[PhysBang]

SR attempts to get rid of Newtonian time, but in reality it can't function properly without it as it either generates an infinite number of contradictions or it describes universes in which the future can't be generated out of the past (depending on which version of it you want to use). There are two other models which fix these problems, but in each case they can only do so by adding Newtonian time.

I had no idea what "Newtonian time" is in this context, despite studying Newton a lot.

According to Magic Schoolbook, "In LET the universe has three space dimensions running under a Newtonian time (which is not considered to be a dimension)..." This is just false, since time is always a dimension. What changes in SR is the relationship between the time dimension and the space dimension when applying a metric to space and time and the translations that one applies when moving from one system of coordinates to another.

Magic Schoolbook also says this false thing: "In Einstein's Spacetime, there is no real length contraction, meaning that objects aren't physically contracted by their movement through the fabric of space, and this clearly has to be the case because they can always validly be thought of as being completely stationary as all frames of reference are really equally valid."

In SR, all inertial frames of reference are equally valid, so, yes, an object in motion is length contracted relative to its length at rest for close to the same reason as in LET.

Similarly when Magic Schoolbook says this false thing: "He plays a similar trick with time, getting rid of the slowing of moving clocks too. Because all frames of reference are equally valid, a moving clock isn't really moving, so it can't actually be running slow: this too is just an illusion."

In SR, in a frame where a clock is in motion, that clock is legitimately slow.

Here is a great mistake in understanding relativity theory: "The downside to this is that such a universe could never have had its future events generated out of its past events under these rules because many of its events would have failed to mesh together properly during the generation phase (when the block was originally being constructed): a rocket which has taken a shortcut would have been unable to land on a planet which has not taken a shortcut as there wouldn't be a future version of that planet there yet for the rocket to interact with."

One of the important things about relativity theory is the structure of causality. In SR, the speed of light places limits on how things can interact. The only events in the past of a given event are those that could possibly emit light that would reach that event. The only events in the future of a given event are those events that could be reached by light that the given event could emit. The events that reside in this "light cone" are invariant across every inertial reference frame. So there is never a problem of something reaching an event that isn't there. Nothing of this relies on or demands that there is a "block universe", despite the exhortations of the proponents of the block universe model of time. There are many formulations of becoming in time in SR and GR.

One can't simply argue that this is wrong because it doesn't work like other forms of cause and effect.

What follows on the Magic Schoolbook site is, sadly, a weak version of the twin paradox. Even more sad is the claim, backed up by no citation whatsoever, that people using SR, "simply smuggle in this Newtonian time." Time and time again people are lead astray by the twin paradox and refuse to understand its resolution. In this case, the author of Magic Schoolbook simply refuses to believe that one could identify one reference frame relative to another without having some overall, preferred reference frame.

This is the kind of things that cranks say, that have an axe to grind and would rather grind that axe than take the time to learn or correct basic mistakes in laying out their diagrams: "It is quite shocking that such irrational people can hold such sway in science and that they are allowed to drown out anyone who tries to point out the glaring error in their model, but then it must be hard for them to back down even if they can see that they are wrong because they have bought so deeply into what is undoubtedly the most embarrassing mistake in the history of science. "

[timey]

Physicsbang - I rate David's magic school book site and respect the fact that he is trying to do positive things with his time, and doing it quite well, rather than sit around on the net slagging people for challenging the status quo.

Wake up dude, the realm doth not need defending!  The realm standeth in all its well deserved glory, only awaitething an even better mathematical fit.

The only way to arriveth at an even more detailed explanation of pur universe is to challenge the status quo.

Newtonian time:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_time_and_space

Quote:
"According to Newton, absolute time exists independently of any perceiver and progresses at a consistent pace throughout the universe. Unlike relative time, Newton believed absolute time was imperceptible and could only be understood mathematically. According to Newton, humans are only capable of perceiving relative time, which is a measurement of perceivable objects in motion (like the Moon or Sun). From these movements, we infer the passage of time."
Unquote:

BTW, the most embarrassing mistake in the history of science has got to be the geocentric model.  Just goes to show how wrong the status quo 'can' be proven.

[David Cooper (OP)]

Because you are computer literate, you have of course drawn these lines on your screen.  You have 49 lines drawn side by side, the beginnings of these vertical lines form a straight horizontal line at top of screen page, and the ends of these vertical lines form a v shape at bottom of screen page.  I now ask you to align your 49 vertical lines so that the ends of the lines form an identical horizontal curve shape at top and bottom of lines.  Your 49 vertical lines should now resemble the shape of an ellipse with straight sides.

If I try doing that, I see the V shape at the bottom become half as deep as it was before, and a new V shape (upside down and also half as deep as the original V at the bottom) has appeared at the top, so the overall shape is now more like a rhombus than an ellipse, but with two short extra sides at the left and right. Perhaps that's exactly what you mean though when you say "an ellipse with straight sides".

Now I am going to ask you to make marks on each of these vertical lines from top of line to bottom of line at regular intervals, so that each line resembles a measuring ruler.  Although not impossible, it is highly improbable that if you laid a ruler horizontally across these marks, that each of the 49 vertical lines 'ruler' marks would join up one after the other to create a straight horizontal line.  The marks would be aligned higgledy piggledy on the horizontal plane... If this has resulted in a visual for you, I can start explaining observational time frame dependency:

If these marks are made at regular intervals and there are the same number on each line, the middle ones will all fall on a horizontal line drawn across the centre of the diagram, but all the others will travel at slight angles (steeper the further away from the centre line they are) and they will be made of two straight sections with a sharp kink connecting them half way across. Perhaps that isn't how you want me to draw in these markings and lines, but the most important thing that I want to see is how these relate to actual time dilation or frames of reference.

Back to the diagram I had you mentally create as a visualisation:
The marks you have made at  regular intervals on the vertical lines are representative of the time frames of the differing time periods that the lengths of the vertical lines represent.  These differing time periods are occurring simultaneously...

I think you'll have to draw a diagram showing it the way you want me (and others) to see it, and then label it clearly to show which parts are simultaneous. Alternatively, you need to list dimensions and actual lengths of these lines and the distances between all the marks made down each line. I very much doubt that the picture I've built in my mind is the same as the one that you have in yours.

Now place your ruler across the horizontal plane and from the top of the first line you drew, draw a horizontal line straight threw to the top of the last line you drew.  Repeat the process at each marker down the first line.  You will see that every other line of differing lengths markers will be split at intervals that have proportions that are all differing with each different length of line.

I'm visualising the V parts of the diagram at the top and the bottom having no horizontal lines running through them at all, and there are only two or three horizontal lines in total because they have to pass through the two shortest lines at the extreme sides of the diagram.

I am suggesting that the reference frame of the first vertical line you drew (representing a standard second) will only be able to view a proportion of the reference frames of the longer lines, and that the observable proportion of the reference frames of the other lines is evident in the degree of the splitting these horizontal lines are indicating between the markers you made on the vertical lines.  You will be able to repeat the process for each of the vertical lines to work out the observable proportion of the other vertical lines.

No part of any frame of reference is hidden from view from any other frame. At every part of space, all reference frames are present and their content is fully visible from all those frames. Nothing goes unseen.

