The Relativity of Simultaneity

[Motor Daddy]

You are saying that the length of the cube is always measured with light? Why can't measuring bars be used?

Measuring bars can be used. It's Einstein that has trouble with measuring bars, not me. At any point in time, I can take a .5 light second bar and fit it perfectly between the source and each side, and also between the source and the front and rear.

Einstein can't do that, because he says the length is contracted, but the width is not.

What he fails to account for is that if the distance from the source to the side remains .5 light seconds in width, regardless of the velocity, that light will take more time to reach the side receivers centered on the length of the train, or cube as the velocity increases. So, there is NO WAY that light can reach the receivers on the sides in .5 seconds at any velocity greater than 0 m/s.

How do you explain that?

 

[quantum_wave]

This idiocy can go on forever. Neither MD or QW ever acknowledge that there are actual experiments and measurements proving them wrong. They just state the same nonsense over and over.

I assume you are willing to back that up smart guy, lol. So far all I've seen are misrepresentations of our positions and of MD's postulate and no actual experimental evidence that is accepted by the scientific community as proof that E's 2nd postulate is true. In fact it has already been acknowledged on this thread by a respectable member that postulates cannot be proven. The can only be falsified and the 2nd postulate has not been proven or falsified. Your claims that there is evidence to prove E's 2nd are hollow, uninformed and unproductive.

The issue is a matter of two world views. You are very familiar with SR but do you acknowledge that MD has a world view (see this post) that can be presented in terms of two observers just like James R does in his recent post with the three sets of diagrams and a single light flash from the center of the train? I would like to have your answer to that question if you are an honest agent in this discussion.

If you refuse to answer I will discount your future participation just like I have to discount Origin's.

 

[quantum_wave]

Here is what it looks like when the cube's initial absolute velocity is 0 m/s, and one second later its absolute velocity is 149,896,229 m/s. Let's see Einstein's version of the accelerated cube. Oh, wait, he can't do that, that's right.

Interesting approach, MD.

 

[AlexG]

If you refuse to answer I will discount your future participation just like I have to discount Origin's.

Please do. Arguing with crackpots is a futile endevour, and few are cracked more than MD and you.

 

[quantum_wave]

Please do. Arguing with crackpots is a futile endevour, and few are cracked more than MD and you.

My pleasure. You haven’t made any contribution to this thread, you have resorted to ad homs, and you have refused to be an honest agent in this discussion. Enjoy your sniping from the sidelines.

 

[quantum_wave]

You are saying that the length of the cube is always measured with light? Why can't measuring bars be used? Originally, the standard meter was defined as the distance between two marks on a 90% platinum bar held at a certain temperature. That definition still works quite well within its applicable degree of accuracy.

The reason the definition of the meter was changed to rely on light was because it provided an even greater degree of accuracy, not less. According to your theory, lengths associated with light on earth would produce different results at different times of the year. This is yet another proof that your theory is not correct.

Ned, if I may, I would like to ask what you are talking about when you say that measurement at different seasons would show different results, but they don't. Are you referring to Michelson-Morely? The famous luminiferous aether experiments?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment

 

[arfa brane]

Don't mention experiments.

It screws up MD's worldview. He wants to believe that all Einstein had to do was draw a few diagrams, like the ones in this thread. This leads you from having an idea that may or may not be physically possible, to a diagram of the idea.

So once you have a diagram on real paper, the idea must be real too. But it's better to also do some long division and have some numbers with lots of decimal places (makes everything look more impressive, especially for the 5 year olds).
It's in the book of "Motor Daddy's Doodles", which might be out real soon now.
In which he explains his worldview. But it does seem to include the corollary: "A blank sheet of paper is defined, so it's a waste of time drawing on it", or something along those lines.


Diddly dee, diddly dee.

 

[quantum_wave]

Don't mention experiments.

It screws up MD's worldview. He wants to beleive that all Einstein had to do was draw a few diagrams, like the ones in this thread. This leads you from having an idea that may or may not be physically possible, to a diagram of the idea.

