Re: A little challenge for relativists.

shevek:
>Tom Roberts wrote:

>> I do not "defend" LET, I _explain_ it. As many of my writings have
>> shown, it is not useful, and its foundations are seriously flawed. SR is
>> experimentally indistinguishable from LET and does not share its
>> theoretical flaws.
>
>Which are the seriously flawed theoretical foundations?

List the theoretical foundations.

I also disagree that the two are experimentally indistinguishable.
Consider the following coordinate transformation:

x^0 = ct - x With the metric tensor given by,
x^1 = ct + x g_01 = g_10 = 1/2, g_22 = g_33 = -1
x^2 = y
x^3 = z

x^0 is the time coordinate and x^1 is the space coordinate.
One of the assumptions of LET is the existence of absolute
simultaneaty, i.e., an absolute time which can be defined
for every observer, and that time really slows down, lengths
really contract, etc., and assuming that a lorentz transform
connects each of these observers. The observers which are
simultaneous in the coordinates above all have x^0 = constant.
These coordinates cannot be reached by _any_ lorentz transform.
I can however, use these coordinates to calculate experimental
quantities.

>> LET is indeed, _nowhere_. I know this because I have studied it.

>As you know I disagree.. but it doesn't really matter until we can
>come up with some real difference between these approaches.

The example above is one difference. A second difference is that
LET doesn't tell me how to even imagine a way to construct a theory
of the weak interaction without reverse engineering it from relativity.

.

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