With regards to length contraction, would the proportions of the time frames of the reference frame line being observed that are not observable from another reference frames line, amount to the proportion of the expected length contraction as observed from the observing reference frames line?

It's hard to answer that when there isn't anything that isn't observed, but the amount of time dilation is certainly proportional to the amount of length contraction. At 0.866c you have half the number of clock ticks and a reduction of length of the object (in its direction of travel) to a half. At 0.5c you have about 0.9 times the number of clock ticks and the length is reduced to about 0.9 of its rest length. What your theory needs to do though is account for things looking the same from both frames: if one observer has less time to play with than the other and that accounts for him seeing the other observer length-contracted because he's only seeing perhaps half of it, how is that going to work the other way round when the observer with twice as much time to play with also sees the first observer contracted to half his normal length? How would he be missing half the action?

[David Cooper (OP)]

I had no idea what "Newtonian time" is in this context, despite studying Newton a lot.

Timey seems to have found a clear definition of it which works for me.

According to Magic Schoolbook, "In LET the universe has three space dimensions running under a Newtonian time (which is not considered to be a dimension)..." This is just false, since time is always a dimension.

Einstein was very keen to tell people that time is a dimension. I was under the impression that before his theory, it wasn't thought of as a dimension by anyone. I may be wrong, but it was certainly a way that Einstein tried to distinguish his theory from what had come before.

Magic Schoolbook also says this false thing: "In Einstein's Spacetime, there is no real length contraction, meaning that objects aren't physically contracted by their movement through the fabric of space, and this clearly has to be the case because they can always validly be thought of as being completely stationary as all frames of reference are really equally valid."

It isn't false: they are always completely uncontracted in their own frame and what you measure does not tell you the truth about the hidden reality. With LET it's radically different: the length contraction is either absolutely real or its merely apparent and not real, all dependent upon whether you're measuring things from at rest in the preferred frame or from some other frame.

Similarly when Magic Schoolbook says this false thing: "He plays a similar trick with time, getting rid of the slowing of moving clocks too. Because all frames of reference are equally valid, a moving clock isn't really moving, so it can't actually be running slow: this too is just an illusion."

If a clock runs faster at rest in one frame than a clock at rest in a different frame, you must have a preferred frame somewhere in the system which has the fastest running clocks. If you don't want a preferred frame, you are not allowed to have any real slowing of clocks for different frames - it must all be an illusion because they must all be running at full speed.

In SR, in a frame where a clock is in motion, that clock is legitimately slow.

And when you switch frame so that you're co-moving with it, magically it becomes the faster clock. So, is it both slower and faster than the other clock at the same time? Which clock is really running slower?

Here is a great mistake in understanding relativity theory: "The downside to this is that such a universe could never have had its future events generated out of its past events under these rules because many of its events would have failed to mesh together properly during the generation phase (when the block was originally being constructed): a rocket which has taken a shortcut would have been unable to land on a planet which has not taken a shortcut as there wouldn't be a future version of that planet there yet for the rocket to interact with."

It's your misunderstanding, not mine. That bit refers specifically to an SR model in which no clocks are allowed to run slow but where they merely appear to do so when viewed from other frames. If you want to have some clocks actually run slower than others though, you need to go for a model with a preferred frame.

One of the important things about relativity theory is the structure of causality. In SR, the speed of light places limits on how things can interact. The only events in the past of a given event are those that could possibly emit light that would reach that event. The only events in the future of a given event are those events that could be reached by light that the given event could emit. The events that reside in this "light cone" are invariant across every inertial reference frame. So there is never a problem of something reaching an event that isn't there. Nothing of this relies on or demands that there is a "block universe", despite the exhortations of the proponents of the block universe model of time. There are many formulations of becoming in time in SR and GR.

There's no point in attacking one model by attacking it on the basis that it is a different model from the one that it is. There are four Spacetime models discussed on my page (called model zero, model one, model two and model three) and it makes no sense to attack model one by demanding that it behave like model two.

One can't simply argue that this is wrong because it doesn't work like other forms of cause and effect.

The interactive exam was designed to force people to stop mixing up the models when commenting on them. If you think there's a fault in the argument, it is there that you have to point to it.

What follows on the Magic Schoolbook site is, sadly, a weak version of the twin paradox.

There's nothing weak about it - I've just doubled it up so that there are two sets of twins in order to show clearly what happens with different models which are normally mixed up and confused into one incompatible mess. I then show up the problems with each model.

Even more sad is the claim, backed up by no citation whatsoever, that people using SR, "simply smuggle in this Newtonian time."

Show me how it works without this Newtonian time then. No one else has been able to do so. They say they can write programs to simulate SR which don't cheat, but they always cheat by using Newtonian time to run one frame's clocks at a higher speed than the rest: that's a preferred frame.

Time and time again people are lead astray by the twin paradox and refuse to understand its resolution. In this case, the author of Magic Schoolbook simply refuses to believe that one could identify one reference frame relative to another without having some overall, preferred reference frame.

If your comprehension skills were up to it, you'd notice that there is no difficulty resolving the so-called "paradox", and there never has been. Each model has a different way of resolving it though. Model zero (the static block universe model where time doesn't run) "solves" it by having everything exist eternally without the future ever having been generated out of the past. Model two solves it by tolerating event-meshing failure for a while before things settle down into the same shape as model zero. Model three solves it by having a preferred frame of reference. Model two "solves" it by tolerating impossible contradictions. You can take your pick, but models one and three are the only viable ones in the set.

This is the kind of things that cranks say, that have an axe to grind and would rather grind that axe than take the time to learn or correct basic mistakes in laying out their diagrams:

What mistakes in the diagrams? You're at it again, making false claims about my diagrams. What they show is exactly what you get if you apply the rules of SR. But you don't own up to any of your errors. I do, and that's why I'm not a crank.

"It is quite shocking that such irrational people can hold such sway in science and that they are allowed to drown out anyone who tries to point out the glaring error in their model, but then it must be hard for them to back down even if they can see that they are wrong because they have bought so deeply into what is undoubtedly the most embarrassing mistake in the history of science."

Sometimes I word things provocatively in order to encourage a response: that has a better chance of leading to answers from annoyed people and it helps me to correct any mistakes that I've made or to improve the wording of what I've said to clarify things and show why someone's objections are wayward. If anyone does have objections, they need to stop misinterpreting the introductory section and focus their attacks instead on the interactive exam, spelling out where it informed them that they have "failed" and then explaining why they believe they haven't failed. In response to that, I can either improve the interactive exam to deal with any invalid attacks of the same kind more clearly, or if someone ever comes up with an objection that blows the whole thing out of the water, I will change the whole thing into an endorsement of SR. My original aim was to prove to myself that SR is valid and then show other people that it works, but I have been unable to do so because it falls so far short.

[timey]

David - I'm not familiar with the term rhombus, but the shape you describe is correct...

However, the marks on the vertical lines must be made at uniform intervals on the line.  ie, the marks on all of the lines should be same distance apart. There should be more marks on longer lines...

