusions.
Jill "sees" Clock 2, which she is approaching at the rate of .6c, click "at the same rate" as she "sees" clock 2 (which she is receding from at .6c)?
No, she doesn't see them clocking at the same rate. I said, "They click at the same rate, for her.", which did not actually specify if that is what she saw or that is what sje observed. Using math I won't attempt to imitate, Jill would be capable of adjusting for the Doppler shift of her motion to interpret the 4 seconds she saw pass on clock1 and the 16 seconds she saw pass on clock2 as being the same amont of time (10 seconds).
All your answers based on light delay and doppler effects are totally irrelevant.
They are relevant to the difference between what Jill sees and what Jill observes.
They have NOTHING to do with causing or explaining time dilation in SR.
I agree. Being relevant to the difference between what Jill sees and what Jill observes (also the difference between what Jack sees and what Jack observes) is quite different than being relevant to time dilation. The time dilations in SR explains the difference between what Jill observes and what Jack observes. You can tell the difference by light delay and doppler effects being relevant to the differences in different verbs describing the experiences of the same person, while the effects of SR being relevant to the differences in the same verb describing the experiences of different persons. It's easy to keep straight.
These red herrings and inconsistencies just tell me that you don't understand the basic concepts.
I'm just trying to explain what's happening and why you need to be precise in your language and analysis.
The professor has created a "problem," one which is says is difficult to solve. What is the problem? Does it have ANYTHING to do her "looking at" clock 1 or clock 2 as she travels.
If this is getting too confusing for you, we can drop that line and stop talking about what Jill sees.
She knows clocks 1 and 2 are synchronized in Jack's frame. It's just that she doesn't see them synchronized in HER frame. This is implied by the words "therefore" and "since" in the statement below.
Prof said: "Therefore, Jill will conclude that since C2 reads 10 seconds as she passes it, at that instant C1 must be registering 6.4 seconds."
In her frame, it does.
As a sidelight, contrary to you claim when analyzing the "correct" solution to this problem, the prof. did NOT assume that the distance is "greater for the moving party."
You must have read my analysis in a very interesting fashion to pull that from it. Your statement is unrecognizable to me.
Instead he applied the notion that "space itself (distance) contracts. He says: "To Jill, the clock C1 is actually only 4/5 x 18 x 108 meters away (she sees the distance C1C2 to be Lorentz contracted!).
So, where does the professor say space itself contracted? All you pulled out was a Lorentz contraction, which comes from traveling through spacetime differently, not a change to space itself.
The assumption are shifting all over the place and the Prof tries to justify Jill's "reasoning," which had to have occurred in her framework for it to be reliable to her, by appealing to the "objective" facts. Here, "objective facts" means as seen from Jack's standpoint, since he is the moving party.
??? Not sure what this is supposed to mean.
As an example, the length is not contracted "for her." She sees her instruments to be perfectly fine. Jack will see her distance as shortened (compared to his) but she won't! She will see Jack's distance as being shortened, compared to his.
The frame-shifting is obvious and omnipresent.
You can make calculations from Jack's frame, or from Jill frame. What the professor does not do is make calculations that rely on both frames at the same time.
This is simply incorrect: "To Jill, the clock C1 is actually only 4/5 x 18 x 108 meters away (she sees the distance C1C2 to be Lorentz contracted!)."
She does NOT "see the distance to be Lorentz contracted," according to SR. She sees it as being the "correct" distance.
What's the difference? It is the correct distance in Jill's inertial state.
Per Eddington, the distance she sees is NOT correct, it is much LESS (not greater) than she perceives it to be. Again, you can prove or disprove just about any proposition you want by applying the vague premises of SR and shifting assumptions virtually at will.
What makes eddington's analysis more accurate, or even equally accurate, to Fowler's? Can you quote thins from Eddington?
The point is that she cannot draw valid conclusions from premises which orginate in ANOTHER frame, which she denies is the correct one to begin with.
Nor does Fowler have her do this. Jill can measure the relative speed between her and clock1/Jack, and the amount of time it takes to pass bewteen clock1 and Jack. Fowler uses information from Jack's viewpoint to predict what jill would see, but Jill doesn't need to do this.
There may be some way to consistently articulate the point the prof. is trying to make, I don't know. I simply know that his attempt to explain it fails due to the types of deficiencies I have identified.
I agree there are deficiencies in his presentation.
Even if there is, the bottom line is still this: Even if her logic were correct, she can only come to the conclusions she does if she FALSELY assumes she is stationary.
No matter how valid her arguments are (or could be), they still remain unsound.
A valid LR perspective.
Yes, which is just another way of saying that you must have a "preferred frame," with "proper time" as a standard, to reach ANY conclusions whatsoever.
Correct.
In effect, SR must fully and immediately revert to the basic premises of LR (that there is a time which applies to both--or all-frames under consideration).
Correct, with the only difference being the the choice of the frame in SR is arbitrary, and in LR it is mandated by factors external to relativity theory.
Why is that? Well, in part it's because Al stole Lorentz's equations whole cloth. These equations are valid only in a theoretical system which presupposes a univeral standard for time.
The equations are inevitable consequences of the two posulates I mentioned above, neither postulate of which involves or implies a "universal standard for time".
Hence the equation predicts, as I've noted many times, that, as between any two given clock, one, and ONLY one, is running faster than the other. The "formal" claim of SR is that each sees the other's clock as moving slow. This is inconsistent with the LT transformations he stole.
The LR transforms are just mathematical equaitions that perform teh same role in SR and LR.
LR (actually it's postualtes) agrees with the predictions generated by the equations (SR's don't).
Actually impossible, since the SR postulates are a subset of the LR postulates.
Per LR, an observer travelling at a slower relative speed will see the other (higher speed) clock running slow AND that an observer travelling with the faster clock will see it EXACTLY the same way---his clock will be slower, not the other guy's.
Not a prediction of SR nor LR. Perhaps you meant "observe".
I say the prof's claims necessarily imply that Jill believes that clocks 1 and 2 are synchronized in Jack's frame. You deny this.
Jill can calculate that Jack's clock and clock1 are synchronized in Jack's frame. You have obviously applied some interesting interpretation to something I actually said.
Let's quit arguing about what the prof means for a minute and just assume that Jill is not the ignorant slut you want her to be. Let's assume that she has been in radio contact with Jack prior to reaching him. Let's further assume (as I believe the prof does) that Jack explains his set-up to her and INFORMS her that clocks 1 and 2 are synchronized in HIS frame.
What Jill believes or does not believe is irrelevant, nor is the information provided by Jack. She can calculate the two clocks to be synchronized in Jack's frame (in some thrid-person omniscienct fashion).
Given that assumption, would you then agree that, given the observed facts with respect to the final reading on clock 2 (10 seconds) as contrasted with her final reading (8 seconds), she would have to conclude that she is moving (if she knows SR)?
The readings would be the same if Jill is at rest and Jack/clock1 was moving past. Jack's clock would read 10, and Jill's would read eight.
I said: "The question is about your ability to even distinguish between the concepts of an objective versus subjective reality, which has nothing to do with any objective reality anytime, anyplace."
You asked: "What trouble do you think I have distinguishing these concepts? In particular, what view of mine would confuse these concepts?"
Let me use a simple example to demonstrate.
I put a coin on my desk, heads up, and cover it with my hand. You come in and I tell you there is a coin under my hand, and ask you if it is heads or tails. Now, you could answer in more than one way, for example:...
Answer 2. Since I can't see it, it can be neither heads nor tails. The question doesn't even make sense. Either answer I give, heads or tails, is equally valid and is equally entitled to be considered as correct.
What a stupid thing to say. The coin is obviously going to be heads or tails, and there is an easy experiment that can be conducted to confirm which is accurate. Just lift up your hand.
By contrast, there is no experiement that can confirm LR over SR. There is no experiment that can determine the true rest frame, even if you accept LR. These are not limitations of our ability to conduct experiements, they are the very nature of the theories themselves.
This answer is subjective in nature, and it confuses epistemology with ontology. The assumption is that your personal knowledge controls what is the case. Any possibility open to you, in your limited state of knowledge is a "possible" one, and therefore a "valid" one.
Actually, the difference is practical versus ideal. Using the most convenient rest frame is an issue of practicality. You get the same predicitons regardless of using SR or LR, and regardless of which rest frame is considered the true rest frame in LR. The only practical difference is how much harder you make all the equations.
Your certainly welcome to speculate on your ideal frame by whatever standards you choose. If you wish to use this frame as the rest frame in every calculation, you'll arrive at the same answers as those who use more convenient rest frames. You'll just work harder for those numbers. Ultimately, it's not much different from arguing how many angels fit on the head of a pin.
On the other hand, I KNOW that it is heads, because I have seen it. Therefore, to me, it is not "possible" for the coin to be tails. But, in truth, it is heads whether you or I know it or not. That does not depend upon either our perception or our knowledge, or even our theoretical ability to perceive it.
However, it does depend upon a material difference between being heads and being tails. You can describe a material difference it makes in the universe regarding the orientation of the coin. You can't describe a material difference it makes in the universe if SR is true, if LR is true and the CMBR is the proper rest frame, if LR is true and the center of gravity of the Milky Way is at rest, etc.
To the extent that you say that the question of which of two objects is moving is unanswerable (as opposed to merely unanswered) until such time as you decide which one you want to arbitarily designate as moving, you are assuming that the so-called "objective facts" are a mere by-product of your mental state. You are, in effect, giving answer 2 to the question above, and rejecting answer one.
You have confused the idea of "unanswerable" with "arbitrarily answerable". It's not that there is an answer to the proper velocity of an object that is not discoverable. Rather, it's that you every choice is you make is a proper choice. The coin has a proper orientation. What you're actually asking me is if the color of the coin is the best color for the coin; should the coin be brown, silver, yellow, black, or white? I'm saying it will spend the same regardless.
