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I am 61. Within 20 or 30 years, barring some longevity advances in medicine I will most likely die. It will not matter to me, at that point, whether relativity is the block universe, or whether it is more like the two senses of now. There will be people alive after I die, some that can calculate the distance between two events in 4D space time and can visulize a null geodesic, and some that think the Earth must be flat, and some like me, who try and build a model of the universe, around me, consistent with what I sense, what I have been told, and what makes logical sense. If two atomic clocks come back from a flight, one in one direction around the Earth and one in the other, and they do not match, and do not match a clock that never left the ground, then there must be a reason. I am still looking for the reason, because time dilation and length contraction do not add up and add back in all the ways I need them to. There might be another way to look at the numbers and see what is "actually" happening, in terms of the wavelengths of energy that are being counted. It might for instance matter whether the clocks were facing forward or back, or whether some wire in one clock was looped in a different manner than in the other, that only mattered while moving through the electric field of the Earth. But in any case the universe will be exactly the same, outside the local 5000 lyr radius, no mater what I think or you think, or the flat Earther thinks. Relativity cannot be the block universe because the universe existed before Einstein, and whatever it is, it mostly was, before anybody even picked up a pen to write an equation.

You could pick the 12 directions, based on the way the Earth was oriented to the universe, at 8:30 AM on August 20th, 2015. Strange, Well wait a minute. Is that why I have such problems with assigning meaning to equations? There is no physical meaning to equations that are representing the way physical reality works?!? I am glad this discussion is in the philosophy section, because we really do need to carefully parse when we are talking about "what we can say about a thing" and when we are talking about the "thing as it is". david345 suggested that relativity was the block universe The statement made no sense to me. Are you telling me that it not suppose to make any sense. It's just supposed to work on a piece of paper...and that's the way it is? I am thinking that something working or not working in one's head, having the model fit reality and reality fit the model, is a process that is pretty much contained locally, within a few thousand lyrs at a maximum, and more likely something that is occuring or has occured on the Earth, in the last 4 or 5 thousand years. The conventions and language that we have come up with, refer to something, all the time. They are symbols and collections of symbols, that stand for something else, other than just the shape of the character, or the slope of a curve. Even without knowing how to take an integral or find a derivative drivers can judge how to control the speed and direction of their vehical to pass a truck, on a turn on a busy highway, at 70 miles per hour. We can solve the equations, without ever setting them up on paper. If we were to set them up on paper, the numbers would have to mean something, stand for something, we would have to have the road, and the lanes, and the speed and position of each vehical represented at each moment in such a way as a collision on paper would be a collision in reality, and a safe pass on paper would be a safe pass in reality. If you set it up wrong on paper, and make the truck 12.73 meters long because its moving and has contracted in length from its actual 12.74 length, and therefore should fit in the 12.74 meter space between the front bumper of the car behind and the back bumper of the car infront, you better know what is related to what, when lengths are contracted and when they are not, whether the contraction is taking place from front to back or back to front, or all at the same time, or what, or you are liable to calculate a miss when there will actually be a hit, or a hit when there will actually be a miss. The numbers and the symbols have to stand for something OR you have a road to madness. Looking for meaning in the symbols is not, or should not put one on the road to madness. It should put one on the road to making sense of the world, and of making sense of the equations, that attempt to model the world. Regards, TAR