So once you have a diagram on real paper, the idea must be real too. But it's better to also do some long division and have some numbers with lots of decimal places (makes everything look more impressive, especially for the 5 year olds).
It's in the book of "Motor Daddy's Doodles", which might be out real soon now.

In which he explains his worldview.

Diddly dee, diddly dee.

I'm beginning to believe that you are just enjoying slamming MD and have never compared the two world views. Give me back your answer and I'll know if you are interested in participating or just agitating. It doesn't matter which, I just am wondering if anything you contribute is worth looking at?

 

[arfa brane]

You talkin' to me, pilgrim?

I'm not slamming MD. It's more a slam-dunk.
If you can't work out how profoundly 'unphysical' even his description of light is--something you "don't have to" measure--then there isn't much I can contribute or otherwise.

 

[AlexG]

QW must be a liberal arts major. They're the ones who think that opinion is more important than reality.

 

[quantum_wave]

Just trying to get to know the players, lol.

 

[origin]

QW must be a liberal arts major. They're the ones who think that opinion is more important than reality.

I dare say the closest to college he got was watching
Animal House.

 

[origin]

Do you realize that the speed of light is defined, and you are wasting your time measuring the speed of light?

That is such an inane thing to say. You seem to think it was defined before it was measured. Ironically Maxwell showed that light propegates through space at a defined speed, without measuring the actual speed of light, but that is not what you are talking about and you probably think Maxwell was a mental midget compare to yourself anyway.

 

[quantum_wave]

I dare say the closest to college he got was watching
Animal House.

Like I told you before, I don't know how to respond to trolls anymore. You are trolling for an off topic response from serious posters for some reason. Explain how trolling makes you look good or don't you care? Do they even allow trolling here in Physics and Math now.

 

[quantum_wave]

Motor Daddy:

I have re-drawn my diagram to include a picture showing how things would look in the Motor Daddy universe in the frame of the train/box.

Notice that in the Motor Daddy universe the light spreads out in a sphere in "space" around the point of emission of the light. In the frame of the box, that point in "space" moves backwards with respect to the box.

Compare the Einstein train/box frame, in which the light sphere spreads out from the source at the centre of the box at an equal speed in all directions. This is in accordance with Einstein's 2nd posulate.

The trolls are coming out of the woodwork and I hoped you would respond to this post to help keep the tread on topic. If I have misstated the meaning of your diagram or am mistaken about what the observers in each frame are observing please let me know that.

 

[origin]

Do they even allow trolling here in Physics and Math now.

I would assume if there was any actual physics being discussed by you or MD then trolling would be discouraged.

MDs premise on the speed of light is wrong as shown by data and since he refuses to adress this glaring deficiency, his ideas are nothing more than poorly thought out pseudo science. I think it is a miracle that this trash has not been moved to the pseudo science folder long ago.

By the way it really doesn't matter if you went to college or not, it really has nothing to do with intelligence. What matters is opening your eyes and using your head for something other than a hat stand.

 

[quantum_wave]

I would assume if there was any actual physics being discussed by you or MD then trolling would be discouraged.

MDs premise on the speed of light is wrong as shown by data and since he refuses to adress this glaring deficiency, his ideas are nothing more than poorly thought out pseudo science. I think it is a miracle that this trash has not been moved to the pseudo science folder long ago.

By the way it really doesn't matter if you went to college or not, it really has nothing to do with intelligence. What matters is opening your eyes and using your head for something other than a hat stand.

Origin, it seems as if you are backing off from admitting you’re a troll by claiming that there is no physics being discussed and so trolling might be allowed.

I mentioned the following to you earlier and you waved it off either because you have your mind made up or because you didn’t understand it.

Einstein’s Special Theory uses mathematics to force two incompatible concepts to become compatible when you apply an adjusting factor. Just so you have an example of this type of adjustment, suppose you were trying to get into an advance class in physics, but to get in your score on the entry exam had to be 94 out of 100. You scored 24 which is obviously way too low and shows your mental aptitude for physics doesn’t qualify you for the advanced class. You go to your councilor and arrange for a disability factor of “times four” to be applied to your test results before they are passed on to the admissions department.

Your 24 score, times the factor “times four” brings your score up to 96 and you get in.

That is a facetious example but it is the same thing that faced Einstein when he had to deal with the problem that speed of an object in real life is frame dependent. By that I mean that if a man is walking along the bed of a moving train, his speed is actually the sum of the speed of the train and of his walking speed.

But when studied carefully there is a contradiction if you hold that speed of an object is frame dependant while also holding that the speed of light is frame independent. The solution to this contradiction was the stimulus for applying a mathematical relationship to all frame dependent speeds to make them consistent with the frame independence of light. The factor is the dependant speed divided by the speed of light, I think.

But the inconsistency was not yet completely solved because when you apply the speed of light factor to frame dependant speed you get a time anomaly. That inconsistency was solved in the same way, by applying a factor to the time element of the motion (velocity times time) in the frame dependant case which becomes the time dilation between the two frames of reference.

I have to believe you can understand that this reasoning that resulted in the application of the mathematical adjustments between frames took place because the two postulates, the “principle of relativity” where speed is frame dependant and the “frame independent speed of light” are otherwise incompatible.

If the above is true, then SR was derived to resolve the inconsistency between frame dependant variables and the frame independent speed of light.

I also have to believe that you agree that once light is emitted it always travels at c through the vacuum, and that you believe that the emission of light occurs at a point in space and time?

If you answer yes, then you must apply the Lorentz transformations to make those two points of agreement compatible with the theory of Special Relativity. That’s all I’m saying.

 

[Motor Daddy]

James, I was hoping for a response to my previous post to you. I was really looking forward to your reply. Are you ignoring me now, or are you trying to find an explanation for Einstein's inconsistency? I'm excited about your reply, I'm sure it will be a groundbreaking phenomena!

Let's discuss one aspect of the diagrams at a time, so that we can identify each problem separately.

In your diagram on the left, Einstein's embankment frame, you show that the embankment observer thinks light traveled .5 seconds to travel from the source at the midpoint of the train to the receiver attached to the side of the train, which is .5 light seconds from the source.

James, that is incorrect. The embankment observer will see that the receivers on the sides of the train have moved to the right in the diagram, as the receivers on the sides of the train are affixed to the train, and the train has traveled to the right in your diagram. So, in the bottom pic of your left diagram, the light has not yet reached the side receivers at the midpoint of the length of the sides of the train. In other words, in Einstein's embankment frame, the light can't possibly reach the side receivers in .5 seconds, because light has to travel a greater distance than .5 light seconds to reach them. The radius lines of the light sphere from the center of the sphere to the point the receivers are attached at the midpoint of the length of the train will be at an angle to the right, which means the radius lines are longer than .5 light seconds in length.

Please explain that before we continue.

I've attached a pic to show the distance the light has to travel to reach the side receivers, of which the light has clearly not reached yet. Also note, that if the light sphere needs more time to expand to reach the side receiver, the train is also traveling to the right, so the time is even greater, as the angle increases. The light sphere will grow outside the train's front before the light reaches the sides.

 

[quantum_wave]

MD, you have made a valid point in regard to the light sphere in column one of James R's diagram. It has not reached the side receptor in that depiction.

James R is preoccupied right now and I'm sure he will get back here when time permits. I'm not sure you will get any satisfaction though because his depictions in column one and two are legitimate according to the SR postulates. His depiction of the MD example in the third column is a valid depiction of the MD postulate.

So what he presented is valid even though the incompatibility between SR and MD shows up as it must, like you have pointed out.

See my recent post to the trolls about the incompatibilities between electromagnetic waves and the invariance principle.

 

[Motor Daddy]

So what he presented is valid even though the incompatibility between SR and MD shows up as it must, like you have pointed out.

What he presented is an accurate representation of Einstein's incorrect method, correct. That is why I said I am looking forward to his explanation, as it will surely be a groundbreaking phenomena!