Absolute Reference Frame
- Thread starter Prosoothus
- Start date
JamesR should read books before he talks erroneously about what they do not say. The books which I have referenced, on multiple occaisions, are full of quotes verifying my statement.
I know what a Minkowski spacetime diagram is. There has never been a post from me in these forums which states or even implies otherwise.
This is another case of JamesR either speaking ignorantly and slandering a fellow poster, or a case of deliberately lying and willingly slandering a fellow poster.
To follow this topic, I have found it amusing that JamesR has made very few posts on Relativity, and have wondered if it is because he has so little expertise that he prefers to try to hide it.
The pro Relativity "experts" who post often in this forum never get it right. Each has their own personal customized version, always different from textbook Relativity. Their fundamental lack of understanding is terrible because they do not even understand that the perfect self consistency of Special Relativity means that if they change any part of it, then they tumble it like a house of cards or a row of dominoes. When any of these "experts" is deviant in the slightest from original Relativity, they have a very heavy burden of proof to show that JRtivity, or Daletivity, or Petetivity is still self consistent. None have ever done so. Yet, each extolls a personal tweaked version that makes sense to them personally. They do so because the original Einstein version is not understandable or believeable to them. But unlike me, they do not have the integrity to say that there are things unbelieveable or already proven wrong in published science experiments.
JamesR, I am not going to waste time copying quote after quote after quote from all the books I have referenced. You should have already read them all years ago. You should not be trying to bluff your way now.
I know what a Minkowski spacetime diagram is. There has never been a post from me in these forums which states or even implies otherwise.
This is another case of JamesR either speaking ignorantly and slandering a fellow poster, or a case of deliberately lying and willingly slandering a fellow poster.
To follow this topic, I have found it amusing that JamesR has made very few posts on Relativity, and have wondered if it is because he has so little expertise that he prefers to try to hide it.
The pro Relativity "experts" who post often in this forum never get it right. Each has their own personal customized version, always different from textbook Relativity. Their fundamental lack of understanding is terrible because they do not even understand that the perfect self consistency of Special Relativity means that if they change any part of it, then they tumble it like a house of cards or a row of dominoes. When any of these "experts" is deviant in the slightest from original Relativity, they have a very heavy burden of proof to show that JRtivity, or Daletivity, or Petetivity is still self consistent. None have ever done so. Yet, each extolls a personal tweaked version that makes sense to them personally. They do so because the original Einstein version is not understandable or believeable to them. But unlike me, they do not have the integrity to say that there are things unbelieveable or already proven wrong in published science experiments.
JamesR, I am not going to waste time copying quote after quote after quote from all the books I have referenced. You should have already read them all years ago. You should not be trying to bluff your way now.
Last edited:
Bullshit.CANGAS said:
Put up or shut up, CANGAS.
Find a quote from any relativity text that states that the perception of light by the observer is the fundamental principle of Relativity.
Find a quote from any relativity text that states that raw observation is the definition of reality.
While you're at it, try naming a "highly regarded professional scientist" that has "seriously proposed time machines based on exactly the same absurd mis thinking that [you] expressed in [your] infamous clock and mirror post".
Certainly, I thought it was clear, but obviously I was wrong. I do, however, think it highly amusing that you of all people are demanding clarity in my posts.CANGAS said:
First, I said that the worldline of a photon is at 45º, this was in reference to the fact that in traditional spacetime diagrams lines of simultaneity are drawn horizontally and lines of constant position are drawn vertically. In such a diagram, and in typical units where c=1, a pulse of light travels along a diagonal worldline with a slope of 45º.
Second, you have asserted here that SR uses the "raw observation" of light signals (vs. "analyzing the observation") to determine reality. If this were so, then light lines would be lines of simultaneity, drawn horizontally in spacetime diagrams. In other words, if raw observation is used then my now receiving a 2:00 signal from a 1 light hour distant clock means that the distant clock is in fact now at 2:00, not the analyzed value of 3:00.