In answer one, it is presumed that there is an objective, pre-existing, actual state of affairs, even if you don't know what it is. In answer two, the assumption is that "objective reality" is completely dependent upon what you know, or what you posit.
Actually, under SR, the part of reality that can be objective (observers can compare things on close spacetime proximity) are the same, regardless of the choice of rest frame. If you feel the need to add some sort of ontological purity by choosing LR, go ahead. It makes no difference in the usuability of the theory.
In another context we discussed recently, you claimed that, because there are phyical facts which can explain why a guy walking away from me appears to get smaller, that makes the appearance a "real, objective physical" matter. If you did not make that particular claim in that case(I can't remember for sure) you have made it in other contexts.
I may have said that the appearance is based on real, objective matters, and that the smaller appearance can have real, objective, physical consequences.
This confuses objective versus subjective reality in a different way.
In this context, an "objective, physical" change means a change which affects the object being perceived (hence "objective) as ontrasted with a change which merely affects the "subject" (i.e., the person viewing the "object").
That a highly limited and limiting version of physics. Changes which affect the oberver are still physical changes. In fact, one of the key difficulties in experiements is the separating of observer effects from other effects.
So, in that case, there is no objective change. The object (the guy walking)does not "really" get smaller with distance, he merely "appears" to get smaller with distance to the subject viewing him.
Right. The change is due to other physical phenomena.
The fact that physical explanations can be given for the subjective changes in one's perception of the object does NOT make it an "objective" change.
The fact that physical reasons can be given for the change means that every other observer in the situation sees the same change, and the the effects of the change can be measured, making the change objective. The sun is not further away from the earth when it is 45 degrees below the horizon than when the sun is 45 degrees above the horizon. Yet, I'm pretty sure you recognize day as being physically different than night.
Another context,and another example: A shadow is not a physical object, even though there are physical explanations for it's appearance.
It's a physical phenomenon, but not a physical object.
There is nothing "objective" about it in that sense. You can pick up a yardstick, and carry it across the street, if you wish. You can't do that with a shadow. It has no materiality.
I agree.
It does not have a tangible lentgh, width, and depth, for example.
A shadow on the ground has two dimensions, and you can even talk about teh volume of shadow between the first and second objects intercepting the light. All of this can be measured with a yeardstick. It is intangible, but also measureable.
It does not have the qualities of a physical object, and it is not a physical object even if it can sometimes have the appearance of one, and even though there are objective, physical reasons for the appearance of a shadow.
I agree.
The shadow remains a subjective appearance, not a physical object. In that sense, it is not "objective."
That's not only wrong, it's moronic It requires the additional assumption that only things which are material can be objective. You don't believe that to begin with. You're trying to argue for the absoluteness of the distance between the ends of a rod or the ticks of a clock, neither of which is material, but you don't think they are subjective.
I said: "There seems to be one obvious problem with your claim, as I have explained repeatedly. If Jill is stationary, then Jack's clock will be running slow, compared to hers, per SR. You have his rnnning faster. Ask Colton."
You said: "6.4 is smaller than the 8 you noted as what I intended. Jack experiences less time."
Yes, but if, despite all your mistatements, you still maintain that Jack's clock will read 10, then hers will not "still" read 8 if SHE not JACK, is stationary. Ask Colton.
We will. However, I maintain that her clock reads 8, Jack's reads 10, and the Jack's clock moves more slowly.
Here again, you confuse the time a subject supposedly "experiences" (a subjective question) with the actual reading on a clock. It could possibly be that the "experience" is accurate and the reading on the clock is inaccurate, but that's not the point. The point is that one must distinguish one from the other and not treat them as the "same" thing.
I agree they should be distinguished. However, I will just as unequivocally say that "Jack's clock moves through less time", because it is not about what Jack subjectively experiences, it is about the physical process of moving through less time.
I said: "It really doesn't make any difference whatsover what Jill thinks. Given the premise that Jack is stationary, the LT gives the answers of 8 and 10 seconds without any regard whatsoever for Jill's thoughts on the matter."
I made this assertion in a prior post. Just curious: Do you agree?
Yes.
Or do you think that what an observer might "see" or "think" alters the predictions of the Lorentz transformations?
The Lorentz transforms describe/predict the observations that would be made by people in one inertial state based on the observations of people in another inertial state. If your asking if it controls those predictions, no. If your asking if the random assumptions of a person can be properly used with the Lorentz transforms to get useful results, no. However, when we describe what people see/observe, we are making teh presumption that they are not random assumptions, but accurate determinations based on correct measurement procedures. So, if a person makes accurate measurements and corections, and this gets proper observations, then using what that person observes in the Lorentz transforms gives accurate results.
As far as the phrasing of the question to Colton goes I would be satisfied with this simplified from. ...
I think we need to include clock1, simply because otherwise there is no non-arbitrary way to discuss what clocks actually read.
There is a major difference between "theoretical" possibilities and practical possibilities, depending on the context. As between heliocentricism and geocentricism, there are two "theoretical" possibilities, as far as which one is true goes.
Geocentrism can not be true and have physics as it is survive. It runs counter to a wide variety of physical laws.
In other words, although there are two "theoretical" possibilities, the is ONLY one practical (actual) possibility. Same with two moving objects: As a practical matter, only ONE can be moving faster.
Compared to any given object, sure.
On a more general level, bringing up "theoretical" distinctions (like whether a frame is--or at all times remains--inertial) does not mean there is a practical distinction to make. That is a question for further analysis, and does not follow automatically.
I agree.
When originally commenting on this prof's explanation I "dismissed it as illogical without going into great detail. I thought that was self-evident and didn't bother elaborating. You apparently see no flaws in his argument on behalf of Jill. I have already pointed out some flaws, but here's another: He says:
"The story so far: she has a photograph of the first ground clock that shows it to be reading 4 seconds. She knows that the light took three seconds to reach her. So, what can she conclude the clock must actually be registering at the instant the photo was taken? If you are tempted to say 7 seconds, you have forgotten that in her frame, the clock is moving at 0.6c and hence runs slow by a factor 4/5."
This may be true as viewed FROM JACK'S FRAME. But Jack's frame assumes that she is in motion, which Jill denies. Furthermore, she is not even in that frame, and can hardly base valid "deduction" on "facts" not available to here.
You have misunderstood. In Jack's frame, clock1 ("the first ground clock") is not running slow at all, it's running at the same rate as Jack's clock. The professor is saying that in Jill's frame, the first gournd clock is running slow.
Now he goes on to "explain:"
"Including the time dilation factor correctly, she concludes that in the 3 seconds that the light from the clock took to reach her, the clock itself will have ticked away 3 × 4/5 seconds, or 2.4 seconds."
Just a cotton-pickin minute. She "deduces" that 3 seconds is "really" only 2.4 seconds, BASED ON the assumption that her time is slowed down?
No, based on the assumption clock1 has slowed down. From Jill's frame, clock1 and clock2 are slowed. So, the three seconds she measures in her frame coincide with 2.4 seconds on the slowed clock1.
That's the equivalent of saying she knows she is the one moving, and therefore knows her clock runs slow. But that is the very fact(that she is moving) that she is trying to deny by virtue of this "deduction."
You have misunderstood the paragraph.
This type of equivocation and frame-switching is inevitable in just about every "explanation" of the premise that "each sees the other's clock moving more slowly," and is very typical, as I have often noted.
The paragraph you offered is solely from Jill's frame. No other frame is mixed in.
I am not "dismissing," without further analyis or thought, this guy as a crank. But I generally know an illogical argument when I take the time to reflect on one.
Here your filter has given a false positive.
Unfortunely, these types of "arguments" are so convoluted that the average student just figures that the prof must be right and therefore assume that their inability to follow his logic is their fault, not his.
I have no problem following his logic.
Note also that Jill has the supposedly "slow" clock recording the time required to cover a "true" distance of 3 light seconds in only 2.4 seconds--i.e., FASTER than the speed of light.
Clocks don't measure distance. The professor does not have the clock measuring distance. Your comment makes no sense.
What about the hypothesis that the speed of light is measured to be constant in all inertial frames of reference, I wonder?
Unchanged.
You wanted details, so let's get into them. The prof.'s example is basically trying to consistently compare, contrast, and reconcile 3 different sets of hypotheses. They are:
1. What Jack thinks
2. What Jack thinks Jill (mistakenly) thinks, and
3. What Jill (mistakenly) thinks Jack thinks.
You are confusing "thinks" with "observes" and "calculates".
Could it get any more confusing? How much "objectivity" is there to what Jill "thinks" that Jack "thinks?"
Jill can calculate what jack observes (and vice-versa).
Let's look at these different sets of hypotheses one at at time as they relate to time and distance.
1. Jack thinks the distance is 6 light seconds, and that the time elasped is 10 seconds.
Jack measures the distance as 6 light seconds, and measures teh ealpsed time as 10 seconds.
According to the prof., Jack is correct.
===
2. Jack thinks that Jill thinks, that the distance is 4.8 light seconds, and that the time elapsed is 8 seconds, but that she is mistaken.
Jack calculates that, using proper measurement techniques, Jill will measure the distance as 4.8 light seconds and the elapsed time as 8 seconds.
Once again, according to the Prof., Jack is right on both counts. Jack is right about what Jill thinks, and he is right about thinking she is mistaken in thinking that.
Where does Fowler say Jack is right and jill is wrong?
Now we get to the really remote set of hypotheses, i.e. what Jill thinks Jack thinks.
A. Jill thinks that Jack thinks the distance is 3.84 light seconds. According to the Prof., Jill is mistaken, because Jack actually thinks (knows) the distance is 6 light seconds, not 3.84.
That would be how Jill calculates the distance in Jack's frame.