Don't worry if the mark closest to bottom of line doesn't match the end of the line.  Its the proportionality of only 1 time frame, ie, from one mark to the next mark, being split by the horizontal lines that we use to match the markers on line 1 and line 49 that matters, and we can read this from the middle of the shape, we don't need to read the ends of lines for this part.

Although the system I'm showing you can be plugged in with numbers, we don't need to plug numbers in to understand how this works.  It doesn't matter how many vertical lines you use, or for the moment the lengths that these vertical lines are, or the distance that you make the markers apart on them, only that the shape is correct and that the distance between the markers is uniform.

When you match the markers on line 1 with the markers on line 49 and join them with horizontal lines, these horizontal lines will make divisions between the markers on every other length of line.

The divisions made between markers on each different length of line will have different proportions to each other... but the divisions made on a particular line will retain the same proportions of division from top of line to bottom. (bar any messy bottom of line marker issues)

The vertical lines are representing time periods expanding.  The markers are representing the time frames of the time period, and the divisions between markers will be representing a; the proportion of that time frame you can observe from line 1 or line 49, and b; the extent that the line, ie: rate of time you are observing, will cause the 'appearance' of a length contraction. ie: the proportion of the time frame you cannot observe from line 1 and line 49.
One side of the division will represent a, and the other b.

Some kind of fancy mathematical process of multiplying a or b by the number of spaces between the markers the line has, plus the messy remainder at bottom of line, should give the overall proportionality of a or b for an observation of that particular line, ie: rate of time, from both line 1 and line 49.

As to providing a diagram, I think I told you my laptop is broken.  Also my good phone was smashed when I got kicked by a horse last month and this one is crap.  It doesn't show me any of the diagrams you posted for instance, so if you will forgive me...

[PhysBang]

I had no idea what "Newtonian time" is in this context, despite studying Newton a lot.

Timey seems to have found a clear definition of it which works for me.

Yeah, that one I get. I'm still not sure what you think you mean.

Einstein was very keen to tell people that time is a dimension. I was under the impression that before his theory, it wasn't thought of as a dimension by anyone. I may be wrong, but it was certainly a way that Einstein tried to distinguish his theory from what had come before.

Time is a dimension in the mathematical sense; there is nothing that can be done to change this. Maxwell discussed this and Einstein explicitly built on Maxwell.

It isn't false: they are always completely uncontracted in their own frame and what you measure does not tell you the truth about the hidden reality. With LET it's radically different: the length contraction is either absolutely real or its merely apparent and not real, all dependent upon whether you're measuring things from at rest in the preferred frame or from some other frame.

This simply more whining that you don't like SR. There is nothing holy about reference frames in which an object is at rest; these reference frames are no more "real" than frames on which they are moving. They are merely arbitrary choices made for the purposes of assigning coordinates. With LET, there is a "real" reference frame that has absolutely no effect on the world that we can detect. If you like that idea, then fine, but please don't mischaracterize it or SR.

If a clock runs faster at rest in one frame than a clock at rest in a different frame, you must have a preferred frame somewhere in the system which has the fastest running clocks. If you don't want a preferred frame, you are not allowed to have any real slowing of clocks for different frames - it must all be an illusion because they must all be running at full speed.

Again, this is your aesthetic preference. In SR, frames of reference are arbitrary choices of coordinates, not holy metaphysics.

And when you switch frame so that you're co-moving with it, magically it becomes the faster clock. So, is it both slower and faster than the other clock at the same time? Which clock is really running slower?

It's not magic, it's the use of a different system of coordinates for description. You might not like that SR allows for different descriptions in different systems of coordinates, but you don't get to force your aesthetic preference on everyone.

It's your misunderstanding, not mine. That bit refers specifically to an SR model in which no clocks are allowed to run slow but where they merely appear to do so when viewed from other frames. If you want to have some clocks actually run slower than others though, you need to go for a model with a preferred frame.

And I don't want to have any clocks "actually run slower than others". I am content to accept that it depends on the system of coordinates chosen.

There's no point in attacking one model by attacking it on the basis that it is a different model from the one that it is. There are four Spacetime models discussed on my page (called model zero, model one, model two and model three) and it makes no sense to attack model one by demanding that it behave like model two.

As far as I can tell, none of those models represents SR, so I don't really care.

What follows on the Magic Schoolbook site is, sadly, a weak version of the twin paradox.

There's nothing weak about it - I've just doubled it up so that there are two sets of twins in order to show clearly what happens with different models which are normally mixed up and confused into one incompatible mess. I then show up the problems with each model.[/quote]
Again, if any of your models was SR, then it might be less sad.

Show me how it works without this Newtonian time then. No one else has been able to do so. They say they can write programs to simulate SR which don't cheat, but they always cheat by using Newtonian time to run one frame's clocks at a higher speed than the rest: that's a preferred frame.

I really do not understand what you think your claim means. You seem to want some fact of the matter outside of a description in a system of coordinates. In SR, there simply is no such fact of the matter.

My original aim was to prove to myself that SR is valid and then show other people that it works, but I have been unable to do so because it falls so far short.

Yes, surely the fault lies with the hundreds of physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers who have worked with the theory for over a century.

[David Cooper (OP)]

However, the marks on the vertical lines must be made at uniform intervals on the line.  ie, the marks on all of the lines should be same distance apart. There should be more marks on longer lines...

Okay, so the line at the left hand side might have only two markings on it, one at the top and one at the bottom. On the next line to the right there will be three markings on it, one at the top, one at the bottom and one in the middle, and this marking will be level with the middle of the first line. On the next line to the right there will be four markings, one at the top, one at the bottom, and two in between which are in line the top and bottom of the first line. On the next line to the right there will be five markings: one at the top, one at the bottom, and the other three will match up with the markings on the second line. If you start at the marking on any line, you can jump two lines to either side and find a marking at the same height on that line, if the line extends that far (vertically), but if you draw a line horizontally between them it will cross the line in between half way between the nearest markings on that.

Don't worry if the mark closest to bottom of line doesn't match the end of the line.  Its the proportionality of only 1 time frame, ie, from one mark to the next mark, being split by the horizontal lines that we use to match the markers on line 1 and line 49 that matters, and we can read this from the middle of the shape, we don't need to read the ends of lines for this part.

When I put in the horizontal lines across the diagram, there are only two of them with the spacing between markings that I've used. On every second line they pass through markings and on the lines in between those they pass half way between markings. I can't see any mathematical relationship yet between this and what happens with time dilation or length contraction.

The divisions made between markers on each different length of line will have different proportions to each other...

On my diagram the divisions are all the same size on every other line, the horizontal lines either passing through a marking or half way between two markings.

but the divisions made on a particular line will retain the same proportions of division from top of line to bottom. (bar any messy bottom of line marker issues)

I have only two horizontal lines drawn across the diagram, each a short way above or below an imaginary centre line running horizontally through the diagram. I can't work out what's being compared with what when you talk about the proportions of division. Perhaps you could give all the lines and markings names so that you can refer to them efficiently. The vertical lines are all numbered, and the horizontal lines can also be given numbers (1 and 2), so perhaps the other markings could be given letters, the first line using A and B, the second using A, B and C, the third using A, B, C and D, and so on, A always being used for the highest marking on the line. That then enables you to refer to marking E on line 9 and to say that horizontal line #1 passes through it.

