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Quote from: David Cooper on 29/07/2012 20:52:05The preferred frame of reference is in the universe - fine. It doesn't actually need to be, but that's another discussion entirely which can bring in ideas of things outside of the universe. I didn't bring that up because it's completely superfluous to the argument."The universe" is not a reference frame within special relativity. Reference frames are defined within spacetime. All spacetime itself is not a reference frame.
The preferred frame of reference is in the universe - fine. It doesn't actually need to be, but that's another discussion entirely which can bring in ideas of things outside of the universe. I didn't bring that up because it's completely superfluous to the argument.
To manufacture a block universe you actually have to build it up from one end (the past) to the other (the future), and that necessarily involves a kind of time that runs. This is absolute time, and the only frame which records absolute time is the preferred frame - all other frames will record a slower apparent time.
Geezer, he's talking about an interpretation of relativistic effects that does involve keeping an "aether" but making it undetectable. If we can't detect the preferred reference frame in any way, then all our experimental results will look the same as if there is no preferred reference frame. This has fallen out of favor mostly because it is experimentally indistinguishable from special relativity (which has no preferred reference frame) and introduces extra complexity.
Since thinking about "building" a universe requires that you somehow exist outside of it. Your argument with imatfaal appears to be about Lorentzian relativity. I've responded to that on the more mainstream thread.
This has fallen out of favor mostly because it is experimentally indistinguishable from special relativity (which has no preferred reference frame) and introduces extra complexity.David, if both interpretations are equivalent in terms of predictions, then you can't make the claim that Einstein's is somehow scientifically flawed. If either is to be discarded, it's Lorentz's interpretation, since it adds complexity without adding any new predictions, which is generally frowned upon in physics. In fact, you can always take an existing theory and add some undetectable feature to it to make a new theory, so the simplicity test is a pretty useful feature in science.
and then denies that that mechanism exists, leaving it all to happen by magic instead.
Quote from: David Cooper on 29/07/2012 22:16:47 and then denies that that mechanism exists, leaving it all to happen by magic instead.Yes, you mentioned that already. What's the magic trick? Is it that c is invariant?
Coming out of the gate insisting Einstein's theories are wrong and involve "magic," doesn't help your argument.
It also amounts to essentially arguing against a widely-accepted century-old theory because you don't care for the philosophical interpretations.
Also, coming up with pejorative names for the theories you disagree with ("magic") and name-calling doesn't help.
As I mentioned above, you can create an infinity of relativity theories by introducing undetectable features. In science, we don't choose one from among those because it happens to be the most comfortable to our preconceptions of how the universe should work. We choose one by (generally) using Occam's razor to remove all unnecessary features. We then worry about the interpretation of what's left.
If we're going to start introducing undetectable features because we feel more comfortable with them in the theory, who decides which features to allow and which to reject?
Edit: official complaint sent and copies of both threads stored.
David, starting new topics to continue an argument that was moved to new theories is a quick way to get your posts removed. I've unlocked this thread so you can continue the discussion here if you want, but please keep it on topic and don't bring it back to the mainstream boards again.