Before you attack this thread, I wish for it to be a discussion on the following paper. I am quite curious why I have not found this before. But anyway, does anyone have prior knowledge of this paper? Is it valid? Is it worth reading? I've yet to read it and won't have time to tonight, but any analysis is welcome.

http://www.arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0403/0403127.pdf

Abstract: Observations of the apparent times and positions of moving clocks as predicted by both ‘non-local’ and ‘local’ Lorentz Transformations are considered. Only local transformations respect translational invariance. Such transformations change temporal but not spatial intervals, so breaking space time exchange symmetry and forbidding relativity of simultaneity and length contraction. A satellite cesium clock experiment to test these predictions is proposed.

Before you attack this thread, I wish for it to be a discussion on the following paper. I am quite curious why I have not found this before. But anyway, does anyone have prior knowledge of this paper? Is it valid? Is it worth reading? I've yet to read it and won't have time to tonight, but any analysis is welcome.

http://www.arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0403/0403127.pdf

Abstract: Observations of the apparent times and positions of moving clocks as predicted by both ‘non-local’ and ‘local’ Lorentz Transformations are considered. Only local transformations respect translational invariance. Such transformations change temporal but not spatial intervals, so breaking space time exchange symmetry and forbidding relativity of simultaneity and length contraction. A satellite cesium clock experiment to test these predictions is proposed.

Unfortunately I was unable to view the paper I get nothing but a series of dark dots. But bully for you posting this. I hopes it has credability.

Link worked for me. Try getting the latest acrobat reader.

Link worked for me. Try getting the latest acrobat reader.

Thanks. Will do.

It made no change.

Well, to be a little reserved in my opinion of the paper, I LOVED IT, I LOVED, I LOVED IT! I am unable to understand all the mathematics in the paper, but I can certainly understand the author's position. This is the very first 'alternative' to Special Theory that I can completely agree with. J H Field expresses my more simplistic opinions to a tee. A truly ground-breaking paper in my humble opinion.

Who is J H Field? I have done some short searches and discovered he is a physicist working at CERN, the particle accelerator facility. I don't know his position at CERN yet, but he has done much work on The Standard Model's
Higgs Field, an area that I have often expressed interest in as a working model for, uh, REALITY. Here is a link to 36 papers he has authored or co-authored that I have located so far:
http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/search?submit=1&author=Field%2C%20J%20H%20

By the way, Mac and geistkiesel, 'relativity of simultaneity' and with it, Lorentz Contractions are GONE. Time dilation is still there. You've got to read it.
Edit: Being in pdf. format, it does take a while to download.
Something else I find a little ironic. The author's name, J H Field. I have always stated I was looking for a good 'Field' Theory, ha!

By the way, Mac and geistkiesel, 'relativity of simultaneity' and with it, Lorentz Contractions are GONE. Time dilation is still there. You've got to read it.
Edit: Being in pdf. format, it does take a while to download.
Something else I find a little ironic. The author's name, J H Field. I have always stated I was looking for a good 'Field' Theory, ha!
2inq,
I read part of the paper to get the gist of what the author is saying. It needs time for this tired btrain to digest all that is there. I agree with his general conclusions, but reserve that 'time dilation' remains as stated by the author. I say this trecognizing that there is a time dialtion of sorts but somewhat different than AE's dilation. Time dialtion yes, but not the relativistic time dilation.

When reading Aer's link I thought of your many posts that seemed to echo what was in the link, especially where length expanded in the direction of motion which I rmember you mentioned in one of your posts. Ditto with regard to MacM's threads and posts on the subject. It seems that the 'law of intuition' has some forceful application after all. This is my opinion anyway. The math shouldn't throw you, other than put you to sleep perhaps, as the math can be expressed in words, try is for a few of the equations in the paper.

Geistkiesel :cool:

Aer is congratulated for his discovery of this cogent and well written paper.

