What if Newton was not wrong?

[quant]

Yes. Of course, from the perspectives of the travellers on the spaceships, their time is running at the normal rate. The reason the journey takes less time, according to them, is that the distance between planets A and B is shorter than 10 light years. So, they don't have as far to travel as the Earth observer says.

Also, it's worth noting that, during the journeys, from the perspectives of the people on the spaceships, clocks on Earth that run slower than their own clocks on their spaceships.

If you believe that special relativity is all about perspectives. All I can say is that that is avery interesting point of view. Forgive the pun !

 

[James R]

If you believe that special relativity is all about perspectives.

All the effects of relativity (including time dilation and length contraction) are due to different frames of reference.

 

[quant]

Light also exhibits Doppler shifts. (Though, to get the right answers with light we need to calculate the relativistic Doppler shift. Galileo/Newton gives the wrong answers.)

In a given medium, the speed of a wave remains constant as long as the medium's properties (like temperature and pressure for sound) do not change. When discussing waves:

1. The speed of a wave in a medium is determined by the properties of that medium. For instance, sound travels at a specific speed in air (about 343 meters per second at room temperature), regardless of the observer's motion.
2. The relationship between speed (v), frequency (f), and wavelength ($$\lambda$$) is given by the equation:

$$v = f \times \lambda$$

If the frequency increases (as when an observer moves toward the source), the wavelength decreases, but the speed remains constant in that medium. Conversely, if the frequency decreases (as when moving away), the wavelength increases. In other words the ratio between frequency and wavelength remains constant ensuring that the speed of the wave is not affected.

1. Changes in frequency and wavelength occur due to the Doppler effect but do not affect the speed of the wave in that medium. The wave's speed is a characteristic of the medium itself.

I will deal with the much more complicated question of how time and space change in another post, in order to retain clarity.

 

[quant]

This is the first time you have mentioned space "splitting into" parts? What do you mean? There's nothing about that in the maths.

Just because a phenomenon is ‘not in the maths’ does it mean that it does not exist? Leaving aside complicated jargon. The differences in how time and distance are measured by different observers are not just abstract concepts; they manifest in real experiences and measurements. For example, a moving observer will measure a shorter distance and a longer time between events than a stationary observer. When frames of reference are discussed in relativity, they are describing how these physical phenomena—length contraction and time dilation—affect measurements based on relative motion. Each observer has a real experience of these effects, influenced by their speed. This being so, it should be obvious that each observer is occupying his own space and time, independent of what other observers might be experiencing. In my understanding, this is nothing less than the fracturing of space and time and so cannot be true. i.e., must be false.

When considering special relativity one should never forget that it all started as a joke. After Michelson & Morley’s null result in detecting the aether. (Remember they (M&M) would still get a null result today when trying to detect Dark Matter, which also allows for the propagation of light with zero interference.) Physicists, such as Lorentz, Poincare, Fizeau and Fitzgerald to name a few, set about ways to find excuses for why the aether could not be detected. Yes, the aether was so important to these scientists that they set about finding reasons for Michelson & Morley’s null result. Eventually on the point of giving up, Fitzgerald jokingly suggested that maybe the aether was undetectable because distances contracted when in opposition to the aether and so on. The rest of course is history. Lorentz did an idle doodle to give the idea mathematical form and voila! special relativity! Einstein is given such great importance because of e = mc2 and the atomic bomb, but surely other scientists such as Poincare and the curies (who gave up their lives during the quest), also played a considerable part in the discovery. In summary what was originally a joke turned out to be the corner stone on which modern physics now rests. Any opposition to this joke turned state of the art physics is viewed with the utmost horror. Good luck to modern physics.

 

[QuarkHead]

.....................Many Worlds Interpretation; rather, each measurement results in a new branching of the universe where each possible eigenvalue is realized.
The Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics remains consistent with the mathematical framework of quantum mechanics. The formalism of operators, eigenvalues, and expectation values remains unchanged; it's the interpretation of these mathematical entities that differs. The many-worlds interpretation provides a way to account for the apparent randomness of measurements without invoking wave function collapse.

