Does Reciprocity Falsify Special Relativity?

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by MacM, Mar 4, 2006.

  1. DaleSpam TANSTAAFL Registered Senior Member

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    No, this is incorrect. Mass/energy would not be conserved either. As I carefully pointed out, according to your suggestion, at the instant of the new particle's creation there is less mass than there was previously, meanwhile the child particles are at rest and therefore have 0 KE. Therefore the missing mass is not accounted for by any extra KE. The KE is not restored in your view until after they accelerate, in the interim mass and energy and mass/energy are not conserved.


    OK, I can see this. You could propose another fundamental force, the Prosoothus force. This force could be conservative or at least it could have some sort of associated potential energy. At the instant of particle creation the particles would be at rest and the missing energy would be stored in the ProsoothusPE. It could then be released in order to accelerate the child particle, never to act on it again. Mass/KE would not be conserved but mass/(KE+ProsoothusPE) would be conserved.

    That is fine, but don't attempt to claim that Occam's razor favors this position. I see nothing fundamentally wrong with your theory, but it is unarguably more complicated than the standard approach.


    Again, I disagree. It may be easier for you to assume an unknown force, but it is easier for me to assume an initial velocity. Particles are weird enough that the idea of their being born moving at some speed doesn't bother me a bit. I see no justification for your assumption that the initial speed of a child particle is the same as the parent particle. Why that speed rather than some other? Since you have to pick a speed anyway it seems much easier and simpler to pick a speed that fits all of the observations and conservation principles without requiring the existence of an unknown and temporary fundamental force. Your Prosoothus force seems especially weird to me in the fact that it equally affects every single particle immediately after its creation and then never again thereafter. It would seem as though all particles are born with some Prosoothus "charge" that rapidly decays never to return. How is this preferable to being born with some relative velocity? Your suggestion seems self-consistent but needlessly complicated.


    This would not be a problem. A finite force could yield an infinite acceleration for a massless particle, so a photon would never need to travel at less than c.


    That would not be a problem either. Obviously your Prosoothus force causes the acceleration, no aether is required. Since the Prosoothus force only causes a particle's post-partum acceleration there is no reason to connect it with anything related to a particle's normal travel.

    -Dale
     
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  3. Rosnet Philomorpher Registered Senior Member

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    Instant velocity change does not require infinite energy. This is simple high school physics.

    ForceXDisplacement = Energy (Work done)

    F = f, S = s; E = fs
    F = 2f, S = s/2; E = fs
    F = 3f, S = s/3; E = fs
    F = 4f, S = s/4; E= fs

    So if we keep incresing the force, and proportionately decrease the displacement, the energy spent does not increase at all. This is what happens during an instantaneous velocity change, as in the case of an elastic collission, for example. The force (acceleration) is infinite and the displacement is infinitesimal. You can also think in terms of the time taken, and then you have the concep of impulse (Ft). You must have learnt this at school.
     
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  5. MacM Registered Senior Member

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    Are you deliberately trying to be difficult or did you miss the above change in verbage.

    I specifically changed the term from "Energy" to "Anything Physical". That is to say you are still stuck with an unachievable physical reality. There is no such thing as an infinite force or infinite anything physical.
     
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  7. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    You are thinking very classically. Paticles are born with certain charactistics, such as: mass, spin, charge, energy (or given the rest mass, if any, with speed to make that energy.) This physics is not the classical physics you are assuming. Probably nothing like a classical force is envolved, but I do not know much about the details of their birth. I am not sure any one does or even if the question makes any sense.

    Probably best to just recognize the creation process gives them these characteristics instantly. I.e. a beta ray (electron) does not get charged up to full charge like a condensor would be classically. Likewise it does not get speeded up to it final speed in some very short time by large forces. Nor does its mass accululate to the final value, for a zero start. etc. That is classical nonsense over extended, but why should I be surprised that you do this, again.

    BTW - It is a quite an achievable reality. Nature is doing it zillions to the zillionth power times each second (just in vacuum polarization events)!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 16, 2006
  8. DaleSpam TANSTAAFL Registered Senior Member

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    Surprisingly, I agree with MacM here (at least now that he has changed from infinite energy to infinite force). I don't think that it makes sense to talk about a particle being born at rest and then being instantly accelerated under the influence of an infinite force to its final velocity. There might be some QM justification for such a claim, but I am unaware of it.

