Is Relativity Reality?

[mistermack]

I've raised this question on other threads, and not got an answer that did it for me.
I'm not suggesting there is anything wrong with using relativity, I fully agree that it's the only VERSION of reality we can interract with.
To me, it's like viewing a very distant star, we can only ever see it as it was millions of years ago, but we KNOW that it's not where we are looking, and is much older NOW. So we know that REALITY is different to what we experience, even though we can never experience it, using the only tools we have, ( light and time that varies with velocity ).

I'm argueing that relativity is like that, we experience it and use it, it's a fantastic tool, but it's not reality.
To read the argument, click the link below :
http://kevinmcalpine1.pwp.blueyonder.co ... eality.htm
.

[colubridae]

Yes

[PsychoSerenity]

*resists urge to post link to time cube*

Umm well I'm probably not the best person to explain this, but I can see a couple of mistakes in your argument so far.

First, when you add the first particle, it doesn't reduce the possible frames of reference to a finite number. If the space dimensions are infinite, limiting the velocity just gives a smaller infinity.

Second, I think you're missing the point about, as you approach the speed of light, time slows down. So from one particle's frame of reference the other isn't travelling faster than light.

I recently had it explained to me like this; Imagine a train travelling around the earth, very close to the speed of light. Now imagine someone running from the back of the train to the front. From their point of view, they reach the front of the train in thirty seconds, and when the train stops, ten billion years has passed on earth. From the point of view of someone beside the track, watching the train flick past 15 times a second, the person in the train appears to be frozen in time, completely still in relation to the train - but in a running pose. Therefore the person running in the train is still limited by the speed of light.

Hope that helps.

[mistermack]

Thanks Phsycho,
Re your first objection, I did realise that point, and notice I said the RANGE of valid frames was reduced, not the number, which I agree is still infinite at that stage. But read on a bit, and notice that as the RANGE of velocities reduces when the speeds get close to the speed of light, the available frames become more and more identical. So you are perhaps approaching a situation where you have an infinite number of identical frames. Which is actually the same as saying one frame.

The bit about the train I understand much better now, having debated this a bit, and it doesn't invalidate the argument. ( IMO ). I did refer to time dilation in the argument.

Colubridae, as usual, your argument contains no flaws.

[Farsight]

Interesting, mistermack.

It looks to me that you're homing in on something here, but taking a rather different approach to the one I'd take. This one reference frame that you end up with is the universe. Light moves through it, and as per the evidence of pair production, things like electrons are quite literally made from light. Since we're made of electrons, we are too. That's why nothing can travel faster than light, and we always measure the speed of light to be the same. This lne of thinking rather explains special relativity, and says why it applies. It tells you that it describes our view of reality, which is skewed by our velocity with respect to the things that we observe. Have a read of "The Other Meaning of Special Relativity" by Robert Close for more on this. See http://www.classicalmatter.org/Classica ... tivity.doc

[ChildInAZoo]

To read the argument, click the link below :
http://kevinmcalpine1.pwp.blueyonder.co ... eality.htm
.

Argument 1 demonstrates that you don't understand special relativity, end of story. Go back and learn it. It doesn't work like your little intersecting circle example because adding velocities does not work like it does in Galilean relativity.

And thank you for the humor, Farsight. Robert Close is a real grade-A crackpot.

[MrFungus420]

Yes, it is reality.

They have to adjust for the effects of relativity with the satellites used for GPS.

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~po ... 5/gps.html

[newolder]

Yes, it is reality.

They have to adjust for the effects of relativity with the satellites used for GPS.

http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~po ... 5/gps.html

The range over which General Relativity theory matches observations encompasses Cassini @ Saturn: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 01997.html

[Farsight]

Don't listen to the naysayers, mistermack. Read that paper by Robert Close and then you'll understand special relativity better than they do. I mean that.

[Trolldor]

Yes

I concur.

Also, don't listen to farsight. There's a reason all his 'work' is on the internet and not published in scientific journals.

[newolder]

Interesting, mistermack.

It looks to me that you're homing in on something here, but taking a rather different approach to the one I'd take. This one reference frame that you end up with is the universe. Light moves through it, and as per the evidence of pair production, things like electrons are quite literally made from light. Since we're made of electrons, we are too. That's why nothing can travel faster than light, and we always measure the speed of light to be the same. This lne of thinking rather explains special relativity, and says why it applies. It tells you that it describes our view of reality, which is skewed by our velocity with respect to the things that we observe. Have a read of "The Other Meaning of Special Relativity" by Robert Close for more on this. See http://www.classicalmatter.org/Classica ... tivity.doc

For example, since gravity waves have never been directly observed it is possible that they might propagate at a different speed than light waves. In that case the wave equation for gravity waves would not satisfy Lorentz invariance using the speed of light. It is also possible that the apparent speed of gravity waves might be direction-dependent, which would indicate that motion can be defined relative to the vacuum.