Which is exactly what I just told you, but you use a less precise atgument. Why repeat my words to me and the world?

.............question as to whether a science such as quantum mechanics represents reality. I don’t think it does.

Then the burden is on you to define "reality".

 

[exchemist]

Just because a phenomenon is ‘not in the maths’ does it mean that it does not exist? Leaving aside complicated jargon. The differences in how time and distance are measured by different observers are not just abstract concepts; they manifest in real experiences and measurements. For example, a moving observer will measure a shorter distance and a longer time between events than a stationary observer. When frames of reference are discussed in relativity, they are describing how these physical phenomena—length contraction and time dilation—affect measurements based on relative motion. Each observer has a real experience of these effects, influenced by their speed. This being so, it should be obvious that each observer is occupying his own space and time, independent of what other observers might be experiencing. In my understanding, this is nothing less than the fracturing of space and time and so cannot be true. i.e., must be false.

When considering special relativity one should never forget that it all started as a joke. After Michelson & Morley’s null result in detecting the aether. (Remember they (M&M) would still get a null result today when trying to detect Dark Matter, which also allows for the propagation of light with zero interference.) Physicists, such as Lorentz, Poincare, Fizeau and Fitzgerald to name a few, set about ways to find excuses for why the aether could not be detected. Yes, the aether was so important to these scientists that they set about finding reasons for Michelson & Morley’s null result. Eventually on the point of giving up, Fitzgerald jokingly suggested that maybe the aether was undetectable because distances contracted when in opposition to the aether and so on. The rest of course is history. Lorentz did an idle doodle to give the idea mathematical form and voila! special relativity! Einstein is given such great importance because of e = mc2 and the atomic bomb, but surely other scientists such as Poincare and the curies (who gave up their lives during the quest), also played a considerable part in the discovery. In summary what was originally a joke turned out to be the corner stone on which modern physics now rests. Any opposition to this joke turned state of the art physics is viewed with the utmost horror. Good luck to modern physics.

Einstein’s ideas had nothing to do with the atom bomb. He had to have the possibility of atomic bombs explained to him, by Szilard and Wigner. Nor does his formula E=mc^2 help anyone build a bomb.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

My vote: The movie "Wizards" by Ralph Bakshi.

 

[quant]

Einstein’s ideas had nothing to do with the atom bomb. He had to have the possibility of atomic bombs explained to him, by Szilard and Wigner. Nor does his formula E=mc^2 help anyone build a bomb.

Agreed, I am not saying that Einstein had anything to with the atom bomb, it was people's perception, including politicians and academics, who did have that perception, that gave him the tremendous image that he had. This was especially the case since it was Einstein who personally wrote the letter to President Roosevelt detailing the building of the atom bomb. Personally, I have great respect and admiration for Einstein. I admire his non-conformist attitude, his distaste of physical violence, his penchant for Independent and out of the way thinking. His moral rectitude to a certain extent, except possibly in his treatment of Newton, in the sense that anyone even vaguely familiar with Newton's work would be aware that, Newton did not advocate action at a distance and left it to future generations to determine what the mechanism of gravity was. Having said that, I think Einstein was wrong.

 

[quant]

Which is exactly what I just told you, but you use a less precise atgument. Why repeat my words to me and the world?

The reason I had done that is to explain how the Many Worlds Interpretation ties in with quantum mechanics.

Then the burden is on you to define "reality".

Is that the equivalent of a qm curse? Only joking. No, to return to your question. My version of reality is where the Universe does not fragment into uncountable independent pieces every time that 1000 space ships are moving, each at some fraction of the speed of light between two planets that are light years apart. Consider if you were moving and I were moving at different speeds and your distance and time differed from my distance and time, there is nothing in common between us. At present, for good or for bad, that is not the case. That is reality.

