Einstein's Theory revisited

[Strange]

Your dismissing my claim does not make the theory any less false.

 

As you have presented absolutely nothing that falsifies the theory, your claims can be easily dismissed.

 

No, y = ct is not a formal assumption in the statement of the theory, but it is, nevertheless, a critical assumption that was used in proving the theory.

 

Prove it.

 

The reason that the height of the right triangle used in proving the theory should be ct - 0.5gt² (rather than y = ct) is the same as that for anything else that is subject to gravity, isn't it?

 

So you are claiming that light is slowed by gravity in the same way a massive object is? Please provide some evidence to support this claim.

[ResistETIntervention]

So you are claiming that light is slowed by gravity in the same way a massive object is? Please provide some evidence to support this claim.

 

In case, you want to claim that light is not subject to gravity, consider the reason that even light cannot escape black holes - due to their gravities.

[Ophiolite]

Please read the question Strange asked and try answering it, instead of the question you think he asked.

[Janus]

In case, you want to claim that light is not subject to gravity, consider the reason that even light cannot escape black holes - due to their gravities.

Locally, gravity does not effect the speed of light, Light does lose energy climbing out of a gravity well but it expresses this loss of energy as a decrease in frequency, not speed.

 

But this is moot point in this the discussion of this thought experiment because it is an SR thought experiment and as such it is automatically assumed we are dealing with a no gravity scenario. (Including gravity would reguire applying General Relativity of which Special Relativity is a sub-set.)

 

In addition, this whole attempt to discredit Relativity by attacking this thought experiment is fruitless. The whole idea behind a thought experiment is to determine what you should expect to happen if the postulates upon which you based it are true. The thought experiment itself is not considered a proof. The real test is when you perform an actual real-life experiment to determine whether or not you actually get those results.

 

SR is a very thoroughly tested theory and has past ever real test ever put to it, In fact, electro quantum dynamics which is the merger of quantum mechanics and Special Relativity is the most accurate theory ever to date in terms of observation matching prediction.

 

To make any dent in the validity of Relativity you would have to produce repeatable results from an actual physical experiment that differs from what Relativity predict(and no, your observation of something vanishing like you say you saw doesn't qualify, if for no other reason that due to the limitations of human vision, it does not take super-luminal speeds to produce such a result)

[ajb]

That would be the correct attitude of true scientists.

What you say is the correct attitude and the one that scientists adopt. The point here is that you have offered no real objections to special or general relativity. Mitchell and others have not offered us any tangible proof of any material bodies travelling faster than the speed of light.

 

Please recall the OPERA anomaly. It turned out to be an error and few actually believed the result, yet there was a flood of theoretical papers trying to see if one could understand neutrinos this faster than light motion. If any possibility of violating special relativity is uncovered I assure you it will be looked at seriously.

[Delta1212]

Locally, gravity does not effect the speed of light, Light does lose energy climbing out of a gravity well but it expresses this loss of energy as a decrease in frequency, not speed.

 

But this is moot point in this the discussion of this thought experiment because it is an SR thought experiment and as such it is automatically assumed we are dealing with a no gravity scenario. (Including gravity would reguire applying General Relativity of which Special Relativity is a sub-set.)

 

In addition, this whole attempt to discredit Relativity by attacking this thought experiment is fruitless. The whole idea behind a thought experiment is to determine what you should expect to happen if the postulates upon which you based it are true. The thought experiment itself is not considered a proof. The real test is when you perform an actual real-life experiment to determine whether or not you actually get those results.

 

SR is a very thoroughly tested theory and has past ever real test ever put to it, In fact, electro quantum dynamics which is the merger of quantum mechanics and Special Relativity is the most accurate theory ever to date in terms of observation matching prediction.

 

To make any dent in the validity of Relativity you would have to produce repeatable results from an actual physical experiment that differs from what Relativity predict(and no, your observation of something vanishing like you say you saw doesn't qualify, if for no other reason that due to the limitations of human vision, it does not take super-luminal speeds to produce such a result)

I think repeatability is really the important part. A one-off observation could be interesting. Repeated one-off observations (see: Ball lightning) can be very interesting.

 

But until we know how to either produce the effect ourselves or at least predict when and where the effect will occur so that we can plan to observe it, it's very difficult to treat a phenomenon scientifically because there is no way to test any hypothesis about what is going on.

 

Without that repeatability, you can't tell whether a particular result is fabricated, inaccurate, an outlier or a real result. If you tell me that you saw something move faster than light, there are three possibilities: You did see something move faster than light, you think you saw something move faster than light but are mistaken, or you are lying.

 

Unless you can either show me how to make something move faster than light so that I can time it for myself, or at least show me where something moving faster than light is so that I can test that, I have absolutely no way of knowing which of those three options it is. There's no basis for judging the validity of your claims if they can't be checked by anyone else.

 

At a bare minimum, having some readings of a particular event and specific information about where, when and how it happened allows other people to go over them and check for alternate explanations or ways in which the results could fit with a new theory. Without even that, there's no real way to treat an idea scientifically.

 

If other people can't be privy to the same information you have in formulating a conclusion, you can't expect them to treat that conclusion as science.

[ResistETIntervention]

If gravity affected the frequency of light, but not its speed, you might want to ask yourself whether the light beam would still travel the same amount of distance in a given amount of time in vacuum in the presence of gravity, and whether you are personally able to provide accurate data based on repeatable experiments on your claim, or whether you are merely relying on other people's claims, data obtained from experiments that you yourself cannot perform, or thought experiments?