The vertical lines are representing time periods expanding.  The markers are representing the time frames of the time period, and the divisions between markers will be representing a; the proportion of that time frame you can observe from line 1 or line 49, and b; the extent that the line, ie: rate of time you are observing, will cause the 'appearance' of a length contraction. ie: the proportion of the time frame you cannot observe from line 1 and line 49.
One side of the division will represent a, and the other b.

How is a time frame different from a unit of time like a second? If it isn't any different from that, how would some seconds go unobserved while others are seen? How do the divisions between markers represent a proportion of anything when the horizontal lines pass through some markers and half way between other pairs of markers? What is there to be a proportion of anything? This is why you need a labelled diagram or named points so that you can make it clear what bits of what you're counting as lengths to compare with each other.

Some kind of fancy mathematical process of multiplying a or b by the number of spaces between the markers the line has, plus the messy remainder at bottom of line, should give the overall proportionality of a or b for an observation of that particular line, ie: rate of time, from both line 1 and line 49.

Given that nothing in the diagram bears any relationship to the maths of length contraction and time dilation, the fancy mathematical process will have to introduce that to it in some way, perhaps by spelling out how far apart horizontally each vertical line should really be from it's neighbours rather than having them all spaced out at fixed intervals. You need to get rid of the V shaped top and bottom of the diagram and replace it with a curve, but before you go to that much trouble, you also need to work out how entire time frames can go unseen when nothing in the real universe goes unseen in that way. If a clock flies past you at relativistic speed, you will see its every tick and every fraction of every tick, and an observer travelling with it will see the same of your clock.

[David Cooper (OP)]

Yeah, that one I get. I'm still not sure what you think you mean.

So you get it, and yet you don't get it at the same time. Very odd.

Time is a dimension in the mathematical sense; there is nothing that can be done to change this. Maxwell discussed this and Einstein explicitly built on Maxwell.

With Newtonian time it can be treated mathematically as a dimension, but it is only with SR that it became a physical length of anything.

This simply more whining that you don't like SR.

That is simply you making an invalid objection to a correct point, and in doing so it is you that is whining about SR because you don't want it to be what it is.

There is nothing holy about reference frames in which an object is at rest; these reference frames are no more "real" than frames on which they are moving. They are merely arbitrary choices made for the purposes of assigning coordinates.

Indeed - you don't need to tell me that.

With LET, there is a "real" reference frame that has absolutely no effect on the world that we can detect.

It has an effect in that it enables things to function rationally rather than by magic. That is a big effect.

If you like that idea, then fine, but please don't mischaracterize it or SR.

I'm not mischaracterising it at all - when I say that in SR the true length of something is the length you measure for it when you are co-moving with it, that is the case.

If a clock runs faster at rest in one frame than a clock at rest in a different frame, you must have a preferred frame somewhere in the system which has the fastest running clocks. If you don't want a preferred frame, you are not allowed to have any real slowing of clocks for different frames - it must all be an illusion because they must all be running at full speed.

Again, this is your aesthetic preference. In SR, frames of reference are arbitrary choices of coordinates, not holy metaphysics.

It's called reason. If a clock is running faster than another clock, it cannot also be running slower than it. As you have no preferred frame, you have no way of making any clock tick at a different rate from any other clock (where the clock appears to be running at full speed when examined by someone co-moving with it) other than it being an illusion caused by the warped picture of reality offered from any given frame. Underneath the surface, all the clocks must be running at full speed unless you have a preferred frame.

And when you switch frame so that you're co-moving with it, magically it becomes the faster clock. So, is it both slower and faster than the other clock at the same time? Which clock is really running slower?

It's not magic, it's the use of a different system of coordinates for description. You might not like that SR allows for different descriptions in different systems of coordinates, but you don't get to force your aesthetic preference on everyone.

It is magic when it involves toleration of a contradiction. If you have a mechanism for something which involves clock A ticking faster than clock B while clock B is ticking faster than clock A, you are irrational and have entered into the realm of magic.

And I don't want to have any clocks "actually run slower than others". I am content to accept that it depends on the system of coordinates chosen.

In which case, what you're seeing from any frame is not telling you the truth about how the ticking rates of clocks can be compared. If there is no preferred frame, none of them can be ticking faster than any others, and that's why rationalists are forced to move away from model two to model one (block universe) or three (preferred frame).

As far as I can tell, none of those models represents SR, so I don't really care.

If you can't see that models are all versions of SR, you don't understand SR.

Again, if any of your models was SR, then it might be less sad.

What is sad is that you don't understand SR well enough to recognise it when it's shown to you. How would you model it and make it behave differently from my versions? I'd be happy to add your version of SR to the set of models, but I don't think you'll dare to take up the offer because you know it will end up being exactly the same as one of mine (and most likely it will be model two).

I really do not understand what you think your claim means. You seem to want some fact of the matter outside of a description in a system of coordinates. In SR, there simply is no such fact of the matter.

There is assumed to be a real universe out there and SR claims to be a theory about how it works, as is evident from its claim that there is no preferred frame of reference rather than a more modest claim that we can't pin one down and that it's fully possible that there is one. That is more than just a system of coordinates, but a philosophical assertion about the way it functions. SR uses a preferred-frame mechanism for coordinating the tick rates of clocks in different frames, but it denies that there is a preferred frame, so it has to be able to use the mechanism from all frames at once, and yet the claims thus generated contradict each other and thereby fail to function as a mechanism. However, magical thinkers tolerate contradictions (even though it isn't allowed in mathematics) and they imagine what they're doing is valid even though it manifestly isn't. I have yet to find a magical thinker who can recognise their disability though, so it's a waste of time trying to get through to them.

Yes, surely the fault lies with the hundreds of physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers who have worked with the theory for over a century.

It does indeed - they are a self-selected bunch of magical thinkers who tolerate contradictions. Fortunately though, AGI systems will not, and as soon as they take over the running of science, the old guard will be labelled as the fools that they are and will be roundly ridiculed for the rest of time. Those who want to get off the hook need to have the wit to shift ground fast before intelligent machines lay down the law to them about how things must really work, but I have every confidence that they will fail to do so because magical thinkers are deluded and blind, and the more warnings they get, the more they dig themselves into their ludicrous position, which will just make it all the more fun when it all blows up in their faces. And of course, they never like to say where they failed the interactive exam because it spell out to them the exact nature of their irrational beliefs, so all they do is look for diversions instead, but they are only making things worse for themselves by failing to beat the machines to the glaring truth that SR is built on irrationality.

[timey]

OK - a few problems are arising in your interpretation.  I wish I could just send you a representation but I will explain the system again with what you have observed already.

When I ask you to draw vertical lines side by side, (how far apart these vertical lines are is irrelevant, space them at 1cm as you proceed across the page from left to right).

