On Einstein's explanation of the invariance of c

The two clocks do not "tick as one" from the perspective of any observer moving with respect to them. There is no such thing as "absolute simultaneity"> Get used to it.

 

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Tach and phyti: in fairness, I believe that in a world of a preferred frame, absolute c velocity, and no length contraction (basically, MD's world) "absolute simultaneity" would also be possible. The world's possibility itself is what has problems.

What do you know of Michelson-Morley experiment, Motor Daddy? You've already said that the Earth's surface couldn't possibly possess "true zero velocity", yet the MMX was performed at that location with a negative result...

 

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Err, no. For a moving observer, the two clocks would tick at different rates even in Galilean kinematics. So does the Doppler effect rule.

 

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I don't think that's right Tach. I'm not talking about "seeing the clocks". With a preferred frame representing true zero velocity how is absolute simultaneity not possible (almost by definition)? You would have to know each party's absolute velocity but I made the case above that this might be fairly easy to do.

 

That's too bad.

 

I don't know much about it. Honestly, it makes my head spin. I do know that my sync method is different, as mine is the true concept of simultaneity, so if my sync method were to be used, it would certainly NOT come back with a negative result.

My world plays by the true meanings of simultaneously, and the very concepts and standards of distance and time. I play by all the rules as we know them, Einstein doesn't.

...and low and behold, I can tell you how fast I am going in a box in space, Einstein can't. Doesn't that strike you as odd, since my calculations all add up dead nuts with everything using my ways??

 

No problem. Take a ruler with a nail in the center of it, so it spins freely, and put one of two synced clocks labeled A and B on each end. Do you agree that if we do this in our hypothetical country, which has an absolute velocity of 180MPH, we will measure the light travel time from A-->B and B-->A to be DIFFERENT when the ruler is parallel to the country's absolute velocity, yet the SAME if the ruler is perpendicular to it?

That's similar to MMX, except they calculated the same light travel time in all directions.

 

That's interesting. Let's put you in a box in space, and make sure all you have is a clock synchronization method (which of course, you are free to choose--watches, lasers or other sources of light, radio etc) and no other observables.

How do you calculate the speed the box is traveling?

 

Well what should strike you as odd is that you're arguing for Newtonian physics with a finite velocity of c, and that you don't think that would have been the first and foremost presumption by every physicist in the world about 100 years ago. Do you think they abandoned "common sense" simply because Einstein told them to? Isn't it more likely that they abandoned common sense because the facts forced them to?

 

What do you mean they "calculated" the light travel times? You don't calculate the times, you measure them.

 

The definition of a meter has been in place since 1983. Light travel time IS distance.

 

You're right. Bad word choice. How about "observed"? They did it by separating the light, having part of it run the length of the apparatus arms, then bounce off a mirror and return to be combined back into a single beam which was observed. One would expect, in your world, to watch a changing interference pattern as the ruler is spun about, right?

 

The same way I did the country. Exactly the same way.

 

2 way light times?

 

Because the ONLY true way is to measure one-way light times in each direction. Unless they did that, the experiment is BS!

 

I gotta go, I'll be back.

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But in the country scenario you can tell one coast from the other (I'll assume because you know which way is west and east).

You have two synchronised clocks inside the box, how exactly do you use/observe the clocks so you can calculate the speed the box is traveling?

Do you place one of them at one end of the box and keep the other next to you? Then which end of the box would you choose to place the other clock, and why? Or supposing the box has four walls, would you place one clock (let's assume you have as many clocks as you need) against each wall and keep one? Then what?

 

East and west has nothing to do with it. Neither does either coast. You can measure any length, so in a box, you can measure a portion of the box's length and still have the absolute velocity. You are calculating distance and time using one way light travel times in each direction.

You do the experiment exactly the way I did with the country. It works for any length.

 

How do you get the absolute velocity by measuring a portion of the box's length? Don't you get "length" if you measure . . . length?

 

Two clocks a distance apart, synchronized like they are one.

If the one-way light travel times are the same in each direction, the box has a zero velocity. If the times are different, the box has a velocity. Look at how I arrived at the velocity in the country experiment. Same deal in the box.