B. Jill thinks that Jack thinks the time is elapsed is 6.4 seconds.
No, Jill measures the time elapsed on Jack's clock, from Jill's frame, as 6.4 seconds. This has nothing to do with what Jack thinks.
Once again, Jill is wrong about what Jack thinks, because Jack thinks the time elapsed is 10 seconds, not 6.4 seconds.
Once again, this is about what Jill measures, not what she thinks.
We do not say someone "knows" x to be the case when we know he is mistaken,
This is based on your confusion of "thinks" versus "measures".
What is the connection that Jill supposedly sees between clock 1 and clock 2 that allows her to "deduce" what clock 1 must now say?
None. From Jill's frame, clock1 has been moving 8 seconds at .6c. The standard Lorentz transform gives that 6.4 seconds will have passed. You can come at the numbers in different ways, but they don't need to rely on the synchronization between clock1 and Jack's clock.
If clock 2 had said 20 seconds, would she have said that clock 2 is 13.4 seconds behind clock 1? Presumably not, because the 3.6 second lag came from some "hard numbers" based on some "hard math."
None. From Jill's frame, clock1 has been moving 8 seconds at .6c. The standard Lorentz transform gives that 6.4 seconds will have passed. You can come at the numbers in different ways, but they don't need to rely on the synchronization between clock1 and Jack's clock.
In effect, she is saying that when she passed clock 1, clock 2 MUST have read 3.6 seconds, not 0. But why should she think that?
Because she observes jack's clock to click 6.4 seconds and then read 10.
Jill thinks the distance between the clocks is 4.8 light seconds, and she therefore thinks that Jack must see that same distance as 3.84light seconds.
An instantaneous distance, perhaps? Since clock1 is in Jack's frame, he sees the distance to clock1 as being 6 light-seconds, regardless. However, the distance to clock1 does no have to equal the distance to an object in Jill's inertial state at the same place.
At no time does the distance of 6 light seconds EVER enter into any part of her analysis of the situation. So why does she use and rely on the (to her irrelevant) distance of 6 light seconds to calculate a 3.6 second "time lag" between clock 1 and clock 2?
I don't think that is what Jill does.
The LT do NOT predict a "mutally reciprocal" dilation of time and contraction of length.
Of course not. They're just mathematical equations. To make a prediciton requires a theory.
LR does NOT posit any relativity of simultaneity. It assumes absolute simultaniety.
A distinction with no practical application.
Under LR Jill would not be compelled to make convoluted arguments in an attempt to "justify" erroneous claims.
This is just one difference between LR and SR that you want to deny.
Jill makes the same measurements under LR or SR. The only "erroneous" claim is is whether she is measuring with accurate instruments or not.
I said: "[LR] does NOT assume that each party will see the other's clock slow down. It assumes the opposite, i.e,. that each party (the one moving slower and the one moving faster) will both see the (relatively) moving party's clock as being slower than the "stationary" clock."
I don't expect you to take my word for it. The following is an excerpt from the famous Mansouri and Sexl study:
"Summarizing these results we may say that the following statement is in perfect agreement with all experimental evidence: A preferred system of reference, the ether system, exists. Clocks are slow when moving with respect to the
ether system and measuring rods shrink. As seen from a moving system clocks in the ether system are fast and measuring rods elongated."
The last sentence quoted makes the point.
A point I don't disagree with. Of course LR is consistent with all the experimental evidence. LR and SR make teh exact same predictions.
The notion of the "relativity of simultaneity" is a subjective one, not an objective one.
It's based on objectvely made measurements.
The dogma of reciprocity (each sees the other's clock to move more slowly) is a consequence of the unproven postulates of SR, not of it's mathematical predictions.
It's a common feature of SR and LR.
It's maintenance requires, even within the confines of SR, that assertions which are false by hypothesis be asserted and maintained by way of circular argument.
Incorrect and inaccurate.
As I have noted before, these scientists are not advocates of an ether theory and prefer SR. Nonetheless their ultimate conclusion is that:
"A theory maintaining the concept of absolute simultaneity can be obtained in this way which is [when the coefficients
a (v) and b (v) are chosen appropriately] empirically equivalent to special relativity, at least as far as kinematics is concerned.
Yup.
Thus the much debated question [29, 30] concerning the empirical equivalence of special relativity and an ether theory taking into account time dilatation and length contraction but maintaining absolute simultaneity can be answered affirmatively."
Naturally.
"The discovery of the cosmic back-ground radiation has shown that cosmologically a preferred system of referencedoes exist. This system is defined and singled out much more unambiguously to be a candidate for a possible "ether frame" than was the solar rest frame in Einstein's days."
Whatever works.
...there will be in general only one preferred ether frame in which synchronization by slow clock transport and by the Einstein procedure will agree."
If ether exists, and if ether affects the speed of light. Otherwise, it won't matter.
As I read this paper, what they are calling an "ether" system has nothing to do with an ether, per se. Rather it is the preferred frame (such as the CMB) where a slow transport method of synchronization agree with Al's method of synchronization.
That would be true in any frame.
[No, she doesn't HAVE to say that Bruce's watch only ticked off a quarter hour.
Actually, she does, because she can measure the rate of Bruce's clock, and will measure it to be moving a half the speed her own clock goes.
When both parties assume they are at rest, one MUST be wrong. The only question is "which one?"
Actually, prior in priority to "Which one?" is "Does it matter which one?". Describe a situation where a makes a difference.
Do you have any clue what I'm saying here, Eric?
Sure. You're saying there must be the One Frame by whch all otehr frames are bound. Otherwaise the universe makes no sense to you.
If you do, it will be the first time you have.
You aren't any harder to understand than a typical ten-year-old.
I have made this point over and over, only to see you to deny the valdity of the point without further claboration.
Except, I don't deny the validity of your point, just its necessity.
Do you see the problem with the Jack and Jill explanation yet?
I see problems with your understanding of it.
The prof. there tries to give the impression that a "lack of synchronization" justifies Jill's mistaken and false claims.
But upon analysis it is seen to be the other way around. It is her false and mistaken claims which create a false assertion of a "lack of synchronization."
Tomayto, tomahto, except Jill is making valid masurements, not "false and mistaken claims".
So he is now suggesting that, as a matter of fact, clocks C1 and C2 "are not synchronized." But they are, and he has previously shown that.
They are synchronized in some third-person omniscient way in jack's frame, but not Jill's. You seem to think those statement contradict each other. They do not.
Why does Alice later say that, at the time she and Bob (in the first rocket) encountered each other (and when both of their clocks read 12:00), that, at that very same instant, Bruce's clock (on the second ship) said 12:45?
Did she "observe" or "see" it to read 12:45 at that time? No.
No, she sees it to read 12:00, like Bob.
Did she even look at Bruce's watch and that time, and get some distorted reading due to a doppler effect and/or the effects of signal delay? No.
She may not have, but she certainly could do so. Using the distance between her and Bruce, she can determine the clock really reads 12:45 at that instant.
Does she have any empirical basis whatsoever for asserting that Bruce's clock read 12:45 when hers read noon? No, none whatsoever.
It's actually an elementary calculation.
What do you think is the proper claim for the time on Bruce's clock when alice passes Bob?
To briefly summarize the points I claim to have established in this last series of points.
1. The postulates of SR do not lead to the concrete conclusions which the Lorentz Transformations predict. The LT do that all on their own, irrespective of the postulates.
The postulates of SR lead to the Lorentz transforms by simeple mathematics. this is laid out on the wiki.
2. The postulates of SR, in particular the "relativity" postulate, given the standard interpretation of them, contradict the concrete conclusions which the LT predict. This was Dingle's objection--a valid objection.
Except Dingle's interpretation of the SR postulates is not the standard interpretation. You are confusing two different things.
So, the updated question for colton:
Colton,
Could you please resolve an analysis for aintnuthin and I?
Scenario A: Clock1, at point A, is 6 light-seconds away from Jack as measured by Jack in his frame of reference. Jack is a point B with Clock2, which is faithfully synchronized with Clock1 in his frame. Jack and both clocks are at rest. Jill is moving inertially relative to Jack and both clocks at .6c. Jill passes by clock1 and synchronizes her clock to clock1, and then by Jill passes by Jack and they compare clocks. When Jill passes clock1, clock1 shows 0, and Jill sets her clock to 0. When Jill passes Jack, her clock read 8 and his clock read 10.
Scenario B: Jill is at rest. Clock1 and Jack are moving relaively to Jill at .6c in the same direction. Clock1 and Jack are 6 light-seconds apart as measured by Jack. Jack has Clock2, which is faithfully synchronized with Clock1 in his frame. Jill synchronizes her clock to clock1 as it passes by, and then as Jack passes by Jill they compare clocks. When clock1 passes Jill, clock1 shows 0, and Jill sets her clock to 0.
The only difference between scenario a and scenario B is that Jill is moving in scenario A and Jack and clock1 are moving in scenario B.
What does Jill's clock read as Jack passes by her in scenario B? What does Jack's clock read as he passes by Jill in scenario B?
As early as 1900, Poincare, while analyzing Lorentz's "mathematical trick" (as Lorentz considered it to be), which Lorentz had been using since 1892, of using the concept of "local time" to help analyze some questions raised by Maxwell's equations, saw the elements of an "artifical" relativity principle. As previously noted, Poincare never accepted Al's "relativity" as valid, and he never abandoned the concept of abolute time, even though he saw the "relativistic" implications of Lorentz's "local time" (which is said to incorporate the basics of what some now call the "relativity of simultaneity") long before Al did.
Poincare merely pointed out that if (clearly a problematic "if") each observer always assumed that he was motionless, then the appearance of a notion similar to Galileo's would emerge. The similarity being that, given such as assumption, one would be deprived of the means, within a closed system, of detecting his own motion.