    It makes much more sense for a particle simply to be "born" at its four-momentum-conserving velocity with no acceleration at all involved.

    -Dale
     
  9. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    One of us is miss-reading MacM.
    At 18 after the hour on the 13 he said:
    When error in this was pointed out, he replaced "infinite energy" with "infinite anything," but he is still assuming/ stating (as understand him) that newly created particle is created at rest and rapidly accelerated to its observed velocity by an almost infinite force, not that it is born with its "four-momentum-conserving velocity with no acceleration at all" as you put it. - That part of his initial erroneous assertion he has not retracted, anywhere I have seen.

    If that is the case, then you are NOT agreeing with MacM, but disputing him (as I did in my last post) with the idea that all of the characteristic of the new born particle are instant gifts to it. I.e. none of these characteristic (charge, speed, mass, spin) "quickly build up from zero to their final values." Specifically you and I believe that there never was the critical period of acceleration that is now the core of MacM's claims as to why one twin etc. is younger than the other, why "velocity history" is important and determins the SRT results, can not be avoided etc. either the train (or the embankment) must have been accelerated at some time in the past, even though both are in an inertail frames for all of the SRT experiment, MacM claims train (or the embankment) still remembers that in its velocity history , that it was accelerated.

    (In one of my old post, I tried to avoid the train having ever been accelerated to show him that acceleration prior to the inertial frame were not important, by having the train made, from iron atoms if that is required, in a factory that was already moving with the train's later inertial velocity, but of course, MacM did not like that either. In another post I had both of the twins delivered by foster mothers, just as they passed at high relative speed. Both mothesr were implanted with frozen embrios, 9 months earilier in their time. One of the frozen embrios did get accelerated to the frame years earier, but as frozen embrios do not age at liquid N2 temps, I thought MacM would admit that the SRT age difference could not be due to aging of a frozen embrio, but of course MacM did not buy that. - He loves his “velocity history” explanation of all of SRT's only "one way" results (in his view).

    I have been ignoring MacM until recently when he posted that even energy could record the "velocity history" and transfer it to the newly created particles etc. so I asked where and how was this information stored in a Joule, or X joules? This got the answer, sort of, that it is stored in the absolute space frame (or some such words I could not read a second time as my glasses fell off laughing).

    I have not exactly quoted MacM here. He has not used "velocity history" term for many months, but I can't keep up with his most recent terms, so I use his old ones. He is very consistent, in his ideas, and should not object to how I express his view that the pre-inertial frame, "acceleration" or "velocity history" single out one of the twins, muons, etc to be the one with time dilations but it is only a "one-way" effect. etc.

    A long time ago, he even gave some numbers where each twin (or was pair of particles - I forget) both had different accelerations and then speeds in "the absolute reference frame" and showed that the result of their different velocity histories would be seen in their “clock tick” rates as I recall. (“Tick rates” is another old favorite term of his, not in use much now.)

    Dale: Do not lose sight of why we are now talking about whether or not the new born muon was accelerated or not. For, MacM it is critical that it be as this acceleration is what "marks" the one to which SRT’s time dilation applies, even if it occurred long prior to the experiments done entirely in inertial frames. To insist as you and I (and many others do) that the muons were never accelerated, destroys*, MacM explanations, arguments that only “one-way” effects have been shown etc.
    -------------------------------------
    *"Destroys" is perhaps too strong. MacM is clever at escapes. I think he will claim that the marking of the "specail one" (the one for the one-way effects etc.) is provided by the information carried in the joules that created it, at least that was what he seemed to be stating that got me responding to him again a few days ago.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 16, 2006
  10. DaleSpam TANSTAAFL Registered Senior Member

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    BillyT, you are correct, the argument is not over. It is simply that the whole question of infinite acceleration is irrelevant to the argument since it is a (rare) point of agreement. Neither you nor I nor MacM nor presumably any others here believe that there is an infinite force or acceleration involved.