 

[Write4U]

At present, for good or for bad, that is not the case. That is reality.

All observations are of past reality?

 

[quant]

All observations are of past reality?

Well, take a theory like quantum mechanics where in order to describe light traveling from Point A to point B requires light to travel as an abstract mathematical wave-function, through multiple dimensions, that have no existence in our reality, and when the light is detected at point B, each of the possibilities within the abstract wave-function (multiple dimensions?) manifest as new Universes. That as far as I am concerned is the epitome of reality. If you don't like it, fair enough there are people who will defend such a theory with fang and claw until the opposition have to run away bleeding from a thousand wounds and cowering in fear. If you want a list of eminent scientists who regard the wave-function as being real and not as an abstract mathematical function. Don't hesitate to ask. I can provide such a list with citations.

 

[James R]

In a given medium, the speed of a wave remains constant as long as the medium's properties (like temperature and pressure for sound) do not change. When discussing waves:

1. The speed of a wave in a medium is determined by the properties of that medium. For instance, sound travels at a specific speed in air (about 343 meters per second at room temperature), regardless of the observer's motion.
2. The relationship between speed (v), frequency (f), and wavelength ($$\lambda$$) is given by the equation:

$$v = f \times \lambda$$

If the frequency increases (as when an observer moves toward the source), the wavelength decreases, but the speed remains constant in that medium.

We should be clear about whether we're talking about Newtonian Doppler shifts or relativistic ones. Also, the case of a moving observer is not the same as the case of a moving source of waves, in a medium.

In the Newtonian case, when an observer moves towards a source, the wavelength doesn't change. Rather, it is the apparent wave speed that changes, which changes the frequency the observer measures.

Light, of course, doesn't need a medium, and we need to consider the relativistic Doppler shift in a vacuum.

 

[James R]

Just because a phenomenon is ‘not in the maths’ does it mean that it does not exist?

So you think that - somehow - relativity requires that space splits into multiple bits? That's how you put it.

There's nothing in the maths of the theory of relativity that describes any such "splitting" of space. And since the maths reflects the conceptual content of the theory, I'd say that it's fair to conclude that nothing in the theory describes such a thing happening, either.

Certainly, no book on relativity that I've seen has talked about space splitting into bits every time somebody travels at a high speed, or anything like that.

My question, then, is: why do you believe this is a consequence of the theory of relativity?

The differences in how time and distance are measured by different observers are not just abstract concepts; they manifest in real experiences and measurements. For example, a moving observer will measure a shorter distance and a longer time between events than a stationary observer.

It depends on your choice of events, but okay. I understand what you're saying.

When frames of reference are discussed in relativity, they are describing how these physical phenomena—length contraction and time dilation—affect measurements based on relative motion.

Well, length contraction and time dilation are about measurements. They are about observers measuring lengths and time intervals.

The "physical phenomena" (e.g. the length of a spaceship or the time taken for a journey from A to B) differ for different observers, even though they are describing the same spacetime.

It sounds to me like you think that space itself must somehow change, and change differently for different observers - like a physical change in some underlying medium. But space isn't like a solid or a liquid. It's not a physical medium, in that sense. Changes to space and time are observer-dependent effects, not something that happens because a medium is changing. It is the observers who are changing. Do you understand what I'm getting at?

Each observer has a real experience of these effects, influenced by their speed.

Yes. As relativity would put it, different observers assign different spacetime coordinates to the same events in a shared spacetime. Relativity tells us how to translate from one observer to another, in effect.

This being so, it should be obvious that each observer is occupying his own space and time, independent of what other observers might be experiencing.

Not at all. On the contrary, the assumption is that events are fixed in a shared spacetime. What happens happens. All observers, everywhere and in every state of motion, agree on what happens. They can only disagree about where it happened and when it happened (i.e. they can disagree on the spacetime coordinates they assign to the same event).

In my understanding, this is nothing less than the fracturing of space and time and so cannot be true. i.e., must be false.