Third, since light pulse worldlines are clearly not horizontal in SR then the raw observation is clearly not what defines reality according to SR, but the analysis of the observation is what defines reality.
Finally, the very first thing described by Einstein was a synchronization procedure for SR. Your "raw observation" idea is not compatible with that synchronization procedure so it is not compatible with SR. In fact, with your "raw observation" idea synchronization would not even be reciprocal. If clock A reads 2:00 when A receives the 2:00 signal from clock B (1 light hour distant and at relative rest) then clock B would read 4:00 when B receives the 2:00 signal from A. So if your "raw observation" idea were the basis then according to A they are synchronized while according to B they are not.
-Dale
That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long timeCANGAS said:
Why don't you ask MacM how many posts James has made on Relativity?
I do agree that your version of special relativity is unbelievable and proven wrong in published scientific experiments.
But... my version differs from yours. However, it doesn't differ from Dale's James's, or the textbook version.
Hmmm...
Just one wll do.CANGAS said:
Have a guess at what James does for a living, CANGAS.
Everyone who has wasted their otherwise valuable time by actually reading "Relativity" by Albert Einstein, raise one finger. Just one will do. Don't be shy.
Nobody? OK.
Everyone who has wasted their otherwise valuable time by reading a book by Bertrand Russell, a close friend of Einstein's, explaining Relativity, raise one finger.
Nobody? OK.
When you are repeatedly told where to read a quote, in books which are very easily accessible to you, and you repeatedly say you don't know anything about it, then it is obvious to any innocent bystander that you are carrying out an agenda which is obnoxious to science and obnoxious to your fellow scientists.
Who do you think you are fooling?
Hey, I know. You have a pet salamander. Named DOPEY?
Nobody? OK.
Everyone who has wasted their otherwise valuable time by reading a book by Bertrand Russell, a close friend of Einstein's, explaining Relativity, raise one finger.
Nobody? OK.
When you are repeatedly told where to read a quote, in books which are very easily accessible to you, and you repeatedly say you don't know anything about it, then it is obvious to any innocent bystander that you are carrying out an agenda which is obnoxious to science and obnoxious to your fellow scientists.
Who do you think you are fooling?
Hey, I know. You have a pet salamander. Named DOPEY?
Last edited:
I have read Relativity. It is my belief that the quote you speak of does not exist.
I invite you to prove me wrong. You can find Relativity online, if you don't feel like visiting a library.
I haven't read Bertrand Russell, sorry, but if you give me the page or chapter and a quote, I'll duck over to the library and check it out.
When you make an assertion which is contested for lack of evidence, and if evidence of said assertion would be easily presentable if it existed, and yet you repeatedly refuse to present such evidence, then it is obvious to all concerned (innocent bystander's included) that you are full of crap.
I invite you to prove me wrong. You can find Relativity online, if you don't feel like visiting a library.
I haven't read Bertrand Russell, sorry, but if you give me the page or chapter and a quote, I'll duck over to the library and check it out.
When you make an assertion which is contested for lack of evidence, and if evidence of said assertion would be easily presentable if it existed, and yet you repeatedly refuse to present such evidence, then it is obvious to all concerned (innocent bystander's included) that you are full of crap.
If you have read Relativity and you did not understand that it told you that the raw observation of light from the observed object is the observer's basis of reality, then you have hopelessly unrepairable reading skills.
The book by Bertrand Russell is a very popular and easily found book, it is a small and quickly readable book, and it is beyond belief that you could claim to have exprtise in Relativity without having read it. You could endure the excruciating pain of taking two hours or so to read it without an exact chapter and verse, and it might not kill you.
Any and all of you who admit ignorance of such important books and claim to not understand the completely plainly written statements that, in Relativity, the raw observation of light from the observed object is the best evidence of reality, are truly the ones who are full of 'it.
The book by Bertrand Russell is a very popular and easily found book, it is a small and quickly readable book, and it is beyond belief that you could claim to have exprtise in Relativity without having read it. You could endure the excruciating pain of taking two hours or so to read it without an exact chapter and verse, and it might not kill you.