    -Dale
     
  11. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    I do not know,and want MacM to clearly state, but i think MacM is depending on the muons having been accelerated to explain why they are time dilated. That seems to be his POV with reguard to which of the twins, (even in the case that they never return to stand side by side again) is the one aging more slowly.

    What is your position MacM? Is it possible to have relative speeds of two "twins"* or observers and muons and yet neither has ever had any acceleration?
    -----------------------------------------
    *Babies delivered just as their mom's were passing at high speed. Whether or not they are genetically related is not the essence of the "twin paradox."
     
  12. MacM Registered Senior Member

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    How is it that you can take something so simple and over complicate it over and over?

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    Haven't you learned that issue of tick rate is a function of absolute velocity. Acceleration is only the artifact we see in changing of that velocity.

    http://redshift.vif.com/JournalFiles/Pre2001/V03NO2PDF/V03N2MON.PDF.
     
  13. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    No, I have not as IMHO, "absolute velocity" is only a construct of ill-informed minds.
    That is a question. - Not an answer to my question. Perhaps my question was too complex for you? I will try to make it more simple, perfectly clear, and expect an answer next time, not another question:

    Are muons accelerated (or not) when they are born (or very shortly afterwards) high in the Earth's atmsphere?

    I ask this because you have often stated words to the effect that:

    (1) Both clocks can not have "tick rates" slower than the other one.

    (2) That time is passing more slowly for the muons. - This finally granted after a long set of exchanges with me where you cleverness was clearly exhibited by your first proposing four different alternative reasons why they survive the trip down to Earth's surface.

    (3) You also now grant that SRT calculations of the muon time dilation may be correct, but only apply "one way." - Your general "reciprocity agrument" against much of SRT. (I.e. the muons do not observe Earth's clocks to be equally* slow wrt to their clocks.)

    (4) Now you support the idea that the frame which has experienced "absolute acceleration" in its "velocity history" is the one in which the clocks are permanently going slower, even if observed only while they are not accelertaing (I.e. observed only while in an inertial frame, they are still going slowly because of their prior "absolute accelerations" in their "velocity history.").

    Thus, as I believe you to have a logicl mind, I conclude from (2) and (4) that you belive that the muons were accelerated during their birth process and want to know if that is in fact what you do believe.

    PS if I have significantly miss-stated your position in (1) thru (4) above , please restated it correctly, in your own words.
    -------------------------------------------------
    *Word "equally" included as we both agree that Earth has had a "velocity history" very different from the muons, and you may think (probably do) that Earth's clocks are "going slow" compared to those at rest in the "absolute rest frame."

    I was glad to note, in the past, that unlike some, you recognized it is imposible, in principle, to determine which inertial frame is the "Absolute Rest Frame, ARF, but now you seem to be at least starting to believe the ARF is the one in which CMB (or Doppler shifts, etc.?) are most sysmetric.

    I will ask a question about your position on the determinability (or not) of the ARF later as you seem to be having problems answering even the simple question, limited to muons, in bold above.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 17, 2006
  14. MacM Registered Senior Member

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    Thetoric but ditto for Special Relativity.

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    I guess it can be seen that my prior post was to complex for your abilities. But in effort to try and respond at a level you can understand I'll repost the issue.

    Of course muons do not accelerate but then since they are created by flowing energy impacting the atmosphere at high relavistic velocity that really seems irrelevant since I have already pointed out that the tick rate has been found to be a function of absolute velocity against the CMB and not relative velocity to earth.

    The issue of acceleration only becomes an artifact which distinguishes which frame will undergo time dilation when two clocks "A" and "B" are initially at some inertial absolute velocity (relative rest to each other) having a specific tick rate and then one accelerates changing its absolute velocity to the CMB hence tick rate relative to the intitial rest frame.

    To which I note that you have failed to once show evidence or emperical data that such statement is incorrect.

    Don't get carried away here. I only grant that "IF" one accepts "Clock Dilation" as being a physical change in time and not merely a change in process.

    See reply to 2 above.

    I only conceed (and its not a concession since I have never claimed otherwise) that some processes have displayed a one way effective "Clock Dilation". That does not mean it is necessarily a change in time in any universal sense and can be applied to all things and circumstances.

    And in usueal fasion you believe incorrectly.


    I have always stated that you could not tell by Special Relativity which should be considred the rest frame (not absolute rest frame) but that understanding that "Reciprocity" was a false assertion of SR that in reality you could tell lwhich had accelerated more from some unseen ARF by virtue of which clock accumulated time slower.

    So there has been NO change in my views but I am merely now pointing to teting and studies which tend to confirm that view. I have also in the past posted a thread declaring the CMB was an ARF and it was ridiculed since the CMB is dynamic and not at rest even to itself.

    But it turns out that the view may be correct afterall.

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    I have no propblem answering. You are having problems grasping the answers.
     
  15. MacM Registered Senior Member

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    Thetoric but ditto for Special Relativity.

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    I guess it can be seen that my prior post was to complex for your abilities. But in effort to try and respond at a level you can understand I'll repost the issue.

    Of course muons do not accelerate but then since they are created by flowing energy impacting the atmosphere at high relavistic velocity that really seems irrelevant since I have already pointed out that the tick rate has been found to be a function of absolute velocity against the CMB and not relative velocity to earth.

    The issue of acceleration only becomes an artifact which distinguishes which frame will undergo time dilation when two clocks "A" and "B" are initially at some inertial absolute velocity (relative rest to each other) having a specific tick rate and then one accelerates changing its absolute velocity to the CMB hence tick rate relative to the intitial rest frame.

    To which I note that you have failed to once show evidence or emperical data that such statement is incorrect.

    Don't get carried away here. I only grant that "IF" one accepts "Clock Dilation" as being a physical change in time and not merely a change in process.

    See reply to 2 above.

    I only conceed (and its not a concession since I have never claimed otherwise) that some processes have displayed a one way effective "Clock Dilation". That does not mean it is necessarily a change in time in any universal sense and can be applied to all things and circumstances.

    And in usueal fasion you believe incorrectly.


    I have always stated that you could not tell by Special Relativity which should be considred the rest frame (not absolute rest frame) but that understanding that "Reciprocity" was a false assertion of SR that in reality you could tell lwhich had accelerated more from some unseen ARF by virtue of which clock accumulated time slower.

    So there has been NO change in my views but I am merely now pointing to teting and studies which tend to confirm that view. I have also in the past posted a thread declaring the CMB was an ARF and it was ridiculed since the CMB is dynamic and not at rest even to itself.

    But it turns out that the view may be correct afterall.

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    I have no problem answering. You are having problems grasping the answers.
     
  16. DaleSpam TANSTAAFL Registered Senior Member

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    ROFL!

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    -Dale
     
  17. MacM Registered Senior Member

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    LOL indeed. You should apply to be a speech writer for the prez.

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  18. Prosoothus Registered Senior Member

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    DaleSpam,

    I was being a little too restrictive in my statements. I do not necessarily believe that when the child particle is born it is travelling at the same speed as the parent, I'm simply stating that the "substance" that the child particle is composed of was part of the parent particle, and so it must have been accelerated to the final speed of the child particle at some point. In other words, the acceleration of the "substance" that makes up the child particle could have occured before the child particle became independent of the parent, but it must have occured.

    Actually it would be a problem because even though scientists claim that photons have no "mass", they actually posess both gravitational and inertial mass. They react with gravitational fields, and the exert a force on the source atom when first emitted, and exert a force on an object when absorbed or reflected by that object. The important thing is that they, and probably all energy and matter in the universe, have inertial mass (or momentum if that's what you want to call it) so they must follow two rules:

    1) Every object, whether matter or energy, that possesses the property of inertial mass, or momentum, will travel at a constant speed unless acted upon by a force.

    2) Every object, whether matter or energy, that possesses the property of inertial mass, or momentum, will gradually change its speed (accelerate or decelerate) when acted upon by a force.

    So if a "substance" was to accelerate from v1 to v2, it seems far more logical that at some point, a force caused that "substance" to accelerate from v1 to v2 instead of assuming that somehow that "substance" broke both of the rules listed above and simply "jumped" from v1 to v2 without going through any of the intermediate speeds. Don't you agree?

    Just because particles possess certain "weird" properties doesn't mean that its OK to make them even weirder if it's not necessary.
     
