The Special Theory of Relativity is dead

"tadchem" wrote in message ...
"Robert Calvert" wrote in message
...


All crap.

Stop wasting electrons.

Paul Cardinale

All you did here was compute the time delay caused by the travel time of the
light. SR asserts that time literally slows down even AFTER you account for
the time delay.

Robert

"tadchem" wrote in message
...

"Robert Calvert" wrote in message
...

Were you saying something about extraordinary claims? Are you attempting
to
convince me that two clocks that are stationary relative to each other
cannot be synchronized??? Let's just say that I'm still waiting for a
credible answer.

?See Alice. Alice has a clock. It is a fine clock. Alice's clock tells
her what time it is. Run, clock, run.

See Bob. Bob has a clock. It is also a fine clock. Bob's clock tells
him
what time it is. Run, clock, run.

Alice and Bob want to synchronize their clocks. Bob lives 100 meters away
from Alice. Bob goes over to Alice and set his clock to match hers
exactly.
Bob then takes his clock back home.

Alice gets out her telescope and looks at Bob's clock. Bob's clock is
showing a time that is 333
nanoseconds behind Alice's clock.

Alice gets her phone and calls Bob.

"Bob! There is something wrong with your clock! You synchronized it with
mine, and now 333
nanoseconds slow."

Bob looks back at Alice's clock. Bob tells Alice, "No, Alice. It is
*your*
clock that is 333 nanoseconds slow!"

Alice tells Bob, "This is too confusing. Lets go talk to Cosmo. He has a
clock just like ours, and he knows about physics."

Alice and Bob take their clocks over to Cosmo's House. Cosmo lives 100
meters away from Bob and
100 meters away from Alice.

"Help Us, Cosmo!", they plead. "There is something wrong with our clocks,
or with the fabric of space and time!"

Cosmo makes sure all three clocks read exactly the same time. Run,
clocks,
run.

Cosmo then sends Alice and Bob straight home, but he tells Alice to run
and
Bob to go slowly.

Alice takes 30 seconds to run home. Bob takes 5 minutes to get home.

Cosmo then sets up a conference call with Alice and Bob.

"Alice, what do you see when you look at our clocks?" Cosmo asks.

Alice replies, "Why, BOTH of you have clocks that are 333 nanoseconds
behind
mine. Does that mean
that both of you have slow clocks, or that my clock is fast?"

"Bob, what do you see when you look at our clocks?" Cosmo asks.

Bob replies, "I see that you and Alice have clocks that are running 333
nanoseconds behind my clock! It looks to me like my clock is the fast one.
But Alice and I can't each have a clock that is faster than the other
clock!"

Cosmo explains, "No. You can't. I see that both your clock and Alice's
clock show exactly the same time, and that time is 333 nanoseconds behind
the time my clock shows."

"Now, my clock didn't go anywhere, and nothing happened to it. We can
call
it the 'Cosmo-logical' clock. Alice, you moved your clock 100 meters in a
very short time, and it looks to me like it lost 333 nanoseconds against
the
Cosmo-logical clock. Bob, you moved your clock 100 meters in a much
longer
time, and it looks to me like it also lost 333 nanoseconds the
Cosmo-logical
clock. "

"How FAST you moved your clock has no effect on the result. Alice, your
clock lost 333 nanoseconds in 30 seconds while you were moving away from
me.
It seemed to me it was only running 99.999999 percent as fast as it
should,
but when you stopped moving away from me it appeared to resume running at
normal speed."

"Bob, your clock lost 333 nanoseconds in 300 seconds while you were moving
away from me. It seemed to me it was only running 99.9999999 percent as
fast as it should, but when you stopped moving away from me your clock
also
appeared to resume running at normal speed."

"I'll bet neither of you noticed a thing."

Alice answers "No, Cosmo, we didn't notice."

Bob adds "What *should* we have noticed, Cosmo?"

Cosmo tell them "If you had been watching my clock instead of watching
where
you were going, you both would have seen my clock seem to slow down by as
much as I noticed your clocks slowing down. That would have been
dangerous,
however."

Alice says, "But I see that your Cosmological clock and Bob's clock show
exactly the same time. How can that be?"

Cosmo answers, "How fast you were moving away from me determined how fast
your clocks seemed to
be losing time. How much time your clocks seemed to lose was determined
by
how far you went away
from me. Since you both went the same distance, you both seemed to lose
the
same amount of time."