Strange, Well, I know what a square meter is, but I do not know what it would mean, to travel a square meter. Would that be analogous to "covering" a square meter, as in pouring fluid on a flat surface, and having it create a larger and larger puddle as you pour? And once I figure out what that means in terms of a photon, what then is a square second? If you are currently seeing something then you are currently seeing it, but that thing you are seeing has already happened, so you are not currently seeing what is currently happening. You admit yourself, that when we see the Rover fall into the hole, it currently has been lying at the bottom of the hole for 14 minutes. Why do you accept the statements of fact and ignore the implications? ... Was thinking this morning about a way to test the "passage of time", as per what I would predict and envision that would perhaps explain better, what I am suggesting is true, about the way the universe is connected to itself. Any observer that is not in the same x,y,z coordinate as another observer will be a different distance from every other x,y,z coordinate than another uniquely positioned observer, at least along at least 1 axis. For simpliticy of concept, we will put the origin of the x,y,z coordinate system, in the real world, not on a peice of paper, or in an analogous fashion in a 2d representation of some sort. For the purposes of the 2 nows point of view, we will have t be zero at every coordinate, now. Already, when you consider Proxima Centauri in respect to Earth it is at t-4.8years and we, here on Earth will see it get its clock set to zero, in 4.8 years. From the universal now type of exercise we envisioned, all points in the Milky Way are set to 0, while all the distances between all points are at an exact relationship. Of course the place immediately continues to rotate around the center, with all items changing their x,y,z coordinates, and ticking seconds off, in respect to the rest of the clocks in the galaxy at a rate such that if you would go to another x,y,z coordinate, when you got there, at whatever speed, it would read the same t as your clock, having been set at zero at the same universally considered moment as your clock, and having ticked off seconds, at 1 sec per second, since, same as your clock. The implications of this view, are that as you approach a different x,y,z coordinate, your times get closer, until you are there, and they match. This time is exactly accounted for by the blue shift of the frequencies of light you see, as you appoach Proxima Centauri. At a certain point on your trip you will see Proxima's clock set to zero, and tick off seconds at a rate faster than your clock, but at such a rate, that when you arrive the clocks are ticking the same second. Having watched the redshifted clock you left on Earth, move in slow motion, you will find, I predict, that when you reach Proxima Centauri, and see Proxima Centauri's clock tick the same second as your clock, you will see the clock on Earth tick the same tick as your clock, minus 4.8 years, which is exactly the time offset between the here and now of Earth and the here and now of Proxima Centauri. To test this idea, I was speculating that you could pick 12 directions in space (similar to the center of the 12 diamond shapes of a spherical rhombic dodecahedron) and in each direction pick a close star, a distant "fixed" star and an item outside our galaxy in that direction and carefully track the redshift or blueshift of each of the 36 items during all 24 hours of the day, for a year, from an equatorial observation point, one at 45 degrees north latitude, and one at the North pole and one at 45 degrees South and one at the South pole. Of course there would be stars you could never see from the North, and items you could never see from the South, but if you put all the info together, you could get a decent "grid" and together with distance calculations, assign an x,y,z coordinate to each, according to the center of the galaxy at t=0, with the positive Z axis pointing to the great attractor, at t=0. Of course there would be some difficulty in building this grid, because the t=0 universal set, will not happen (as we watch) at the center of the galaxy for scores of thousands of years, and the "set" will not "happen" as far as we witness it, for whatever time it takes light to get here from each x,y,z coordinate...but it is the idea I am after, and each distance and time descrepency can be figured and everything, in a geometrical way, will add back, to where there was an actual moment in time, when every item had a unique position in the grid, at t=0. So, if we have the clock ticks (frequencies) of all 36 reference points, and their relative distances to each other we can figure what clock tick, relative to the t=0 set, each item is currently on. Of course most items will be on a negative tick, as we won't see any of the clocks tick to zero in our lifetimes, except for the few stars we have picked within 100 lys. But ALL the clocks were "actually" set to zero at 8:30 AM on the 20th of August, 2015, in West Milford NJ. Giving this setup, we can now run an experiment. Have a "stationary" lab watch the visible of the 36 and see what time it is. Have a moving lab watch the visible of the 36 and see what time it is. Regards, TAR