I think you have more to learn and you currently have a flawed understanding of the theory. But you've come to the right place to ask questions, if you want to learn more about this.

When considering special relativity one should never forget that it all started as a joke.

I'm not familiar with the "joke" narrative. Where did you get that idea from?

After Michelson & Morley’s null result in detecting the aether.

I don't think Einstein was even aware of M&M when he formulated the Special Theory.

(Remember they (M&M) would still get a null result today when trying to detect Dark Matter, which also allows for the propagation of light with zero interference.)

I don't "remember" that. It's not an idea I'm familiar with. Perhaps you can explain. Is this important?

Physicists, such as Lorentz, Poincare, Fizeau and Fitzgerald to name a few, set about ways to find excuses for why the aether could not be detected. Yes, the aether was so important to these scientists that they set about finding reasons for Michelson & Morley’s null result. Eventually on the point of giving up, Fitzgerald jokingly suggested that maybe the aether was undetectable because distances contracted when in opposition to the aether and so on. The rest of course is history. Lorentz did an idle doodle to give the idea mathematical form and voila! special relativity!

Not quite. There's a reason that Einstein is credited with the theory of relativity and not Lorentz. (And yes, there's also a reason that we have the Lorentz transformations, not the Einstein transformations.)

Einstein is given such great importance because of e = mc2 and the atomic bomb, but surely other scientists such as Poincare and the curies (who gave up their lives during the quest), also played a considerable part in the discovery.

Have you read Einstein's 1905 paper on special relativity?

In summary what was originally a joke turned out to be the corner stone on which modern physics now rests.

Whether or not it started as a joke, 120 years of experimental physics has shown that the theory is correct. That's why it's a cornerstone. It's not a popularity contest.

Any opposition to this joke turned state of the art physics is viewed with the utmost horror. Good luck to modern physics.

It sounds like you're in opposition. Rather than trying argument by ridicule, it might be better if you started to post what you think is wrong with the theory of relativity. Is the maths flawed? Does the theory lack self-consistency? Are the predictions of the theory in conflict with a specific experiment or observation?

If you're crusading for the downfall of the theory of relativity, you'll need to come up with something better than "I don't like it" or "It doesn't feel right to me". So, what have you got?

Having said that, I think Einstein was wrong.

Can you show where he was wrong?

Do you think it's at all possible that there's something about the theory of relativity that you don't understand well enough?

Have you studied the theory? At what level? Was it a formal course of study, or is this a hobby for you?

 

[exchemist]

The reason I had done that is to explain how the Many Worlds Interpretation ties in with quantum mechanics.

Is that the equivalent of a qm curse? Only joking. No, to return to your question. My version of reality is where the Universe does not fragment into uncountable independent pieces every time that 1000 space ships are moving, each at some fraction of the speed of light between two planets that are light years apart. Consider if you were moving and I were moving at different speeds and your distance and time differed from my distance and time, there is nothing in common between us. At present, for good or for bad, that is not the case. That is reality.

As I've explained, the Many Worlds Interpretation is simply one of many and is by no means favoured by all or even most physicists. If you want to argue against it, you are in good company but you are also pushing at an open door.

You seem very confused however. I get the sense you want to show QM and relativity are both wrong in some way, but you are swinging wildly from one topic to another in trying to do so, from the Lamb Shift to the Many Worlds Interpretation, to classical electron radius. There is no evident connection between any of these, still less any coherent argument for why you think QM or relativity are defective.

You also give the impression you have, in general, little idea what you are talking about, e.g. your ridiculous remarks about complex numbers. What are you doing? I had thought maybe you were another electrical engineer trying to reduce physics to your own comfort zone by pushing the "Electric Universe", but if you don't even understand complex numbers you can't be.

What's your agenda?

