Re: Beam me up - trying to get a basic understanding of GR

anthonyroseuk-curious@xxxxxxxxxxx:
>Thanks to all for their time and input.
>Unfortunately I am tending more toward the 'crank' side of things at
>the moment, and all my answerers are on the other side!!

Then, you should ask yourself if your interest is in science or in
trying to construct clever semantics to impress people at cocktail
parties who don't know the difference.

>I could happily get stuck into applying the Lorentz transformations
>etc, and may still do that. However, it appears to me that one can
>find logical inconsistency within the propositions of SR/GR which,
>if true, obviously disproves the correctness of the theory as a whole
>(but obviously not of the experimental observations which it attempts
>to explain).

That's exactly backwards. Relativity is just geometry, so if there's
a logical inconsistency, you will have proven geometry going all the
back to euclid is inconsistent. Good luck in trying to win a fields medal
on that basis. The only way to show that relativity is incorrect is to
find an experimental result that contradicts it. If you can't do that,
no one is going to pay any attention.

>1. It seems to me that one can philosophically prove the existence of
>an absolute frame of reference.

Nature doesn't really care if you have a philosophical issue with
the way nature put the universe together. One major difference between
a physicist and a crackpot is that physicists realize that nature
runs the show. If your goal is to understand nature, you just have to
deal with it.

>Does this bother SR/GR? I don't know. Any takers?
>2. If SR/GR rule that time dilates, in actual fact, according to speed,
>then this leads immediately to a direct logical contradiction.

Only if you misunderstand relativity. It is a fact and it's proven
everyday in accelerator labs throughout the world. You can protest
all you like, but nature isn't going to change to accomodate your
philosophical predelictions.


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