Geistkiesel :cool:

Interesting. But I'm pretty certain he is wrong. The absolutely crucial bit is this one, rather early on:

"In the following, in order to investigate the properties of the space-time LT, it will
be found convenient to consider two identical clocks, A and B, which perform identical
motion parallel to the x-axis of a ‘stationary’ inertial frame S. The common co-moving
frame, at any instant, of A and B, is denoted by S’. Initially, A and B, which have each
been synchronised with a reference clock, C, at rest in the frame S, are at rest in S,
separated by a distance, L (see Fig.1a). At time t = 0 each clock is subjected to an
identical acceleration program during the time tacc in S. Because the velocities of A and B
are the same at any instant, a common co-moving inertial frame always exists for the two
clocks. Their separation, as measured in this co-moving frame, or in the frame S,
remains L at all times."

The part in red is an assumption on his part, and incorrect.

Here's why: In order for A and B to see the distance as L, he's using a scheme which will keep the distance between them constant, as viewed from A's and B's frame, and since there's no relative velocity between them at any time in either frame, the distance is constant. This certainly seems reasonable.

Now, he translates this argument to the S frame: He claims that because at any particular instant A and B will be seen to have the same velocity from S (which seems superficially correct, but I suspect it is wrong), the length S sees between them must remain constant. This would be true if A and B had constant velocities in the S frame, but they do not. It is, in essense, a Galilean argument, and those are invalid at relativistic speeds.

Second, when he actually calculates the distance between A and B as seen from S, something that is absolutely pivotal, he does in fact find length contraction, but mumbles something about translational invariance being the only "truly physical possibility", in genuine MacM style. He also ends up having to mix frames hopelessly, and compares "distances" that don't have matching time coordinates.

Interestingly, one of the papers he cites (this one) (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/9810/9810017.pdf) which considers the exact same situation (though with a rod of length L instead of two clocks), the distance is (of course) length contracted, when viewed from S.

And what's this "local/non-local Lorentz-transforms" business? There's no need for that, the Lorentz transforms are the Lorentz transforms. They relate frames to another and that's that. When he changes where the frames coincide (Both S and A and S and B coincide on the origin, but A and B obviously don't) he's not getting coordinates from the same experiment any longer...

It's not difficult finding inconsistencies in str when he makes an a priori assumption about translational invariance, which is unsupported by anything other than his intuition, and furthermore is incompatible with the basic postulates of str (from which both time dilation and length contraction are inevitable consequences.)

I suspect this will never be published. (Oh, and I found a newer version of it, here (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0501/0501043.pdf).)

[/rant]

Their separation, as measured in this co-moving frame, or in the frame S,
remains L at all times."

The part in red is an assumption on his part, and incorrect.
S is the stationary frame, the distance is always L - perhaps you meant to color the 'co-moving frame' part.

I'll read the paper before I read your rant below [above] because it seems to me that you didn't even get the gist of what he was saying to begin with. Correct me if I misinterpreted the quote your provided or your initial analysis.

Edit: OK, I lied and upon reading the rest of your post - I've come to the conclusion that the author and yourself are not considering the same thought experiment. Ahh well, I am not even sure this can be analyzed as a thought experiment because you have to start with a new set of postulates to get rid of length contraction and the relativity of simultaneity to begin with.

S is the stationary frame, the distance is always L - perhaps you meant to color the 'co-moving frame' part.

No, that the distance is alway L in the embankment frame S is precisely what I'm disputing as an intuitional assumption.

Edit: OK, I lied and upon reading the rest of your post - I've come to the conclusion that the author and yourself are not considering the same thought experiment. Ahh well, I am not even sure this can be analyzed as a thought experiment because you have to start with a new set of postulates to get rid of length contraction and the relativity of simultaneity to begin with.
Exactly. The assumption of translational invariance is incompatible with str, so all he's doing is showing that str gives strange results in a situation it doesn't apply to.