Bob says, "Cosmo, I hear you using the word "seem" a lot. What are you
trying to say, or to not say?"

"That is very observant of you, Bob," Cosmo nods. "I say 'seem' because
what is really going on is not always what seems to be going on, and *how*
we see the world is limited by the *way* we see the world."

"First, let me say that the laws of physics are exactly the same for me
and
for each of you, whether you are moving or not. Everything in the
universe
has to follow the same laws. In physics that is called the 'Principle of
Relativity.' It amounts to saying that everything that you see and know
about the universe is relative to your personal point of view. Somebody
else, watching from somewhere else, may see things that you do a little
differently from the way you see them, but you will never see a change in
the laws of physics."

"We are using light to see each other's clocks. Light travels at a
constant
speed called 'the speed of light.' That speed is finite. Light travels at
about 300,000 kilometers per second. It takes 333 nanoseconds for light
to
get from me to either of you. It also takes that long for light to get
from
either of you to the other."

"What I see on your clocks is not what is actually there at the instant
I'm
looking at it, but only what WAS there at the instant the light left your
clocks. That light then takes its own sweet 333 nanoseconds to get to me
and let me know what *was* going on with you. That is why your clocks
seem
to me to be running 333 nanoseconds behind. That is why each of us sees
everyone else's clocks as being 333 nanoseconds behind."

"Rest assured our clocks all are functioning normally."


Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA

On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 15:00:14 -0500, "Robert Calvert"
wrote:


"Len Gaasenbeek" wrote in message
...

To Robert,

I resolved the Twin Paradox many years ago. For the solution see the
second
of my Selected Papers titled: "Frames of Reference" under the subheading
of:
"The Twin Paradox".
You will find my Selected Papers at: http://www2.rideau.net/gaasbeek
including two worked examples.

For an explanation where Special Relativity went wrong also see the first
and last of my Selected Papers titled: "Helical Particle Waves", and "Time
Dilation: Fact or Fiction".

Interesting theory. But instead of light adjusting it's speed in rout, I
think that, when a photon leaves it's source, it's already traveling at c
relative to whatever object is destined to absorb it. We may actually live
in a universe in which photons whiz past us at many different speeds. But it
may also be the case that we'll never be able to capture any that are moving
faster or slower than c. This theory is based on the idea (I don't know if
it's true or not) that light never leaves it's source without first having
an "electrical connection" with it's destination.

It is hard to belive that is true yet this approach may pay dividends in the
end. Maybe there isn't any light at all. Maybe it is all part of our
psychological creation of space and time.
Light is merely a way of establishing position.


Robert

Enjoy, Len.
...............................................

"Robert Calvert" wrote in message



Henri Wilson.
See the Stupidity of Relativity.
www.users.bigpond.com/hewn/index.htm

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 18:00:17 -0600, Richard wrote:




Robert Calvert wrote:

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.

Neither times nor velocities are absolute within the theory of special
relativity. You must specify wrt which frame the departure times occur
in. If your reference frame is moving wrt the rest frame, then the
departure times will differ, thus even though one clock has a head start
they still end up meeting in the middle of segment that originally
separated them. And though one clock ticked faster than the other, it
was just catching up to the reading on the other, which was already
ahead at the start. Synchronized clocks at rest along a line only have
the same reading wrt the rest frame, for any frame in motion along that
line the clocks will not agree in their time-readings, even though they
are ticking at the same rate. This is the part that trips everyone up.

Nonsense. I have provided a perfect method for absolutely synching clocks,
anywhere. The frames in which they are absolutely synched can be moved without
affecting that synch. Therefore any number of moving frames can all establish
the same particular time instant, anywhere.
Thus, if an event happens anywhere in the universe, all frames will register
the same time for that event.


Just for the record, I still don't like it, LET is the correct
interpretation.

Richard Perry


Henri Wilson.
See the Stupidity of Relativity.
www.users.bigpond.com/hewn/index.htm

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 04:32:02 -0700, "tadchem" wrote:


"Robert Calvert" wrote in message
...

Were you saying something about extraordinary claims? Are you attempting
to
convince me that two clocks that are stationary relative to each other
cannot be synchronized??? Let's just say that I'm still waiting for a
credible answer.

