Re: relativity of simultaneity - real or perceived?

Martin, thanks for your surprising patience and efforts, but I honestly
believe I've absorbed all this stuff correctly now. I've realised how
it works: the Lorentz transformations simply predict how things would
look from another inertial frame, by working 'backwards' from
experimental results, and happily alter time as well as distance in
order to arrive at the right answer. This means that they *will always*
agree with the experimental results they were based on. They cannot
give a wrong answer, because they were worked out *from* the answer. I
agree totally with Paul Stowe.
In my bomb scenario, what I now expect to be predicted for frame 2 is
that although the two photons do not arrive at the same 'time', the two
clocks will also show different times, just exactly the difference to
make up for the photon delay, resulting in the onboard computer being
told the same frame 1 time from both clocks after all. I just wanted to
check that but I'm sure it will - it has to. How did we achieve that?
By the Lorentz transformations happily changing both time and distance
in the way that we have worked out from experiment that they must.
Why do I have a problem with it then, you might ask? Isn't it clearly
right?
Because it leads to paradoxical (contradictory) situations between
frames of reference, by being so free to treat space and time like
mathematical putty. Changing time so freely leads to paradoxes. I
haven't fully explored these because the answers 'acceleration changes
the rules' and 'you can't compare the two twins ages until they're at
mutual rest' hive the whole paradox off into never-never land like
irrational numbers until the twins are back together and the final
answer is non-paradoxical again.
However at this stage I feel it is clear enough you have a paradox you
can't honestly live with. Because SR/GR relativists will state that two
objects moving at different speeds relative to each other will both
only 'appear' to be aging less than each other, but when they arive,
only one is 'really' younger - the one who accelerated. This
immediately shows, to me at least, that relativity cannot give a
non-paradoxical answer in two purely relative frames. It needs an
external frame of reference to align everything by. That ultimately
leads to an absolute frame of reference or the more ridiculous infinite
regress of external frames. I will investigate more but I personally
believe that one is forced to conclude that space and time are separate
and they are *the* absolute inertial frame of reference.
I realise that we still have experimental results to account for. I'm
just saying that relativity, while it gives the right *answer* with an
external frame, can't be based on a correct understanding. Something is
wrong still.
It is like a maths student who knows the answer to an equation but does
not understand why it is so, yet simplifies the equation correctly
*because* they know the answer. Yet all the while they do not
understand what they are doing or what the equation *means*. They could
as easily make a mistake that cancels out, as not. And it is no good to
avoid having to address what it *means* by denying the existence of
reality outside of what is measured.
The square root of -1 is another case - it works, but because it
contradicts a earlier founding maths rule (- * - = +) which we also
rely on in the same calculations, we know we've taken an irrational
short-cut that can't be true if - * - = +. Will it always work? Does it
hold true for every situation? Can't say. Is there a better way? Must
be. We'll use it for now though. But ideally, nervously.
Where is the mistake in SR/GR? I have to admit I haven't a clue. But I
believe there is one, for the reasons above.
I have just read an article which Harald found, that claims to show how
SR/GR is non-paradoxical in an absolute space and time, any why it gets
to the right answer even while it makes a mistake in the method, but I
haven't understood it well enough yet to communicate it. It is at
http://www.twow.net/ObjText/OtkCaLbStrC.htm (Thanks Harry).

.

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