 

If I were lying about my sighting, I must be in some sort of conspiracy with millions of other people in the world. I actually did not know there were other people who had such sightings until after I sighted such and then searched online for an explanation. If I think I saw an object that achieved a superluminal speed but am mistaken, why are you unable to provide a concrete explanation for what I sighted - because you know that is precisely what you yourself would observe, if you had sighted a brilliant object achieving a superluminal speed from a stationary position?

 

When you study a theory for which you find no algebraic or logical flaw, you start by investigating the statement of the theory. The problem with Einstein's theory is in the statement - in the assumptions that are labeled as postulates which people erroneously presumed as an irrefutable, absolute, universal fact.

The definition of the word "postulate" is

• a thing suggested or assumed as true as the basis for reasoning, discussion, or belief
• an assumption used as a basis for mathematical reasoning

In mathematical theorems which are generally stated as "If ----, then ----," the "if" statement is not considered an absolute, universal truth, but the postulate in the statement of a theorem that is used in reasoning to derive the "then" statement. For example, if a statement of a theorem begins with "If a function f is continuous," you do not presume that a function is always continuous.

The time dilation theory begins with a statement such as following:

The phenomena of time dilation can be derived from the two postulates of special relativity, namely,

• Principle of Relativity - The laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames of reference
• Light Postulate - The speed of light in an inertial frame of reference is independent of the source

 

 

This would be the "if" statement that you presume in order to derive the "then" statement in the theory. What has been misconstrued is that those postulates are absolute, universal truth that no one should question. Unlike mathematical theorems in which certain results are derived under certain assumptions without violating any physical phenomena or raising questions about them, however, due to the nature of the statement regarding the physical universe, the postulates of Einstein's theory forces us to either accept the "if" statement along with the "then" statement of the theory as absolute truth or dispose the postulates along with the conclusion and corollaries of the theory as false - the results, and thus, the postulates, which the human technology at the time (and perhaps even now...at least, to the extent that the general public is led to believe) did not evolve enough to dispute its veracity by achieving the luminal or a superluminal speed. In case you are one of the people who assert that the veracity of the postulates has been verified, I'd ask whether you validated its accuracy yourself, or you're accepting someone else's word as absolute truth without verifying it yourself through repeated experiments. Are such scientists the only ones who are privy to such data obtained from experiments that none of you can personally perform repeatedly?

You have two choices here:

• you can either remain passive and defend a theory that has apparently been disproved by the counterexamples from many people's observations in the world;
• or you can become more open-minded and proactive, and explore the new technology and the science behind it that have been presented to us by their experiences and contribute to advancing science and technology for future generations.

What is necessary in considering the theory is

• our humility in recognizing that we do not know everything there is to know and the human race has not attained the pinnacle of scientific and technological evolution in the universe, and indeed, we are very far from attaining it;
• our compassion in considering the experiences of many people in the world, rather than utterly and disrespectfully disregard them for the sake of upholding a theory, or we end up undermining what the world is trying to tell us through them;
• our objectivity in reconsidering the theory that apparently has been disproved by such experiences;
• our open-mindedness

If we all practiced the above (humility, compassion, objectivity, and open-mindedness) in all situations in life, the human race would be that much closer in recognizing all global issues and uniting to resolve them collectively in facing the greatest challenge of human history.

Edited December 22, 2014 by ResistETIntervention

[xyzt]

 

You have two choices here:

• you can either remain passive and defend a theory that has apparently been disproved by the counterexamples from many people's observations in the world;

Has it? What gives you this bright idea?

[swansont]

If I were lying about my sighting, I must be in some sort of conspiracy with millions of other people in the world. I actually did not know there were other people who had such sightings until after I sighted such and then searched online for an explanation. If I think I saw an object that achieved a superluminal speed but am mistaken, why are you unable to provide a concrete explanation for what I sighted - because you know that is precisely what you yourself would observe, if you had sighted a brilliant object achieving a superluminal speed from a stationary position?

A sighting is not a measurement. Unless you have some sort of scientific evidence that some object moved faster than light, it does not rise to the level where anyone can consider it as being reliable. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And, lacking any detailed data, it should not be surprising if nobody can explain what you saw. But you can't default to "UFO" just because you can't figure it out. that's fallacious reasoning, and those are the reasons such claims will not be considered.

 

 

 

When you study a theory for which you find no algebraic or logical flaw, you start by investigating the statement of the theory. The problem with Einstein's theory is in the statement - in the assumptions that are labeled as postulates which people erroneously presumed as an irrefutable, absolute, universal fact.

 

The definition of the word "postulate" is

• a thing suggested or assumed as true as the basis for reasoning, discussion, or belief
• an assumption used as a basis for mathematical reasoning

In mathematical theorems which are generally stated as "If ----, then ----," the "if" statement is not considered an absolute, universal truth, but the postulate in the statement of a theorem that is used in reasoning to derive the "then" statement. For example, if a statement of a theorem begins with "If a function f is continuous," you do not presume that a function is always continuous.

 

You test the theory to see if it's true. If it works after proper testing, then you have confidence that it's right. That's why the postulates are taken as being true. The theory has been extensively tested.

In case you are one of the people who assert that the veracity of the postulates has been verified, I'd ask whether you validated its accuracy yourself, or you're accepting someone else's word as absolute truth without verifying it yourself through repeated experiments. Are such scientists the only ones who are privy to such data obtained from experiments that none of you can personally perform repeatedly?

 

 

Ironic you would invoke the unlikelihood of a conspiracy about the possibility you fabricated your sighting, but then insinuate that the scientific community has done exactly that. One need not personally perform an experiment to accept it as being valid. Though you can benefit from relativity and do your own test of it: does GPS work? Because it relies on relativity being correct.