Does Special Relativity contain contradictions?

Use this forum to discuss the philosophy of science. Philosophy of science deals with the assumptions, foundations, and implications of science.
Post Reply
Tamminen
Posts: 1347
Joined: April 19th, 2016, 2:53 pm

Re: Does Special Relativity contain contradictions?

Post by Tamminen »

Is the 4D Minkowski spacetime necessary for the consistency of SR? I think yes.

Let us take the twin case. Suppose I have a twin brother and we are 20 years old. My brother takes a long one-way trip to outer space at the speed of 0.8c. When I am 30 years old I know my brother is 26 years old. When my brother is 26 years old, he knows that I am 23.6 years old. We both know that much about SR. So we are both younger than the other, seen from our own reference frames.

Now there is an epistemological contradiction here, concerning the definition of knowing: I know that I am 30 years old and my brother knows that I am 23.6 years old, and these two knowings are simultaneous in my frame. But there is no logical contradiction.

But the 23.6 years that my brother knows my age is, is part of my aging process in the past, now that I am 30 years old. So my brother knows that my present is something that I know is my past, and my brother does not know anything about my present as I am 30 years old. This is somewhere in the future from his point of view.

What can we conclude from these seeming paradoxes? They are not logical contradictions, but I do not see how we can explain them without presupposing the Minkowski spacetime. My present must be somewhere in spacetime “waiting” for its being simultaneous with the present of my brother, because it is my present now but somewhere in the future for my brother.

How can we both be younger than the other without a difference in simultaneity between our reference frames?

SR with the Minkowski spacetime is a theoretical framework. It is the map, not the territory. It does not say anything about the causal chain of events and is not in conflict with the principle of causality. It just seems to be the best way to describe reality.

Perhaps there is nothing to discuss about this, but I just wanted to drop some thoughts on the topic.
User avatar
Mark1955
Posts: 739
Joined: July 21st, 2015, 4:02 am
Favorite Philosopher: David Hume
Location: Nottingham, England.

Re: Does Special Relativity contain contradictions?

Post by Mark1955 »

David Cooper wrote: September 18th, 2018, 10:18 pm
Mark1955 wrote: September 17th, 2018, 11:08 am I'd say the only problem with the Lorentz ether hypothesis is that the experiments always fail to find the ether, which in it's way is a pretty big contradiction and why it shouldn't really be described as a theory.
The results of the experiments conform to the predictions of LET (Lorentz Ether Theory). No experiment has ever been devised that should be able to detect the aether.
Mark1955 wrote: September 18th, 2018, 9:50 amSadly for DC, from a scientific perspective we have to have empirical evidence. Anyone can come up with any concept [hypothesis] they like. Then we test it against the data, when it repeatedly fails to fit the data we discard it. The idea of 'making sense' is just another set of words for, 'fits my preconceived ideals' and is fine in religious philosophy but has no place in scientific philosophy.
Here we have a prime example of the degree to which the public has been misinformed by the establishment. LET has not failed any experimental tests, and, unlike SR, it's a rational theory. (Note that LET has also been extended to cover the same ground as GR, though this work was not done by Lorentz.)
Would you mind providing links to the appropriate scientific papers that have the evidence to substantiate LET.
If you think you know the answer you probably don't understand the question.
User avatar
Halc
Posts: 405
Joined: March 17th, 2018, 9:47 pm

Re: Does Special Relativity contain contradictions?

Post by Halc »

Tamminen wrote: September 19th, 2018, 10:59 am Is the 4D Minkowski spacetime necessary for the consistency of SR? I think yes.

Let us take the twin case. Suppose I have a twin brother and we are 20 years old. My brother takes a long one-way trip to outer space at the speed of 0.8c. When I am 30 years old I know my brother is 26 years old. When my brother is 26 years old, he knows that I am 23.6 years old. We both know that much about SR. So we are both younger than the other, seen from our own reference frames.

Now there is an epistemological contradiction here, concerning the definition of knowing: I know that I am 30 years old and my brother knows that I am 23.6 years old, and these two knowings are simultaneous in my frame. But there is no logical contradiction.
That's right. Each knows how old the other one is in either frame. I don't see how Minkowski spacetime makes any difference to this. It works in 3D as well, but the interpretation would be worded differently.
But the 23.6 years that my brother knows my age is, is part of my aging process in the past, now that I am 30 years old. So my brother knows that my present is something that I know is my past, and my brother does not know anything about my present as I am 30 years old. This is somewhere in the future from his point of view.
You assume a 3D assumption: that each person has a current state, and there is the concept of 'my past and my future', which is not the spacetime way of expressing things. David very much makes this mistake of mixing interpretations in his arguments. He uses the exact same argument to show that Minkowski model must be wrong.
In the spacetime view, each brother is a worldline, existing at every age, without any of either worldline being in 'the past' or 'the future'. One speaks of events, not of what one brother is presently doing since there is no present. Events (brother at age 26 for instance) are ordered differently in different frames, hence that event being simultaneous with the event of you at 30 in one frame, and you at 23.6 in another frame.
How can we both be younger than the other without a difference in simultaneity between our reference frames?
This is true in 3D as well, so there is no empirical difference between the two. But the 3D model has one moment that is actual, and frames that don't order events in the actual way simply do not reflect actual relative ages between the brothers. A 4D interpretation with a preferred frame (LET for instance) would say frames that don't order events in the preferred way simply do not reflect preferred relative ages between the brothers.
User avatar
Sy Borg
Site Admin
Posts: 14997
Joined: December 16th, 2013, 9:05 pm

Re: Does Special Relativity contain contradictions?

Post by Sy Borg »

Leo's ghost wrote:An observation is a snapshot and to specify the momentum of anything at all we need at least two snapshots and a clock, which means two locations and a time interval. In any event Einstein had already satisfactorily demonstrated that our notions of simultaneity were entirely an observer-dependent myth anyway. Minkowski’s co-ordinate time was undoubtedly a clever mathematical ruse but in the real world it meant ****-all. The philosophers were conspicuous by their absence throughout this troubled period of science history and none of these blokes was ever seriously called to account for either his crappy logic or for any of his other metaphysical inconsistencies.
Leo's ghost on a roll wrote:The information which the observer receives via his senses, the information from which he constructs his mental map, is information pertaining to events which exist no longer. In the language of the obvious this means that we can’t observe something until after it’s happened, by which time it’s too late to do anything about it ...

The finite speed of light is the limiting truth which demands that the observer can only observe events which lie in his own past. Not only is his cognition of his object merely confirming his cognition of his object, he intuitively assumes that he sees his object as it is whereas the truth is he can only ever see it as it was.

On the cosmological scale this simple fact is easily understood, however at the sub-atomic scale this truth is less intuitively obvious because these objects are unobservable. Nevertheless this truth is equally valid on this scale. Quasars are some of the most “distant” objects observable with our gee-whiz modern telescopes, but to think of these objects as only being found a very long way away is completely wrong-headed because our universe is isotropic. Quasars cannot be found nearby because they are simply features of an earlier phase in the history of the universe and exist as such no longer. When we observe a quasar we are looking back in time.

I’m not suggesting that these things aren’t a long way away from us but merely point out that our separation from them is solely a temporal one which we have chosen to spatialise. The quasars have simply evolved into other cosmological entities and what is true for the quasar is equally true for every “object” of our observation at every scale. The tree across the road has undergone countless trillions of changes at the sub-atomic level by the time I imagine I am seeing it as it is. So has my own hand if I hold it in front of my face.

I look through my imaginary telescope at a planet 60 “light-years” away and experience quite a shock. I see an alien bloke looking at me through a telescope but he sees an alien philosopher being born. Which of us is observing the real world? Because the speed of light is finite this means that neither of us can ever observe the real world on any scale, even in principle. The real world exists only in its own place in time because the real world is continuously being made at the speed of light.

In our modern language we have a very precise word which defines the nature of the observer’s observation. It is called a HOLOGRAM. Because the speed of light is finite it is impossible by definition to watch any event being enacted “live”. Even if we go to the stadium to directly watch our football team play we are actually watching a delayed broadcast. Because the speed of light is so bloody fast the temporal delay in this case is negligible but in our language “negligible” is not synonymous with “irrelevant”. It is an inescapable fact that the observer can only observe events which exist no longer and this has important metaphysical consequences for our understanding of Newton’s three-dimensional space.

Q. If A is an empty point in space and B is an empty point in space then what meaning can we attach to the distance AB?

A. None.

To put it both simply and crudely, the notion of a “space” separating an observer from a no-longer-existing event is metaphysical horseshit. The observer is merely spatialising time, exactly as Minkowski did with his mathematical sleight-of-hand. Since all three pillars of modern physics are predicated on Minkowski’s nonsense we can easily arrive at the only logical conclusion. These physical models are not modelling the real world at all but instead are modelling a HOLOGRAM and it is precisely this that is the “problem of the observer.”

Note carefully that I do not claim that the universe is a hologram, a thought bubble floated around by a few of the geeks in the past who took their logical positivism far too literally. What I’m merely saying is that the observer observes a hologram and it is this hologram of the observer which our physical models are modelling. This is perhaps the most important thing to understand in my entire philosophy and thus I propose to repeat it and stress it often.

I regard it as a proposition of the bloody obvious that by the time I’ve observed an event, let alone by the time I’ve become aware of having observed it, the event I’ve just observed exists no longer. I am mapping my own past and observing a holographic representation of it.
I don't have such strong views on it myself but I always enjoyed the way Leo riffed around the subject of SR and Minkowski Space and picked up a fair bit.
David Cooper
Posts: 224
Joined: April 30th, 2018, 4:51 pm

Re: Does Special Relativity contain contradictions?

Post by David Cooper »

Halc wrote: September 18th, 2018, 8:14 amOK, from the page showing how SR needs to be 'twisted' to predict the Sagnac effect: http://www.conspiracyoflight.com/Sagnac ... ndRel.html
On the other hand, the observer at A who is rotating with the disk has observed that the source and detector are stationary from his perspective, as are the paths, so he can only conclude (assuming no foreknowledge that he is rotating) that the light has actually travelled at two different velocities around the disk, being C+v and C-v. Who is right? Well, the problem is this – from the point of view of special relativity, there are no preferred frames of reference, there are only relative frames of reference, so we can’t argue that frame B is better than frame A without defeating the underlying premise of the theory.
The guy rotating with the disk very much knows he is rotating, even without foreknowledge. The spinning bucket bit above event points this out, but the author conveniently forgets this here.
You misinterpreted what he said about the guy at the centre of the bucket. He said "the cause of the concavity may not be obvious, particularly if the rotation is slow and his view of the surroundings is blocked". In the same way, if the rotation of the disk is slow, the guy going round with it may not notice the rotation, just as a hermit in a cave does not feel any rotation.

The next problem is the way he repeatedly uses language in a particular way where he talks about the speed of light not always being c, but what he means by that is its speed relative to something and not its speed through space - it's a bad wording, but he uses it consistently and you have to apply the right transformation to it each time to turn it into a form that makes more sense to you.
The last sentence in that quote is blatantly invalid physics. It is an embarassment to the author to twist things like that.
He appears to be treating frame A as an inertial frame on the basis that the guy thinks he isn't rotating and will treat it as an inertial frame. The rotation will be so slow that he's hardly moved at all, but a difference in the times taken for the light round the circuit will still show up. I agree with you that he's wrong there. I'll have to contact him and see if he's capable of correcting such errors. I've only read some parts of his site relating to the way LET correctly predicts the results of experiments and I've paid less attention to the places where he attacks SR where he's more likely to slip up - those parts don't interest me greatly because I don't need any more ammo for that.
It seems to be the same strawman techniques that you have been pushing, even if you've not asserted that particular error. Case in point where you insist on a flowing time model when considering a model without it:
and by all three other modes if you imagine them building the block as they go.
Halc wrote:That is not Minkowski spacetime.
Absolutely identical geometry.
But absolutely different metaphysics.
I haven't used any strawman techniques. Every time you've accused me of that, I've shown you that you're wrong. Same again here - you haven't shown the full context because you haven't gone back far enough to collect it. I was discussing the mode zero models which aren't directly shown on my page about relativity, and they aren't shown because they're static and impractical to draw using JavaScript and HTML - I can move dots (punctuation) representing planets around the screen, but can't draw lines with it unless they're made of chars such as "/", and that doesn't allow much variety of angles. (Attempts to make lines from lots of punctuation dots slow programs to a crawl.) I told you that the mode zero models would be the same shape as the one that would be built by running any of the three modes of the simulation if they built a lasting block behind them as they go. At no point did I intend you to take from that that the blocks were functionally identical. It should have been clear to you that they wouldn't be, because there is ongoing flow through some of them even once the blocks are complete. Mode 1 generates a block with an added Newtonian time which enables events to change over Newtonian time at individual Spacetime locations (and I've told you that before), so that model contains two kinds of time. The mode zero blocks don't contain that Newtonian time, but the geometry is identical. The mode 2 and 3 blocks might also be different, but it's hard to pin down how - they are really just fossils with imaginary physics being attributed to their content, but the mode zero models aren't greatly different other than in origin (by lacking one and relying on magic instead). Anyway - when I told you how to generate the shape of a mode zero block from one of the three time-running modes, I never told you to take anything other than the shape along for the ride - you made that decision for yourself, and now you're trying to label your error as mine.

For those who don't want to wade through the older thread:-

There are fourteen models that I've set out, and they're divided into four sets.

Set zero contains two models, one of which is a 3D block universe (which could arguably be the original version of SR), and the other's a 4D Minkowski model (used commonly for both SR and GR). These models contain the past, present and future all in one go as a static eternal block which has never been generated in order of causation because time in that model doesn't run/flow.

The other three sets each contain four models which are either 3D or 4D, while each of those options comes in block and non-block versions. The non-block versions run time without building a lasting block behind them (so the past doesn't exist any more), and the block versions are similar but build a lasting block universe behind the construction front which preserve the entire past. With all the block versions here, they are generated in order of causation rather than just existing by magic as complete blocks that were never anything less than complete.

Set 1 models run events in such a way that no clocks run slow - all clocks tick at the only rate they're allowed to tick at, and that's one second per second. There is no mechanism allowed in these models to make clocks on any paths run slower than they do on other paths.

Set 2 models run events in a way that allows each frame's time to govern the time of every other frame such that all clocks not at rest in a frame are made to tick slower than the ones that are at rest in that frame. These models have no absolute frame.