  19. DaleSpam TANSTAAFL Registered Senior Member

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    Perhaps it is so, but I would be very hesitant to use the word "must" when trying to apply essentially classical concepts to particles. On the other hand I see no reason why not. It would certainly make things more "classical" for there to be an intermediate "particle glop" in which the parent particles could exchange stuff and out of which the child particles could spew. I barely know enough particle physics to discuss what happens after an annihlation/creation event. I definitely don't know enough to intelligently discuss what hapens during one, or even if they have any duration for there to be a "during".


    No, I don't agree. I don't think a photon has any mass. What evidence do you have to claim that? Everything you have described above only indicates that photons have momentum, which is well known and fully consistent with SR. As you are probably aware momentum is distinct from mass, and both conservation principles (together with the conservation of energy) are distinct parts of the conservation of four-momentum. Experimentally, if a photon has any mass it is apparently less than 7E-17 eV. Plus, it doesn't really make sense to try to apply Newton's laws to objects with infinite time dilation.

    In any case, I thought that you had already decided up above that the acceleration you are wanting could have taken place "during" the particle creation. If so, then there is once again no need for a photon to travel at anything other than c.


    That's true, but waves generally travel at a particular speed without accelerating to that speed. So this aspect of particle creation is completely consistent with the well-accepted idea of wave-particle duality. That is largely why it has never bothered me, it just seems to be one of the many ways that they behave like waves.

    -Dale
     
    Last edited: Mar 17, 2006
  20. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    I am not at this time trying to show your statements to be either true or false, only trying to understand clearly what you are claiming or stating. Thank you for making it clear that you do not think the muons are accelerated. (Your previous emphases on which twin was accelerated, etc. and explicit statements about "velocity history," had me thinking you belived those things to be important.)

    As I now understand you, you are now saying that no matter which of the infinitely many different "velocity histories" or accelerations patterns a clock has had that all end up producing the same final velocity, Vcmb, in some inertial frame, the clock's tick rate in that inertial frame is a function of Vcmb only. Where Vcmb is the velocity of the clock in the frame in which the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (presumably left over from the "Big Bang") in the region of space near the sun is most symetric. Again if this is not your view, please state it correctly.

    I think you are also saying that this "most symetric frame" for CMB near sun is THE Absolute Rest Frame, ARF, and thus that Vcmb = Va, the absolute velocity of the clock. If any of this is wrong, please correctly state your view / belief.

    I do not at this moment care much what you believe or don't of SRT, but again I am just trying to understand clearly your statements. Thus, please illustrate, with algebraic symbols if you can in sciforum's limited facilities for equations, or with a few numerical examples in a table if neccessary, what this function is. I.e you say that the reduction factor for the clock tick rates is "a funtion of Va only" (Va = Vcmb, I am assuming you believe, but if that is not your belief, use Vcmb in your equations). My current "clarification question" is:

    What is that function?
    ______________________________________________
    PS to Dale, Yes that was funny. MacM often makes comments on his tormenter's character etc, instead of the physics. It is almost a defensive reflex with him, I think, when a good duck and weave is hard to produce. This time he just reacted without any thinking, but one must have some sympathy for him. He is often under simultaneous attack and needs to be quick. Just thank him for a good laugh.
     
  21. CANGAS Registered Senior Member

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    Dale:

    So, general waves have a speed without accelerating to that speed.

    If we look with our microscope at a wave being started in, say, helium gas, we see a particular atom, by pure luck at rest at the beginning of our observation, jostled by some wave-making object resulting in the helium atom obtaining momentum and kinetic energy and BEING ACCELERATED to some energy conservative velocity. It in turn jostles another atom or atoms and the wave is under way.
     
    Last edited: Mar 18, 2006
  22. DaleSpam TANSTAAFL Registered Senior Member

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    Exactly CANGAS

    Just as you describe, even for sound waves, where the individual atoms involved are accelerating and decelerating, the wave itself does not accelerate nor decelerate (assuming uniform material). Although personally I think the sound wave example is not as clear nor as relevant as an EM wave propagating through free space.

    -Dale
     
  23. CANGAS Registered Senior Member

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    But, Dale, even though you say that the sound wave example is not clear, YOU are the person who introduced the principle into this discussion, in your statement of GENERAL waves.

    -CANGAS
     

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