Strange, Well does or does not the theory say that the traveling twin will experience traveling a shorter distance than the actual distance, in a shorter period of time than the actual period of time? Regards, TAR Strange, And "a rather nice" description of reality may be a stretch, as it requires one to drop dimensions, contort space and time, and keep track of an amazing number of definitions and contraints and transforms, some of which I personally cannot manage to relate to reality. I quickly lose track of whether I am here or there, twin or me, objective viewer or subjective viewer, in the shoes of the muon, or an ant traversing the inside of the surface of an expanding baloon. I still for instance do not know what it means...what you "get" when you square the speed of light. And it remains a question as to what one is suppose to do with a star that is 4.8 lyrs from here. Are we currently seeing it or not, or both? Regards, TAR does it really exist only once, or does it really exist in two senses, one that we sense, and one that we know must be the case Strange, For instance, let me ask this question about reality. Does a quasar, that we are currently studying exist? Does the area of space where the quasar is also have an existant reality at the present moment, where the masses and gases have undergone several generations of star formation and element building, are currently 13.8 billion years old, same as the Milky Way, and where there may be carbon based life on some planet? Since you may imagine that that area of space is currently doing something that is "different" than a quasar, it is just a matter of convention and agreement as to what we are calling currently existing, and in what sense we are calling it. In the one sense we have to call an old image of the thing reality, and in the other sense we have to call our imaginary concept of what must be, or could be the case, actual reality. It is not ignoring reality, to talk about both the image and the imagination as being real...in the exact way that they are real. Regards, TAR if we see the Mars rover fall into a hole, did it "just" fall into the hole, or did it fall into the hole 14 minutes ago? how many instances of the Mars rover, exist in the universe? I mean actual Mars rovers, not images of what the rover did before, but the actual Mars rover, that is doing something now, for the first and only time it will ever be done?

Strange, OK, perhaps we are getting somewhere. The difference between what I am imagining and what relativity says is that null geodesic thing. That there is no difference, in terms of being a coordinate (4D) between the release of the photon and the reception of the photon, regardless of the distance between. This appears to be my problem in understanding a number of issues, or to put it another way, my problem WITH the theory. Perhaps strick adherence to this null geodesic thing, at the inappropriate time and place, is the problem with the theory...in my estimation. This issue is probably why things you are saying seem like nonsense to me, and things I am saying seem like nonsense to you. The problem may be forced by the math, as it allows the speed of light to be considered as unity, and therefore not accounted for in the transition of a particle, or a thought from one place to another. It forces the "reality" that to a photon, there is NO distance between two x,y,z coordinates, and it strikes another electron, on the other side of the galaxy, as soon as it is released from its mother atom. This is actually contrary to experience, and light has a speed of 186,000 miles per second. Or contrary to convention where we have set a meter to be the distance traveled by a photon in 1/299,???th of a second. There appears to be a difference between the photon experiencing time, and a person experiencing time. We go by what lots of photons are doing, in succession, and that is what reality is made of. The sum total of all the photon trips. And to us, being at the receiving end of a photon's trip, we can order its arrival in terms of the arrival of other photons, released from other x,y,z coordinates, and we can order it, in terms of other photons released from the same x,y,z coordinates, and we can put ourselves in the shoes of observers, between the release and reception of a photon and see that they can eat a sandwich, "while" the photon is in flight. So to the photon, there is no distance between, according to relativity. According to the two senses of now, there absolutely IS a distance between and a fixed time it would take a photon to travel it. And a fixed time it would take a twin to travel the distance. I can understand the argument that if the photon makes the trip in 0 seconds, then something moving at the speed of light should also make the trip in 0 seconds, and that it is impossible to actually have a mass go at the speed of light, so we can imagine something going near the speed, call it relativistic, and say that anything going near the speed of light will experience time and distance close to null, by a factor dictated by the pythogorean theorum. This is fine, if that is all the theory is saying. Except saying that "this is reality" is somewhat short of the mark. Reality for me, and for you, and for any other human is formed by the arrival of photons, and electromechanical fields, and temporal disturbances, and chemical combinations, and heat and energy to our sense organs. Our brains put it all together and build a model of the world, consistent with the information gathered. This process relies heavily on the speed of light, as distant items do not inform us of what they are doing currently, they inform us of what they did a while back, at a distance exactly coincident with the not 0 speed of light. Regards, TAR so when we say the twin is traveling at 98 percent the speed of a photon, and the speed of a photon is infinite, as in being able to transverse infinite distance in 0 time, what do we mean?

Strange, I apologize for calling length contraction goofy. I mean to say that it doesn't make any sense, as to what it "means". Would you say that something undergoing length contraction "actually" gets shorter? Perhaps I have a different way of looking at reality, but I don't think that automatically means that I am ignoring it. I could reverse your charges and claim that you are ignoring reality when you say there is no universal now, when there absolutely has to be something going on now, at a distance, for us to see it later. Block universe is one way to parse it. You have the 45 degree angles and length contraction and time dilation, but you have nowhere to start, and nowhere to hang your hat. Two senses of now is based on the findings of relativity, but does not draw the same conclusions. I am considering what must be the case for what we sense to be what we sense. It is difficult to claim a thing that we cannot witness as real, but we, and I mean everybody, do it all the time. I started with reminding everybody that everybody KNOWS a star is shining in two senses. One in that we see the thing, and one in that we know it is sending out photons now, that we will see later. This is real. Nobody denies it. What I am suggesting is that our ability to put ourself in somebody elses shoes, is powerful, but is not flawless. The universe is very big and light takes minutes, hours, days, years, millenia, epochs, to get from certian parts of it, to other parts of it. Each set of timings, creates a different type of model, in terms of what parts of it are verifiable and viewable, on what time scales, and by what observers. In the twin paradox, I have read many a take, and seen many a breakdown of what is happening, and in most, I do not agree with how certain things are defined, and whether the thing that is being said is "true" from every perspective. Since the universe is connected, there are no two parts of it, that are not connected to each other. No item can escape reality. No item can be somewhere else. It has to be here. But what is here? Here is half a million miles, give or take, if you go by local, here and now. Here is the entire universe, if you go by the universal now. The problem is, and the basis of the insight that I am trying to share, is that it must be true that another person is real, and existent even though he is over there. Separated from you by a pico second or a nano second or a millisecond, or a second, or 14 minutes if he is on Mars when Mars is on the other side of the Sun from "here". This is a problem, because in order to see reality as it is, one has to look at it twice. Once from what we sense, and once from what we know that means. It is easy to accept the reality of distances within a half million miles, because you can interact with something at that distance, within a moment. The concept of what is real and existant though, has to change character, as you increase the distance beyond the moment, because the thing only exists once, yet you can't see it as one thing, because you are not close enough to interact with it, in a moment. It has to be "You know that star put out the light we are seeing years ago, right? And that star is doing something right now, that we won't witness for years." Real small and quick and close stuff, stuff that happens well within a moment can be more readily understood, because even though we can't see it happening, we know the start and finish of each cycle is complete and past and done, by the time we see it. Not so with the shining of a star. What we see is already done, but the star is still shining now, and we have no way to see it, other than the way we do. We have to imagine, what has to be real. Regards, TAR

Strange, The correct way, a correct way, same difference. We don't know the correct answer for how the twin will come back. It's speculative. If I think she will come back aged approriately along with everywhere she has been, and she comes back exactly as old as her twin, then the prediction would be wrong. Every prediction of relativity has been found to be consistent with every prediction of relativity. You say: "But there is no correlation between relativistic effects and the presence of electromagnetic radiation." I say that if gravity effects time and distance and motion effect time and distance, that light should also be in the mix, when considering time and distance, since distance is defined in terms of the time it take light to make the trip. You would not observe a relativistic effect, unless electromagnetic radiation was part of the experience. How you define here and now, at each part of the experinment? You need the tick of a clock to either be happening some place within the experimental space, or everywhere within the experimental space, at the same time. How can you say a photon is over there, because you see it over there, when it just hit your eye a few milliseconds ago? There is enough "slop" in an experiment to cause timing differences, just due to definitions as to what is currently happening, and what that means. That is the point of this thread. That there are "problems" with the block universe idea, and there are "problems" with the two senses of now being incorrectly switched between. Regards, TAR I was going back to having the traveling twin female and the stay at home male, so one could just use she and he, rather than Earthman and Spaceman or stay-at-home and traveler. If relativistic effects are considered "without" regard to the blue shift in the direction of travel, and the redshift in the direction of where you have been, then the experiment is not taking everything into account. If for instance the inclusion of the high energy, high frequency "short" wavelengths from the front, would be mathematically equivalent to "length contraction", then let's just go with the shorter wavelengths, which are real, and dispense with the length contraction, which is goofy.