Set 3 models run events in a way that allows one frame's time to govern the time of every other frame such that all clocks not at rest in that frame are made to tick slower than the ones that are at rest. These models have an absolute frame, and the 3D non-block model in set 3 is the LET model (Lorentz Ether Theory).

It's easier to understand these different sets of models if you can see them in action, so I wrote a simulation that can run in three different modes to illustrate the three sets of models that have a running time in them (mode zero is static, so it is not represented there directly). You can find that simulation about 3/8 of the way down my page about relativity: http://www.magicschoolbook.com/science/relativity.html - scroll past the MMX diagrams near the top, on beyond the diagrams with little space-shuttles in them, and on down to the pair of Spacetime diagrams. The simulation is below them, but the Spacetime diagrams represent the same thought experiment, and the text underneath them explains what's going on in the simulation.

Einstein's original version of SR is arguably a set 2 3D non-block model, but it could also be a set 1 3D non-block model. It's often described in such a way as to be a hybrid of the two, but the two models are incompatible with each other as they run on different rules, so such a hybrid model is banned. The two models named here are also impossible models: the set 1 non-block models suffer from event-meshing failures which invalidate them; while the set 2 non-block models generate contradictions which invalidate them. Set 2 block models cannot be constructed rationally, so they are invalidated too, and that means that all the set 2 models are dead. No viable theory can use them.

Is there any model left that could be Einstein's original SR? Well, if it's set 3's 3D non-block model, then it's the same theory as LET and must take on the same metaphysics as LET, but Einstein was very clear that SR is not LET. Perhaps it could be the set 3 3D block model where the absolute frame becomes rather redundant, but that model needs to be constructed by LET, so it's superfluous. The only model that remains as a candidate is the set zero 3D block, and that's a block that was never generated in order of causation, so all the causality written through it is fake. It's an invalidated model. We can see from this that there is no viable model for Einstein's original version of SR.

What about the version that replaced it when Minkowski turned it into 4D? Well, we have seven models to look at for that. The Mode zero 4D block model involves a block that was never generated in order of causation, so all the causality written through it is fake. It's an invalidated model. This model is very much an SR and GR model, but it cannot be a viable description of reality due to the complete lack of a role for causality in it.

Set 1 has two 4D versions. The non-block one is invalidated by event-meshing failures. The block version could work though, because the event-meshing failures are deleted over time (Newtonian time) as events change at individual Spacetime locations. This model breaks the rules of SR and GR by having two kinds of time in it.

Set 2 has two 4D versions, but we've already established that all set 2 models are invalidated by their generation of contradictions, so they're out of the running.

Set 3 has two 4D models, but the block version is superfluous and can be ignored (due to its need to be built under the rules of the non-block version). The non-block version has an absolute frame, so it's not regarded as compatible with SR, but could arguably be compatible with GR if an absolute frame is acceptable there.

That's an overview of things, but it takes you straight to where this discussion will end: all SR models have been invalidated if we apply the normal rules of SR, but if you're prepared to make modifications to it, there are some options available to try to breathe some life into it. Even if you do that though, you're left with the far-fetched and highly contrived set 1 3D and 4D block models (with two kinds of time and with event-meshing failures during the construction phase), or you have set 3's 4D non-block model, but you then have to accept an absolute frame. That's your only other option, and it's by far the better one.

4D models are also extremely far-fetched though, and the thing that makes that clearest is this: in 4D models, light reduces all paths that it takes to zero length and covers them in zero time (by the "time" of the "time" dimension). There is no such thing as a speed of light in these models. When you run time in a 4D model, light has to spend a lot of time waiting without going anywhere - light coming to us from distant galaxies, for example, has spent over ten billion years travelling zero distance through the non-Euclidean geometry of Minkowski Spacetime to reach us, and if we're using a model with an absolute frame, that means it really has spent that length of time making that trip of zero length by the Newtonian time of the absolute frame (so again this model, the Set 3 4D one which is the last refuge of the most viable approximation of SR, has two kinds of time in it). That is where we actually stand once we've separated out all the models and tested them on their own merits instead of mixing incompatible ones together and asserting that they're viable, which is what the establishment typically does. The most consistent SR adherents go for the mode zero 4D block and stick to that rigorously, but that model lacks real causality, so they're in an extreme position, even if they're not cheating in any way beyond claiming that the fake causality is real. By the time you've looked at all the models carefully and examined the difficulties (and impossibilities) that apply to them, you should recognise that the most rational model of the lot is LET, and you should see that it wins with ease. That depends on you being rational though, and many people aren't.

Now, many people dispute points that I've made above and claim that they're wrong, but the points are correct and the people who claim otherwise are the ones who are wrong. I can demonstrate that all the points I've made are correct (or at least, the ones that the argument depends on - I can't guarantee that every statement I make in the course of a conversation in a long thread is correct, but the key ones that the argument rests on are right and have stood up to all attempts to break them over many years).