Since he doesn't provide a consistent way of relating frames, it's basically uninteresting. It did had my titties in a twist to find the error, though, at first. That there's translational invariance seems correct in the formulation of the thought experiment, but it is incorrect when using the relativistic acceleration from the paper I cited. At least according to str ;)

No, that the distance is alway L in the embankment frame S is precisely what I'm disputing as an intuitional assumption. If I see two objects accelerating identically, will I say the distance between them stays constant as was the distance when they were initially stationary in my frame?

This paper says that length contraction, unlike time dilation, is not well-tested experimentally. But my understanding is that the muon experiment, a confirmation of SR, is as much a test of length contraction as it is of time dilation (the conclusions for both are deduced, not directly measured). The only way the results can be explained is either (1) the muon exceeds c relative to the Earth in the muon’s frame only, or (2) the Earth including its atmosphere is length-contracted in the muon’s frame. Explanation (1) is untenable. The paper must have a third explanation—what is it?

zanket - you obviously do not understand the implications of the paper. If the paper is correct in it's assertion that length contraction and the relativity of simultaneity are false notions, then it effectively is saying that the theory of special relativity is incorrect. That does not lead to your explainations: "(1) the muon exceeds c relative to the Earth in the muon’s frame only, or (2) the Earth including its atmosphere is length-contracted in the muon’s frame" Those explaination are just purported by you because of your limited understanding of the broad reaches of experimental data and theories that exist in physics.

The paper would still need to offer an alternative way to explain the results of the experiment.

The paper must have a third explanation—what is it? I have not yet had the time to read the paper with the neccessary scrutiny that is required. As such, I don't know that the paper even offers an explaination outside of special relativity - though I've expressed my own explaination outside of special relativity elsewhere on this forum. I've stated then as I'm going to state now. I am not going to go into a discussion on this alternate explaination right now - particularily because the best way to explain it is to delve into string theory. String theory - talk about a controversial topic :eek:

If I see two objects accelerating identically, will I say the distance between them stays constant as was the distance when they were initially stationary in my frame?
No, not according to relativity theory. Look to the rod in the paper I cited.

But that is his assumption in OP paper. It is an assumption resting on the view that it makes sense for the A and B clock to accelerate "equally" (that is, simultaneously) in two different reference frames. This is, of course, incompatible with str, but he breaks the simultaneity of relativity in infinitisimal steps, so that we're not supposed to notice. But it's there. That's what his elaborate acceleration scheme is supposed to hide.

Ask yourself, if he had simply claimed that translational invariance holds, that is, that length contraction is false, and proceeded to treat the situation as one in which he is still justified in using the Lorentz transforms, would you have bothered reading it? I wouldn't. I already know that length contraction pops out of the Lorentz transforms (having done quite a few, lately ;)), and thus that translational invariance is not compatible with str.

No, not according to relativity theory. Look to the rod in the paper I cited.
So I cannot measure two objects accelerating identically then. Nice.

Or - If I measure them accelerating identically, then in their respective frames, they will not see the other stationary.

Well, to be a little reserved in my opinion of the paper, I LOVED IT, I LOVED, I LOVED IT! I am unable to understand all the mathematics in the paper, but I can certainly understand the author's position. This is the very first 'alternative' to Special Theory that I can completely agree with. If you don't understand it, how can you possibly agree with it? Confirm your prejudices maybe? Tsk,tsk!

Confirm your prejudices maybe? Tsk,tsk! I agree, no one should take this paper as matter of fact. I only posted it for feedback.

So I cannot measure two objects accelerating identically then. Nice.

Or - If I measure them accelerating identically, then in their respective frames, they will not see the other stationary.
Exactly.

Exactly. Seems we have an experimentally verifiable test then.

Seems we have an experimentally verifiable test then.
Well, you need to find methods of measuring position and distance and take light propagation into account (which otherwise makes length contraction invisible) and the like, but yes, I'd say so. I don't think it's going to be easy to set up, though...

I don't think it's going to be easy to set up, though... Agreed.