Any and all of you who admit ignorance of such important books and claim to not understand the completely plainly written statements that, in Relativity, the raw observation of light from the observed object is the best evidence of reality, are truly the ones who are full of 'it.
Nice rhetorical strategy, CANGAS. I agree, when you have no evidence to support your own claims and no arguments to refute your opponents claims, then an ad hominem attack is the best strategy even if that too cannot be supported with any actual evidence.
-Dale
-Dale
Interesting claim. I personally wouldn't have placed Russell as a seminal author in physics, but I'm no expert on Russell, or on any Physics topic.CANGAS said:
I've never claimed expertise in relativity, special or general. If you perceive me as an expert, that's a fault in your perception.
I do claim a sound understanding of the fundamentals of special relativity.
I do not claim a sound understanding of the fundamentals of general relativity.
Thanks, CANGAS, I'll take your advice. I believe the title you are referring to is "ABC of Relativity"?
And yet you seem unable to produce even one of these plainly written statements? I'm not surprised... it is quite difficult to produce something that doesn't exist, isn't it?
I'll read Russell, and get back to you with apologies if I find what you can't.
Last edited:
CANGAS said:
I never said that. But of course, that's never stopped you from putting words in my mouth in the past. I'm sorry that you're too stupid to understand what I do say, but that doesn't give you any license to attribute to me things that I did not say.
No one knows what photons do in between emissiona and detection.
Again: Tom2 doesn't say anything of the sort. We judge the speed of light by measuring the distance between source and detector, and then by measuring the time interval between source and detection. Divide them, and you get the speed of light.
This is just plain stupid. SR wasn't derived from the photon picture at all. It's derived from Maxwell's electrodynamics, which is by far more logical than anything you could ever come up with. SR was incorporated into the theory of photons (QED) after the fact. And no, the assumption that photons travel in well-defined straight line paths isn't logical at all. You simply need to study (among many, many other things) quantum theory.
CANGAS said:
How idiotic. This is no different from saying that it is beyond belief that one could claim expertise in relativity without having read On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies or the SR textbook by Max Born. They're just as arbitrary. The truth is that one needn't have studied any particular book to master relativity, as long as one has studied it from some good (and sufficiently advanced) source. If one were to master the material on SR contained in the sequence of Taylor and Wheeler (Spacetime Physics), then Griffiths (EM), Goldstein (Mechanics), and then Jackson (EM) then there would be no sense in which that person could not be said to have mastered SR.
At least, such a person will have mastered SR to a much higher degree than any of the anti-SR dolts at this website.
CANGAS said:
This is completely absurd. Completing CANGAS' relativity reading list is hardly a prerequisite to mastering relativity. It certainly hasn't helped you.
Have you actually even read Russell's book, CANGAS? It would seem not since you are grossly misrepresenting what the book states. The book is here on my shelf, so let me select a few quotes to illustrate your deceit.
Ch 2, p 17
"A certain type of superior person is fond of asserting that 'everything is relative'. This is, of course, nonsense, because, if everything were relative, there would be nothing for it to be relative to. However, without falling into metaphysical absurdities it is possible to maintain that everything in the physical world is relative to an observer. This view, true or not, is not that adopted by the 'theory of relativity'. Perhaps the name is unfortunate; certainly it has led philosophers and uneducated people into confusions."
Ch 2, p 18
"Physicists, like ordinary people, believe that their perceptions give them a knowledge about what is really occurring in the physical world, and not only about their private experiences. Professionally, they regard the physical world as 'real', not merely as something which human beings dream. An eclipse of the sun, for instance, can be observed by any person who is suitably situated, and is also observed by the photographic plates that are exposed for the purpose. The physicist is persuaded that something has really happened over and above the experience of those who have looked at the sun or at photographs of it. I have emphasized this point , which might seem a trifle obvious, because some people imagine that relativity made a difference in this respect. In fact it has made none."
One could hardly ask for a more clear condemnation of your claim that perceptions of light are the basis of reality in the theory of relativity.