In the other thread, what happened was that I made various statements which people claimed were wrong, so I showed that the statements I'd made were right. It isn't clear whether any of them were eventually accepted, but perhaps that will show up in this thread, and if they still refuse to accept proven points, that's up to them, but I will show the stark reality of the extreme positions that they have to take up in order to oppose those points. Halc defended the set zero 4D block model by asserting that the causality in it can be real rather than fake, and he came up with an interesting argument to justify that which was based on sets of abstract things that don't actually exist and the causation that supposedly generates them from each other. Steve spent most of his time trying to make out that I didn't understand enough physics, imagining that parts of physics that have no role in my argument have a role in it on the basis that they're part of physics and that I don't appear to know them (even though I do, but merely describe them using different language because I speak the language of LET rather than SR). The third main participant didn't get involved much, but all his comments were based on the idea that I must be wrong because I'm attacking an establishment position and the establishment must be right.
David Cooper
Posts: 224
Joined: April 30th, 2018, 4:51 pm

Re: Does Special Relativity contain contradictions?

Post by David Cooper »

Mark1955 wrote: September 19th, 2018, 1:57 pm Would you mind providing links to the appropriate scientific papers that have the evidence to substantiate LET.
In a world where everyone panders to the establishment, they frame everything in terms of experiments confirming SR. Those experiments also confirm LET, so I refer you to them. If you think they don't confirm LET, you need to find a paper that shows LET to be in conflict with them. See if you can find any experiment that contradicts LET. Give me your best three and I'll show you that they conform to LET.
David Cooper
Posts: 224
Joined: April 30th, 2018, 4:51 pm

Re: Does Special Relativity contain contradictions?

Post by David Cooper »

Halc wrote: September 19th, 2018, 7:37 pmDavid very much makes this mistake of mixing interpretations in his arguments. He uses the exact same argument to show that Minkowski model must be wrong.
I do not mix models or interpretations - you will not be able to find a single place where I have done so here or anywhere else at all. I separate them all out in a way that no one else has bothered to do before, and I attack each dud one based on its own failings. (How can anyone imagine I mix models when I've gone to such lengths to compartmentalise them, to keep them separate and to insist that other people do likewise instead of continually cheating.) When you imagine that I'm mixing models, it can only be because you're misinterpreting what I'm saying, imagining that when I make an argument against a specific model that I'm making it about other models too. Sometimes I am making an argument that applies to multiple models all at once, but only in cases where that argument fits. I've asked you before to point to a place where I've mixed models, and you have failed to do so. I ask you again to show such a place.
Steve3007
Posts: 10339
Joined: June 15th, 2011, 5:53 pm

Re: Does Special Relativity contain contradictions?

Post by Steve3007 »

I think among the main areas of disagreement between myself and David Cooper are these: We disagree as to what a law of physics is. We disagree as to what the word "acceleration" means in the context of physics. We disagree as to how the concept of a reference frame is used in physics. We disagree as to whether theories of physics are cumulative, such that full understanding of a theory is dependent on an understanding of the concepts from which it is built.

Given that SR and LET propose particular examples of laws of physics which obviously depend on all of the above, I don't think it's meaningful to try to discuss them until those disagreements have been resolved.

The exchange quoted below is an example of one of the points on which we disagree. This one exemplifies our disagreement over how the concept of a reference frame is used in physics.
David Cooper wrote:If one frame says something is stationary and another says it's moving, it is clearly impossible to tell whether something is moving or not, so your objection to that one is frankly ridiculous.
Steve3007 wrote:Which is perhaps one reason why frames don't say that. Movement is defined as the change in the spatial distance between two objects with respect to time. So, if you use the correct definition of the word "moving", clearly we can work out if we're moving.
David Cooper wrote:Frames do say that. You can measure movement in any way you like, but if something is not moving in one frame (no change in spatial distance between itself and any other object at rest in that frame) and is moving in another (with a change in spatial distance between other objects which are at rest in that frame), then we have contradictory claims from different frames about whether the object is moving or not, and we can't tell which one is wrong.
A reference frame is simply a set of coordinates. It can be simply visualized by imagining a ball with X, Y and Z axes sticking out of it at right-angles to each other. A lump of clay and three rulers. That ball is stationary with respect to that reference frame. The movements of other objects can be measured with respect to that reference frame. Other reference frames (other lumps of clay with rulers sticking out of them) can be moving relative to that reference frame.

So what David is saying in the part of the above quote which I have highlighted in bold is that if I measure the movement of a single object with respect to two different reference frames that are moving relative to each other, the different results that I get constitute "contradictory claims" and "we can't tell which one is wrong".

This is the same as saying that If I am driving in a car, and if I make the observation that I am stationary with respect to the car but moving with respect to the road, I am making contradictory claims, one or both of which must be wrong.

I disagree.
User avatar
SimpleGuy
Posts: 338
Joined: September 11th, 2017, 12:28 pm

Re: Does Special Relativity contain contradictions?

