Thought Provoker
Posts: 530 Joined: April 2007
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Hi Keiths,
Thank you for your comment. It provides me an excuse to repost something I think will help explain things I want explained. You see, Zachriel was trying to deflect the point of my Star Trek based story with his. Here is mine...
Quote | Captain's Log, star date 2006.1004,
We are on assignment in the Alpha quadrant to study planet cluster 623.
I have ordered the navigator to make it appear the planet cluster is moving in a circular pattern relative to the ship. Side note, I find it interesting that when the navigator does this it looks like the entire universe is spinning at the same rate, fascinating.
I have ordered Ensign Keiths to my ready-room.
Here he is now (wearing a red shirt, of course).
Ensign, we are sending down several survey teams to various planets in this cluster. This operation will occur over two years, ship time. The first year we will be dropping off teams the second year we will be picking them up.
However, it won't appear to be a year for you. Since, as you know, "…there is no absolute frame of reference…" and "…that the laws of physics are identical in all…" local frames of reference. Based on the ship's frame of reference, you will be constantly traveling at warp 0.9. At nine tenths the speed of light time will go slower…. err… um… or does it go faster? Hmmm, let's do the math…
ds^2 = dt^2 - (dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2) = (1 year)^2 - (0.9 light-years)^2 = 1.0 - 0.81 = 0.19
ds = 0.436 years
Ah yes, that’s it. Less than half a year. Therefore, we will provision your shuttle to last you and your team half a year. We will be back before you know it.
Ensign Keiths?
Do you have something to say? |
I wrote this in response to your claim that...
Quote | I think the problem is that you're confusing the concepts of absolute vs. inertial reference frames. Special relativity says that there is no absolute frame of reference, but it most definitely does not say that there are no inertial frames, as you claimed. In fact, special relativity recognizes an infinite number of inertial frames and holds that the laws of physics are identical in all of them. |
BTW, I never claimed there were "no inertial frames" and defy you to point out where I did.
The paradox in the Twin's Paradox is in choosing which frame of reference to use. You say it doesn't matter. I say it does.
The interesting part of your and Zachriel's "lecture" is that you were arguing in exactly the opposite directions.
Here is how I ended the off-topic discussion...
Quote | Hi Zachrial and Keiths,
It looks like Zachriel rejects the Math Page article and keiths thinks the "…author of the Math Page article confirms that special relativity resolves the Twin Paradox."
This has become too much of a distraction.
For the record, I reject Zachriel's, Keiths' and Lasky's suggestion that Special Relativity is complete enough to explain the Twin's Paradox without an implicit or explicit preferential choice of reference frames. I embrace the Math Page article's assessment…
"As mentioned above, one of Einstein's two main two reasons for abandoning special relativity as a suitable framework for physics was the fact that, no less than Newtonian mechanics, special relativity is based on the unjustified and epistemologically problematical assumption of a preferred class of reference frames, precisely the issue raised by the twins paradox. Today the "special theory" exists only (aside from its historical importance) as a convenient set of widely applicable formulas for important limiting cases of the general theory, but the phenomenological justification for those formulas can only be found in the general theory."
If we continue to disagree, we continue to disagree. However, hopefully by now you understand my position even if you don't like it.
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So Ensign Keiths, have you figured out how to explain things to a captain thinking he can use his frame of reference and only Special Relativity?
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