Re: Relativity as an axiomatic system

From: Dirk Van de moortel (dirkvandemoortel_at_ThankS-NO-SperM.hotmail.com)
Date: 09/28/04 

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 16:38:19 GMT

"Pentcho Valev" <pvalev@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:bdf02d35.0409272237.1b0b607d@posting.google.com...
> Einstein: "Guided by empirical data, the investigator rather develops
> a system of thought which, in general, is built up logically from a
> small number of fundamental assumptions, the so-called axioms."
>
> What Einstein describes is an axiomatic system which, by definition,
> can be presented as a sequence of propositions with the axioms at the
> beginning followed by theorems (deduced propositions), where each
> theorem is accompanied by an explicit authentication of the exact
> deductive path leading to it. In other words, the path from the axioms
> to a particular proposition (theorem) can be disintegrated into steps
> each of which has the form
>
> a,b,... -> c
>
> and can undergo the scrutiny of both critics and sycophants (secretly
> in the latter case).
>
> Perhaps, after 100 years of intensive begging the question, it is time
> for relativists to perform this important operation. Let me suggest a
> possible beginning:
>
> Axiom (1) Principle of relativity
> Axiom (2) Constancy of speed of light
> 1,2 (3) Time dilation in BOTH inertial frames
> .......(4)........................
>
> The derivation is set out as a sequence of numbered lines (1), (2),
> (3) etc. The fact that line (3) was obtained from (1) and (2) as
> premises is shown by writing 1,2 to the left of the line number (3).
>
> According to Einstein, the sequence eventually leads to
>
> p,q,... (r) A clock in a non-rotating system undergoes time
> CONTRACTION relative to a clock on the periphery of a rotating disc.
>
> x,y,... (z) Two clocks placed at different gravitational potentials
> will go at different rates in accordance with v=v_0(1+phi/c^2).
>
> Now relativists should present all the steps leading to the above two
> propositions and eventually replace p,q,r,x,y,z with real numbers.
> They will fail because both (r) and (z) are just Einstein's
> "intuitions", not theorems. Still some truth will be revealed and
> truth should be valued in science shouldn't it.
>
> Pentcho Valev

Pentcho forgot to mention something: *definitions*.

Dirk Vdm

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