Where does Robert calculate the speed of gravity waves? What testable number does his 'analysis' yield?

edit:
Ah, here it is...

The mass term represents rotation of the propagation direction, which explains why the apparent speed is always less than the speed of light.

The speed of gravity is less than the speed of light? Hmmm, not to my knowledge. Cassini@Saturn measures gravity – light speed = 0 ± 1 part in a trillion (1012).

What evidence does Robert use to gauge the claimed difference?

[PsychoSerenity]

Don't listen to the naysayers, mistermack. Read that paper by Robert Close and then you'll understand special relativity better than they do. I mean that.

Farsight, when I google "Robert Close relativity" most of the links go to other forums, all around the internet, where you have been posting the same topics about your own theories of time, as you've been posting here. Why is that?

[Farsight]

Farsight, when I google "Robert Close relativity" most of the links go to other forums, all around the internet, where you have been posting the same topics about your own theories of time, as you've been posting here. Why is that?

Because he's one of my "unsung heroes of science". He's a guy who has laid out in clear terms why special relativity works the way that it does, nobody can explain why he's wrong, and he's been "studiously ignored" or dismissed as a "crackpot". He isn't. Pair production tells us that electrons are quite literally made from light, and we're made of electrons. We're made of other things too, but the same principle applies. Other people have realised this too, and I'm doing what I can to educate others.

NB: these aren't my own theories of time. What I say in Time Explained is nothing new, and isn't something original. It goes back as far as Aristotle, it resurfaced as Presentism in 1908, and Godel and Einstein worked it out in 1949, see "A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy of Godel and Einstein".

[mistermack]

childinazoo, I'm impressed, you've managed to argue without offering an argument.
Farsight, yes, I'm saying that it looks like there is just one frame that is valid for the entire universe. Any other, that is moving relative to it, will have particles moving relative to it at more than c, so will be invalid.
Mrfungus and newolder, I of course agree that special and general relativity make correct predictions. Correct from our viewpoint, in our own frame of reference. I'm simply saying that if you put yourself in any frame of reference, relativity will give you accurate results, but only for that frame.

Here's a question. Clocks (and hence time) can be slowed without limit, all the way to stopped, theoretically, by increasing the velocity to c. But does it work the other way? Can time run faster without limit? If not, why not?
I would say that time goes faster, as your frame of reference gets closer and closer to the universal one. But it cannot go any faster, if your clock is stationary in that frame. Any movement will make it slow.
If you disagree, you should be able to demonstrate that there is no limit to the amount that time can speed up.
I would say, find the fastest clock in the universe, and you have the Universal frame of reference.
.

[ChildInAZoo]

childinazoo, I'm impressed, you've managed to argue without offering an argument.

Look, what's the point of offering something substantive about your argument when you simply aren't talking about relativity theory. You are trying to make claims about some theory that bears a little resemblance to special relativity, but that isn't that theory.

Farsight, yes, I'm saying that it looks like there is just one frame that is valid for the entire universe. Any other, that is moving relative to it, will have particles moving relative to it at more than c, so will be invalid.

See, you don't understand how to add velocities in special relativity.

Mrfungus and newolder, I of course agree that special and general relativity make correct predictions. Correct from our viewpoint, in our own frame of reference. I'm simply saying that if you put yourself in any frame of reference, relativity will give you accurate results, but only for that frame.

OK, but did you know that there are exact mathematical relationships that we can invoke to translate information from one frame to another and always get the right results in the second frame? This is the important content of relativity theory that you seem to be missing.

Here's a question. Clocks (and hence time) can be slowed without limit, all the way to stopped, theoretically, by increasing the velocity to c. But does it work the other way? Can time run faster without limit? If not, why not?

Because the time dilation is an effect of the relationship between events, not of the events themselves. There are important asymmetries in the relationships that allow us to predict what will happen in a different system of coordinates that the one we choose to start in.

I would say that time goes faster, as your frame of reference gets closer and closer to the universal one. But it cannot go any faster, if your clock is stationary in that frame. Any movement will make it slow.
If you disagree, you should be able to demonstrate that there is no limit to the amount that time can speed up.

This is called a "straw man" argument. Though a case could be made that it is a complex question fallacy.