I have asked you to start drawing a line from near top of page downwards at sound of first bell, and to cease drawing that line when the second bell sounds.  ***You are magically possessed to be able to move your hand downwards at 'constant velocity'.*** I have allowed exactly (*Warning", unit blunder: see edit)...1 standard second to elapse between this initial sounding of the first bell and the second bell.  This first line you have drawn is representative of the length of 1 standard second.  It is important that you realise that all you have done here - given that you hand is moving constantly at the velocity the tip end of the second hand of the clock is - is straightened out the physical radius of one full circle that the second hand of the clock that I am timing the 1st bell and the 2nd bell by is rotating at.  Your hand can move at any velocity, so long as thevelocity remains constant throught the dtawing of each vertical line.  Clock faces come in differing radius and the velocity of the second hand is related to the radius of the clocks face. (this feature pertains to my related time theory BTW)

I now extend the time period between the sounding of the first and second bell for line 2.  This second vertical line that you have drawn is slight longer than the first.  It represents a dilated standard second.

I continue extending the time period between the first and second bell up till line 25 and then reduce the time period for 24 lines identically to how I previously had increased it.

These vertical lines represent the standard second dilating for 24 lines, and then contracting for 24 lines back to the length of a standard second

We create the shape we need the lines to be aligned by like this, from left to right:
Line 2 is longer than line 1.  Line 1 should be placed so that Line 2 should have an equal amount of its extra length at top and bottom in relation to line 1.  Each subsequent line should be placed with its extra length equally distributed between top and bottom.  The shape you get will be a house with shallow sloped roof, with an inverse shallow sloped roof at bottom.

Now for placing the markers on the vertical lines that represent the standard second, and dilated standard seconds:

The spaces between these markers are going to be representative of the time frames of a time period.  Mathematically these time frames would be most usefully derived as nano-seconds, that is if we are going to use the standard second as our standard, which we are.  But for now, using nanoseconds is untenable, so we will just divide line 1 into 10 spaces with 11 markers.

Measuring with a ruler how much length a space between markers is on line 1, replicate this measure of length between markers on each of the other lines starting at top of line, and not worrying about any remainder left over at bottom of the line.

We are now ready to understand the horizontal lines.  In this shape of 49 vertical lines, there are 2 lines each of the same length, 1 and 49 for instance, or 2 and 48, so on.  We can match any lines markers with its partner of equal length's markers and draw horizontal lines across the page to join these markers up...
Right now we will start by looking at the observation of all the other lines of different length, remembering that these vertical lines represent reference frames that are experiencing alternate rates of time relative to the observation reference frame, and we will observe these other rates of time from line 1, which is representing a standard second.

From top of line 1 draw a horizontal line to top of line 49.  Go to next marker down on line 1, draw a horizontal line to matching marker on line 49, repeating the process for each marker on line 1.


Now we are ready to look at the proportionality of what can be observed of another rate of time:
Looking at line 1 in relation to line 2, we will see that the spaces between the markers on line 2 has been divided by the horizontal line.  1 side of the division will be greater than the other.  Line 1 will be able to view the greater part of the division of that time frame, and it will be unable to view the lesser part.

Moving to line 3, we can see that the division of the space between the markers is different.  We will only be able to view the greater part of the division, as with line 2, but this greater part has become less than it was in line 2.

By line 25 we will find that the observable part of the division is much reduced, and that the greater part cannot be observed.

By multiplying the proportions of the division of the space between the markers for any line, by the number of spaces between markers of that line,(the remainder at bottom of line must be proportionally divided and calculated as a point something space.) ...This will give the correct proportionality of what you can and cannot observe of that rate of time.

This dispenses with Newtonian time.  All rates of time can be measured relative to a standard second, or indeed any length of second you fancy.

(Edit: I realise I've made a unit blunder here...  Althoug a second is tenable for drawing, ive gone on to describe a second hand of a clock tracing the radius of a minute, but you get the picture... and transposing the system to maths would of course allow for units as small as necessary.)

[PhysBang]

With Newtonian time it can be treated mathematically as a dimension, but it is only with SR that it became a physical length of anything.

That is mathematically impossible.

There is nothing holy about reference frames in which an object is at rest; these reference frames are no more "real" than frames on which they are moving. They are merely arbitrary choices made for the purposes of assigning coordinates.

Indeed - you don't need to tell me that.

It is odd for you to say that, since your entire complaint against SR is that it doesn't have a holy reference frame.

With LET, there is a "real" reference frame that has absolutely no effect on the world that we can detect.

It has an effect in that it enables things to function rationally rather than by magic. That is a big effect.

Your "rationally" is not the "rationally" of physics or mathematics. I will stick with the latter two.

I'm not mischaracterising it at all - when I say that in SR the true length of something is the length you measure for it when you are co-moving with it, that is the case.

No, that is a mischaracterization. If one is to measure the length of an object, then one needs to specify the frame of reference in which one is measuring it. No reference frame, no length. There is no "true length" independent of reference frame. You would like this to be the case (and you make some other conceptual errors), so you choose LET.

It's called reason. If a clock is running faster than another clock, it cannot also be running slower than it.

And SR holds this to be true. But the rate of a cyclic physical system depends on the system of coordinates. You want a holy clock rate, so you choose to reject SR.

It is magic when it involves toleration of a contradiction. If you have a mechanism for something which involves clock A ticking faster than clock B while clock B is ticking faster than clock A, you are irrational and have entered into the realm of magic.

And SR has none of these things. Only your desire for holy truth makes you want to create a contradiction where there is none.

In which case, what you're seeing from any frame is not telling you the truth about how the ticking rates of clocks can be compared.

On the contrary: because of the theory of relativity, if I know the information from one well-formed frame, I have the information for every well-formed frame (and some that are not well-formed).

Yes, surely the fault lies with the hundreds of physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers who have worked with the theory for over a century.

It does indeed - they are a self-selected bunch of magical thinkers who tolerate contradictions.

Sure they are. Keep that for your epitaph.

There is a long history of physics cranks who want to show the world. They don't produce much, but they spill a lot of ink.

[David Cooper (OP)]

When I ask you to draw vertical lines side by side, (how far apart these vertical lines are is irrelevant, space them at 1cm as you proceed across the page from left to right).

If these lines represent frames of reference, do you have some way of relating them to speeds at which they move relative to each other? I know you said it doesn't need numbers, but these numbers are important in order to get some idea of what's what.

I now extend the time period between the sounding of the first and second bell for line 2.  This second vertical line that you have drawn is slight longer than the first.  It represents a dilated standard second.

How much is slightly longer? I was imagining doubling the length the first time, then the third line would be three times as long as the first, etc., but if that doesn't work, I can't see how there can be any leeway in the proportion that "slightly" represents.

These vertical lines represent the standard second dilating for 24 lines, and then contracting for 24 lines back to the length of a standard second

Is it necessary to have the 24 lines reducing in length again? Is that just to help draw horizontal lines across the diagram or are they actually meant to be different frames of reference from the first lot?

Looking at line 1 in relation to line 2, we will see that the spaces between the markers on line 2 has been divided by the horizontal line.  1 side of the division will be greater than the other.  Line 1 will be able to view the greater part of the division of that time frame, and it will be unable to view the lesser part.