she would absolutely be able to tell which direction she was going and how fast, even though the light from ahead and from behind was coming in at c it would be coming in at highly diverse wavelengths and energies

well wait experiments show that the equations of relativity are consistent with measurements and observations That would indicate that such is one way to look at it. Does not say my way is wrong, as long as l can explain the measurements, based on what I am holding as observed and what I am holding as actual, and what I am holding as judged as having to be the case. For instance, let's just say that a muon will deteriorate faster if it is subjected to a barrage of short wavelength high energy electromagnetic energy from one direction, at the same time as it is subjected to long wavelength , low energy electromagnetic energy from the exact diametrically opposed direction. If true, one could cause a muon to deteriorate faster by simulating its relativistic motion through space, by moving the space (electromagnetic fields) through it, or simulating such, in terms of red shifted energy coming from one compass point and blueshifted energy coming from the other. If this experiment were to work, it would give a "reason" for rapidly moving muons to deteriorate, without messing with time in an ununderstandable way. besides, the twin might find it easy to tell she is moving in a certain direction, as the electromagnetic energy hitting her in the face is damaging x-rays, and there is just imperceptable radio waves hitting her from behind

I understand what is being said to me. I just don't agree that everything is being properly parsed from well defined perspectives. they were david234's numbers My example actually works and adds up, with no time dilation required. In fact, time dilation would mess it up. So is it two ways to look at the same reality, or is one or the other correct and the other incorrect? Janus' numbers have the twin coming back younger than the stay at home. My numbers have both twin and the tour guide, and the rest of the universe all aging 10 years. Occum's razor would favor my explaination, if both takes are consistent with observation. Question is not whether there is a difference in time between a satellite clock and an Earth clock, the question is whether there is different difference between a clock on the Earth to the satellite's East and the Earthbound clock to the satellite's West. The postions the three clock are in, in reference to the rest of the universe, is the standard by which I am saying time progresses. Any object finding itself in a particular spot, will have the rest of the universe equally spaced around it, with objects 1 ly distant, 1 ly distant. The identities of these objects may change with motion, as half the universe is getting closer and the other half further away as you move, but the spot you move into, has not changed its relationship with the rest of the universe, and at that spot certain photons have already passed and certain photons are on their way. The arrival of the rest of the universe at any single point in the unverse is the basis of human consciousness. We don't witness what is somewhere else, we withness what is here and now. Same exact reality goes for every other human on the Earth, and same reality goes for muons and twins. Where ever you are is unique to you and just now is the first and only time the rest of the universe will be so arranged around you. Same can be said, for any point in the universe...now.

What is interesting, and would be a prediction from the two nows point of view, is the age of the tour guide at the turn around point. When the traveler left Earth, the tourguide looked 22 1/2, but was actually 25 in the universal now sense, since 2 1/2 years had passed on her planet, while the light was getting from her planet to the Earth. Her image looked 22 1/2 while she was actually 25 when the space ship took off. Five years later, in the universal now sense, the time it took the spaceship to reach the turn around point, she has aged 5 years and is now actually 30 when she meets the spaceman. The Earthman, viewing the meeting, would see his brother as 2 1/2 years younger than the Earthman was himself, and would see the tourguide as 30, as that is how old she was at the meeting. Five years later, in the universal now sense, the spaceman returns to Earth exactly as old as the Earthman, as the Earthman was blueshifted, all the way back and aged in fast motion, in the same manner as the 2 1/2 deficit caught up with the spaceman in the eyes of the Earthman, the tourguide only aged, redshifted in slow motion 2 1/2 years, during the trip back, the same way the brothers aged in slowmotion to each other on the way apart. In actuality, in the universal now sense, the tourguide is 35 when the twins reunite. But when they look at her, she looks only 32 1/2. To both twins.

David345, I thought we already agreed that the Earthman would not see the turn around at the 5 year mark, as the spaceman, while at the turnaround point is a fair distance from the Earth, and it would take light from the turn around 2.5 years to reach the Earth, while it will take the spaceman 5 years to reach the Earth from the turn around point. We have to allow a universal now to consider the spaceman at the turnaround point, 2.5 years prior us seeing him at the turnaround point. And your equation, from the Earthman's point of view was the same, in both directions of travel, both out, and back, you had at the same quantity. From whose perspective, is this true? God's? According to sense and observation, the spaceman, from the Earth's point of view is redshifted on the way out, and blue shifted on the way back. If your equation from the Earth's point of view is equivalent in both directions, it does not jive with observation and does not jive with logic. The only thing it obeys is the pythagorian theorum. Regards, TAR In the block universe you can see two spacetime points at the same time (one thought) at the same place (peice of paper/ones mind/one equation). In reality this is not the case. Two points in space are separated by the distance it takes light to travel the interim. The equation changes as soon as either a sec passes or a light sec is traveled. The equation, written from x,y,z and the equation written from x',y',z' are separated by time, even before a t is introduced. The distance between x,y,z and x',y',z' is already set, and that "time" has to be included in the calculation. On the way out, the distance is increasing between the Earthman and the Spaceman, and the time between them is increasing, regardless of what time "passes" on the ship or "passes" on Earth. On the way back the time between the two points, that where the spaceman is at, and that where the Earthman is at decreases, from 2 1/2 years to 0, the same way it increased from 0 to 2 1/2 years on the way out. If your equation does not include this reality, then it is not modeling reality correctly. here is another problem When the spaceman gets to the turn around spot, 5 years have passed, from the Earth's perspective, but when the spaceman looks at the Earth, his brother, the Earthman looks like he has only aged 2 and a half years, as the present view of the Earth, will not "get to" the turn around point for another 2 and a half years, and the spaceman is viewing the Earth, knowing that what he is looking at has already happened, 2 and a half years ago. If the Earthman looks as if he has aged 2 and a half years from the Spaceman's perspective, and the spaceman knows he is 2 and a half years light travel time, from the Earth, then since 2 1/2 + 2 1/2 equals 5 from the spaceman's perspective, he knows that 5 years have passed. Why would he think that anything other than 5 years have passed, based on observation of his brother, and knowledge of how far away the turnaround point, actually is from the Earth?

StringJunky, Convince me of what. That there is a time difference between any two points, even close points, or convince me that time dialates, or convince me that clocks tick slower in gravity wells? My basic contention on this thread, is that there is a NOW at one end of the sugar cube, and a different now, at the other corner, that are separated by the distance between the corners, and hence by the amount of time it takes light to travel from one corner to the other...AND there is a time, that can be witnessed in retrospect when both ends were actually emitting photons "at the same time". Regards, TAR The block universe suggests that all events, past present and future, are equally real, and that they all exist. I am thinking this is false, and things that have not happened yet, have not happened yet, and things that already happened, will not happen again. To conceptualize how this can be true, I consider that everything that is happening in the universe is currently happening, at some position in the universe, but since every position in the universe is connected to every other position in the universe by at least the past reception of emitted photons from emitters that at the 380,000 year mark were close enough to get a photon to the Milky Way in 13.8 billion years, then we should expect to see the rest of the universe in a consistent and constant way, where things that happen at the 380,000 mark will be measured now, 13.8 billion years later, and things that happened here, yesterday cannot be measured again, as they already happened here. You can measure what happened here yesterday from a point in space, one lightday from here, now, but only if you allow a universal now. Strange, Perhaps you think I am arguing something I am not. I just want to point out at this juncture that many scientists consider what reality will be like in the future. Some even consider what the universe will look like, from the Milky Way, in 600 billion years, and what will be "knowable" by scientists at that point in time. Certainly this is imaginary and not measurable, not based on observation, and is purely conceptual in nature. Yet it is neither philosophy or religion, but is considered science, based on what would seem to logically follow from what is measured. It is not folly to likewise consider what must have been the case in the past for us to see what we see in our present skies. Nor is it folly to consider that there must be things happening right now in China, for us to get the satellite image of it, in a few seconds. Regards, TAR

Strange, Well this is what this thread is about. There is change you can measure, see, sense and compare against your most recent model, and then there is the most recent model of the world you build imaginarily, without seeing it, but knowing it must be there. It is absolutely a philosophical or semantic question. It involves sometimes going by what you have measured and seen and sometimes going by what must be the case for that to have been seen like that. It is the "insight" that I had, I don't know...5 or 6 years ago, that there must be reality happening right now, outside our view, outside our measurement, inorder for us to measure it, when the photons from it, get here. You do not discount this insight. It seems obvious enough to you. I just apply it equally to everything, in the sense that "what is real" must be both what we see, and what we figure must be the case, outside our eye's vision, but within our mind's comprehension. Regards, TAR

Strange, Nobody said anything about my sugar cube example. Would you say its the same time on one corner of the sugar cube, as it is on the other, or would your answer depend on what predictions, at what scale, your were making. Does the top of a sugar cube age at different rate than the bottom? Can you tell the historical positions that the sugar cube must have had, according to careful measurements and application of special and general theories of relativity? If I throw it in the air, spinning it, does the outide age less than the inside because it is moving faster, further. Would this mean anything, if the whole experiment was done infront of a single clock? Regards, TAR Strange, "You will see it as" is the term I am questioning. Do you mean see, or measure, or figure, or know, or what. It seems that even in the literature there are different interpretations of what is meant by length contraction, as in does something "actually" change its length, or does it appear to, or figure to, or measures as, or "must have". Regards, TAR

My contention on this thread is that a block universe view creates inconsistencies and impossible stuff, whereas the two senses of now, explains everything nicely. (except the block universe view, which does not allign itself with sense and logic and is hard to explain, because of its inconsistencies and logical flaws.) Strange, Really? "Hence it takes a longer path when seen from the other frame of reference than it does from the boys point of view." But we know a truck a mile down the road can hide behind an outstretched thumb. Who in their right mind would suggest that the truck shrinks with distance. Are you going to allow the observer to use their brain and know their relationship to the rest of the universe, or not? Regards, TAR

Strange, Well, suppose I automatically consider the boy at the station stationary, and me moving. You are forcing me to take my frame of reference as stationary and the rest of the universe as moving. I reject that point of view as the objective point of view. That is a subjective point of view that is not the case for most of the people, within a moment (2 and a half light seconds) from me. Each of those people also are subjectively stationary with the rest of the universe, moving around them. Given that it is now known that the Earth is not the center of the cosmos, it is possible to understand oneself as on a moving train in reference to a stationary Earth, which in turn is moving in reference to a stationary Sun, which in turn is moving in reference to a stationary black hole at the center of our galaxy in the direction of Sagitarius. I can "wrap my head" around the thought of me standing to your left as you stand to my right, but that doesn't mean we both can't be right handed. If one makes the concession that their point of view is not the preferred point of view of the universe, and that other points are equal in their holding of a subjective, here and now "time", this FORCES my consideration that ALL subjective points of view are "just now" happening. Its the only way to frame it, so that we can see distant stuff, here and now, AFTER it happens. Regards, TAR So if I don't see the paradox as possible, and parse the situation in a way that makes sense, I am wrong, but if somebody "understands the theory" in a way that makes what the theory says, not a paradox, which by definition would be not seeing it as a paradox, but parsing it in a way that makes sense, then they are right, even though we both are saying sensible things about the way the universe actually fits together, and works? Why is it called the twin paradox if nobody that formulated the theory of time dilation and length contraction see any inherent contradictions?

So what would be different about the rock? Would the more aged one have a smaller percentage of a certain radioactive isotope? My lack of understanding cannot be the source of a paradox. A paradox is more likely the result of an inappropriate switch in perspective. A paradox, by definition is not possible. If my understanding removes a paradox and your understanding creates one, which understanding is more likely consistent with a possible universe?

Strange, You are mixing things up here. The ball has the same momentum as the train. Are you saying massless objects like photons, have momentum? If that were the case, then there would be a difference in the speed of a photon fired in the direction of travel (c+v) and the speed of a photon fired behind (c-v.) That is not true in anybody's formulation, as far as I know. Regards, TAR

If the clock in the valley is ticking at a different speed than the clock at the top of mountain, and it has been doing so, for the last 10 thousand years, shouldn't the valley and the top of the mountain be at different times according to relativity? What would that mean, in terms of me walking up the hill, picking up a rock, and carrying it down to the valley and putting it next to a rock in the river, that came off the top of the hill 10 thousand years ago. Are the rocks, formed of the same minerals, that were fractured from each other 10 thousand years ago, the same age, as in exactly the age of the universe, or are they different ages since one spent 10 thousand years on top of the mountain, and its brother spent the last 10 thousand years in the valley?

Strange, Last night, when I thought I was dropping this discussion, as I hate neg reps, and was being cast as a crackpot in pursuing it, I had a thought, that I refrained from asking about, as it is consistent with me being "unhappy" with the formulations that result in time dilation and length contraction, and doubting the Lorentz formulae, that many things are based on, is problematic and puts me automatically in many people's eyes, in crackpot land. But, although it might sound bad, I really do have a "problem" with the geometrical formulation that stems from considering the light clock that bounces between to mirrors on the the spaceship, that must travel a longer distance according to the outside observer, and only the distance between the mirrors, from the point of view of the scientist on the spaceship. My question is, if the light pulse is coming from the bottom mirror, going straight up, and the top mirror moves to the right, why does the light pulse even hit the top mirror, since it has moved to the right, while the light was in transit. In order to hit the top mirror, the light pulse would have to "lead" the top mirror, in the same manner that a gunner would attempt to shoot down an aircraft. You aim toward where the plane will be when the bullet reaches its altitude. So why would the scientist not have to angle his photon gun ahead, and thusly measure the same light travel distance and angle of incidence on the mirror, as the stationary observer? Regards, TAR Strange, I know its hard to know, what I am thinking, because I am trying to express a worldview, that I have put together, trying to make sense of the observations and measurements of others, and sometimes what I say is a question, and sometimes a statement. Ultimately I like to pretend that I am after answering the same questions as everybody else, and adjusting my model of the world to fit the facts as they come in. If I have an "answer" to one of my own questions, it is hard to express to you, because you often view my answers as being contrary to established science. This is certainly possible, since I am trying to find a way to remove contradictions, that certain ways of looking at things create. Its sort of like you standing in front of the formation and seeing the 10 columns infront of you, and me standing off to the left and all I see is the four soldiers at the ends of the rows, and you saying there are really 10 columns and me saying that there being 4 rows is not inconsistent with your statement. All I am trying to say is that the platoon has 40 people in it. And it does whether you see 10 people with the other 30 hidden behind, or whether you see 4 people with the other 36 hidden behind. Regards, TAR

But recording a different time, means very little, without telling me what clock they are both using that ticked 0, at the same moment, for them both. And most importantly, what you mean by same moment. Same from "here and now" or same from universal now (which you use, but have not conceeded to me?) So what I am saying and what everybody else is saying are both consistent, in their predictions. People in different positions can see the order of events differently. People traveling between positions have a constantly changing position, and the events that are in the direction they are going will happen appropriately sooner than if they stayed stationary, and the things they are traveling away from will happen appropriately after they would have been judged to have happened had they stayed stationary.

My prediction is, that the order of events at one location is always going to be found to proceed in a causual past present future way.

I am giving you that fact, that observer A and observer B can disagree on the order of events. But when they compare notes, and calculate the distances and lag time of light and field and impulse, the order of events is always just one order.

All observers would agree the first flare happened before the second and the third flare happened after the second. Even a spaceship headed toward the Sun at relativistic speeds or one headed away would see the three flares in the actual order they occurred. How can my theory have been proved wrong 100 years ago, if I am just formulating it now.