Re: Is "malfunctioning" absolute or relative?

On Oct 10, 9:17 am, shuba <tim.sh...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Ben wrote:
There is no hope.  The concept of time
differing according to the velocity of the observer is hard to grasp,
and probably 99% of the laity rejects it as ridiculous and can never
be persuaded otherwise.

Usenet trolls are not representative of people with general
interest.  Perhaps a more fundamental problem with your
persuasive skills might be that the tortured idea about changing
clock rates is horse*** pedagogy.  Presumably, if someone asks
about the height of your house, you do not give different answers
depending on how far away from it you are located.  Nor, I would
suppose, would you describe the refraction of the image of a
stick half in water as an example of the stick no longer being
straight.  Yet, you are perfectly happy to mislead beginning
students by analogous reasoning when the subject is relativity.

         ---Tim Shuba---

You say that the debated relativity effects are mere appearances.
SR says they are real. Whether SR is true or not, it is good to know
what the theory says.

Consider Bell's spaceship "paradox." Does the string break or not?
It is clear to those who study SR professionally that the string does
break. That is no mere appearance. The string between the ships tries
to contract as the ships gain speed, but it is constrained not to.
Thus it breaks.

Uncle Ben


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