I would really recommend that you go back and actually read Russells' book, CANGAS. It is quite good, and you might learn something if you keep an open mind.
Just out of interest, CANGAS, have you read Misner, Thorne, & Wheeler (Gravitation)?
I had a stab, but found it too heavy going and couldn't find a spare year to slog through it.
:m: *cue segue to flashback* :m:
Halliday and Resnick (Fundamental of Physics) was my first exposure to relativity at a physics camp in high school. They used Einstein's standard train and explosions (but substituting spaceship for train, and meteor strikes for explosions) discussion of why simultaneity must be relative if the speed of light is frame-independent, and I didn't get it. I was so sure it was inconsistent, and actually drafted a letter to the authors pointing out their error (which I never posted). I remember a nasty argument with some grad students, who were a bit fuzzy on the idea, but (to my disdain) weren't convinced it was wrong. The actual words used by one were very close to "Look, I don't completely understand it either, but this is Resnick and Halliday we're talking about. They must be right."
I didn't know the phrase "appeal to authority" then, but I knew bogus when I smelled it, and quickly reached the conclusion that "if these grads don't get it, then obviously nobody actually understands it. It's obvious why - it's logically inconsistent, so it can't be understood. Clearly, everyone just believes what the textbook says and noone is thinking for themselves."
It was much later, with the help of the 'Net and some interesting discussions (polite but sometimes heated) with JamesR and others (not here) that I figured out the meaning of that particular idea.
From a teaching point of view, I'm not happy with that particular gendanken - it's too easy to misinterpret. I think it may have produced more disillusioned physicist wannabees than any other technically correct textbook element.
Hmm... that was an interesting sidetrack. Took me right down memory lane.
I had a stab, but found it too heavy going and couldn't find a spare year to slog through it.
:m: *cue segue to flashback* :m:
Halliday and Resnick (Fundamental of Physics) was my first exposure to relativity at a physics camp in high school. They used Einstein's standard train and explosions (but substituting spaceship for train, and meteor strikes for explosions) discussion of why simultaneity must be relative if the speed of light is frame-independent, and I didn't get it. I was so sure it was inconsistent, and actually drafted a letter to the authors pointing out their error (which I never posted). I remember a nasty argument with some grad students, who were a bit fuzzy on the idea, but (to my disdain) weren't convinced it was wrong. The actual words used by one were very close to "Look, I don't completely understand it either, but this is Resnick and Halliday we're talking about. They must be right."
I didn't know the phrase "appeal to authority" then, but I knew bogus when I smelled it, and quickly reached the conclusion that "if these grads don't get it, then obviously nobody actually understands it. It's obvious why - it's logically inconsistent, so it can't be understood. Clearly, everyone just believes what the textbook says and noone is thinking for themselves."
It was much later, with the help of the 'Net and some interesting discussions (polite but sometimes heated) with JamesR and others (not here) that I figured out the meaning of that particular idea.
From a teaching point of view, I'm not happy with that particular gendanken - it's too easy to misinterpret. I think it may have produced more disillusioned physicist wannabees than any other technically correct textbook element.
Hmm... that was an interesting sidetrack. Took me right down memory lane.
Last edited:
OK, I found a paper that I had read earlier that gives the results of an actual experiment involving atomic clock carring aircraft from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The paper is about Dynamic Two-Way Time Transfer on moving platforms using a geostationary satellite. There are some very interesting effects that I think many here will find illuminating. It is somewhat difficult to understand how these effects interact in the experiment. Pay particular attention to the Sagnac effect, and how it effects the geostationary satellite time transfer sequence.
http://www.timing.com/products/pubs/Airborn_ Platforms.pdf
My own 2 cents: I could never really follow the written relativity of simultaneity gendankens - they left me the impression that the effect was an illusion. It only "clicked" when I saw an animation of a moving spacecraft with rays of light moving toward the front and back end, hitting mirrors at different times, and returning simultaneously to the centre of the craft.Pete said: