The Bible: Energy = "nothing"? or 0?

[Pinball1970]

One can't measure time data based on imaginary time dilation

One clock doesn't, a clock in a particular reference frame measures time at one second per second. Another clock moving with respect to that clock will be in a different reference frame also measuring time at one second per second, that is when the two clocks will go out if the velocity is high enough.
This has been demonstrated many times and has to be factored into GPS systems.

 

[Pinball1970]

They were not doing physics

No but they were describing parts of the universe they could see and experience like the Sun, moon and stars.
Poetry in places by some authors and more of a history and claim by others. Here is the moon, god made the moon kind of a thing.

 

[No Ghost In This Shell]

Well, dilation of time dies when reality shows that nothing is at rest

At rest with respect to what?

and we are traveling at 1.34 million miles per hour

Travelling with respect to what?

 

[James R]

Luchito:

I was hoping you would provide some kind of experimental evidence of a flaw in the theory of relativity. But you have not identified any experimental evidence that shows any flaw.

Maybe there's no flaw. Have you considered that possibility?

I think the flaw of the infamous Twin Paradox lean on assumptions, like the ones mentioned above.

Yes, it does. And once we carefully examine the assumptions, we discover that there's no actually paradox to be found. This means that the Twin Paradox is not a problem that somehow disproves the theory of relativity. Do you understand?

No one in this universe is "resting".

I asked you how fast you are moving right now, as you read this. Can you give me the speed in miles per hour or something like that? If you can't how do you know you're not "resting"?

The third frame of reference (Mike Johnson located between earth and Venus) is showing that no matter if an airplane, a satellite or anything is surrounding earth a faster speed that a person resting on the sand drinking his Corona in the beach.

It sounds like you think the person resting on the sand is "resting" and the airplane is moving. Is that correct?

Is the person on the sand going at 0 miles per hour, then?

From Mike's frame of reference, the guy in the beach and the satellite are both traveling at 67,000 miles per hour.

The guy on the beach is moving at 67,000 miles per hour, is he? Even though he is resting on the sand?

Where did you get the 67,000 miles per hour figure from?

And, the guy and the satellite orbiting our planet are traveling together with the sun at 514,000 miles per hour.

So is the guy on the beach going at 67,000 miles per hour, or at 67,000+514,000 miles per hour?

And, the guy in the beach, the satellite, the sun, and the Milky way, are all of them traveling at 1.34 million miles per hour.

So is the guy on the beach moving at 0 miles per hour, or is he travelling at 67,000 miles per hour, or 67,000+514,000 miles per hour, or at 67,000+514,000+1340000 miles per hour?

What is his speed in that "physical existing reality" of yours?

I don't see how time will do to dilate in such circumstances.

I don't think we're ready to discuss time dilation yet. You can't even seem to say how fast something is moving. Seems like the same thing (e.g. guy on a beach) is moving at several different speeds, all at the same time.

Does that seem like a problem to you? Or not?

Can you believe it? We are actually traveling at 1.34 million miles per hour.

Is that our "actual" speed? So not 67,000+514,000+1340000 miles per hour, then?

Where did you get the 1340000 miles per hour number from, Luchito?

If we do so, then the guy resting on the sand of the beach is not resting at all, he is traveling with us as well.

How do you know we're all travelling and not "resting"?

Of course, the comparison of the guy resting on the beach with the guy traveling in spaceship is good to satisfy numbers written in a piece of paper in order to fit a hypothesis.

Is it?

But, as I said before, I don't review a theory based on its doctrines, I review it based on evidence.

What evidence did you use to determine that you and I are travelling at 1.34 million miles per hour?

Allow me please to explain. If a person tells me God exists and he shows me the Bible, if I want to investigate his claims, I will use his bible as a reference of his claims only, but the doctrines are out.

What's the difference between a claim and a doctrine?

From here, I will look for a different source that is against the existence of God.

If you find two sources and one says there is a God while the other says there isn't, how do you determine which is true and which is false?

After doing so, I use the weight scale and obtain my conclusion based on the source with more evidence.

So the truth comes down to whatever idea is more popular?

What do you mean by "more evidence"? Explain.

In my opinion, we don't need a better theory of the same class to replace a current theory.

If the current theory makes predictions that don't match what we observe, then we do need a better theory, don't we?

We can obtain new theories to explain each phenomenon in particular.

A whole separate theory for each phenomenon? Is that necessary?

Wouldn't it be better if we could use just one theory to explain a whole lot of different phenomena?

Bible says one knows another person by its fruits, and the fruits of Relativity are way away from reality.

You haven't given a single example of where a prediction of the theory of relativity has been falsified by experiment, so far.

Why, then, are you concluding that relativity is way away from reality?

It seems to me that you don't even know how fast we're going.

 

[James R]

(continued...)

The reason for not giving importance to the mathematical side of the theories of Relativity, is because I found them to be abstract mathematics.

It sounds like you're saying "I don't understand all that complicated mathematics stuff, so what use is it to me? Bah, humbug! It must be worthless."

Is that what you're saying? That it's stupid because you don't understand it?

That strikes me as the kind of attitude a small child who is struggling in school might have.

In many cases, like with Relativity theories, the mathematics based in assumptions turns the whole scenario to a kind of entertainment.

But the theory of relativity has been tested experimentally. Tests show that the theory makes correct predictions.

Entertainment is irrelevant to that, isn't it?

Reality is totally different than a chess game.

How do you know that reality is different to what relativity says it is?

If it was, then all those experiments wouldn't give the answers that relativity predicts. Right?

But they do.

One doesn't need to be a genius to understand mathematically the Relativity theories, one only need to love mathematics to feel attractive to those theories and play all day long with their formulas and equations.

I agree. I wouldn't call myself a genius, but I understand the mathematics of Relativity, to a certain level of expertise.

Does it bother you that some other people understand the mathematics while you do not? Are you jealous?

"Oh, the maths MUST be wrong, because I don't understand it. Waaahh! Mummy, take the nasty maths away!"

Well, dilation of time dies when reality shows that nothing is at rest and we are traveling at 1.34 million miles per hour.

Please show me how you worked out that we are travelling at 1.34 million miles per hour.

Then tell me why that is a problem for relativity.

That prediction is invalid.

Which prediction is invalid? Be specific.

No need to make new calculations but just take a piece of paper, making drawings of earth, of the solar system, of the Milky Way and observe them while checking their speeds.

Is that what you did? Made some drawings and checked that your speed is 1.34 million miles per hour?

What did you do to check?

By the way, I discovered that science the simpler the better.

Seems to me that the science is as complex as it needs to be to accurately model the natural phenomena it is trying to describe.

Simple and wrong is not as good as complex and correct, in science.

The new findings have been published throughout the years, and the related to the topic are many.

Please link me to some of these new published findings that show that relativity is wrong, so that I can review the relevant studies for myself.

Like the one I told you about astronauts body reactions in space.

How are astronauts' body reactions in space at all relevant to the theory of relativity?

You see, when you relate to the claims of relativity about traveling at such and such speed and the person will age slower than a person resting on ground zero, well, there are several factors in reality that at the end differ or contradict the claims of Relativity.

Please explain several of the factors in reality that at the end contradict the claims of relativity. Give me the details.

I think you're just making stuff up and hoping nobody will notice your bullshit.

And that is the point. You move away from me or, I move away from you. Well, that's all, nothing magical must have to happen.

Relative motion is not magical, then?

That seems like a good idea to start with.

Just motion of one body away from another body. No matter if walking or traveling in a spaceship, is just one body moving away from another body. If Relativity says that something extra happens, other than motion of bodies, and claims that time will dilate, here is when the relativist must come clear and precise and provide a definition of time including such particularity of dilating by causes of motion or gravity.

That's really not necessary. The relativist can just propose an experiment to test whether time dilates as advertised or not. For example, the relativist can measure the average time it takes for a muon to decay after it is made. Then the relativist can measure the number of muons that reach the ground after being produced in the upper atmosphere. Without relativity, the relativist expects that the vast majority of the muons will decay before reaching the ground. With relativity, on the other hand, the relativist predicts that most of the muons will reach the ground before decaying. The predictions of ratios can be made quantitatively using the theory, then tested against actual data. (I've done this particular experiment myself.)

Guess what? The results of the experiment can only be made sense of by using the relativistic theory. Ignoring relativity gives predictions that don't match the experimental results.

What this experiment is doing, essentially, is comparing the rates of two "clocks" - one carried by the travelling muon and one that is stationary on the ground in the laboratory. The results confirm that, while the muons are travelling (at a significant fraction of the speed of light), the two clocks run at different rates.

Note: nowhere in that explanation did I "provide a definition of time". There's no need. Time is just what the clocks measure.

The definition must be testable, because science demands it.

How could a definition be "testable"? It's true by definition.

The example of the Twin Paradox lean on two frames of reference only, and appears to fit "perfectly" with the theory in question.

... and it's not a paradox. So, seems like there isn't a problem. Good.

But, adding a third frame of reference immediately invalidates the claims of Relativity.

Please explain why adding a third frame invalidates relativity. Which claims does it invalidate, exactly, and why? Explain.

I push hard the mention of those words together because I want to make clear that I'm not talking based on imaginations.

You've admitted that you are ignorant about what the theory says and about why it says what it says. You've admitted you don't know the mathematics.

What have you got to go on, then, other than your imagination?

Just remember that Albert says that imaginations are more important than knowledge.

He didn't say that imagining something makes it real. And he didn't say that knowledge is a waste of time, either.

Well, to me, when is about science, surely knowledge is more important than imaginations.

You are overconfidently trying to attack the theory of relativity without having any knowledge about it. If knowledge is so important to you, why don't you think you need any in this case?

 

[James R]

(continued...)

One can't measure time data based on imaginary time dilation.

One doesn't have to imagine time dilation to measure time data. You've seen clocks, haven't you?

Having that time is itself solely a measure, a measure obtained by comparing my motion against the motion of earth in reference to the sun (rotation of earth), the time data provided by a clock will tell me the duration of my traveling from North Caroline to Georgia. This is having a clock as an instrument giving time data based on the rotation of earth.

I doubt very much that any clock you'd want to use to measure the duration of your trip from North Carolina to Georgia would depend on the rotation of the Earth in any way.

Clear up the controversial Twin Paradox, and after that I might give you another example.

What do you want me to clear up for you about the Twin Paradox?

To even understand the apparent paradox, you'd first need to understand why time dilation is predicted to occur at all. Then you'd need to understand why the theory predicts that one twin will end up younger than the other.

It's only after you understand those things that we could begin to discuss why people suggested there was a paradox, and then eventually we could get to why those people were wrong about there being a paradox.

But you're not willing to study the theory. You're far too lazy and/or incompetent for that. Right?