?See Alice. Alice has a clock. It is a fine clock. Alice’s clock tells
her what time it is. Run, clock, run.

See Bob. Bob has a clock. It is also a fine clock. Bob’s clock tells him
what time it is. Run, clock, run.

Alice and Bob want to synchronize their clocks. Bob lives 100 meters away
from Alice. Bob goes over to Alice and set his clock to match hers exactly.
Bob then takes his clock back home.

Alice gets out her telescope and looks at Bob’s clock. Bob’s clock is
showing a time that is 333
nanoseconds behind Alice’s clock.

Alice gets her phone and calls Bob.

“Bob! There is something wrong with your clock! You synchronized it with
mine, and now 333
nanoseconds slow.”

Bob looks back at Alice’s clock. Bob tells Alice, “No, Alice. It is *your*
clock that is 333 nanoseconds slow!”

Alice tells Bob, “This is too confusing. Lets go talk to Cosmo. He has a
clock just like ours, and he knows about physics.”

Alice and Bob take their clocks over to Cosmo’s House. Cosmo lives 100
meters away from Bob and
100 meters away from Alice.

“Help Us, Cosmo!”, they plead. “There is something wrong with our clocks,
or with the fabric of space and time!”

Cosmo makes sure all three clocks read exactly the same time. Run, clocks,
run.

Cosmo then sends Alice and Bob straight home, but he tells Alice to run and
Bob to go slowly.

Alice takes 30 seconds to run home. Bob takes 5 minutes to get home.

Cosmo then sets up a conference call with Alice and Bob.

“Alice, what do you see when you look at our clocks?” Cosmo asks.

Alice replies, “Why, BOTH of you have clocks that are 333 nanoseconds behind
mine. Does that mean
that both of you have slow clocks, or that my clock is fast?”

“Bob, what do you see when you look at our clocks?” Cosmo asks.

Bob replies, “I see that you and Alice have clocks that are running 333
nanoseconds behind my clock! It looks to me like my clock is the fast one.
But Alice and I can’t each have a clock that is faster than the other
clock!”

Cosmo explains, “No. You can’t. I see that both your clock and Alice’s
clock show exactly the same time, and that time is 333 nanoseconds behind
the time my clock shows.”

“Now, my clock didn’t go anywhere, and nothing happened to it. We can call
it the ‘Cosmo-logical’ clock. Alice, you moved your clock 100 meters in a
very short time, and it looks to me like it lost 333 nanoseconds against the
Cosmo-logical clock. Bob, you moved your clock 100 meters in a much longer
time, and it looks to me like it also lost 333 nanoseconds the Cosmo-logical
clock. “

“How FAST you moved your clock has no effect on the result. Alice, your
clock lost 333 nanoseconds in 30 seconds while you were moving away from me.
It seemed to me it was only running 99.999999 percent as fast as it should,
but when you stopped moving away from me it appeared to resume running at
normal speed.”

“Bob, your clock lost 333 nanoseconds in 300 seconds while you were moving
away from me. It seemed to me it was only running 99.9999999 percent as
fast as it should, but when you stopped moving away from me your clock also
appeared to resume running at normal speed.”

“I’ll bet neither of you noticed a thing.”

Alice answers “No, Cosmo, we didn’t notice.”

Bob adds “What *should* we have noticed, Cosmo?”

Cosmo tell them “If you had been watching my clock instead of watching where
you were going, you both would have seen my clock seem to slow down by as
much as I noticed your clocks slowing down. That would have been dangerous,
however.”

Alice says, “But I see that your Cosmological clock and Bob’s clock show
exactly the same time. How can that be?”

Cosmo answers, “How fast you were moving away from me determined how fast
your clocks seemed to
be losing time. How much time your clocks seemed to lose was determined by
how far you went away
from me. Since you both went the same distance, you both seemed to lose the
same amount of time.”

Bob says, “Cosmo, I hear you using the word “seem” a lot. What are you
trying to say, or to not say?”

“That is very observant of you, Bob,” Cosmo nods. “I say ‘seem’ because
what is really going on is not always what seems to be going on, and *how*
we see the world is limited by the *way* we see the world.”

“First, let me say that the laws of physics are exactly the same for me and
for each of you, whether you are moving or not. Everything in the universe
has to follow the same laws. In physics that is called the ‘Principle of
Relativity.’ It amounts to saying that everything that you see and know
about the universe is relative to your personal point of view. Somebody
else, watching from somewhere else, may see things that you do a little
differently from the way you see them, but you will never see a change in
the laws of physics.”

“We are using light to see each other’s clocks. Light travels at a constant
speed called ‘the speed of light.’ That speed is finite. Light travels at
about 300,000 kilometers per second. It takes 333 nanoseconds for light to
get from me to either of you. It also takes that long for light to get from
either of you to the other.”

“What I see on your clocks is not what is actually there at the instant I’m
looking at it, but only what WAS there at the instant the light left your
clocks. That light then takes its own sweet 333 nanoseconds to get to me
and let me know what *was* going on with you. That is why your clocks seem
to me to be running 333 nanoseconds behind. That is why each of us sees
everyone else’s clocks as being 333 nanoseconds behind.”

“Rest assured our clocks all are functioning normally.”


Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA


That is the Newonian explanation. All you haveto do is take communication time
into account and everything becomes clear.
Even I know that this is not SR.

Henri Wilson.
See the Stupidity of Relativity.
www.users.bigpond.com/hewn/index.htm

To Robert,

The problem is that relativists never DO account for "the time delay caused
by the travel time of the light". You show me where relativists ever do
mention it in their texts on relativity and you will convince me. I think
when you look into it, you will find that I am right.

In other words, the whole of "time dilation" is based on a over-sight.

Len.
.................................................. ..........
"Robert Calvert" wrote in message
...
All you did here was compute the time delay caused by the travel time of
the
light. SR asserts that time literally slows down even AFTER you account
for
the time delay.

Robert

"tadchem" wrote in message
...

"Robert Calvert" wrote in message
...

Were you saying something about extraordinary claims? Are you
attempting
to
convince me that two clocks that are stationary relative to each other
cannot be synchronized??? Let's just say that I'm still waiting for a
credible answer.

?See Alice. Alice has a clock. It is a fine clock. Alice's clock
tells
her what time it is. Run, clock, run.

See Bob. Bob has a clock. It is also a fine clock. Bob's clock tells
him
what time it is. Run, clock, run.

Alice and Bob want to synchronize their clocks. Bob lives 100 meters
away
from Alice. Bob goes over to Alice and set his clock to match hers
exactly.
Bob then takes his clock back home.

Alice gets out her telescope and looks at Bob's clock. Bob's clock is
showing a time that is 333
nanoseconds behind Alice's clock.

Alice gets her phone and calls Bob.

"Bob! There is something wrong with your clock! You synchronized it with
mine, and now 333
nanoseconds slow."

Bob looks back at Alice's clock. Bob tells Alice, "No, Alice. It is
*your*
clock that is 333 nanoseconds slow!"

Alice tells Bob, "This is too confusing. Lets go talk to Cosmo. He has
a
clock just like ours, and he knows about physics."

Alice and Bob take their clocks over to Cosmo's House. Cosmo lives 100
meters away from Bob and
100 meters away from Alice.

"Help Us, Cosmo!", they plead. "There is something wrong with our
clocks,
or with the fabric of space and time!"

Cosmo makes sure all three clocks read exactly the same time. Run,
clocks,
run.

Cosmo then sends Alice and Bob straight home, but he tells Alice to run
and
Bob to go slowly.

Alice takes 30 seconds to run home. Bob takes 5 minutes to get home.

Cosmo then sets up a conference call with Alice and Bob.

"Alice, what do you see when you look at our clocks?" Cosmo asks.

Alice replies, "Why, BOTH of you have clocks that are 333 nanoseconds
behind
mine. Does that mean
that both of you have slow clocks, or that my clock is fast?"

"Bob, what do you see when you look at our clocks?" Cosmo asks.

Bob replies, "I see that you and Alice have clocks that are running 333
nanoseconds behind my clock! It looks to me like my clock is the fast
one.
But Alice and I can't each have a clock that is faster than the other
clock!"

Cosmo explains, "No. You can't. I see that both your clock and Alice's
clock show exactly the same time, and that time is 333 nanoseconds
behind
the time my clock shows."

"Now, my clock didn't go anywhere, and nothing happened to it. We can
call
it the 'Cosmo-logical' clock. Alice, you moved your clock 100 meters in
a
very short time, and it looks to me like it lost 333 nanoseconds against
the
Cosmo-logical clock. Bob, you moved your clock 100 meters in a much
longer
time, and it looks to me like it also lost 333 nanoseconds the
Cosmo-logical
clock. "

"How FAST you moved your clock has no effect on the result. Alice, your
clock lost 333 nanoseconds in 30 seconds while you were moving away from
me.
It seemed to me it was only running 99.999999 percent as fast as it
should,
but when you stopped moving away from me it appeared to resume running
at
normal speed."

"Bob, your clock lost 333 nanoseconds in 300 seconds while you were
moving
away from me. It seemed to me it was only running 99.9999999 percent as
fast as it should, but when you stopped moving away from me your clock
also
appeared to resume running at normal speed."

"I'll bet neither of you noticed a thing."

Alice answers "No, Cosmo, we didn't notice."

Bob adds "What *should* we have noticed, Cosmo?"

Cosmo tell them "If you had been watching my clock instead of watching
where
you were going, you both would have seen my clock seem to slow down by
as
much as I noticed your clocks slowing down. That would have been
dangerous,
however."

Alice says, "But I see that your Cosmological clock and Bob's clock show
exactly the same time. How can that be?"

Cosmo answers, "How fast you were moving away from me determined how
fast
your clocks seemed to
be losing time. How much time your clocks seemed to lose was determined
by
how far you went away
from me. Since you both went the same distance, you both seemed to lose
the
same amount of time."

Bob says, "Cosmo, I hear you using the word "seem" a lot. What are you
trying to say, or to not say?"

"That is very observant of you, Bob," Cosmo nods. "I say 'seem' because
what is really going on is not always what seems to be going on, and
*how*
we see the world is limited by the *way* we see the world."

"First, let me say that the laws of physics are exactly the same for me
and
for each of you, whether you are moving or not. Everything in the
universe
has to follow the same laws. In physics that is called the 'Principle
of
Relativity.' It amounts to saying that everything that you see and know
about the universe is relative to your personal point of view. Somebody
else, watching from somewhere else, may see things that you do a little
differently from the way you see them, but you will never see a change
in
the laws of physics."

"We are using light to see each other's clocks. Light travels at a
constant
speed called 'the speed of light.' That speed is finite. Light travels
at
about 300,000 kilometers per second. It takes 333 nanoseconds for light
to
get from me to either of you. It also takes that long for light to get
from
either of you to the other."

"What I see on your clocks is not what is actually there at the instant
I'm
looking at it, but only what WAS there at the instant the light left
your
clocks. That light then takes its own sweet 333 nanoseconds to get to
me
and let me know what *was* going on with you. That is why your clocks
seem
to me to be running 333 nanoseconds behind. That is why each of us
sees
everyone else's clocks as being 333 nanoseconds behind."

"Rest assured our clocks all are functioning normally."


Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA

"Robert Calvert" wrote in message ...
"EL" wrote in message
om...

I have no problem accepting good techniques and formulations in any
theory of relativity beginning with Kepler onwards. Unlike Robert, I
would not reject ALL of SR and GR because of some contradictions and
confused ridiculous claims made by either, but rather put it into a
distillation column and extract the pure water while discarding the
****.

I wouldn't exactly go so far as to say that SR is all bogus just because of
the twin paradox. But when you find a group of people who make a claim that
you know to be logically inconsistent, you can't help but question their
competence and honesty. And you can't help but wonder if they're just
telling you a half truth or if they're pushing a complete and total fraud. I
can imagine that certain aspects of relativity are valid. But it seems to me
that if anybody conjured up an SR like theory that could resolved the twin
paradox, it would have to be so radically different that I don't think it
would be entirely accurate to call it SR. This is why I believe that SR is
dead.

Robert

[EL]
Questioning honesty is a dead-end road, and questioning competence too
may fail to reach a black or white decision.

What I would question is "maturity".

Einstein evolved from being a kid who hates mathematics to a maestro
of mathematics.
Along that road SR was his first serious work and it was indeed
immature.

If SR is dead then no one killed it else than Einstein himself by
producing the mature General Theory of relativity.

Einstein realised many of his mistakes that resulted by promoting the
Minkowski space and discovered that the Riemann space was the true
relativistic space he needed. He also noticed that the absence of
reference frames under acceleration created silly paradoxes in SR, and
that is why if we could ever say that SR is dead then really no one
killed it else than Einstein himself by producing the mature General
Theory of relativity.