Post by SimpleGuy »

No special relativity doesn't contain contradictions, at least if you observe the boundaries, where the theory can get applied. The scope of energy , mass and time-scales as well as length scales and amount of particles play a role which phyisics and it's theories can get applied. As long as you stay within the boundaries, there is no contradiction. The cumulant into a many particle system theory of statistical physics , has perhaps in some boundary question some contraditictions with the phenomenological thermodynamics, but this is most of the times not that easy to verify in an experimental fashion outside of some super relativistic ballistic transport phenomena.
User avatar
Mark1955
Posts: 739
Joined: July 21st, 2015, 4:02 am
Favorite Philosopher: David Hume
Location: Nottingham, England.

Re: Does Special Relativity contain contradictions?

Post by Mark1955 »

David Cooper wrote: September 20th, 2018, 12:51 am
Mark1955 wrote: September 19th, 2018, 1:57 pm Would you mind providing links to the appropriate scientific papers that have the evidence to substantiate LET.
In a world where everyone panders to the establishment, they frame everything in terms of experiments confirming SR. Those experiments also confirm LET, so I refer you to them. If you think they don't confirm LET, you need to find a paper that shows LET to be in conflict with them. See if you can find any experiment that contradicts LET. Give me your best three and I'll show you that they conform to LET.
My bold, but you don't refer me to them. I asked a simple question and you don't provide the answer. Maybe I'm misunderstanding LET but to me it requires the existence of an absolute frame of reference for all measurements, whereas relativity says all measurements are relative to how you execute the measurement. Since these are pretty much directly opposed ideas I struggle to see how a paper supporting one could also support the other but feel free to educate me, I'm only a biochemist. I do however need the data not just an assertion.
If you think you know the answer you probably don't understand the question.
Tamminen
Posts: 1347
Joined: April 19th, 2016, 2:53 pm

Re: Does Special Relativity contain contradictions?

Post by Tamminen »

Halc wrote: September 19th, 2018, 7:37 pm But the 3D model has one moment that is actual, and frames that don't order events in the actual way simply do not reflect actual relative ages between the brothers.
So at the actual moment, as I am 30 years old, I know that my brother is 26 years old, and this is true and measurable. But simultaneously from my perspective, as my brother is 26 years old, he knows that I am 23.6 years old, but that is not true? So one frame reflects reality correctly for an observer in that frame, but the other frame does not? The latter case is not measurable, but nevertheless, shouldn't they be equal in representing reality? And if they are, we come to the question of my present and my past existing "parallel" in spacetime and my present being somewhere in spacetime not simultaneous for my brother. Why can't the 4D Minkowski spacetime contain presents, pasts and futures relative to events, defining causal chains? If you think of yourself as a series of events, this is a very natural way of seeing it, and perhaps even necessary.

But maybe I am missing something.
User avatar
Halc
Posts: 405
Joined: March 17th, 2018, 9:47 pm

Re: Does Special Relativity contain contradictions?

Post by Halc »

David Cooper wrote: September 20th, 2018, 12:38 amHe said "the cause of the concavity may not be obvious, particularly if the rotation is slow and his view of the surroundings is blocked". In the same way, if the rotation of the disk is slow, the guy going round with it may not notice the rotation, just as a hermit in a cave does not feel any rotation.
Then the hermit's instruments are insufficiently sensitive. Any rotation at all can be detected by said hermit, and without view of surroundings. Reducing spin rate to below the sensitivity of his instruments doesn't mean it can't be done.
Surely you know you physics better than this.

Concerning the bucket guy, the concavity is evidence, but a bucket set at the north pole would not exhibit such concavity since gravity is the greater effect and the water surface is convex. A bucket at the equator isn't spinning along the axis that goes through the surface. A good test would detect the rotation at any of these places, and without looking at the sky. We're a cave hermit after all.
Halc wrote:OK, from the page showing how SR needs to be 'twisted' to predict the Sagnac effect: http://www.conspiracyoflight.com/Sagnac ... ndRel.html
Marett wrote:Well, the problem is this – from the point of view of special relativity, there are no preferred frames of reference, there are only relative frames of reference, so we can’t argue that frame B is better than frame A without defeating the underlying premise of the theory.
Halc wrote:[That sentence] is blatantly invalid physics. It is an embarrassment to the author to twist things like that.
He appears to be treating frame A as an inertial frame on the basis that the guy thinks he isn't rotating and will treat it as an inertial frame.
No, he's 'quoting' SR, saying both frames are legit (my bold). If fact, observe A has instruments at hand to demonstrate this rotation since he sees the timing of the two light beams being different. So he knows.
Marett is either stupid or deliberately misrepresenting SR, and I doubt the former.
The rotation will be so slow that he's hardly moved at all, but a difference in the times taken for the light round the circuit will still show up. I agree with you that he's wrong there. I'll have to contact him and see if he's capable of correcting such errors.
OK, so you actually agree with this much.
I've only read some parts of his site relating to the way LET correctly predicts the results of experiments and I've paid less attention to the places where he attacks SR where he's more likely to slip up - those parts don't interest me greatly because I don't need any more ammo for that.
Those are the only places I looked: Places where a difference is claimed. Hafele Keating was tagged as "questionable - issues with full fit to evidence" and yet LET was not, meaning LET makes more accurate (different) predictions. Want me to track down that error as well?
Marett wrote:In light of what we have discussed in the previous chapter, we can say that Einstein's prediction in 1) of 1905 ends up being wrong, because it does not anticipate his later discovery of 3) in 1907.
This is true. SR does not take into account gravitational dilation. It is up front about that. GR predicts HK correctly, and the non-gravitational LET version as of 1905 or 1907 similarly made incorrect predictions.
OK, Marett makes peace with that. The inconsistency apparently comes from the lack of preferred frames, where Einstein (for purposes of HK) and LET apparently differ.
Marett wrote:The problem is that from the perspective of the observer on the ground, the moving "clocks" of Hafele and Keating have experienced identical motions with respect to the stationary clock on the ground.
Why is "clocks" in quotes. Oh right. They're not actually stationary, so they don't actually measure actual time. Carry on...
Here again we have this assertion of rotational reference frame observer being no different than interial ones according to relativity. Same deliberate mistake as above. The clocks have not experienced identical motion in any inertial frame. The westbound clock accelerates less than the other two in any inertial frame, and that one reads the higher elapsed time when compared with the others, exactly as relativity predicts. Had they done it with trains staying at some mean altitude with the control clock, then SR would have applied nicely.

He goes on to quote "Builder" who apparently concludes that only an absolute frame will make correct predictions. I haven't looked at the link provided, but he apparently also claims some empirical difference or other inconsistency with non-absolute frame relativity.
User avatar
Halc
Posts: 405
Joined: March 17th, 2018, 9:47 pm

Re: Does Special Relativity contain contradictions?

Post by Halc »

Tamminen wrote: September 20th, 2018, 10:50 am
Halc wrote: September 19th, 2018, 7:37 pm But the 3D model has one moment that is actual, and frames that don't order events in the actual way simply do not reflect actual relative ages between the brothers.
So at the actual moment, as I am 30 years old, I know that my brother is 26 years old, and this is true and measurable.
You have to understand the different between preferred frame, preferred moment, or neither. That's 3 models. Minkowski spacetime is 4D with no preferred anything, giving equal status to all events. 4D with preferred frame gives objective ordering to all events, but the events all still exist. The 3D model asserts in addition a preferred moment, and past and future moments are not part of the actual current state of the universe.

So in any model with a preferred frame, you don't know the age of your brother until you first know the frame in which to do the calculation. This is not locally measurable, and even non-locally, it is mere conjecture since physics make all the same predictions in other frames.
So we perhaps choose the local inertial frame where the universe appears locally isomorphic. This frame is different everywhere in the universe, so it isn't a global frame. Anyway, given that inertial frame (and a 3D model where you can be 30 at the actual moment), and the fact that your brother doesn't travel super far (like galaxies away), one can figure out the velocity of each of you and your brother and figure out which age your brother actually is, and he similarly can at that time figure out that you are actually 30. You both agree on the same numbers. This works in both 3D model and 4D with preferred frame. One can always do the calculations in the chosen preferred frame.
But simultaneously from my perspective, as my brother is 26 years old, he knows that I am 23.6 years old, but that is not true?
Not in any model with a preferred frame, no. There is only one frame that represents the actual current ordering of local things, and the other frames give non-actual answers for how old your brother is when you are 30.
And if they are, we come to the question of my present and my past existing "parallel" in spacetime and my present being somewhere in spacetime not simultaneous for my brother.
There is no spacetime in the 3D model. In the 4D model (preferred frame or not), all of your events (at every age) exist. Your worldline is not 30 years old, but you have a 30th birthday event along that line somewhere.
Why can't the 4D Minkowski spacetime contain presents, pasts and futures relative to events, defining causal chains?
It does. A is relatively in the past of B and B is in the relative future of A, assuming the two events are separated in a time-like manner and are ordered A, B. Events separated in a space-like manner are ambiguously ordered, and don't have a strict relationship of one being in the past or future of the other.
If you think of yourself as a series of events, this is a very natural way of seeing it, and perhaps even necessary.
All three models depict me as a series of events, but the 3D model says only one of those events is actual at the present time. The 4D models (preferred frame or not) say they're all actual, and lacks an objective present one. Each event has only a relative present, which is sort of a self reference to the event.

Relativity really doesn't assert one model or the other. It works either way.
Tamminen
Posts: 1347
Joined: April 19th, 2016, 2:53 pm

Re: Does Special Relativity contain contradictions?

Post by Tamminen »

Thanks Halc, I try to understand. Perhaps I cannot ask the right questions. I was thinking of the model with no preferred frame, and what it implies if all frames give equal truth values for the timing of events in other frames.
David Cooper
Posts: 224
Joined: April 30th, 2018, 4:51 pm

Re: Does Special Relativity contain contradictions?

Post by David Cooper »

Steve3007 wrote: September 20th, 2018, 2:46 am I think among the main areas of disagreement between myself and David Cooper are these: We disagree as to what a law of physics is. We disagree as to what the word "acceleration" means in the context of physics. We disagree as to how the concept of a reference frame is used in physics. We disagree as to whether theories of physics are cumulative, such that full understanding of a theory is dependent on an understanding of the concepts from which it is built.
In the first two examples, we're just using language differently from each other. In the third case, you still don't realise that reference frames have rules which dictate some of the information that comes out of measurements made using them which the frames effectively assert automatically regardless of whether you go to the trouble of making such a measurement from them or not. On the fourth point, if a particular model can be disproved on the basis that it has a fatal flaw in it, it's a dead model - no amount of arguing about Maxwell's Equations will magically save it.
So what David is saying in the part of the above quote which I have highlighted in bold is that if I measure the movement of a single object with respect to two different reference frames that are moving relative to each other, the different results that I get constitute "contradictory claims" and "we can't tell which one is wrong".

This is the same as saying that If I am driving in a car, and if I make the observation that I am stationary with respect to the car but moving with respect to the road, I am making contradictory claims, one or both of which must be wrong.

I disagree.
It's not the same as that at all. Something more equivalent would be the following claim: if I'm driving in a car and make the observation that I'm stationary with respect to the car, and also stationary with respect to the road, but that the car is moving along the road, I am not making contradictory claims.

That is not a directly equivalent case though - it twists things in a different way from the way you've twisted things. To make a case properly equivalent to the original, we need something more like this: If I'm driving along a road in a car at the speed of light, I'm moving relative to the road at c, but I'm also moving at c relative to all the ordinary cars (which are driving along the road at non-relativistic speed).

Your example failed to preserve the contradiction that was in the original, so it failed as a parallel, but you mistakenly presented it as evidence relevant to the case in point. This is what happens time and time again when people who lack the necessary expertise in logical reasoning attempt to apply a science which they have not studied in sufficient depth.

(And for the record, this issue of contradictions is only important for disproving set 2 models. It is not needed for the rest.)
Post Reply

Return to “Philosophy of Science”

2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise
by John K Danenbarger
January 2023

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023

The Unfakeable Code®

The Unfakeable Code®
by Tony Jeton Selimi
April 2023

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
by Alan Watts
May 2023

Killing Abel

Killing Abel
by Michael Tieman
June 2023

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead
by E. Alan Fleischauer
July 2023

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough
by Mark Unger
August 2023

Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational
by Dan Ariely
September 2023

Artwords

Artwords
by Beatriz M. Robles
November 2023

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope
by Dr. Randy Ross
December 2023

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes
by Ali Master
February 2024

2022 Philosophy Books of the Month

Emotional Intelligence At Work

Emotional Intelligence At Work
by Richard M Contino & Penelope J Holt
January 2022

Free Will, Do You Have It?

Free Will, Do You Have It?
by Albertus Kral
February 2022

My Enemy in Vietnam

My Enemy in Vietnam
by Billy Springer
March 2022

2X2 on the Ark

2X2 on the Ark
by Mary J Giuffra, PhD
April 2022

The Maestro Monologue

The Maestro Monologue
by Rob White
May 2022

What Makes America Great

What Makes America Great
by Bob Dowell
June 2022

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!
by Jerry Durr
July 2022

Living in Color

Living in Color
by Mike Murphy
August 2022 (tentative)

The Not So Great American Novel

The Not So Great American Novel
by James E Doucette
September 2022

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches
by John N. (Jake) Ferris
October 2022

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All
by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
November 2022

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity

The Smartest Person in the Room
by Christian Espinosa
December 2022

2021 Philosophy Books of the Month

The Biblical Clock: The Untold Secrets Linking the Universe and Humanity with God's Plan

The Biblical Clock
by Daniel Friedmann
March 2021

Wilderness Cry: A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe

Wilderness Cry
by Dr. Hilary L Hunt M.D.
April 2021

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute: Tools To Spark Your Dream And Ignite Your Follow-Through

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute
by Jeff Meyer
May 2021

Surviving the Business of Healthcare: Knowledge is Power

Surviving the Business of Healthcare
by Barbara Galutia Regis M.S. PA-C
June 2021

Winning the War on Cancer: The Epic Journey Towards a Natural Cure

Winning the War on Cancer
by Sylvie Beljanski
July 2021

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream
by Dr Frank L Douglas
August 2021

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts
by Mark L. Wdowiak
September 2021

The Preppers Medical Handbook

The Preppers Medical Handbook
by Dr. William W Forgey M.D.
October 2021

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress: A Practical Guide

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress
by Dr. Gustavo Kinrys, MD
November 2021

Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir

Dream For Peace
by Dr. Ghoulem Berrah
December 2021