Why don't you just simplify this whole thing down to using two lines the same length (a length which we can call L), each as long as the distance between two markers on any of your lines. If we draw these lines side by side, but start the second one slightly higher up the paper, when we draw a line across horizontally from the top of the first line (the lower line) it will cut through the second one and divide it into two lengths, one short (the length of the height difference between the starts of the two lines, so let's call this length M) and one long (whose length will be L - M).

For the third line, we can simply use 2M for the shorter length and L - 2M for the longer length. For the fourth line we can use 3M for the shorter length, and L - 3M for the longer legth. At some point, perhaps when we're dealing with L - 20M, 20M might be longer than L, so the whole thing breaks down: this is where we need to know exactly what "slightly longer" means when drawing the 49 lines, or "slightly higher up" with my simplified version when I'm putting in the second line.

Even if we get that right though and ensure that L - 24M is a positive number (or zero at worst), there's still a problem with these proportions as they bear no resemblence to the way length contraction and time dilation behave. You might have a series of ratios like these: 25:0, 24:1, 23:2, 22:3, 21:4, 20:5, 19:6, 18:7, 17:8, 16:9, 15:10, 14:11, 13:12, 12:13, etc. (Maybe I should have started at 24 rather than 25, but it's easy to take one away from them all if that's the case.) But what use are these ratios? How would they tell you anything about length contraction or time dilation?

By line 25 we will find that the observable part of the division is much reduced, and that the greater part cannot be observed.

And again, there is nothing that goes unobserved, so what is this a theory of? Why do you want a theory to account for things going unobserved when they don't go unobserved?

By multiplying the proportions of the division of the space between the markers for any line, by the number of spaces between markers of that line,(the remainder at bottom of line must be proportionally divided and calculated as a point something space.) ...This will give the correct proportionality of what you can and cannot observe of that rate of time.

With the numbers I've chosen, there will only be one marker more on the longest line than on the shortest, so we'll be multiplying the proportions listed earlier by 1 plus one of the following: 0/25, 1/25, 2/25, 3/25, 4/25, etc. This means that for the fourth line, I'm taking the 21:4 and multiplying each side by 1 and 4/25, so that's 1.162 times 21 = 24.36, and 1.162 times 4 = 4.64, so we now have 24.36:4.64 (which is of course equal to 21:4 and is therefore a completely unnecessary conversion).

You seriously need to put your own numbers to this, doing it the way I have by producing the numbers you want me to get rather than the ones I'm getting perhaps by doing things wrongly. I can't see any way of using this ratio for anything relating to length contraction or time dilation.

This dispenses with Newtonian time.  All rates of time can be measured relative to a standard second, or indeed any length of second you fancy.

All I can see is a list of ratios which have any relation to the task. You're going to have to show me the ratios that you've produced, and then you'll need to show how they can be used to calculate time dilation or length contraction for objects moving through a frame of reference at relativistic speed. You also need to explain what you mean by things not being observed because the real universe doesn't hide anything in that way.

[David Cooper (OP)]

That is mathematically impossible.

A second can be represented as a length on a graph, so of course it's possible.

It is odd for you to say that, since your entire complaint against SR is that it doesn't have a holy reference frame.

There's nothing odd about it. If I discuss the idea of God with someone religious, being an atheist doesn't stop me discussing the proposed nature of his deity and agreeing with his requirements about what it supposedly is and does.

Your "rationally" is not the "rationally" of physics or mathematics. I will stick with the latter two.

Which is why you will remain irrational. What you still don't get is that the interactive diagram showing models one to three is designed to force people to think about how the future is generated out of the past without doing it by magic. With a normal Spacetime diagram you don't see this process, but just get the whole thing at once. My diagram with its three modes shows three different ways in which the future can be generated from the past in SR, and the consequences of those three methods. One of them works by bringing in Newtonian time as a means to handle event-meshing failure, another works by bringing in a preferred frame of reference so that the time of one frame can serve as Newtonian time to control the slower ticking of clocks at rest in all other frame, and the other model works by tolerating impossible contradictions (which renders it invalid). Once you understand that you have no other options (model zero's no help as it has no functionality whatsoever when it comes to generating a universe), then you'll understand why I have such a low opinion of physicists who believe in SR and who rule out Newtonian time - they cannot account rationally for the generation of the future out of the past but depend instead on magic.

No, that is a mischaracterization. If one is to measure the length of an object, then one needs to specify the frame of reference in which one is measuring it. No reference frame, no length. There is no "true length" independent of reference frame. You would like this to be the case (and you make some other conceptual errors), so you choose LET.

Nonsense: there are different interpretations of SR on this point, and you're fully entitled to yours, but it's a trivial issue which I don't give a fig about. You can have it any way you like it, and you have to, because all lengths from zero up to the maximum (the one I say is the true SR length for the thing) have to be counted as its true length. The important point that I was making is simply that there is a radical difference between LET and SR here in that LET says there is an absolute answer to the length, and that's the one measured for it in the preferred frame (and which is not necessarily the maximum length that will be measured for it by some observers).

It's called reason. If a clock is running faster than another clock, it cannot also be running slower than it.

And SR holds this to be true. But the rate of a cyclic physical system depends on the system of coordinates. You want a holy clock rate, so you choose to reject SR.

If you have a mechanism in which one frame has clocks that run faster than those of other frames, that is the preferred frame. You can't have more than one frame performing that role at the same location in space. If you don't want that to be your mechanism, you can't have the clocks of one frame running faster than those of other frames, so your mechanism has to involve them all running at the same speed (as with model one). If you are pinning your colours to model two, you are embracing an infinite number of contradictions.

It is magic when it involves toleration of a contradiction. If you have a mechanism for something which involves clock A ticking faster than clock B while clock B is ticking faster than clock A, you are irrational and have entered into the realm of magic.

And SR has none of these things. Only your desire for holy truth makes you want to create a contradiction where there is none.

Some people are blind to contradictions and there appears to be no cure for this, but they are irrational. If the clock of one frame ticks faster than the clock of another while also ticking slower than that clock, that's a contradiction which any rational person should be capable of recognising. Why can't you? What is missing in your thinking toolkit that prevents you from seeing that and from seeing how it is tied to SR?

On the contrary: because of the theory of relativity, if I know the information from one well-formed frame, I have the information for every well-formed frame (and some that are not well-formed).

What you have is a delusion - you don't really understand it at all because you can't see the glaring contradictions that you're tolerating.

There is a long history of physics cranks who want to show the world. They don't produce much, but they spill a lot of ink.

There is a long history of religious people tolerating contradictions and being ridiculed for it, and SR is a religion built on contradictions. Now, we're not going to get any further with this as you're scared of the interactive exam and want to go off on diversions instead, so I'll get back to building the most important system of all time. Goodbye.

[puppypower]

The preferred reference can be determine by an accurate energy balance. For example, say we had two objects, the same size and shape, moving at relative velocity, V. The hidden variable is one has mass M and the other mass 2M. We don't know if object 1 or object 2 is moving or whether each has part of the velocity. To figure that out all we need to do is let them collide. The rebound will tell us which has the energy and therefore which was the preferred reference.

The magic trick is connected to the twin paradox. This assumes both with the same mass, therefore there is no preferred reference since the collision is always the same.

The same could be true of the universe. If we knew, in advance, the exact amount of kinetic energy in the universe, we could eliminate a wide range of relative reference scenarios. Since we don't, we can pretend these are all relative. If we did know this energy, only one scenario will add up properly thereby defining the preferred reference. 

[PhysBang]

That is mathematically impossible.

A second can be represented as a length on a graph, so of course it's possible.

No, your statement, With Newtonian time it can be treated mathematically as a dimension, but it is only with SR that it became a physical length of anything," is mathematically impossible.

Which is why you will remain irrational. What you still don't get is that the interactive diagram showing models one to three is designed to force people to think about how the future is generated out of the past without doing it by magic.

You are right, I don't get it. You have made a choice: you are standing, regardless of what anyone says, against the reasoning of physicists. I am not willing to do this. I wish you all the best and I hope this won't be hard for you. I really, really hope that you ahve someone looking after you.

 

With a normal Spacetime diagram you don't see this process, but just get the whole thing at once. My diagram with its three modes shows three different ways in which the future can be generated from the past in SR, and the consequences of those three methods.

Like all of your knowledge of SR, you are putting together a half-baked idea of what everyone in history has done based on your limited reading. Many people have made animated SR diagrams. The difference between them and you is that they are using SR and you are not, given that your animated diagrams fail to preserve the same events across different reference frames.

No, that is a mischaracterization. If one is to measure the length of an object, then one needs to specify the frame of reference in which one is measuring it. No reference frame, no length. There is no "true length" independent of reference frame. You would like this to be the case (and you make some other conceptual errors), so you choose LET.

Nonsense: there are different interpretations of SR on this point, and you're fully entitled to yours, but it's a trivial issue which I don't give a fig about.

There is no interpretation of SR in which one can have a length without a reference frame. Again, you have a very limited, self-taught knowledge of SR. You seem to hate those people who actually had teachers and you refuse to learn from them and you refuse to read anything more about SR. You have made this choice.

If you have a mechanism in which one frame has clocks that run faster than those of other frames, that is the preferred frame. You can't have more than one frame performing that role at the same location in space.

You seem to not understand frames of reference at all. There are an infinite number of frames where certain clocks have the same properties of their rate. And frames are not located in space, space has location by virtue of a frame.

Some people are blind to contradictions and there appears to be no cure for this, but they are irrational. If the clock of one frame ticks faster than the clock of another while also ticking slower than that clock, that's a contradiction which any rational person should be capable of recognising. Why can't you? What is missing in your thinking toolkit that prevents you from seeing that and from seeing how it is tied to SR?

I cannot simply accept your lies about SR. There is no frame in which, "he clock of one frame ticks faster than the clock of another while also ticking slower than that clock." This is your own fabrication. Like many cranks, you fantasize how SR is based on your limited knowledge and you make a decision about how SR really is and you then reject any person or text that might say otherwise.

[timey]

When I ask you to draw vertical lines side by side, (how far apart these vertical lines are is irrelevant, space them at 1cm as you proceed across the page from left to right).

If these lines represent frames of reference, do you have some way of relating them to speeds at which they move relative to each other? I know you said it doesn't need numbers, but these numbers are important in order to get some idea of what's what.

I now extend the time period between the sounding of the first and second bell for line 2.  This second vertical line that you have drawn is slight longer than the first.  It represents a dilated standard second.

How much is slightly longer? I was imagining doubling the length the first time, then the third line would be three times as long as the first, etc., but if that doesn't work, I can't see how there can be any leeway in the proportion that "slightly" represents.

These vertical lines represent the standard second dilating for 24 lines, and then contracting for 24 lines back to the length of a standard second

Is it necessary to have the 24 lines reducing in length again? Is that just to help draw horizontal lines across the diagram or are they actually meant to be different frames of reference from the first lot?

Looking at line 1 in relation to line 2, we will see that the spaces between the markers on line 2 has been divided by the horizontal line.  1 side of the division will be greater than the other.  Line 1 will be able to view the greater part of the division of that time frame, and it will be unable to view the lesser part.

Why don't you just simplify this whole thing down to using two lines the same length (a length which we can call L), each as long as the distance between two markers on any of your lines. If we draw these lines side by side, but start the second one slightly higher up the paper, when we draw a line across horizontally from the top of the first line (the lower line) it will cut through the second one and divide it into two lengths, one short (the length of the height difference between the starts of the two lines, so let's call this length M) and one long (whose length will be L - M).

For the third line, we can simply use 2M for the shorter length and L - 2M for the longer length. For the fourth line we can use 3M for the shorter length, and L - 3M for the longer legth. At some point, perhaps when we're dealing with L - 20M, 20M might be longer than L, so the whole thing breaks down: this is where we need to know exactly what "slightly longer" means when drawing the 49 lines, or "slightly higher up" with my simplified version when I'm putting in the second line.

Even if we get that right though and ensure that L - 24M is a positive number (or zero at worst), there's still a problem with these proportions as they bear no resemblence to the way length contraction and time dilation behave. You might have a series of ratios like these: 25:0, 24:1, 23:2, 22:3, 21:4, 20:5, 19:6, 18:7, 17:8, 16:9, 15:10, 14:11, 13:12, 12:13, etc. (Maybe I should have started at 24 rather than 25, but it's easy to take one away from them all if that's the case.) But what use are these ratios? How would they tell you anything about length contraction or time dilation?

By line 25 we will find that the observable part of the division is much reduced, and that the greater part cannot be observed.

And again, there is nothing that goes unobserved, so what is this a theory of? Why do you want a theory to account for things going unobserved when they don't go unobserved?

By multiplying the proportions of the division of the space between the markers for any line, by the number of spaces between markers of that line,(the remainder at bottom of line must be proportionally divided and calculated as a point something space.) ...This will give the correct proportionality of what you can and cannot observe of that rate of time.

With the numbers I've chosen, there will only be one marker more on the longest line than on the shortest, so we'll be multiplying the proportions listed earlier by 1 plus one of the following: 0/25, 1/25, 2/25, 3/25, 4/25, etc. This means that for the fourth line, I'm taking the 21:4 and multiplying each side by 1 and 4/25, so that's 1.162 times 21 = 24.36, and 1.162 times 4 = 4.64, so we now have 24.36:4.64 (which is of course equal to 21:4 and is therefore a completely unnecessary conversion).

You seriously need to put your own numbers to this, doing it the way I have by producing the numbers you want me to get rather than the ones I'm getting perhaps by doing things wrongly. I can't see any way of using this ratio for anything relating to length contraction or time dilation.

This dispenses with Newtonian time.  All rates of time can be measured relative to a standard second, or indeed any length of second you fancy.

All I can see is a list of ratios which have any relation to the task. You're going to have to show me the ratios that you've produced, and then you'll need to show how they can be used to calculate time dilation or length contraction for objects moving through a frame of reference at relativistic speed. You also need to explain what you mean by things not being observed because the real universe doesn't hide anything in that way.

Firstly these lines are not reference frames in themselves.  They are merely depicting a physical representation of the duration of a second that is dilating and then contracting again.