I say this because so far, I have not read an answer from you certifying the certainty of those claims that cried for time dilation.

See above for a specific example of actual experimental evidence for time dilation. There are many more confirmed examples, of course.

Time dilation in the Twin Paradox doesn't claim that one of the bodies must be rested in order to happen, it only uses the assumed body at rest in order to compare assumed results when comparing ages, the guy at rest and the guy in motion.

Yes. Hence the name "relativity". It's a theory of relativity. It's concerned with relative motion.

Very well, everybody here is traveling at 1.34 million years per hour.

How do you know? (See above.)

Oh my, I guess time must be right now stretched bigger than the universe itself.

Relative to what or whom?

Worst thing is that me traveling at 1.34 million years per hour doesn't make me feel that I'm not aging.

Why is that bad?

I guess Job didn't feel we are moving that fast around the universe.

Well, he wouldn't, would he? He was on a planet that is in free-fall through space - just like you are.

You know, the protecting atmosphere avoids the sensation of traveling at 67,000 miles per hour around the sun.

The atmosphere moves at 67,000 miles per hour along with the ground, I suppose.

I also guess that if Job knew the speed we are traveling right now in space, that he will use the word "moving" instead of "hanging".

Does it surprise you that 2000 B.C.E goat herders had a less sophisticated understanding of physics than 21st century scientists?

Job ignore our physical existent reality, we are continually moving.

He wouldn't have been aware of it. He would have thought he lived on a flat earth with a firmament above.

Do YOU think we live on a flat earth with a firmament above, Luchito?

I don't know, but I think Albert also ignored the same.

Developing his theory relied very much on Albert not ignoring it.

"Let us now (In German language "imagine that) a second clock which is permanently situated at the origin (x^1=0) of k^1. t^1=0 and t^1=I are two successiveticks for this clock. The first and fourth equation of the Lorentz transformation give of these two ticks:

Formula

As judged from K, the clock is moving with velocity v; as judged from this reference body, the time which elapses between two strokes of the clock is not one second but

Formula

seconds, i.e. a somewhat larger time. As a consequence of its motion the clock goes more slowly than when at rest...
The Behavior of Measuring-Rods and Clocks in Motion, Relativity, The Especial and General Relativity.

Do you understand what any of that is about? Why did you quote this part, in particular?

And in chapter Behavior of Clocks and Measuring-Rods on a Rotating Body of Reference, you have the imaginary experiment given by Albert. Please try it.

In my imagination?

Make the disc (according to his instructions, if any) install the mechanical clocks (in his years there weren't electric clocks, battery clocks, atomic clocks) and check if the clocks behave as he assumed. He assured the clocks will behave as stated in the previous chapter (given right above) based on Lorentz transformations.
Good luck with that.

Has it occurred to you to consider why this is a "thought experiment" and not a real experiment?

You play domino with your friends. You started the game after breakfast. The game lasted until the sun started to disappear from the horizon. You check your clock, all day time playing the game. When using your clock giving you time data, you are comparing the period playing the game in based of the regular motion of the rotation of earth.

You can use the Sun's apparent motion as a kind of clock, if you like, certainly.

Now well, when you claim that the rotation of earth in reference to the sun is not "perfectly regular", well, what do you expect? When God created heavens and earth God said that he created was good, he never mention that was perfect.

I'm just making the point that the imperfection is why we don't define the second in terms of the rotation of the Earth, these days. We have much more precise ways to measure a second, now.

To me, seconds more seconds less, the rotation of earth is regular to me, and fits with the definition of time given before.

It is a clock of sorts. I don't disagree. There are much better clocks, but it's good enough for some purposes.

(Have you heard of "leap seconds"? If not, try googling them.)

Time is the measure, The clock provides time data, but you can say that measures time, same when weight is the measure, the weight scale provides weight data, but you can say that measures weight.

Okay. Sounds like we're in agreement that clocks measure time. Good.

Use the regular dropping of water from a fountain as a clock. Somebody counts the drops and compare them with you cleaning the house. The given data is time.

So water drops can be used as a kind of clock, to measure time. Fine. Time is what clocks measure. Okay.

Compare the orbit of earth around the sun.

Compare it to what?

Each complete orbit is a year. You use such data for many uses. For the warranty of your car, for the days you were sick, for remember your birthday, etc.

In our modern calendars, years are defined by a certain number of seconds ticked off by very accurate clocks. The actual "year", as measured on our atomic clocks, is approximately the same as the time taken for Earth to orbit the sun once, of course. But it's not exact.

But yes, in general, any regular motion or decay can be used to obtain time data.

In other words, we can use many different types of physical devices as clocks to measure time. I'm so glad we agree about this much.

If you use your heart bits as regular motion, then each heart bit can be called -as example- beete. From here, you can check how many beetes takes your dog to finish his food.

Yes. Where are you going with all this?

Very well. You define time as something that clocks measure.

What exactly is "something" in your definition?

The thing that clocks measure. Call it duration. Call it a time interval. Call it time. Whatever it is, we often use the letter "t" for it in the relevant mathematical equations of physics.

 

[Pinball1970]

but hard to tell apart in the observations. see the 'Humbled by Hubble thread.

Professional physicists/ astronomers seem to be able manage ok.

 

[Luchito]

Luchito:

I was hoping you would provide some kind of experimental evidence of a flaw in the theory of relativity. But you have not identified any experimental evidence that shows any flaw.

Maybe there's no flaw. Have you considered that possibility?

I have not read your entire reply, but in advance I can ask you to show all the "thought" experiments made by Einstein being tested in accord to his examples, like building a clock with lights and mirrors, as an example. After more than 100 years, his thought experiments should have been performed and tested, in order to make his predictions valid.

You just can't predict the harvest of grains using the harvest of fruits. Same as well, you just can't predict the behavior of a clock made with mirrors in a moving vehicle by predicting the behavior of atomic clocks in space. Not, sir. That is not how science works.

Have you considered the possibility of performing the whole Einstein's thought experiments with physical means and test if the experiments results fit the claims of Einstein?

Yes, it does. And once we carefully examine the assumptions, we discover that there's no actually paradox to be found. This means that the Twin Paradox is not a problem that somehow disproves the theory of relativity. Do you understand?

Let me see something. Hm hm, I can notice that Richard P. Feynman was a strong defender of the Twin Paradox. I guess you have today a better understanding than him about this invented idea. And Feynman explained the paradox with unusual details to his classes in the university. It was part of the class about Relativity. I guess again, that the curriculum in universities do not include the Twin Paradox as Feynman used to do.

I asked you how fast you are moving right now, as you read this. Can you give me the speed in miles per hour or something like that? If you can't how do you know you're not "resting"?

I know I'm not resting in space because the earth orbits around the sun, and I am standing over the earth's surface. I don't need references like numbers, enough is to know the earth is moving.

It sounds like you think the person resting on the sand is "resting" and the airplane is moving. Is that correct?

Is the person on the sand going at 0 miles per hour, then?

The guy on the beach is moving at 67,000 miles per hour, is he? Even though he is resting on the sand?

Where did you get the 67,000 miles per hour figure from?

The speed catalogued to earth when orbits around the sun.

So is the guy on the beach going at 67,000 miles per hour, or at 67,000+514,000 miles per hour?

Nope.

Such calculations make no sense at all. Like to say, you turn on a flashlight inside a train moving at 45 miles per hour. In paper, you can say the light speed inside the train is 186,000 miles per second plus 45 miles per hour, or similar ideas.

In reality, if the light never goes outside the train, and is trapped on a wall that absorbs it, the light speed was no more than 45 miles per hour. The only way for considering the speed light was 186,000 miles per second is when this light beam exit the train and travels in front of the train. But, a light inside the train, no matter its speed, as long as the light is inside the train, its traveling is at 45 miles per hour.

Same with a satellite or spaceship surrounding planet earth, as long as it travels attached to earth, from a distance like Jupiter -as an example- what is observed is that the planet and the satellite are both traveling at 67,000 miles per hour.

Science is beautiful, and the simpler, the better.

So is the guy on the beach moving at 0 miles per hour, or is he travelling at 67,000 miles per hour, or 67,000+514,000 miles per hour, or at 67,000+514,000+1340000 miles per hour?

What is his speed in that "physical existing reality" of yours?

When man invented the term speed, as a rate of motion, man used a reference. The reference was to find a measure of a period observing the motion of an object or body in comparison to a regular motion, like rotation of earth.

The first measures, as it is known, were simpler. Old writings said that going from one town to another town took two days walking. Later, when hours, minutes, seconds were invented, those fractions of a day were used as part of the reference. Then, we have the distance and the time data together to conform speed.

The numbers given by me on speed of the sun, speed of the galaxy, are calculations made by someone and have been accepted in the scientific community as valid. You or I can use those references, not to be used as "facts" but as references.

 

[Luchito]

I don't think we're ready to discuss time dilation yet. You can't even seem to say how fast something is moving. Seems like the same thing (e.g. guy on a beach) is moving at several different speeds, all at the same time.

Does that seem like a problem to you? Or not?

Taken individually, yes, the motion sure between both sure is different. But as a whole, that is a complete different scenario. But, go ahead.

Is that our "actual" speed? So not 67,000+514,000+1340000 miles per hour, then?

No, there is no addition, never was, never will. That is not happening in the "physical existing reality". And reality rules.

Where did you get the 1340000 miles per hour number from, Luchito?

Two or three websites when you ask the speed of our galaxy, the speed of the sun, etc.

How do you know we're all travelling and not "resting"?

The simple fact that we orbit around the sun is telling you you are traveling.

Lets use reality again.

You travel in an airplane and won't move from your seat. You say you are traveling at rest inside the airplane. But the fly attendant moves from back to front all the time. The airplane travels at 200 miles per hour, the fly attendant walks at four feet per hour. According to you, when she walks towards the pilot cabin, she is traveling at 200 miles four feet per hour. Excuse me but, you must be kidding. Anyone from ground can observe that the airplane and everything inside of it is traveling at 200 miles per hour. If you have learnt differently, I think science in schools and in universities must be reviewed.

What evidence did you use to determine that you and I are travelling at 1.34 million miles per hour?

What's the difference between a claim and a doctrine?

If you find two sources and one says there is a God while the other says there isn't, how do you determine which is true and which is false?

Evidence, of course.

So the truth comes down to whatever idea is more popular?

No. Look at today, the most popular theories are the ones that have no truth inside them.

What do you mean by "more evidence"? Explain.

When you read the different theories, usually their evidence is circumstantial. The defenders of those theories take their circumstantial evidence as sure facts, but those are not sure facts. Like saying dinosaurs were extincted 67 million years ago. To obtain those results what was measured was the stones or minerals in the bones. That is not a sure fact, that is circumstantial evidence. Can be accepted and can be rejected. In either case, both sides are equally accepted with their conclusions, because there is no sure factual evidence.

You discard all the circumstantial evidence found in theories, and you find out those theories have not a solid foundation.

If the current theory makes predictions that don't match what we observe, then we do need a better theory, don't we?

Not necessarily. A theory of the same class can be avoided and more accurate theories can appear. When a theory is discarded is no mandatory its replacement.

A whole separate theory for each phenomenon? Is that necessary?

Of course, Don't you agree with "diversity"?

Wouldn't it be better if we could use just one theory to explain a whole lot of different phenomena?

Naah. That sounds infantile. I remember I heard about the attempt of creating the theory of everything. Instead of facts and evidence, the idea was reuniting the whole theories to form a solid one. Then, half validated theories were to form part of that unique theory of everything. And you know that a half truth is a complete lie. Definitively such initiative was not oriented to a better understanding of the universe.

You haven't given a single example of where a prediction of the theory of relativity has been falsified by experiment, so far.

Why, then, are you concluding that relativity is way away from reality?

It seems to me that you don't even know how fast we're going.

If you read my former reply, I gave you the name of the book and the chapters to find an experiment suggested by Albert. I think I challenged you to perform the experiment. Remember that no experiment means no certification validating the theory in question. Try doing it, if you can of course. Better to build the clock with mirrors he also suggested for backing up his ideas.

I think that at the end, the one who tries doing those thought experiments will end like Job, bubbling a lot but talking nothing valuable. I wonder if Job was a relativist when he implied the earth was "at rest" on space?

 

[beil]

Professional physicists/ astronomers seem to be able manage ok.

we are ending up discussing 'Energy' on the 'Religion' forum. appropriately perhaps.
I do not remember reading that the proportion of the 3 redshift causes, Hubble constant components have been filtered, separated out. What it all has in common, though, is, that
it all took a lot of doing, energy, and even more to cause an acceleration as proposed. so:
Just because we figure out now, how the universe works, does not mean it is not work (aka the use of energy)(the ability to do work) in the first place.

 

[James R]

Luchito:

I have not read your entire reply...

Well, that's a pity. I hope you get to the rest later. In the meantime, I'd like to reply to the new stuff you've written.

I hope you can manage to keep up.

... I can ask you to show all the "thought" experiments made by Einstein being tested in accord to his examples, like building a clock with lights and mirrors, as an example. After more than 100 years, his thought experiments should have been performed and tested, in order to make his predictions valid.

It really doesn't matter what thought experiments helped Einstein to develop his theory. The fact is that the theory is quantitatively predictive, testable and tested. Its predictions have matched experimental and observational evidence from every relevant test that has been conducted over a period of more than 100 years.

Some thought experiments are impractical to test, of course. That's why they are thought experiments.

Einstein imagined riding along on a light beam. Obviously, nobody will ever be able to do that to test the thought experiment. Luckily, nobody has to do that to accept the overwhelming evidence that the theory of relativity is correct (within well-understood limits).

Have you considered the possibility of performing the whole Einstein's thought experiments with physical means and test if the experiments results fit the claims of Einstein?

Yes. It's impossible to perform the whole of Einstein's thought experiments. But we don't have to.

Let me see something. Hm hm, I can notice that Richard P. Feynman was a strong defender of the Twin Paradox.

Did he think it is an actual paradox? (I'm betting he did not - especially seeing as he invented the theory of quantum electrodynamics, which is inherently relativistic.)

I guess you have today a better understanding than him about this invented idea.

I'm guessing you're wrong. Feynman was a very smart man. He won the Nobel Prize, you know.

And Feynman explained the paradox with unusual details to his classes in the university.

Did he explain that it's not really a paradox? I'm sure he did.

I guess again, that the curriculum in universities do not include the Twin Paradox as Feynman used to do.

You guess wrong. It's taught in first year undergraduate physics classes in the state in which I live.

I know I'm not resting in space because the earth orbits around the sun, and I am standing over the earth's surface. I don't need references like numbers, enough is to know the earth is moving.

You're just taking it on authority that the Earth orbits the Sun, though, aren't you?

The speed catalogued to earth when orbits around the sun.

Do you know how that's calculated? I do. It's calculated by assuming the sun is at rest. I could show you the calculation.

What's up with that?

Do you still believe that the actual speed is 67,000 miles per hour, given this new information?

Such calculations make no sense at all. Like to say, you turn on a flashlight inside a train moving at 45 miles per hour. In paper, you can say the light speed inside the train is 186,000 miles per second plus 45 miles per hour, or similar ideas.

In reality, if the light never goes outside the train, and is trapped on a wall that absorbs it, the light speed was no more than 45 miles per hour.

That makes no sense at all. If it were true, it would imply that if you turned on a flashlight when you're in a train travelling at 45 miles per hour, you'd see the light go nowhere, relative to you. You'd be travelling at 45 miles per hour and the light would be travelling at 45 miles per hour, so it wouldn't gain any distance on you over a period time. In a race between yourself and the light, you'd both be perpetually tied. Nobody would win.

Have you ever been in a train moving at 45 miles per hour, Luchito? Could you see the carriages behind you as you travelled along? If you could, it means that light from those carriages must have travelled faster than 45 miles per hour to get from those carriages to your eyes.

If you think this is wrong, how do you propose to explain it?

The only way for considering the speed light was 186,000 miles per second is when this light beam exit the train and travels in front of the train.

Are you saying, then, that light from the back carriages takes a left-hand turn, goes out the window, somehow speeds up from 45 miles per hour to 186,000 miles per second, then takes a right-hand turn, goes in through the window in the front carriages and finally reaches your eyes?

But, a light inside the train, no matter its speed, as long as the light is inside the train, its traveling is at 45 miles per hour.

That makes no sense at all. Just think it through.

 

[James R]

(continued...)

When man invented the term speed, as a rate of motion, man used a reference. The reference was to find a measure of a period observing the motion of an object or body in comparison to a regular motion, like rotation of earth.

It's not that complicated. Speed is just the distance something is observed to move, divided by the time it takes to travel that distance.

The first measures, as it is known, were simpler. Old writings said that going from one town to another town took two days walking. Later, when hours, minutes, seconds were invented, those fractions of a day were used as part of the reference. Then, we have the distance and the time data together to conform speed.

Suppose two towns are 10 miles apart and you can walk from one to the other in 1 hour. What's your walking speed?

Is it 10 miles per hour?

Or is it 67,000 miles per hour?

Or is it 67,010 miles per hour?

Or something else?

Bear in mind that if the Earth is moving around the Sun at 67,000 miles per hour, then those two towns are also moving at 67,000 miles per hour. So, what's your walking speed? Is it more than 67,000 miles per hour?
Note that it can't be equal to 67,000 miles per hour, because that would mean that you would never "catch up" with the town that is ahead of you, since it's moving at the same speed as you.

The numbers given by me on speed of the sun, speed of the galaxy, are calculations made by someone and have been accepted in the scientific community as valid.

And you believe those numbers, but not the ones scientists calculate using the theory of relativity.

Why?

Seems to me that you're taking people's words for one bit of science while refusing to believe another bit of science. Seems to me that you don't have a good way to determine which science is trustworthy and which is not.

Lets use reality again.

You travel in an airplane and won't move from your seat. You say you are traveling at rest inside the airplane. But the fly attendant moves from back to front all the time. The airplane travels at 200 miles per hour, the fly attendant walks at four feet per hour. According to you, when she walks towards the pilot cabin, she is traveling at 200 miles four feet per hour. Excuse me but, you must be kidding. Anyone from ground can observe that the airplane and everything inside of it is traveling at 200 miles per hour.

Same problem as before. If the flight attendant is travelling at 200 miles per hour and the aircraft aisle she is walking along is also travelling at 200 miles per hour, then she can't hope to make any progress if she tries to walk towards the front of the plane. She has to move faster than the aisle is moving, to be able to make progress towards the front.

If you have learnt differently, I think science in schools and in universities must be reviewed.

Did you do any science in universities? Did you pay attention in your science lessons in school?

No. Look at today, the most popular theories are the ones that have no truth inside them.

Why do you think so many people believe in those popular theories? I am interested to find out.

When you read the different theories, usually their evidence is circumstantial.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, exactly. In a sense, isn't all evidence circumstantial?

I mean, we can't directly measure speed, for example. We can only measure the distance that something moves and the period of time it takes to move and then we need to do a calculation to get the speed. There's no magical speed-measuring device.

(You might be thinking of the speedometer in your car at this point. But that works by indirectly measuring the distance the wheels cover as they rotate in certain period of time.)

The defenders of those theories take their circumstantial evidence as sure facts, but those are not sure facts. Like saying dinosaurs were extincted 67 million years ago.

Do you believe dinosaurs actually existed?
Obviously, we don't see any of them around today, so they must have gone extinct at some point in time.
When do you think they went extinct, and why?
And don't forget to tell me why the evidence you rely on to know that is not circumstantial.

To obtain those results what was measured was the stones or minerals in the bones.

Radioactive dating, you mean? And geological stratiography. And so on.

Is there a problem, other than these deductions being "circumstantial"?

That is not a sure fact, that is circumstantial evidence. Can be accepted and can be rejected.

One can reject any evidence that one doesn't like. It doesn't change the fact that it's evidence.

Hiding in a dark room with your head in a paper bag doesn't shut out the reality of the outside world. The world is what it is, regardless of what you'd prefer to believe.

In either case, both sides are equally accepted with their conclusions, because there is no sure factual evidence.

That's nonsensical. If you put, say, a person who claims that dinosaurs aren't real up against a paleontologist who has made a career out of digging up dinosaur fossils, then one of those two people has evidence while the other is in serious denial of reality. These two people are not on an equal epistemological footing.

You discard all the circumstantial evidence found in theories, and you find out those theories have not a solid foundation.

Sure. If you pretend evidence isn't evidence, then you can also pretend that theories based on that evidence have no solid foundation. You'll be deluding yourself, but you can do it.

Naah. That sounds infantile.

Ironic you should say that, in the circumstances in which we find ourselves in this conversation.

I remember I heard about the attempt of creating the theory of everything. Instead of facts and evidence, the idea was reuniting the whole theories to form a solid one. Then, half validated theories were to form part of that unique theory of everything. And you know that a half truth is a complete lie. Definitively such initiative was not oriented to a better understanding of the universe.

Sounds like you got the wrong end of the stick on what a "theory of everything" is supposed to do. It's supposed to look at common threads between different, well-accepted theories, and to see if a single framework can reproduce all the results that those well-accepted theories already produce. In the process, the TOE aims to uncover deeper relationships between the entities and processes in the theories that are subsumed under its scope.

If you read my former reply, I gave you the name of the book and the chapters to find an experiment suggested by Albert.

Why are you so focussed on 100 year old physics?

I told you about the muon experiment, for example. Why don't you research that a little, on the interwebs? See what actual evidence has to say about time dilation.

I think I challenged you to perform the experiment. Remember that no experiment means no certification validating the theory in question.

No it doesn't. Especially when there are literally thousands of other experiments that have well "certified" results that show the theory is correct.

 

[James R]

Also, Luchito: I don't think you answered the following simple question:

How fast are you moving, right now?

Is it zero miles per hour? Or 67,000 miles per hour? Or 1.34 million miles per hour? Or some other speed?

Or is it that you don't know the answer?

 

[beil]

Professional physicists/ astronomers seem to be able manage ok.

true, work in progress, may be starting all over again. "Scientists find a surprising clue to why the universe’s expansion doesn’t add up." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 4 October 2026. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/10/261002080026.htm>.

 

[Luchito]

At rest with respect to what?

Travelling with respect to what?

Your questions make a lot of sense.

We use references of all kind to obtain measures.

Measures are weight, longitude, time, volume, and more.

Let's take volume the measure. You use a bathtub, fill it to a certain point with water and you get inside. You trace a line or mark of the level of the water with you inside. After that, spend the following months eating junk food a lot, drinking sodas, and you will notice that you were size 32" but now you better use jeans 36" waist. You fill up the bathtub same level as you did the first time, then you get inside and check how much the water level rises. You notice that at this time the new water level is higher than last time with you inside.

Question is, after you were eating a lot and drinking sodas like crazy, what was affected: volume the measure or your body?

Same applies with the other measures. The question is, with time the measure, gravity affects: time the measure or the clock in a satellite?

My answer for both is: the body and the clock.

What about yours?

 

[Luchito]

Luchito:

It really doesn't matter what thought experiments helped Einstein to develop his theory. The fact is that the theory is quantitatively predictive, testable and tested. Its predictions have matched experimental and observational evidence from every relevant test that has been conducted over a period of more than 100 years.

Wait, A theory is an explanation. No matter if predictions appear to be fulfilled, because even biblical prophets predicted and happened. In science one must explain the process, and so far no process was given by Einstein and you are not providing here the process of how time dilates. No explanation, then no theory, simple as that.

Some thought experiments are impractical to test, of course. That's why they are thought experiments.

Very good vocabulary of yours: impractical to test.

Hope you won't demand from me any test as well, right?

Einstein imagined riding along on a light beam. Obviously, nobody will ever be able to do that to test the thought experiment. Luckily, nobody has to do that to accept the overwhelming evidence that the theory of relativity is correct (within well-understood limits).

If such imaginary riding on a light beam can't be experimented, then how to know that such idea of his is correct?

You say that overwhelming evidence backs up relativity, but this is not about quantity, this is about quality.

Yes. It's impossible to perform the whole of Einstein's thought experiments. But we don't have to.

Why not? He invented a clock made with mirrors and predicted the behavior of light while that clock was moving. A century later no clock with mirrors proving he was right. Something fishy is happening here.

Did he think it is an actual paradox? (I'm betting he did not - especially seeing as he invented the theory of quantum electrodynamics, which is inherently relativistic.)

I'm guessing you're wrong. Feynman was a very smart man. He won the Nobel Prize, you know.

Even Obama and Gore won Nobel Prizes. Recently an autistic Russian won the same prize by using math and "demonstrating" the universe is spherical. Did someone verified it?

There is a video of Feynman when he was asked why opposite poles attract themselves, and his answer was talking about his grandmother. I don't see it as a genius, but seeing it how he defended the Twin Paradox, showed me that the rumors of his alcohol problems were truth.

Did he explain that it's not really a paradox? I'm sure he did.

Believe me, you don't want to know what he explained on the Paradox. It won't be convenient to you knowing it. Remember what I said right above about his problems with alcohol.

You're just taking it on authority that the Earth orbits the Sun, though, aren't you?

Do you know how that's calculated? I do. It's calculated by assuming the sun is at rest. I could show you the calculation.

It is taken that way for reference purposes only, not for being taken seriously as if the sun really rest in space.

Have you ever been in a train moving at 45 miles per hour, Luchito? Could you see the carriages behind you as you travelled along? If you could, it means that light from those carriages must have travelled faster than 45 miles per hour to get from those carriages to your eyes.

You just said it. Great. I said that light from a flashlight inside the train wagon and never coming out, that light traveled at 45 miles per hour. I said the light is faster than the train when it travels from inside the train to outside and go in parallel to the wagon, or going sides or in backwards direction.

Are you saying, then, that light from the back carriages takes a left-hand turn, goes out the window, somehow speeds up from 45 miles per hour to 186,000 miles per second, then takes a right-hand turn, goes in through the window in the front carriages and finally reaches your eyes?

That makes no sense at all. Just think it through.

I have no idea what are you trying to say.

A flashlight is turned On in your wagon. This light is not subjected to the inverse square law, it's a beam of light. You point the light to the front of the wagon. The front has no windows but an absorbing black surface. The light beam moves at 186,000 miles per second from your hand holding the flashlight to the absorbing black surface. That is inside the wagon.

From outside, no matter the speed of light, anyone observing your wagon will see it traveling at 45 miles per hour, with everything inside traveling at the same speed.

You have two references inside the wagon, and a third reference outside the wagon.

This third reference is the one cancelling the assumed rest, and fast motion causing time dilation, because from the third reference you and the light beam are moving at the same speed.

You might claim that the light beam is moving at 186,000 miles per second regardless of the third reference, something that is correct, but such speed won't cause any dilation of time, and this is the real point here.

 

[Luchito]

Also, Luchito: I don't think you answered the following simple question:

How fast are you moving, right now?

Is it zero miles per hour? Or 67,000 miles per hour? Or 1.34 million miles per hour? Or some other speed?

Or is it that you don't know the answer?

The observer will tell.

If a neighbor look at my house and thru the window he sees me replying your messages here, then Zero miles per hour.

If an astronaut located at the distance of Saturn sees me orbiting around the sun at 67,000 miles per hour, the such is how fast I'm moving.

If an alien from a far away galaxy sees the Milky Way traveling at 1.34 million miles per hour, then such is my motion in the universe.

From here, time dilation can't happen because I am traveling at more than a million miles per hour as the main speed of my motion in the universe.

 

[No Ghost In This Shell]

volume the measure or your body?

There is no meaningful distinction between the body and its measured properties such as volume in this context. This is a silly example.

The question is, with time the measure, gravity affects: time the measure or the clock in a satellite?

You can easily test this by repeating the same experiment using different types of clocks, everything else being equal - mechanical clocks, digital clocks, light clocks, unstable elementary particles (which don’t have any internal mechanism), etc. What you’ll find is that all methods of measuring time are affected precisely equally, irrespective of their internal mechanism, or lack thereof. Thus it’s not the clocks themselves that are “affected”.
Also, and this is important - time dilation is not “time running slower”, but a change in how clocks at different places/times are related to one another. That’s not the same thing.

Your questions make a lot of sense.

So why didn’t you answer it?

 

[Luchito]

There is no meaningful distinction between the body and its measured properties such as volume in this context. This is a silly example.

You can easily test this by repeating the same experiment using different types of clocks, everything else being equal - mechanical clocks, digital clocks, light clocks, unstable elementary particles (which don’t have any internal mechanism), etc. What you’ll find is that all methods of measuring time are affected precisely equally, irrespective of their internal mechanism, or lack thereof. Thus it’s not the clocks themselves that are “affected”.
Also, and this is important - time dilation is not “time running slower”, but a change in how clocks at different places/times are related to one another. That’s not the same thing.

So why didn’t you answer it?

I did it when I answered to James R. In practical terms, it is not "in reference to" but, who is observing and from where.

The observer will tell.

If a neighbor look at my house and thru the window he sees me replying your messages here, then Zero miles per hour.

If an astronaut located at the distance of Saturn sees me orbiting around the sun at 67,000 miles per hour, the such is how fast I'm moving.

If an alien from a far away galaxy sees the Milky Way traveling at 1.34 million miles per hour, then such is my motion in the universe.

The phrase "in reference to" belongs to the hypothesis of Relativity. I usually use point of reference, observation, etc. At the end, someone must observe what is going on.

The clocks described by Albert were mechanical clocks, then, use mechanical clocks in a satellite and prove to the world that its affected time data will be exactly the same as the atomic clock in a satellite.

You have no choice, Einstein only knew mechanical clocks when he invented his hypothesis, and those are the clocks that must fulfill his claims on time dilation.

I think that what I ask is fair.

 

[No Ghost In This Shell]

The clocks described by Albert were mechanical clocks

No they weren’t - they were idealised clocks, ie measurement devices that do not rely on any specific mechanism. That is because the theory of relativity is not about the measurement devices at all, but about what they measure; more specifically, about the relationships between those measurements.

use mechanical clocks in a satellite and prove to the world that its affected time data will be exactly the same as the atomic clock in a satellite

If you can manage to built us a mechanical clock that is sensitive enough to detect the required time intervals (measured in nanoseconds in this scenario), and has a high enough resolution to be meaningfully comparable to an atomic clock, then I’m sure someone might provide funding for such an experiment. In the meantime, we can compare other types of clocks that work on different mechanisms, eg masers vs atomic clocks:

A null test of general relativity based on a long-term comparison of atomic transition frequencies - Nature Physics

Years of data from atomic clocks around the world allow estimation of the variation of their rates with the spatial change of the solar potential. This allows the most precise null test of the local position invariance principle of general relativity.

www.nature.com

You have no choice, Einstein only knew mechanical clocks when he invented his hypothesis

Don’t be silly. There were no mechanical clocks in Einstein’s time that were even remotely capable of detecting these effects, so this is not what he “knew”. He also didn’t “invent” his theory out of thin air - there were already known discrepancies between Newtonian mechanics and observational data that greatly puzzled the physicists of the time, so he took those and developed them into a coherent framework.

Much more important though is that you have to understand that the theory specifically does not say that it is the clocks themselves that are affected, but rather that their relationship in spacetime changes - a clock is only ever dilated with respect to some other reference clock. It is a relationship between reference frames, not something that “happens” to any one clock. That is why it is irrelevant what type of clock is used - they are all affected equally, and no claim is made as to any specific clock mechanism. The theory simply isn’t about the clocks themselves, so all your demands about specific tests of specific mechanisms completely miss the point.

The phrase "in reference to" belongs to the hypothesis of Relativity. I usually use point of reference, observation, etc. At the end, someone must observe what is going on.

Yes. Every observer is associated with a reference frame, so those are synonymous in this context.