Relativity Linear Thread

[Goldminer]

Consequently, all you Einsteinians are fantasizing about the speed of light "in any inertial frame of reference." You are using an elapsed distance as an end point in determining the "speed" of light" between reference frames.

Not quite the way I see it. I am using the light as an end point in determining the elapsed distance. Distance is defined by the speed of light, not the other way around.

? ?

Light (a pulse of it) travels about a foot per nanosecond. It has to be detected! Get it? A light pulse has a duration. If the detector is in motion with the source, there is no "point." If the detector is in inertial motion with the source, outside of a gravitational field, the pulse is detected over a distance, otherwise known as a line.

I anxiously await your explanation of how "light" becomes an endpoint in the moving detector reference frame!

By the way, "light" has nothing to do with distance. It does help with seeing what you are doing though! One can step off distance heel to toe in the dark, counting as you go.

By the way, Saul, good to hear from you again. Don't be so scarce!

[saul]

Not quite the way I see it. I am using the light as an end point in determining the elapsed distance. Distance is defined by the speed of light, not the other way around.

By the way, "light" has nothing to do with distance. It does help with seeing what you are doing though! One can step off distance heel to toe in the dark, counting as you go.

As you know most dictionaries will disagree with you on this point.

As to your heel-toe procedure, the atoms in your foot and shoe which arrange to form the reference distance you are using are held together by electromagnetic forces. Again, it is electromagnetic forces ("light") that tell us what distance is.

By the way, Saul, good to hear from you again. Don't be so scarce!

Thank you! Its always a pleasure to poke my head in here and see what you are up to

[Goldminer]

Not quite the way I see it. I am using the light as an end point in determining the elapsed distance.

Originally intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole (at sea level), the "meter" is now defined "the length of the path traveled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second."

Since 1967, the second has been defined to be: "The duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom." Earlier it was defined to be "1/86,400 of a mean solar day.

Only recently has the second and the meter been defined by "fundamental properties of nature." Now, according to Albert, time and space are squishy. This does not make for much of a reliable measuring system, does it?

Now, back to your statement: "I, Saul, am using the light as an end point in determining the elapsed distance." I am curious as to how you accomplish this measurement. A distance needs two end points.

Light travels about a foot per nanosecond. If you know the elapsed time for a pulse's travel, you also know the distance traveled. Seems pretty simple to me . . .

[saul]

Originally intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole (at sea level), the "meter" is now defined "the length of the path traveled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second."

Since 1967, the second has been defined to be: "The duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom." Earlier it was defined to be "1/86,400 of a mean solar day.

Only recently has the second and the meter been defined by "fundamental properties of nature."

I argue that these definitions are at heart equivalent. What are the forces that prevent the rock from collapsing on that distance from the equator to the north pole? They are electromagnetic forces between constituent particles in the rock. If we use the Earth or a caesium atom, we are stating the same basic message: distance and time, fundamental concepts we use to understand the world around us, are electromagnetic quantities.

Now, back to your statement: "I, Saul, am using the light as an end point in determining the elapsed distance." I am curious as to how you accomplish this measurement. A distance needs two end points.

Light travels about a foot per nanosecond. If you know the elapsed time for a pulse's travel, you also know the distance traveled. Seems pretty simple to me . . .

As someone whose mother-tongue is imperial units, I prefer your definition of the foot

As for measuring the distance, you can slowly move a mirror away from your light, time the return, and when the return takes 2 ns you have moved the mirror one foot away.

It's simple until you start moving your clocks around or shining your light through anisotropic areas.

And sorry for my late reply. Lots of great stuff around here to catch up on!

[marengo]

My apologies for not having read previous posts. Too Many.
I do not disagree with the effects of Relativity such as length contraction ,time dilation and mass increase, and also E = mc^2.

But what I do say is that Einstein's theory is not the correct theory to predict them.
Einstein transformed the dimensions of one inertial reference frame (IRF) to another. Fine, but IRFs are purely theoretical constructs.

But Einstein assumes that real matter bodies can exist in his theoretical IRFs. My God, that is a BIG assumption with no logic or reason to back it up.
He then goes on to assume that the dimensions of these matter bodies are fixed by the dimensions of the IRF. WHY, HOW COME?
It just can't be done. Einstein's theory of Special Relativity applies to NOTHING.

Of course there is a theory which truly predicts relativistic effects. It is called the Aether theory of Relativity and can be found at www.aetherpages.com.

[marengo]

I am disappointed that no-one has replied to my previous post.
A discussion could be very interesting.