Why would anyone need a special case equation if he had the general
case one that can handle all what the first could and in a better way!

So in a way I agree with you but SR is not all wrong and that is the
point I am making here.
SR needed correction and it was an honourable thing that Einstein did
not allow others to correct it for him and that it was him how
corrected him-self and, may I say, "Replaced" SR by GR.

Kind regards.

EL

[EL]
An excellent and fabulous reading that no one should ever miss.
Thank you Tom.

EL.

"tadchem" wrote in message ...
"Robert Calvert" wrote in message
...

Were you saying something about extraordinary claims? Are you attempting
to
convince me that two clocks that are stationary relative to each other
cannot be synchronized??? Let's just say that I'm still waiting for a
credible answer.

?See Alice. Alice has a clock. It is a fine clock. Alice?s clock tells
her what time it is. Run, clock, run.

See Bob. Bob has a clock. It is also a fine clock. Bob?s clock tells him
what time it is. Run, clock, run.

Alice and Bob want to synchronize their clocks. Bob lives 100 meters away
from Alice. Bob goes over to Alice and set his clock to match hers exactly.
Bob then takes his clock back home.

Alice gets out her telescope and looks at Bob?s clock. Bob?s clock is
showing a time that is 333
nanoseconds behind Alice?s clock.

Alice gets her phone and calls Bob.

?Bob! There is something wrong with your clock! You synchronized it with
mine, and now 333
nanoseconds slow.?

Bob looks back at Alice?s clock. Bob tells Alice, ?No, Alice. It is *your*
clock that is 333 nanoseconds slow!?

Alice tells Bob, ?This is too confusing. Lets go talk to Cosmo. He has a
clock just like ours, and he knows about physics.?

Alice and Bob take their clocks over to Cosmo?s House. Cosmo lives 100
meters away from Bob and
100 meters away from Alice.

?Help Us, Cosmo!?, they plead. ?There is something wrong with our clocks,
or with the fabric of space and time!?

Cosmo makes sure all three clocks read exactly the same time. Run, clocks,
run.

Cosmo then sends Alice and Bob straight home, but he tells Alice to run and
Bob to go slowly.

Alice takes 30 seconds to run home. Bob takes 5 minutes to get home.

Cosmo then sets up a conference call with Alice and Bob.

?Alice, what do you see when you look at our clocks?? Cosmo asks.

Alice replies, ?Why, BOTH of you have clocks that are 333 nanoseconds behind
mine. Does that mean
that both of you have slow clocks, or that my clock is fast??

?Bob, what do you see when you look at our clocks?? Cosmo asks.

Bob replies, ?I see that you and Alice have clocks that are running 333
nanoseconds behind my clock! It looks to me like my clock is the fast one.
But Alice and I can?t each have a clock that is faster than the other
clock!?

Cosmo explains, ?No. You can?t. I see that both your clock and Alice?s
clock show exactly the same time, and that time is 333 nanoseconds behind
the time my clock shows.?

?Now, my clock didn?t go anywhere, and nothing happened to it. We can call
it the ?Cosmo-logical? clock. Alice, you moved your clock 100 meters in a
very short time, and it looks to me like it lost 333 nanoseconds against the
Cosmo-logical clock. Bob, you moved your clock 100 meters in a much longer
time, and it looks to me like it also lost 333 nanoseconds the Cosmo-logical
clock. ?

?How FAST you moved your clock has no effect on the result. Alice, your
clock lost 333 nanoseconds in 30 seconds while you were moving away from me.
It seemed to me it was only running 99.999999 percent as fast as it should,
but when you stopped moving away from me it appeared to resume running at
normal speed.?

?Bob, your clock lost 333 nanoseconds in 300 seconds while you were moving
away from me. It seemed to me it was only running 99.9999999 percent as
fast as it should, but when you stopped moving away from me your clock also
appeared to resume running at normal speed.?

?I?ll bet neither of you noticed a thing.?

Alice answers ?No, Cosmo, we didn?t notice.?

Bob adds ?What *should* we have noticed, Cosmo??

Cosmo tell them ?If you had been watching my clock instead of watching where
you were going, you both would have seen my clock seem to slow down by as
much as I noticed your clocks slowing down. That would have been dangerous,
however.?