Poincare quickly saw through the theoretical and practical contradictions such a universal assumption would generate. Apparently some did not.
One Brow said: "The Lorentz transformations predict that the train observes measure the the ground clocks to be running more slowly."
No, they do not. You seem to have great difficulty in distinguishing the math of the LT from the relativity postulate of Al.
The LT say the moving clock will run slower. They do NOT say that a train is not moving.
One Brow said: "The postulates of SR (the two I stated above) have been confirmed to the point that there is no reason to treat them as other than fact. LR certainly uses them."
Yet another occasion where you demonstate your naivety in the realm of the philsophy of science and your total inability to distinguish postulates from "fact."
One Brow said: "To which postulate do you refer? The two in SR are:
1) Identical experiements in different inertial frames produce identical results.
2) As a result of 1), all inertial frames measure light at the same speed.
Which predicitons disagree with these postulates?"
Slow down, Hoss. To begin with, I don't agree with your statement of the postulates.
For one thing, to the extent, if any, that the postulates say the the LT are mutually reciprocal, then that is inconsistent with the LT themselves, which say that, as between two relatively moving objects, only one has it's measurments of time and length distorted.
For another, to the extent the postulates imply that you can never tell which of two moving objects is moving, then ALL predictions of SR are inconsistent with the postulates, because then all predictions are meaningless and impossible.
One Brow said: "Keep in mind that LR uses these same postulates..."
I just began reading your extensive responses, and I see many claims being made by you in these posts giving your authoritative exposition on LR, too (and here I thought, all along, that you were only an expert on SR, eh?).
Knowing that I have made a post which quotes the Sexl-Mansouri study, which you probably had not read when making these assertions, I am deferring any comment on your claims about what LR postulates or predicts.
One Brow said:"I thought you were opposed to trying to dictate reality from mathematical equations? Yet, here you try to fall back on it. How can I take your criticisms of my philosophical interpretations seriously when you continually violate your own philosophical standards in your arguments?"
Ummmm, well, I guess you might begin by understanding and addressing what I am saying rather than twisting it into a straw man which you can attack, eh?
One Brow said: "The Lorentz transforms actually follow from the postulates of SR. Since the transforms follw from the postulates, and the predictions follow from the transforms, it is unreasonable to say the predictions don't follow from the postulates."
1. My understanding is that the LT do not strictly follow from the postulates, and that it is generally acknowledged that Al mathematical derivation of them was faulty, but that they can be derived with the addition of a number of other assumptions.
2. But that's just a technical matter. More fundamentally, you are missing the point of the objection, which I have already responded to a post or two back. The problem arises in the interpretation of the postulates. Any given interpretation of a postulate can lead to an inconsistency with the strict mathematical implications of the formulaes it adopts if it is an improper or poorly-considered interpretation.
If, for example, I claim that evolution proves that there is a God, because it's postulates imply as much, that is a matter of interpretation, not math. It wouldn't in any way undermine or alter the mathematical formulaes which evolution might employ to reach conclusions.
You posted:
said: "The slowing of clocks is a unilateral, not a reciprocal, effect."
You responded: "Except, it isn't in any form of relativity."
See my last few posts for my response to this assertion on your part.
Nothing in your last few posts resued your incorrect assertion, you just doubled-down instead.
====
What "incorrect assertion" would that be. I understood you to explicitly agree with my comments about "relativity" that I made in connection with Poincare and different "forms of relativity."
But, that aside, the claim that "The slowing of clocks is a unilateral, not a reciprocal, effect," in the LT is either correct or incorrect, without regard to "any form of relativity." I do not make claims ONLY AFTER determining that they are "allowable" under the postulates of SR. In a choice between SR and reason, I will take reason.
One Brow said: "It's easy to keep straight."
And it should therefore be easy to understand when such matters are relevant to the issue being discussed and when they aren't, eh?
One Brow said: "Where does Fowler say Jack is right and jill is wrong?"
He does NOT say Jill is wrong in interpreting things exactly as Jack predicts she will. He does not say, for example, that she is wrong when she sees 8 seconds on her clock. He does say that she is wrong in assuming she is motionless. By implication, he is also saying that any and all unsound arguments based on this assumption are also wrong.
She is wrong, per Fowler, in her assumption that she is motionless. Or are you claiming, that like you often imply, Fowler thinks that Jack and Jill are BOTH are motionless?
I said: "As a sidelight, contrary to you claim when analyzing the "correct" solution to this problem, the prof. did NOT assume that the distance is "greater for the moving party."
You responded: "You must have read my analysis in a very interesting fashion to pull that from it. Your statement is unrecognizable to me."
Previously you said:
"If Jack is moving, he has the shorter yardstick. He measures more yards in the same distance than Jill. So, Jack sees a greater distance than Jill.
I can see why you like to avoid details."
===
You clearly said the moving party will see the same distance to be greater than the stationary party. Then added a remark which indictated that your claim was indubitable.
Now you claim you never said it. As I said before, I swear that I remember what you say much better than you do. And when I do, you simply assert that: "You must have read my analysis in a very interesting fashion to pull that from it. Your statement is unrecognizable to me."
Recognize it now?
Now, you want to ask me if you also made the contrary claim? Yes, you did that also.
As usual, you say both "true" and false" and then claim you were "right," whatever the correct answer turns out to be.
One Brow said:"No, Jill measures the time elapsed on Jack's clock, from Jill's frame, as 6.4 seconds. This has nothing to do with what Jack thinks."
It has nothing to do with what Jack thinks, I agree. It has to do with what Jill THINKS Jack THINKS.
She "thinks" he is moving, so she "thinks" that he "thinks" the time elapsed is only 6.4
That's not the way Fowler put it, but that's what he's saying.
She is saying that, in Jack's frame, he is seeing 6.4 seconds elapse. She is saying, in effect, that when clock 1 read 0, clock 3 read 3.6 seconds, and that therefore Jack would conclude that only 6.4 seconds have elapsed in his frame, even though his clock does say 10.
This elasped time in HER frame is 8 seconds, not 6.4, so this is wrong:
She is, to put it most directly, assuming that length contraction and time dilation are "mutually reciprocal" and therefore that, "as seen in Jack's frame" the elapsed time will only be 6.4 seconds. She is wrong.
One Brow said: "No, Jill measures the time elapsed on Jack's clock..."
She isn't measuring a god-damned thing. She is making assertions. False assertions based on false premises, not "measurements." See later posts which demonstrate this directly.
Show me a single place where Fowler even begins to suggest that she "measures" anything in Jack's frame. He doesn't. How could she? She's not in his frame.
Here again, you can't distinguish "measurement" from deduction.
I said:"Per Eddington, the distance she sees is NOT correct, it is much LESS (not greater) than she perceives it to be. Again, you can prove or disprove just about any proposition you want by applying the vague premises of SR and shifting assumptions virtually at will."
You responded: "What makes eddington's analysis more accurate, or even equally accurate, to Fowler's? Can you quote thins from Eddington?"
I didn't say, or even imply, that one was more accurate than another. That was beside the point I made, which you naturally missed. Just like you couldn't understand the Greek professor.
One Brow said: "The readings would be the same if Jill is at rest and Jack/clock1 was moving past. Jack's clock would read 10, and Jill's would read eight."
Yes, you've said that before. I shouldn't have posed this question at this time. If Colton says otherwise (or you come to see otherwise in some other fashion), please come back and answer this question then.
One Brow said:"The equations are inevitable consequences of the two posulates I mentioned above, neither postulate of which involves or implies a "universal standard for time".
I didn't say a (literal) universal time was "required." Read it again. I noted, however, that the equations make a clear UNILATERAL (not mutually reciprocal) distinction between two objects moving relative to each other. In order to do this it must implicitly assume that the "proper" time detemines the adjusted time (for the moving object).
This was preceded by me saying:
"Yes, which is just another way of saying that you must have a "preferred frame," with "proper time" as a standard, to reach ANY conclusions whatsoever. In effect, SR must fully and immediately revert to the basic premises of LR (that there is a time which applies to both--or all-frames under consideration)."
See that last part:"... there is a time which applies to both--or all-frames under consideration."
That is the "universal" (common) time within the context of any given solution provided by the LT, and the context of my comment. Lorentz did, however, develop the equations to apply to a theory assuming a "universal time," just as I said. I didn't say it was "required."
One Brow said:"By contrast, there is no experiement that can confirm LR over SR. There is no experiment that can determine the true rest frame, even if you accept LR."
I disagree with your suggestion that question of which of two relatively is moving requires the determination of a "true rest frame." Furthermore, to the extent that you are claiming this "contrast" is in any way determinative, the very fact that you make this distinction simply proves my point (confusing what is known or knowable--epistemology--with what *is,* or "is not"--ontology.
My statement has absolutely nothing to do with confirming LR over SR. I don't have to know which of two objects is moving to know that both can't be at rest. No "experiments" are needed to prove that. The suggestion that, unless you have an experiment to prove otherwise, you can't validly that "both are at rest" is, as I said, to confuse epistemology with ontology. The either was, or was not, a "big bang" whether we can ever experimentally demonstrate that or NOT.
You have, in the course of this thread, asserted that "both objects are moving;" that "neither object is moving" and that either view is "equally valid." Based upon the asserted inability to know which is moving. You call such claims "stupid." Are you admitting to your stupidity, that it?
One Brow said:"However, it does depend upon a material difference between being heads and being tails. You can describe a material difference it makes in the universe regarding the orientation of the coin. You can't describe a material difference it makes in the universe if SR is true, if LR is true and the CMBR is the proper rest frame, if LR is true and the center of gravity of the Milky Way is at rest, etc."
Once again, this has NOTHING to do with any claim involving a prefence of SR over LR, or vice versa. This issue here is about distinguishing objective perspectives from subjective ones and distinguishing claims about "what we are able to know" with claims about "what is, or what is possible."