 

[exchemist]

Well, take a theory like quantum mechanics where in order to describe light traveling from Point A to point B requires light to travel as an abstract mathematical wave-function, through multiple dimensions, that have no existence in our reality, and when the light is detected at point B, each of the possibilities within the abstract wave-function (multiple dimensions?) manifest as new Universes. That as far as I am concerned is the epitome of reality. If you don't like it, fair enough there are people who will defend such a theory with fang and claw until the opposition have to run away bleeding from a thousand wounds and cowering in fear. If you want a list of eminent scientists who regard the wave-function as being real and not as an abstract mathematical function. Don't hesitate to ask. I can provide such a list with citations.

QM does not say light has to pass through multiple dimensions. You have made that up.

We have been over what the wave function is on the other thread you started. As Born came to realise, it does not itself correspond to any physical property, but it can be seen a sort of square root of a probability density, that is, if you multiply it by its complex conjugate (which I realise is a term you may not understand, given your lack of understanding of complex numbers) you get a probability density function. The wave function ψ also contains all the information about the properties of a QM entity, each properly being extracted from the wave function by means of an operator, such that Ôψ = αψ, where Ô is the operator for a property and α is its value.

What you write about new universes is not, for the nth time, a part of QM at all. It is just one philosophical interpretation put on what QM may possibly imply, made by some people - and disagreed with by many others. (As examples I mentioned Jim Baggott and Carlo Rovelli.)

It is hardly surprising you think QM is defective if, as the above shows, you do not understand how QM works and what it actually says. Your ignorance is not the same thing as a fault in the theory.

 

[DaveC426913]

What you write about new universes is not, for the nth time, a part of QM at all. It is just one philosophical interpretation put on what QM may possibly imply, made by some people - and disagreed with by many others. (As examples I mentioned Jim Baggott and Carlo Rovelli.)

Worth repeating. QM interpretations are philosophical. Science really has nothing to say about them, since there's no evidence forthcoming, although that doesn't stop scientists from exploring their preferred interpretation.

 

[exchemist]

Worth repeating. QM interpretations are philosophical. Science really has nothing to say about them, since there's no evidence forthcoming, although that doesn't stop scientists from exploring their preferred interpretation.

Yes, well, I've told him often enough now. But he seems to need this straw man of multiple universes in order to make his attack on both QM and relativity, which is why he ignores me and keeps returning to it. He even suggests that just because relativity says measurements of length and time are frame-dependent this must "split" the universe into fragments, one for each frame of reference. Which straw man he then ridicules, of course.

I continue to suspect he is an "electric universe" crank, as the book he was pushing earlier seems to be about that. He's trying to get back to an aether, certainly. I think he may actually be the author of that book, one Dilip James:

Dilip James has a number of "papers" on that publication site favoured by cranks, Acadenia.edu (where Reiku publishes). I had wondered if he might be another of these electrical engineers we get from time to time that pushes the electric universe because he wants to explain physics from his own comfort zone of classical electromagnetism. But his apparent ignorance of complex numbers seems to make that unlikely, given their importance in AC theory for instance. So I'm a bit stumped as to what he is trying to achieve.

 

[quant]

So you think that - somehow - relativity requires that space splits into multiple bits? That's how you put it.

There's nothing in the maths of the theory of relativity that describes any such "splitting" of space. And since the maths reflects the conceptual content of the theory, I'd say that it's fair to conclude that nothing in the theory describes such a thing happening, either.

Certainly, no book on relativity that I've seen has talked about space splitting into bits every time somebody travels at a high speed, or anything like that.

My question, then, is: why do you believe this is a consequence of the theory of relativity?

James R it occurs to me from a cursory reading of posts at this site and the stated opinion of many registered members, that you are considered to be both fair-minded and open to reason. It is therefore an enigma to me as to why you so whole heartedly oppose any adverse comments about special relativity. After all it is merely a question of my saying that a thing measures 10 ft and your saying that it measures 9 feet. Surely, there is nothing wrong in a discussion taking place on how such differences can arise? Yet from what I can understand of your post, no discussion at all is to be either permitted or tolerated on special relativity. It is as if I were questioning a Holy Book or something. I hope I am not banned on account of this post being overly argumentative. I was wondering if you would be amenable to listen to the logical side of my argument. Take a spaceship (a) that is travelling at 0.5c it reaches a planet B that is 10 light years away in a time of something like 17.3 years. No problem with that, the maths exists to prove it can be done. Yet consider it is not just spaceship (a ) above who can reach planet B, it is any spaceship that travels at 0.5c that can reach planet B. What does this signify, it signifies that space has a special layer for people travelling at 0.5c. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that the planet B that is observable from earth is not the same planet B that is reached by spaceship (a). Take a more extreme example, spaceship ( e) sets off to Planet B travelling at a speed of 0.9c , in this case it reaches Planet B in a time of something like 4.2 years (according to special relativity. There is no logical explanation for how something that is only 10 light years away in one ‘quote “frame of reference” unquote’ can travel a distance of a little less than half that and still be in the original space from which it started out. Spaceship ( e) has to occupy layer ( e) of space. Now consider the pre-Einstein scenario where the aether prevailed, what would happen, regardless of the speeds at which they were travelling? Spaceship ( e) would merely be travelling faster than space ship(a) but both are still in the same time frame. They can communicate by radio, as they will not be able to do in the special relativity scenario. The only difference is that spaceship (a) will arrive at Planet 17 years (approx.) later than spaceship ( e). Could you enlighten me, leaving aside the many experimental proofs, how such a scenario is possible?

 

[DaveC426913]

It is therefore an enigma to me as to why you so whole heartedly oppose any adverse comments about special relativity.

Not any comments, just bizarre ones like this:

...it signifies that space has a special layer for people travelling at 0.5c. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that the planet B that is observable from earth is not the same planet B that is reached by spaceship

Why don't you just read up in relativity rather than making your own stuff up?

(a). Take a more extreme example, spaceship ( e) sets off to Planet B travelling at a speed of 0.9c , in this case it reaches Planet B in a time of something like 4.2 years (according to special relativity. There is no logical explanation for how something that is only 10 light years away in one ‘quote “frame of reference” unquote’ can travel a distance of a little less than half that and still be in the original space from which it started out.

There is a perfectly logical explanation. What is your objection to it?

Spaceship ( e) has to occupy layer ( e) of space.

Space has no layers. We see no evidence of layers. The invocation of layers of space does not appear to make any predictive claims that bear out in experiments. It is what we call fanciful speculation.

Now consider the pre-Einstein scenario where the aether prevailed, what would happen, regardless of the speeds at which they were travelling? Spaceship ( e) would merely be travelling faster than space ship(a) but both are still in the same time frame. They can communicate by radio, as they will not be able to do in the special relativity scenario. The only difference is that spaceship (a) will arrive at Planet 17 years (approx.) later than spaceship ( e). Could you enlighten me, leaving aside the many experimental proofs, how such a scenario is possible?

Why explore scenarios for theories that have been debunked?
If you want to understand relativity, ask about relativity scenarios.

 

[quant]

Not any comments, just bizarre ones like this:


Why don't you just read up in relativity rather than making your own stuff up?


There is a perfectly logical explanation. What is your objection to it?


Space has no layers. We see no evidence of layers. The invocation of layers of space does not appear to make any predictive claims that bear out in experiments. It is what we call fanciful speculation.


Why explore scenarios for theories that have been debunked?
If you want to understand relativity, ask about relativity scenarios.

Has Dark Matter been debunked, there is the same problem in detecting it as was posed by the erstwhile aether. But with so
much zeal as is demonstrated all round I have no doubt that it is only a matter of time.

Space has no layers. We see no evidence of layers. The invocation of layers of space does not appear to make any predictive claims that bear out in experiments. It is what we call fanciful speculation.

It does not require a genius to see that there is not only scope for a layered Universe (according to the postulates of special relativity) but that there remains no logical alternative if special relative is followed.