Alice says, ?But I see that your Cosmological clock and Bob?s clock show
exactly the same time. How can that be??

Cosmo answers, ?How fast you were moving away from me determined how fast
your clocks seemed to
be losing time. How much time your clocks seemed to lose was determined by
how far you went away
from me. Since you both went the same distance, you both seemed to lose the
same amount of time.?

Bob says, ?Cosmo, I hear you using the word ?seem? a lot. What are you
trying to say, or to not say??

?That is very observant of you, Bob,? Cosmo nods. ?I say ?seem? because
what is really going on is not always what seems to be going on, and *how*
we see the world is limited by the *way* we see the world.?

?First, let me say that the laws of physics are exactly the same for me and
for each of you, whether you are moving or not. Everything in the universe
has to follow the same laws. In physics that is called the ?Principle of
Relativity.? It amounts to saying that everything that you see and know
about the universe is relative to your personal point of view. Somebody
else, watching from somewhere else, may see things that you do a little
differently from the way you see them, but you will never see a change in
the laws of physics.?

?We are using light to see each other?s clocks. Light travels at a constant
speed called ?the speed of light.? That speed is finite. Light travels at
about 300,000 kilometers per second. It takes 333 nanoseconds for light to
get from me to either of you. It also takes that long for light to get from
either of you to the other.?

?What I see on your clocks is not what is actually there at the instant I?m
looking at it, but only what WAS there at the instant the light left your
clocks. That light then takes its own sweet 333 nanoseconds to get to me
and let me know what *was* going on with you. That is why your clocks seem
to me to be running 333 nanoseconds behind. That is why each of us sees
everyone else?s clocks as being 333 nanoseconds behind.?

?Rest assured our clocks all are functioning normally.?


Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA

"Robert Calvert" wrote in message ...
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.

While of course your contention that SR is 'wrong' is itself quite
wrong (if it weren't, we wouldn't have made it to the moon, or have
DirecTV, or planetary probes, etc.). However, I will fault Einstein
and other scientists for one important thing that has led to much
confusion. Perhaps they didn't have the proper foundation to state it
any other way (in fact, most scientists would still do it this way),
but IMO there is a gravely misleading aspect to the way relativity is
usually phrased. Pay attention now:

Einstein's formulation of relativity: "There is no preferred inertial
frame of reference."

The correct formulation: "All inertial frames of reference where the
velocity is less than the speed of light, are mathematically
equivalent, and there is no a priori reason to prefer one over the
other."

In other words, given a spacetime history in frame F, we can always
transform it to frame F' through some simple trigonometry. For
convenience, we usually think of observing the world from whatever
frame of reference we happen to be in; but it is perfectly acceptable
to use some other frame of reference instead. It is entirely possible
that the Universe 'works' with one particular frame of reference; but
we don't have enough information to deduce what it is. It turns out
that as long as no one exceeds the speed of light, there are no
causality problems with this picture (ie you can't go back and kill
your grandmother). All the allowed frames of reference have the same
causality structure.

As for your 'paradoxes', you don't have it right. If two spaceships
do some symmetrical acceleration thing (like fly away fast, then turn
around and come back), of course their clocks match perfectly. The
paradox, such as it is, comes when they accelerate or decelerate, and
*choose* to view the Universe from their new frame of reference.
Among other things, by doing this they may redefine the 'present'
moment on the other spaceship to be a year later (or earlier), for
instance. Once you comprehend the spacetime geometry transformations
of SR, it all makes perfect sense. The distortion occurs with you,
the observer, at the center; everything else is warped and modified to
make your 'present' stay continuous (and to keep the speed of light
constant). But the important thing to realize is, none of this
implies that your actions have any effect on other observers. They go
through their own transformations, and decide that you are
contracting, getting heavy, going fast or slow, etc. and so on. If
everyone on both spaceships simply used clocks that were modified to
show the 'proper' time of their home planet, they would both see their
clocks slow down on the trip out, and speed up on the trip back. (in
this example I'm just talking about SR, so the clocks on the
spaceships end up synced with the one on the home planet. Note that
the twin paradox is really part of GR, not SR, but that's another
story.)

Hope this helps,
sty

[snipped immature lambasting of Einstein and others]

"Robert Calvert" wrote in message
...
All you did here was compute the time delay caused by the travel time of
the
light.

That is all that is required to discount the notion of "simultaneity."


Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA