Re: ABSOLUTE TRUTH ABOUT ABSOLUTE SPACETIME

From: Perfectly Innocent (perfectlyInnocent_at_as-if.com)
Date: 06/24/04 

Date: 23 Jun 2004 22:53:23 -0700

Dear J.J.,

I appreciated reading your sincere opinion. Your honesty is very
refreshing. The usual impression that I get from an opposing opinion
on this newsgroup is that I'm being unmercifully attacked by an
ignorant, bigoted fanatic who is highly offended by my irreverent
daring to advocate axioms sets not sanctioned by the high priests of
physics.

"J.J." <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message news:<JPiCc.99743$0y.20635@attbi_s03> in response to news:c45b45b3.0406201719.3bbe1cb1@posting.google.com...
>
> I think introducing students to SR via the SxR spacetime is bound to cause
> unnecessary confusion. Basic to SR is the principle that the laws of
> nature have the same form in all inertial frames. Locally in SxR
> spacetime, this would still be true as long as clocks are synchronized
> (locally) using Einstein's prescription (i.e., 'E-synched'). Overlapping
> local inertial frames would use the standard Lorentz transformation
> equations to relate the coordinates of events.

I'm not opposed to the principle of relativity. I simply know that
there are important insights to be gained when the principle of
relativity is derived from the topology of S^3 and a few other totally
innocuous postulates. Your declaration that the PofR is tied to a
particular clock synchronization (coordinate system) is precisely the
kind of misconception that I'm trying to correct.

> Globally in SxR, one inertial frame is 'special'. Guys and gals in this
> frame can shout out
>
> "Hey everybody, in our frame, light takes
> the same time to encircle the universe in
> both directions. Since this is not true for
> any other frame, we're special. So, we
> demand that all other frames honor us by
> setting their clocks so that any two events
> that are simultaneous for us will also be
> simultaneous for every one else. What
> a wonderful world it will be! We will have
> established an absolute time and things will
> be much simpler to comprehend in our
> universe because we all know that the notion
> of absolute time agrees with our intuition."

I interpret your paragraph here as kindhearted propaganda, possibly
humorous but it's definitely not satire. I believe it's clear that
you've completely misstated and misunderstood my derivation. There's
no arbitrariness in my derivation at all. Please try to understand
the fundamental basis of my thesis: There is only one physically
distinguished, globally applicable definition of simultaneity for SxR.
And it's not Einstein's method.

> Of course, occupants of the other frames will reply,
>
> "Baloney! If we set our clocks according to
> your prescription, then the laws of nature
> expressed in terms of this 'absolute time'
> will no longer have the same mathematical
> form in all local inertial frames. For example,
> the wave equation for the propagation of sound
> will now become unduly complicated and frame
> dependent. Yuck! We will continue to set our
> clocks (locally) so that they are E-synched. We
> find no use for your prescription for setting our clocks."

Ah, but the problem is that the occupants of any other frame can't
E-synchronize all their clocks so that all the clocks of that frame
are synchronized. They must resort to S-synchronization to achieve
total global synchronization.

Also, you still misunderstand the PofR.

> The poor student trying to learn SR is likely to find the SxR spacetime more
> confusing than enlightening. If introducing an absolute time in the SxR
> spacetime were really useful, then why don't people introduce an absolute
> time in the usually assumed topology R^3 x R?

People do. They've done it.

> After all, we could
> arbitrarily select one inertial frame as 'special' and demand that all other
> frames set their clocks according to the t' = t/gamma prescription. Then
> all frames would 'agree' on the simultaneity of two events and we could
> claim that there is an absolute past and an absolute future.

But that construct is a logically admissible variant of SR. The unique
frame could be defined by superluminal signaling theories.

> The answer, of
> course, is that it makes things complicated - the laws of physics would be
> frame dependent if expressed in terms of an absolute time defined this way.

I believe it brings clarity. The way to think of it is that the PofR
would apply locally to one class of physical law but other laws could
be allowed that operate differently but consistently.

BTW: All the hoopla about equivalent frames of reference doesn't even
exist in GR.

> The effects of different global topologies are interesting. But confronting
> the beginner with these subtleties is not, in my opinion, going to be
> helpful.
>
> J.J.

At what academic level should students of special relativity learn
these things?

http://www.everythingimportant.org/viewtopic.php?p=1948#1948
http://cornell.mirror.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v8/i6/p1662_1
http://www.everythingimportant.org/viewtopic.php?t=79
http://www.everythingimportant.org/viewtopic.php?t=605
http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/simultaneity.htm

Eugene Shubert
http://www.everythingimportant.org

Relevant Pages

  • Re: IRT: A New Theory of Relativity
    ... >>in motion relative to himself to shrink, and measures clocks in motion ... you are saying that Einstein assumed the observer using the Lorentz ... same speed in all directions in his own frame. ... plugging numbers into the Lorentz transformation, ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: IRT: A New Theory of Relativity
    ... >>in motion relative to himself to shrink, and measures clocks in motion ... you are saying that Einstein assumed the observer using the Lorentz ... same speed in all directions in his own frame. ... plugging numbers into the Lorentz transformation, ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: The genius of the Absolute
    ... ray is growing using k's rulers and clocks, it is growing at the rate c. ... suppose we want to transform into a new coordinate system moving at ... depend on the rest frame of the aether) should strike both clocks at the ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: IRT: A New Theory of Relativity
    ... but can B define "light path length" in his frame by looking only at ... moving stick is moving parallel to a ruler which is at rest in B's ... >>clocks to measure the time, he will get a different time for the light ... assuming that each observer defines coordinates by the ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: IRT: A New Theory of Relativity
    ... but can B define "light path length" in his frame by looking only at ... moving stick is moving parallel to a ruler which is at rest in B's ... >>clocks to measure the time, he will get a different time for the light ... assuming that each observer defines coordinates by the ...
    (sci.physics)