Answer a few simple questions if you can: Two clocks (a and b) are placed
100 light hours apart and are both synchronized. Then the clocks are
accelerated toward each other at the same time and at the same rate until
they both meet. Then they stop at the same time and at the same rate of
deceleration. Will we find that clock (a) has recorded more elapsed time
than clock (b)? Or will we find that clock (b) has recorded more elapsed
time than clock (a)? If either of these first two scenarios are correct,
then I would have to wonder what sort of magical spell would favor one clock
over the other. If both clocks read the same elapsed time, then we would
have to conclude that relative motion cannot produce time dilation since
both clocks were obviously in motion relative to each other during the
experiment. Since we're now forced to conclude, at this point, that time
dilation is caused entirely by acceleration and that time extension is
caused entirely by deceleration, we're also forced to conclude that there is
a so-called 'center of time' in which any clock that's placed in that frame
of reference runs faster than a clock that's placed in any other frame of
reference. If we want to extrapolate this experiment to the extreme, we
could imagine a scenario in which both clocks have been traveling toward
each other at 86% of the speed of light relative to each other for the past
10 billion years and are only recently about to meet. If clock (a)
"decelerates" in two seconds to enter the frame of reference of clock (b),
should we conclude that clock (a) has lost 5 billion years compared to clock
(b)? What if clock (b) "decelerates" in two seconds to enter the frame of
reference of clock (a)? Should we now conclude that clock (b) is the clock
that has lost 5 billion years? If we really do live in a universe that has
no privileged frame of reference (i.e. no 'ether' if you want to call it
that), then the distinction between acceleration and deceleration is
entirely in the eye of the beholder and the implications of Special
Relativity become totally absurd for reasons that should be obvious by now.

So the only valid question that remains is; how did Einstein manage to fool
so many people for so long? Is it possible that the truth is so unbelievable
that even physicists have always been willing to ignore objective reality
and embrace SR? If it is true that SR has been thoroughly tested and that
clocks in motion on aircraft and spacecraft really do run slower than
stationary clocks here on earth, this could only lead to one inescapable
conclusion - this being that the earth really is the center of the universe.
But before you start laughing, consider this. If the "Quantum Suicide"
theory is correct, the physicist described in this hypothetical scenario
(http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide) might be tempted to think of
himself as the center of the universe as far as his immortality is
concerned. But what if some unknown property of quantum physics creates the
illusion that a conscious being is also at the 'center of time' so to speak?
Maybe time has no objective meaning without a conscious observer to observe
it's passage. If experimental physicists would just study SR with an open
mind, maybe they could finally resolve the twin paradox once and for all.
And I strongly suspect that the above mentioned theory is the real
resolution to the twin paradox.

Robert