Whose Measures Are They?

From: eleaticus (eleaticus_at_bellsouth.net)
Date: 03/26/05 

Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 22:54:24 -0600

On a number of occasions recently SR-cultists gave responses to the question
'isn't it true that you never have and cannot ever measure a covariant?"

Their responses have been as entertaining as educational, and educational
only for what they can't say.

The most entertaining was a poster who ranted that the idea of measuring
coordinate dependent values was ridiculous and then tried to convince us he
could do so but somehow couldn't come up with the method.

The impossiblity had become increasingly obvious intuitively that their
truthful answer had to be "never have, never will."

Herein and now there is the obvious demonstration that it isn't possible,
that no value calculated with the Lorentz-Einstein coordinate
transformations can be measured, with the non-exception of the obvious
scalar functions that provide no information that wasn't available with use
of the non-tranformed equations.

 Let's play "Whose Measure Is It?"

You are at your origin at time t=0 and at one end of a 100 mile long
highway, the other end being at x=100.

Your buddy comes whizzing by at v=.866c approximately, so gamma=2.

x'=2(100).

Whose Measure is the x=100?

"Yours."

Right. But whose measure is x'=200?

"My buddy's."

BUZZZZZ!

Wrong! According to that wondrous SR and the Principle of Relativity, he
sees your 100 length as just 50 because it is a moving length, gamma is 2,
and it has contracted to just half the length you see for it.

The Lorentz-Einstein x' and t' are nobody's measures so nobody can measure
the transformed values.

The covariant situations are even worse.

Consider the invariant phase p_u x^u. When any of the elements of x are
transformed, p has to be changed also to compensate for the mess the
Lorentz-Einstein transforms make of x. Without the change in p the phase p_u
x^u wouldn't be invariant.

Whose measure is x.1? x.2? x.3? x.4?

"Mine!"

Whose measure is x.1'?

"Nobody's!"

That's right! According to Lorentz-Einstein, at v=.866c the moving system
sees a distance one fourth that of x.1', etc.

"Yep! I can dig it!"

So, whose measures are the elements of p?

"Nobody's!"

Yep.

So, Whose Measures Are They?

"Nobody's, so how can anyone measure them?"

The only one who can measure such a value is the one whose value it is.

Excuse me. Did I hear you say something about EMPIRICAL science?

eleaticus

Relevant Pages

  • Whose Measures Are They?
    ... On a number of occasions recently SR-cultists gave responses to the question ... transformations can be measured, with the non-exception of the obvious ... The Lorentz-Einstein x' and t' are nobody's measures so nobody can measure ... The covariant situations are even worse. ...
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  • Whose Measures Are They?
    ... On a number of occasions recently SR-cultists gave responses to the question ... transformations can be measured, with the non-exception of the obvious ... The Lorentz-Einstein x' and t' are nobody's measures so nobody can measure ... The covariant situations are even worse. ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
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