One Brow said:"You have confused the idea of "unanswerable" with "arbitrarily answerable". It's not that there is an answer to the proper velocity of an object that is not discoverable.
"Proper velocity" is not the question I raised. You can say that any question is "arbitrarily answerable" if (1) you don't know the answer and/or if (2) you do not believe the answer can ever be known. But that is quite different from saying there are "objective facts" which determine things ONLY AFTER you make an arbitrary choices. Any such "facts" are no longer objective, it they don't exist until you make a choice.
As just one of many examples, you have claimed that there is no "objective way" to determine the history of acceleration of a given object, not even a split second after it ceases to accelerate. You conclude, therefore, that to claim it had recently been accelerated would be "arbitrary."
It is not "arbitrary" to say that a car going 100 mph has been accelerated more in the recent past than the car currently parked in your garage. This could be viewed as either an ontological or an epistemological claim in practice, I suppose. But you routinely go further than that, and suggest that if it is not known, or supposedly "can't" be known, then it cannot "have" a history of acceleration. It MUST be considered as having no history (rather than simply an "unknown" history).
One Brow said: "Actually, under SR, the part of reality that can be objective (observers can compare things on close spacetime proximity) are the same, regardless of the choice of rest frame."
As soon as you start making "observers" an essential part of what is "real," you have once again dove head-first into subjectivism. Al wants to claim, for example, that if I don't see the effects of a super-nova until centuries after they "actually happen" for an observer in "close promixity" to the explosion, then they "happened" at a different time for me, and that my "reality" is different. Such claims have nothing to do with objective reality or time. They simply attempt to elevate subjective perception to the status of "reality."
"Objective" does NOT mean something that two people with two different perspective will "agree on" in terms of MERE APPEARANCE. If it did, nothing could be objective (as Berkeley claimed).
One Brow said:"That a highly limited and limiting version of physics. Changes which affect the oberver are still physical changes."
Yes, they are, or can be, but that's not the issue. In areas of perception, two things are required, to wit:(1) a subject (an observer) and (2) an object (the thing observed). Things which "affect" the subject are not involved in the distinction between subject and object. A change in the object is "objective change" in this context.
If no pereceptual interaction between subject and object is even being contemplated, then that context changes. If you are in a context where no are only dealing with an "observer," then "objective" takes on a different meaning. In that context, a sharp stick in the ass might be an "objective" sensation while a hallucination would be a "subjective" sensation (originating and caused solely WITHIN the subject). In is important not to confuse one context with another.
A "subjective" change is a different animal in each context.
One Brow posted:
====
Once again, Jill is wrong about what Jack thinks, because Jack thinks the time elapsed is 10 seconds, not 6.4 seconds.
Once again, this is about what Jill measures, not what she thinks.
*My* confusion? I'll say it again. Jill has not "measured" a god-damned thing in Jack's frame. She is deducing conclusions from premises, that's all. She is assuming that 6.4 seconds have ACTUALLY passed in Jack's frame, and, furthermore that Jack will "measure" it to be 6.4 seconds, because, and ONLY because, she has (falsely) assumed that she is motionless and Jack is moving.
At best she has "measured" things in her frame, and then "transformed" those measurements (via a mental process) into "measurements" which she supposes Jack would arrive at in his frame. By that (mental) process, she thereby arrives at what Jack will "think" the true distance is(3.84 LS) when she "knows" it to be 4.8 LS.
The prof., by telling you who is moving, has already told you that Jack properly measures 6 LS in his frame. In doing so, he has also told you that Jill is completely mistaken in imputing a distance of 3.84 LS to Jack's frame.
The source of her mistake? Her false assumption that she is not moving while Jack is. The cause of that? The dictates of the prof (SR actually) that:
1. All observers always assume they are motionless, no matter how overwhelming the evidence to the contrary may be, and
2. The (incoherent) "dogma" that all transformations are mutually "reciprocal" as a matter of "objective physical reality."
Refering to Sexl-Mansouri, I said "The last sentence quoted makes the point"
A point I don't disagree with.
You don't, eh? Then why have you repeatedly made the opposite claim in your long series of posts? Do you now retract all such claims?
One Brow said:"Jill makes the same measurements under LR or SR. The only "erroneous" claim is is whether she is measuring with accurate instruments or not."
To the extent she was actually "making measurements," in her own frame, yes. To the extent that she was imputing measurements to another frame, via deduction from pre-existing hypotheses, she would reach entirely different conclusions about time and distance in Jack's frame.
Is the distinction between measurement and deduction even beginning to creep up on you?
One Brow said:"I don't think that is what Jill does."
That's what the prof does, as a supposed way of "explaining" why Jill asserts that clock 1 lags 3.6 seconds behind clock 2. Again, an alternate way of saying what Jill means is to simply say that, when clock 1 read 0, clock 2 must have read 3.6, and "counted" up to 10 from there.
Isaid:"The dogma of reciprocity (each sees the other's clock to move more slowly) is a consequence of the unproven postulates of SR, not of it's mathematical predictions."
One Brow said: "It's a common feature of SR and LR."
Jesus-fuckin-Christ, Eric. You just said you agreed with Sexl when they pointed out that this is NOT a "feature" of LR?
Which is it? Or is it simply, as usual, that you have misread them to say what you want them to say (i.e., to "agree with you' as all experts always do)?
I said: "No matter how valid her arguments are (or could be), they still remain unsound."
You responded: "A valid LR perspective."
Just never tiring of the non sequitur "responses," eh, Eric?
LR has nothing to do with this. This is based on the CLEARLY STATED hypothesis of Fowler, in the context of SR, not LR. According to his hypothesis, Jill is NOT moving. Get it? Somehow I doubt it.
Oops. Meant to say:
According to his hypothesis, Jill is NOT motionless.
Any deduction she makes which presume the contrary, must, according to Fowler, therefore be unsound. Get it? Somehow I doubt it.
One Brow said:"Actually, she does, because she can measure the rate of Bruce's clock, and will measure it to be moving a half the speed her own clock goes."
I can't believe you even said this.
Good, now you know the way to prove SR by measurement. Why don't you share it with the world of science?
Beyond that, you have just proved the impossible. You have proved that two clocks can each run slower than the other. Kudos!
The willful ignorance displayed here is simply astounding.
One Brow said: "Actually, prior in priority to "Which one?" is "Does it matter which one?". Describe a situation where a makes a difference."
Wilful ignorance on stilts.
One Brow said: "You aren't any harder to understand than a typical ten-year-old."
I hope not. I just wish I could somehow make myself understandable to the typical 1 year old.
I said: Does she have any empirical basis whatsoever for asserting that Bruce's clock read 12:45 when hers read noon? No, none whatsoever."
One Brow said:
"Using the distance between her and Bruce, she can determine the clock really reads 12:45 at that instant.
It's actually an elementary calculation."
This is an EMPIRICAL caculation? Which does not misleadingly purport to "explain" time dilation by reference to irrelevant doppler and signal delays effects?
By all means, present it. You have once again solved experimental difficulties that have perplexed scientists for years.
One Brow asked: "What do you think is the proper claim for the time on Bruce's clock when alice passes Bob?"
In light of the empirical observations made by all parties, and the facts known, SR (or at least the LT portion of SR) dictates only one reasonable conclusion. The time on Bruce's clock is 12:00 at that instant. It is NOT 12:45, as Alice claims.
One Brow said: "So, the updated question for colton:"
Not what I suggested, and prepared, (I would really prefer not to tell him what the answers are in Scenario 1, because he might disagree for some reason, and it's longer--and hence possibly more confusing--than it needs to be) but close enough for government work.
Ask him.
I said: "As seen from a moving system clocks in the ether system are fast and measuring rods elongated."
The last sentence quoted makes the point.
Let me spell it out for you, eh, Eric?
"As seen from a moving system clocks in the ether system are fast[that means "not slow"] and measuring rods elongated [that means "not contracted]."
To take the spelling lesson one step further... Conversely:
As seen from a motionless clock in the ether system, a moving clock is slow and it's measuring rods contracted."
Putting it all together: both clocks will see the moving clock as slow and it's measuring rods contracted, while both see the motionless clock as fast and it's measuring rods elongated.
Next step: In LR the lorentz transformations are NOT reciprocal.
Get it? Somehow I doubt it.
I said: "The shadow remains a subjective appearance, not a physical object. In that sense, it is not "objective."
You said: "That's not only wrong, it's moronic It requires the additional assumption that only things which are material can be objective."
No, it only requires understanding of the context and the sense in which the word "objective" is being used here.
Something which is "objective" is that which has the characteristics of an object (hence "objective").
A shadow does not appear without a subject to "perceive it." It is a merely diminishment of the amount of light one sees, due to total or partial blockage of the light source. An object, like a planet, exists independently of any sense organs, such as eyesight.
I will await Colton's response on the subject, but in the meantime, I'm curious about your answers to the following questions. It's a "fill-in-the-blank" type of question asking for one of four answers (1. faster than 2. slower than 3. the same as, or 4. none of the foregoing)
1. If Jill is stationary, and Jack is moving, then SR says Jill's clock will be ________ Jack's clock.
2. If Jill is moving, and Jack is stationary, then SR says Jill's clock will be ________ Jack's clock.
If you choose "none of the foregoing" please give what you believe to be the correct answer, such as: (a) none of the foregoing, SR says each clock will be both faster and slower than the other, or (b) none of the foregoing, SR says that one can never know which party is moving and that therefore the question is meaningless.
I said: "These necessary "corrections" form the basis of the distinction Hogg made between "seeing" and observing."
You said: "I've been trying to use "see" and "observe" in the manner that Hogg used them. I am trying to be precise and careful in my language. Feel free to substitue different definitions."
1. Well, like me, you have not always been careful and precise, even immediately after making the distinction.
2. Although I fully approve of the distinction Hogg is making, I never did like his choice of terminology. "Observe" is not the word I would have chosen, partly because "see" and "observe" are often used interchangably as synonyms.
Rather than "observe" I would have said that a distinction must be made between what one "sees" and what one "concludes" based on what one sees and in conjunction with what one otherwise knows. Then I would add a caveat that valid conclusions must be based on a valid deductive process and well as upon sound premises.
In truth, no one ever directly "sees" anything expressible without an intervening or concomitant interpretation of the visual stimuli, so the distinction can be a fine one.
But I don't meant to say that, just because it "can be" a fine distinction to draw, that it is AlWAYS difficult to distinguish the conclusions one draws from what one sees from what one actually sees (the raw sense data).
As far as terminology goes, I think you are far, far afield if you equate deductions with scientific "measurements." Two radically different things.
Counting the number or petals on a flower could easily be called seeing, observing, or measuring (in a broad sense). But if I bring in the premise that if I count an odd number a woman loves me whereas if I count an even number, she "loves me not," I would be hard pressed to say her love (or lack thereof) has been "seen," "measured" or "observed" by the counting process.
Third question:
1. If Jill is moving relative to Jack, but thinks she is stationary while Jack is moving, then SR says Jill's clock will be ________ Jack's clock.
I said: "I would be hard pressed to say her love (or lack thereof) has been "seen," "measured" or "observed" by the counting process."
From all appearances, you would unhesitatingly say that the woman's love has now been "measured." You routinely fail to even acknowledge the existence of (let alone critically analyze) the intermediate premises which putatively establish some "necessary connection" between the love and the flower petals.
I have to admit that you were right about one thing. I resisted a discussion of "details" because I knew that it would probably just degenerate into a long series of ad lib changes of assumptions and equivocal reasoning. This was the type of mess which I didn't care to spend a lot time trying to clean up. But it is, of course, also true that the "devil is in the details."
By getting into specifics, you have made clear some of the very fundamental misconceptions which you have been operating under. I would never have suspected that this was your underlying mindset (silly me).
As just one example, the following has been made clear to me. For years now, you have been ceaselessly chanting the mantra that "in SR the lorentz transformations are measurably and truly mutually reciprocal as a matter of objective physical fact."
You say it, ad infinitum (without explanation or elaboration). I now see that:
1. You really have no idea what you are saying when reciting this mantra,
2. A fortiori, you really have no idea why you are saying it (i.e., no idea of either the "reason" you are repeating it or the reason why you think you are justified in saying it).
3. As would naturally follow from 1 and 2, you have no clue that your recitation contradicts other assertions you make, and it is inconsistent with other concessions you make.
Why does Jill "measure" the distance between clocks 1 and 2 to be 4.8 LS while Jack measures it to be 6 LS?
Both Jack and Jill agree that the clocks are not moving with respect to each other, so, in that sense, at least, the "distance" or "space" has not changed. A = A, the "same distance"= the "same distance."
So why does Jill "measure" it to be different? Clue: She is using "light seconds" to determine "distance." What is changing here? The distance itself, or, effectively, the speed of light?
Sexl and Mansouri, after a thorough examination of "simultaneity and clock synchronization" ulimately demonstrate that, in LR, the speed of light is constant in ONLY one frame, and that this is true DESPITE the fact the lorentz transformations are still applied (non-reciprocally, of course) to relatively moving systems. How can that be? You fancy yourself to be an expert on LR, Eric, but have you ever even asked yourself that question(let alone tried to answer it)?
Here's what I expect Colton's asnwer to be:
1. The elasped time for Jill will be 12.5 seconds. We did not ask Colton this, but she will measure the distance between the two clocks to be 7.5 light seconds.
2. The elasped time for Jack will be 10 seconds, and the distance will be 6 seconds (a tautology, under the hypothesis we gave him).
Third question (not asked of Colton): If Jack falsely and erroneously assumes that he is motionless, and if he therefore "reciprocally" (and inchoherently) applies the LT to Jill, what will he think Jill thinks the time and distance is?
Answer: He will think that Jill clock reads 8 seconds and that she believes the distance to be 4.8 light seconds.
Just wanted to go on record, before his answer comes in.
Fourth question (not asked of Colton): If Jill (properly and coherently) applies the LT to Jack's frame, what will she think that Jack measures the time and distance to be (what does he "think" it is)?
Answer: He will conclude that the distance is 6 LS and that the time elapsed is 10 ten seconds.
Jill will be right about how Jack will measure things.
Jack will wrong in his conclusions about what Jill will measure.
Assuming my answers are correct, then I would ask you: Why is one of them right, and one wrong, when "predicting" what the other will measure "in his/her own frame?"
If I say that 10 will always be twice 5, most people will agree.
Does that make the statement mutually reciprocal?
In others words, will it also always be true that 5 is twice 10?
Most obviously, no. The relationship between the terms (5 and 10) is NOT mutually reciprocal in that case.
I wonder why not?
If I say A is faster than B, wouldn't that also necessarily imply that B is faster than A?
Ummmmm, naw, I don't think so. Homey don't play dat.
Going way back to a question of yours that I have not yet (for a variety of reasons) fully responded to:
Without reviewing the question, I recall you suggesting that going uptown, or say, north, would constitute a different "frame of reference" than going downtown, or, say, south. You asked if I agreed.
No, I don't agree. That distinction does not square with my understanding of an "inertial frame of reference." Basically, a frame of reference is one in which co-ordinates of time and space are established. Once established, those co-ordinates do not change one iota, depending on the direction in which the frame is thought to be moving (inertially).
I will grant that the changing environment you encounter could be expected to be quite different depending on the direction, but I would maintain that the surrounding environment does not change, and has nothing to do with, the inertial frame itself.
It seems to me, that as others often do with words such as "synchronize" or phrases such as "the relativity of simultaneity," you impute some "magical" and totally unexplained significance to the term "frame of reference."
You seem to think that throwing in that phrase magically explains anything and everything that might require an explanation. You do not elaborate on how or why this phrase explains anything, however. You just throw out the phrase "frame of reference" and are satisified that all necessary answers have thereby been provided.
Our pal, Fowler, sums up his little presentation with this claim:
"However, by bringing in the other necessary consequences of the theory of relativity, the Lorentz contraction of lengths, and that clocks synchronized in one frame are out of synchronization in another by a precise amount that follows necessarily from the constancy of the speed of light, the whole picture becomes completely consistent!"
This claim is utterly bogus and completely misleading, especially this part:
"...clocks synchronized in one frame are out of synchronization in another by a precise amount that follows necessarily from the constancy of the speed of light.."
For reasons that I have already clearly elucidated:
1) They are not "out of synchronization" in any objective, physically meaningful way.
2) The lack of synchronization does NOT "follow necessarily from the constancy of the speed of light."
It follows (a) from the incoherent and senseless adherence to the claim that the LT are "mutually reciprocal" combined with (b) the manifestly false and ad hoc claims asserted by those who wish to "save the hypothesis."
No more, no less, when you analyze it. The lack of synchronization is NOT a measurable phenomenon by any means, it is a manifestation of obstinate caprice displayed by an obstinately foolish "observer" who ignores the plain evidence.
And no, I am NOT saying this is true "as seen from an LR perspective." I am saying that it is true from entirely within the framework of SR. Then again, as Bertrand Russell said: "technically, the whole of the special theory is contained in the Lorentz transformations." So, basically I am saying that my analysis is based upon the lorentz transformations. According to Russell, those transformations "contain" the whole theory.
"Contain" as in the sense of "limit." The LT, once adopted by SR, put containments and limits upon what it can consistently assert.
An imaginary conversation between me and LT.
Me: Hey, LT, there, looky here: I've got two clocks, one on the ground and one on a train, which are moving relative to each other. Which one is running slower than the other.
LT: The one that is moving.
Me: But which one is that?
LT: Don't ask me. How should I know? I'm just a transformation formula. That's for you to figure out, not me.
Me: Well, given my understanding of inertia, knowing the train clock recently accelerated, knowing that it is currently consuming a shitload of fuel in order to maintain it's speed, and all, Imma just haul off and say the train is the one moving.
LT: Then the train clock is running slow.
Me: Well, then, tell me how a clock on the train would see my clock on the ground, if clocks could see, eh?
LT: Given that it is moving, it will see your clock to be running fast.
Me: Ya sure about that?
LT: As sure as a math formula can be, yeah.
Not much time today. However, I do have colton's answer:
Answer: Jill's clock reads 8 and Jack's clock reads 10--because Scenario B is exactly the same as Scenario A (just seen from another frame of reference). I created pictures that might help explain things more. See here: http://www.physics.byu.edu/faculty/colton/jackjill.doc
One Brow said: "Not much time today. However, I do have colton's answer:"
I believe that Colton may have misinterpret the nature and the extent to which we were changing the assumptions when switching from scenario A to scenario B.
I would like to pose this follow-up question to Colton:
I deduce from your calculational chart that generates your pictures that there is a variable called "max time." I also see that you have entered the numeral "10" for that variable in each picture. What is "max time," in this context?
Second question(s) for Colton:
A. I calculate that if Jill were stationary, and if, in her frame, she measured two objects (clocks) to be 7.5 light seconds apart, then, in her frame, it would take 12.5 seconds for her to traverse that distance. Do you agree?
B. If, under those circumstances, Jill encountered an object that was moving at .6c relative to her, I calculate that she would surmise (based on the lorentz transformations) that the moving party (Jack) would measure those same measurments (time and distance) to be 10 seconds and 6 light seconds respectively.
Do you agreee?
I need to edit my second question to Colton, because misstated it. The revised question is:
Please assume that Jill is stationary and that two objects (clocks) are 7.5 light seconds apart in her frame.
If, under those circumstances, Jill encountered an object that was moving at .6c relative to her, I calculate that she would surmise (based on the lorentz transformations) that the moving party (Jack) would measure those same measurments (time and distance) to be 10 seconds and 6 light seconds respectively.
Do you agree?
I further calculate that, under those circumstances, she would calculate the duration it took for Jack to traverse the distance between the two clocks would be 12.5 seconds.
Do you agree?
If you wish, I'll post the questions just as you asked them.
I deduce from your calculational chart that generates your pictures that there is a variable called "max time." I also see that you have entered the numeral "10" for that variable in each picture. What is "max time," in this context?
Please assume that Jill is stationary and that two objects (clocks) are 7.5 light seconds apart in her frame.
If, under those circumstances, Jill encountered an object that was moving at .6c relative to her, I calculate that she would surmise (based on the lorentz transformations) that the moving party (Jack) would measure those same measurments (time and distance) to be 10 seconds and 6 light seconds respectively.
Do you agree?
I further calculate that, under those circumstances, she would calculate the duration it took for Jack to traverse the distance between the two clocks would be 12.5 seconds.
Do you agree?
However, I think they are somewhat confusing. For one, it would be too easy to confuse "Jack and Jill" in one scenario when using the same names in a different scenario.
My suggestion:
I also saw that you have entered the numeral "10" for the variable "max time" in each picture. What is "max time" in this context? How did you determine it was appropriate?
Scenario C:
Please assume that Alice is stationary, that two objects (clocks) are 7.5 light seconds apart in her frame, and that those two clock are moving inertially with the same velocity at .6c with respect to Alice. Bob will be with the second clock that passes Alice.
Alice would calculate the duration it took for Bob to traverse the distance between the two clocks would be 12.5 seconds.
Do you agree?
Alice would surmise (based on the lorentz transformations) that the moving party (Bob) would measure those same measurments (time and distance) to be 10 seconds and 6 light seconds respectively.
Do you agree?
One Brow said: "However, I think they are somewhat confusing. For one, it would be too easy to confuse "Jack and Jill" in one scenario when using the same names in a different scenario.
You may be right. If you don't mind, subsitute "Alice" for Jill and "Bob" for Jack, and label the whole thing "Scenario C." But please use my form of the question. Your's misstates the question I am trying to ask.
If Colton has any doubt or questions about what I'm trying to ask, I'll be happy to attempt to clarify.
You probably see where I'm trying to go with this. I am trying to create 2 scenarios where the time and distance of (Jack/Bob) remain constant AS MEASURED FROM the frame he's in. Jill/Alice will have different clock times (8 and 12.5) and distances AS MEASURED FROM the frame shei's in, even though his remain the same.
Meant to add: If you have any suggestions along those lines I would like to hear them. At this point I'm just trying to ask one simple question at a time. Whether Colton's answer to those questions generate's another remains to be seen.
Between you and me, I suspect that "max time" is supposed to be the time for the stationary party (which changes from scenario A to B). Colton sees the two as identical situations, but clearly the intention was to make them different, so he may have overlooked that the moving party has changed, which would not put them in "identical" frames in each case
Unless maybe Colton thinks that if I am in a stationary frame, then accelerate to a frame going .6c, I'm still in the "same" frame.
The way I see this, I can be travelling at an "absolute" rate of 0, .5c,.99c, or any other and, as long as I remain inertial, 6 light seconds will always be 6 light seconds.
That not to say that identical absolute distances would give me those same measurements. Those would have to be different from frame to frame for me to measure 6 light seconds in each frame.
But, whatever my speed, 6 LS in my frame is still 6 LS in my frame. That's what I understood the scenario to be in the question we posed. The distance in Jack's frame remains the same for him, but in one scenario he is "stationary" while, in the other, Jill is "stationary."
Another possible ambiguity...The question presupposes an absolute view in each separate scenario, not one that depends on which party (ies) "think" they are motionless. Colton may be viewing it otherwise.
I notice that a post I made a while ago (which I'm pretty sure I later saw in "published" form) has now disappeared. Spam, I spoze.
I said: "But please use my form of the question. Your's misstates the question I am trying to ask."
I changed my mind. After re-reading the way your formulated the question, I agree that it is less-confusing and better-phrased.
I tried to remove those possible sources of misunderstanding in my formulation of the question, where "Scenaro B" was described as follows:
"Now, reverse the parties respective motions so that person B is now stationary and person A is the one moving at .6c. No other changes are contemplated. For example, the "distance" will still be 6 light seconds in person A's frame (even though he is now the moving party).
Given this change,
1. How much time would elaspe on Person A's clock now. This question is about what his clock would actually read, not about his perceptions..."
Did you have some objection to that wording?
I used the last version I posted, expect I replaced the "I" with a "we", since we were both curious.
Prediciton: the Lorentz transforms are based on which objects are in the same inertial state, not which is moving.
The answer to the first question will be "yes" (Alice measures the time as 12.5 seconds), as 7.5/.6 = 12.5.
The answer to the second question will be "no" (Bob does not measure the length as 6 light-seconds nor the time as 10 light seconds). Rather, Bob will measure the time as 15.625 seconds (12.5/.8) and the length as 9.375 light-seconds (7.5/.8).
Just a quickie:
You mentioned conlclusions are different from measurments. I agree. HOwever, you can also separate conclusions into information you can derive from measurements, and information that you can derive from combining measurements with knowledge that does/can not come from measurements.
We've discussed whether Jill can measure the time delay in Jack's frame (as opposed to calculate it using the Lorentz transformation. She can measure this using the measurements of relative speed and the relative time she sees a second pass on Jack's clock. The formula is:
(time between Jack's seconds) = (time between light pulses)/(1 - relavtive velocity in terms of c).
For example, when Jack is moving at .6c relative to and toward Jill, Jill sees two seconds pass on Jack's clock for every second on her clock. That means the time between the light pulses is .5. 1- .6 is .4. .5/.4 is 1.25. So, for every seconds on Jack's clock, 1.25 seconds passes on Jill's clock. That means .8 seconds passes on Jack's clock for every second on Jill's clock, from Jill's viewpoint. This is not what she sees, but what she measures after correcting for the amount Jack moves in between each second. Notice that at no point was the Lorentz transform used.
At the same time, Jack sees 2 seconds pass on Jill's clock for every second he sees pass on his own. He can make the same calculation, and from his viewpoint .8 seconds passes on Jill's clock for every second on his. Again, the Lorentz transform is not used.
One Brow said: "The answer to the second question will be "no" (Bob does not measure the length as 6 light-seconds nor the time as 10 light seconds)."
Again, I'm interested in what clocks read, not "measurements," if that is interpreted to mean anything other than what a party's clock will read in his own frame.
Bob is travelling .6c. He has established two clocks, snychronized in his frame, which are 6 light seconds apart, in his frame. Clock 1 passes point A when it (and clock 2) read 0. When Bob, and clock 1 pass point A clock 2 (still synchronized with clock 1 will read:
15.625 seconds?
That's your answer? So 6 light seconds in Jack's frame, as measured by him in his frame is "actually" 9.375 light seconds? He cannot accurately measure, in his own frame, distance, in his own frame, that the idea?
And, as contrasted will Jill, who is stationary, Jack, who is moving, has clocks which run FAST (15.6 seconds vs 12.5) and length which EXPANDS(9.75 LS vs 7.5 LS)?
Who knew?
Let's go back to Scenario A for a minute.
Jack saw 10 accumulated seconds on his clock, and so did Jill.
Jack saw 8 accumulated seconds on her clock, and so did JIll.
Jill screamed "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!," of course, but she still saw Jack's (synchronized) clock read 10 seconds, just as Jack did.
She screamed: "ONLY 6.4 SECONDS COULD POSSIBLY HAVE PASSED FOR JACK IN HIS FRAME," of course, but she still saw 10 seconds on his clock.
She screamed that JACK MUST BE READING 6,4 SECONDS ON HIS CLOCK IN HIS FRAME!, but Jack still read 10 seconds.
She screamed: JACK MUST MEAURE THE DISTANCE TO BE ONLY 3.84 SECONDS IN HIS FRAME, yet he carefully measured 6 light seconds.
So, Jill was right, and Jack was wrong in reading his own clock in his own frame and measuring distance in his own frame, that the idea?
Jill was right (that he was wrong). Pretty omniscient for an ignorant slut who denies she's moving, when she is, doncha think? What a stupid-ass Jack is. He has EVERYTHING wrong--can't even read his own clock, the idiot.
Yeah, right.
It just get's curiouser and cursiouser with the denalism and denialism supporters round here.
One Brow said: "For example, when Jack is moving at .6c relative to and toward Jill, Jill sees two seconds pass on Jack's clock for every second on her clock."
Back to the doppler effect (completely-pseudo) "explantion" for time dilation in SR which time dilation has now, apparently overnight, suddenly become direction dependent?
I thouht we had been throught this whole line of equivocal crap before. I'm interest in time dilation and clock readings, not light delay and/or doppler effects, which are, I thought we had agreed, TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to those questions.
Is your memory THAT bad?
If you have in any way suggested to Colton in private messages that my ("our") questions are about subjective perception rather than clock readings then I will consider anything he says to be irrelevant, unless it clearly relates to rates of time as objectively measured by clock readings. That's all I intended by "measurements" in my questions to him. Even the "light-second" measurement of "distance" is implcitly based upon rates of time, as measured by CLOCKS, not light delays, doppler effects, relativistic doppler effect, or any other kind of observation BEYOND what two parties looking at the same thing from the same place at the same time see.
My questions are STRICTLY about the lorentz transform, it's proper application, and whether relative motion has anything to do with it. You appear to suggest otherwise. In your version, anyone approaching the speed of light would die instantly because they would be aging 100 years in a half a second. In your version, the travelling twin would come back much older. That aint the way Al told it.
One Brow said: "For example, when Jack is moving at .6c relative to and toward Jill, Jill sees two seconds pass on Jack's clock for every second on her clock...Notice that at no point was the Lorentz transform used."
Secret formula, eh? Takes care of all doppler, delay, conraction, time dilation, and other effects in one fell swoop, while reducing SR to mere sense perception and completely dispensing with the LR, ya say? Well, aint that special.
One Brow said: "the Lorentz transforms are based on which objects are in the same inertial state, not which is moving."
In scenario one, if Jill deemed to be motionless, as she falsely believes herself to be, then the time in Jack's frame is 6.4 and the distance in Jack's frame is deemed to be 3.84 light seconds.
On the other hand, if she is deemed to be moving at .6c, as Jack knows she it, then the time in Jack's frame is 10 seconds and the distance is 6 light seconds.
Either way, her time and distance remains absolutely constant (8 seconds, 4.8 light seconds).
Nothing changes whatsover for Jill, but Jack's time and distance swing wildly. All depending on whether she's deemed to be moving or not.
Who knew?
New problem: Identical to scenario 1 with one slight exception: Jack's clock's are 7.5 light seconds apart, instead of 6.
Now what?
Time and distance for (motionless) Jack: 12.5 seconds, 7.5 light seconds.
Time and distance for (moving Jill): 6 light seconds, 10 seconds
Time and distance (per Jill) for moving Jack: 4.8 light seconds, 8 seconds.
Once again, Jill smack dap in the middle with a constant time and distance: 6 light seconds,10 seconds. Why do those numbers sound familiar? Oh, yeah, Jill here was Jack in the origial scenario, but what's in a name, eh?
Once again, Jack's time and distance swings wildly, depending on who's moving. But, either way, Jill stays at 6 light seconds, 10 seconds clock time. I now see that I asked (let you ask) the question to Colton wrong. The clocks are moving with Alice, not Bob in the example I intended.
The point is the same, though. 10 seconds in Jill's moving frame will equal 12.5 in Jack's motionless frame IF Jill measures the distance to be 6 light seconds in her own frame.
That's how I put my version of the question to Colton--there was nothing about clocks in it. When I asked the second question, I couldn't remember what you asked him, and was too lazy to check.
Once again, all depends on whether she is deemed to be moving or not.
Who knew?
Oh, wait, I forgot---somehow Jill's clock will read 15 seconds now
Let's see if we can agree on anything, Eric. Here's my new scenario.
Scenario 1.
Louie is at spot A, motionless, and has been there, motionless, for decades. I don't mean that he "thinks" he is motion, I mean he IS absolutely motion.
Off in the distance Louie sees two rockets approaching him, one behind the other by a certain distance.
These 2 rockets, also moving in tandem for decades at .6c relative to Louie. The ARE moving, even if they think they're not. In their frame, they are six light seconds apart, and have synchonized clocks.
They pass Louie, seriatum, 10 seconds apart, in their frame. If his both clocks read 0 when the first one passed, then they both read 10 when the second one passed Louie.
Question 1. How much time will elapse on Louie's clock between the two events?
Scenario 2
Reverse the motion. The rockets have been sitting, motionless, 6 light second apart (in their frame) for decades. Louie approaches them at .6c, and then passes them, one at a time.
Question 2. How much time will elapse on Louie's clock between the two events this time?
Question 3. How much time will elapse on the synchronized rocket clocks this time?
General question:
Obviously the time distance (light seconds) between the two rockets remains the same in their own frame (6 light seconds) in both cases. Just as obviously the "absolute" length (number of meters, miles, or whatever) varies between the two scenarios. So,
Question 4. In which case is the absolute distance between the two rockets greater. How much greater?
I said: "Just as obviously the "absolute" length (number of meters, miles, or whatever) varies between the two scenarios."
Maybe this isn't so obvious. Will light always travel the same ABSOLUTE distance in 6 seconds, i.e about 1.1 million ABSOLUTE miles, no matter how fast you are going? Or will that just be 1.1 million relative miles, in your frame (of which there are an infinite number)?
Put another way: In the original scenario 1, the distance between the two clocks as measured by Jack (in his frame) was about 1.1 million miles (6 light seconds in his frame).
In Jill's frame, that was distance was only .8 of that (about 900,000 of her "relative" miles)?
Were those two distances the same absolute distance, only nominally different? Since the clocks never moved with respect to each other, did they remain the same distance apart? Or was it really 900,000absolute miles in Jill's frame? That is, the two clocks did actually move closer to each other for Jill, and Jack just see them doing it?
Or is there just really no way to ever say? Could be either--SR never says--whichever you prefer, space and time are not separately distinguishable, only spacetime intervals are invariant?
If the latter, why did Fowler give the distance in miles (or meters) instead of simple spacetime interval units? Is he trying to mislead his students by talking about distance as if the concept could actually be uttered independently from time? Why would he talk about 10 seconds as an independent quantity, if time can't be separated from distance?
Does it all just come down to references to things which have no referrent?
What's the deal with distance?
I'm beginning the think the Greek might be right--maybe it's all too vague and undefined to even be intelligently discussed. Anybody can prove or refute just about any point they care to.
I'll try to catch up with all your comments over the weekend.
aintnuthin said...
If you have in any way suggested to Colton in private messages that my ("our") questions are about subjective perception rather than clock readings then I will consider anything he says to be irrelevant, unless it clearly relates to rates of time as objectively measured by clock readings.
Outsde of changing the "I" to "We" in the question about the max time variable, I copied and pasted the exact text you saw and agreed to, and did not add any editorial comments. To do anything else would have been unfair to you.
Convo between me and an actuarial scientist:
Me: I have a son who is 107 years old. What's his life expectancy?
A: Actuarily speaking...lemme see... 17 days.
Me: I have a great-great-grandson who was born yesterday. What's his?
A: 77 years
Me: OK, now suppose my son was the one who was born yesterday. Then what would his life expectancy be?
A: 17 days.
Me: Maybe you didn't hear me, I said what would it be IF he was the one born yesterday.
A: I heard you just fine. And I gave you the answer: 17 days.
Me: That doesn't make sense.
A: Sure, it makes perfect sense. There's rule in the actuarial book that spells it all out. It says once you've determined a person's life expectancy, based on certain assumptions, he will always have that life expectancy, even if you change the assumptions it was based on. Well, something like that...whatever it says, it amounts to this: Changed assumptions are forbidden. Once you assign actuarial predictions to a person based on an age of 107 that prediction stays with that person regardless. If you wrote down 1904 when you really meant to write 2004, it can't be changed. That person is, and will remain, one with a life expectancy of 17 days.
Me: No, you don't get it. Forget your stupid "actuarial rules." Just change the assumption.
A: I did. And I just told you the answer: 17 days.
Me: Even if he was born yesterday?
A: You got it. Any more questions?
Me: Not that I want to ask you, thanks.
The inherent contradictions of the "mutually reciprocal" assumptions apparently incorporate themselves into the math, and everything then enters into a senseless infinite regression.
In the original assumption, Jill time and distance (8 seconds, 4.8 light seconds) was determined to be what it was only by reference to Jack and his synchronized clocks.
But, now, having been determined, it is absolute.
If we tell Colton that Jill time is that, and say that Jack is travelling at .6c relative to her (as he was when we derived Jill's "absolute" time and distance) THEN he will tell us Jack's time and distance is 6.4 seconds and 3.84 LS).
Which is it for Jack? 6 or 3.84 LS? 10 or 6.4? Both. The very figures which were used to determine Jill's time and distance are now untrue. His time is now 6.4 seconds.
Let's go on... Since Jack's "true" distance is now 3.84 LS, what is Jill's true distance, if she is moving at .6c relative to Jack, now?
Should be 3.072. OK, So Jill's is now "really" 3.072, so what is Jack's now? 2.45 LS
Before long, they'll both be right across the street, inches apart, and we can just go out and measure their separation with a ruler, and forget all this damn math, eh?
Which of all these numbers is the "max time" on Colton's machine, I wonder?
Of course none of these times and distances depend in the least upon who is moving. How could it? They both know they are motionless, and they are both correct.
Imaginary (well, semi-actual, really) between me and a high school teacher in a segment of physics class called "introduction to special relativity." Needless to say, this convo took place before I was expelled, which was shortly thereafter.
Prof: If A is faster than B, that necessarily implies that B is faster than A.
Me: Why would you say such an incomprehensible thing?
Prof: Because it is true, sonny-boy, that's why. The relationship between A and B is mutually reciprocal. That's called "science," see?
Me: What makes you thing this "mutually reciprocal" assertion is "scientific?"
Prof: Because I am no dupe. In fact, I have an IQ far, far above genius level. I am not easily fooled by ordinary notions of "common sense." I have superior insight into the truth.
Me: Don't you have trouble convincing your students to believe this?
Prof: Yeah, I do, because they are all stupid chumps. But I have my ways of browbeating them into accepting it. That process, aint-boy, is called "education."
Me: Just as you were "educated" into accepting this tripe as "truth," ya mean?
Prof: Get your sorry ass straight down to the principal's office, you disruptive menace.
Colton's answer:
Short answers to last two questions: 1) yes, and 2) no. See this document. http://www.physics.byu.edu/faculty/colton/alicebob.doc
By the way, if it would be helpful you can download the program I'm using to create the graphs from here: http://www.physics.byu.edu/faculty/c...11/lorentz.exe
The catch is, it's a program I wrote in Labview and requires a certain Labview dll to be run if you don't have Labview installed on your computer. That dll is a free download, I believe, but I'm not sure where to find it. It should be on National Instruments' website somewhere, probably labeled as "dll needed to run Labview 2009 programs" or something like that.
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