The purpose of these lines is to mathematically work out the proportions of the observation one length of second will be able to make of the other.

This diagram is depicting a mathematical means to a concept I'm calling observational time frame  dependency.  Although actual numbers can be attributed to this system, what I'm describing is a formula, so it doesn't 'need' them in order to work.  I just don't know how to express the formula mathematically.

*

OK - slightly longer:
Yes the lines only get slightly longer.  A shallow sloped roof on top, and same shape inverted at bottom.  In real terms, for this to be in context, a standard second will increase in length only very slightly at the kinds of speeds that are normal to us, relative to stationary.  But regstding the reference frame of an object travelling at the kinds of speeds you have been describing on this thread, of course the length of a standard second will be vastly extended.  If you were to draw a vertical line (at same constant velocity you drew the standard second), for a second dilated to that extent, the line you draw will drop off bottom of page and beyond.  Perhaps you can now see the possibility that observing that vastly lengthened second from the length of the standard second can result in not being able to actually see very much of that longer second.  Resulting in not being able to see all of the rocket travelling at that speed. ie: length contraction

*

Yes - the reason there are lines after line 25 that identically reduce to afford each line, apart from line 25, an equal counterpart is purely for ease of drawing the horizontal lines, and no other reason.

*

If you only wish to know what the observable proportions of only one other length of second are, then by all means only draw 2 lines.  So long as the lines are drawn at constant velocity, one matching the length of a second in your observational reference frame, and the other matching the length of a second in the reference frame you are observing, (be this a moving reference frame or a reference frame of differing gravity potential), and as long as you divide your 1st line into 10 uniform spaces with 11 markers, (edit: although these numbers are completly arbitary, the natural divisions would be the length of nano seconds), measure the space in between one marker and the next, and then make markers on the longer line from top to bottom that create spaces equal to this length... then centralise your 1st line in relation to your 2nd line and, for ease of creating the horizontal lines, create a copy of your 1st line centralised on other side of your 2nd line.

You don't even have to draw horizontals matching all the markers in line 1 with line 3, just a couple or so will show you that each division is identical.  It is the division that the horizontal makes in the space between 2 markers on line 2 that is significant.

This is depicting the ratio of what a reference frame with a length of second as per line 1 will and will not observe of a reference frame that has a length of second as per line 2.

Then by measuring what length one side of the division of this space in between markers is in relation to the other side of this division of the space, it is possible to multiply each by the number of spaces there are marked out on line 2, (there may be a remainder of not a whole space that will need to be counted in) ...and this will give the total proportionality of the observation... and 'hopefully' can be matched to the maths of the expected length contraction of a reference frame in relative motion as per its expected time dilation.

[David Cooper (OP)]

That is mathematically impossible.

A second can be represented as a length on a graph, so of course it's possible.

No, your statement, With Newtonian time it can be treated mathematically as a dimension, but it is only with SR that it became a physical length of anything," is mathematically impossible.

Nonsense: time can be treated as a time or a distance. Newtonian time treats it as a time while SR treats it as a distance, and indeed it's the only distance that isn't variable within the non-Euclidean geometry where other lengths are different depending on which frame you measure them from.

You are right, I don't get it. You have made a choice: you are standing, regardless of what anyone says, against the reasoning of physicists. I am not willing to do this. I wish you all the best and I hope this won't be hard for you. I really, really hope that you ahve someone looking after you.

I'm only standing up for reason. If your SR model can't generate the future out of the past without generating contradictions, it's broken and needs to be modified until it works. If you're at a Spacetime location and asking questions about what's going on at another Spacetime location while the calculations using one frame of reference are telling you that some event has happened there but the calculations using a different frame of reference are telling you that it hasn't happened yet, one of those accounts is wrong. Anyone who believes they're both correct is in need of medication.

Like all of your knowledge of SR, you are putting together a half-baked idea of what everyone in history has done based on your limited reading. Many people have made animated SR diagrams. The difference between them and you is that they are using SR and you are not, given that your animated diagrams fail to preserve the same events across different reference frames.

Where can I find an animation/simulation that does the job in a way you approve of then? How do they perform the magic trick of avoiding generating contradictions? The reality is that they don't exist, and that's why there are so many people out there who regard SR as fantasy physics. Anyone who hunts for answers will find a wall of silence because you have no answers.

There is no interpretation of SR in which one can have a length without a reference frame. Again, you have a very limited, self-taught knowledge of SR. You seem to hate those people who actually had teachers and you refuse to learn from them and you refuse to read anything more about SR. You have made this choice.

Absolute baloney: reference frames in SR give a narrow view of a deeper reality in which objects sit in non-Euclidean space where their true dimensions don't vary in the way they appear to do to us. The maximum lengths we measure for their dimensions (by co-moving with them) are the true lengths - the rest are just warped images of them.

If you have a mechanism in which one frame has clocks that run faster than those of other frames, that is the preferred frame. You can't have more than one frame performing that role at the same location in space.

You seem to not understand frames of reference at all. There are an infinite number of frames where certain clocks have the same properties of their rate.

If one clock has its clocks running faster than those of other frames at a specific location, there are no other frames with clocks running that fast at that location. There will be an infinite number of others there running at any given slower rate.

And frames are not located in space, space has location by virtue of a frame.

The only reason I'm restricting things to a locality is that a frame that runs clocks fastest in one place may not do so in another place due to the expansion of space - it's just careful wording to take that into account.

I cannot simply accept your lies about SR. There is no frame in which, "he clock of one frame ticks faster than the clock of another while also ticking slower than that clock." This is your own fabrication.

It is SR's fabrication. If you have calculations based on one frame telling you that clock A is ticking faster than clock B while your calculations based on a different frame are telling you that clock B is ticking faster than clock A, they cannot both be telling you the truth. Not all the accounts generated by the analysis based on different frames are valid.

Like many cranks, you fantasize how SR is based on your limited knowledge and you make a decision about how SR really is and you then reject any person or text that might say otherwise.

Like many qualified cranks, you don't understand SR despite having fancy documents signed by the clergy which lead you to imagine that you do. My task in all this is to try to get to the truth and then to pass it on to others. It's all about finding the truth and trying to get it out of some very slippery characters who don't want to take a close look at the solidity of the foundations of their beliefs that they've built so much upon. That is why the interactive exam is there - it's designed to force those who are brave enough to take it on to confront the problems and to try to get useful answers from them, and yet what happens? They run away from it and snipe at other things instead because they have no answers. If they did have answers they would be able to point straight to a site that would show how their SR model can generate the future out of the past without generating contradictions, without a preferred frame, and without event-meshing failures, but there is no such site out there because they have no such model. The only models they actually have are the ones that I have shown you. What they actually do is fudge and mudge, pointing at one of those models and saying "See, there's no event-meshing failure there!", then they point at a different model and say, "See, there's no need for a preferred frame there!", and then to another model again and say, "See, there are no contradictions generated here!", but they're trying to pass three incompatible models off as a single model, and the only one that actually fits in fully with SR is the one that generates an infinite number of contradictions. And so long as they keep sticking their heads in the sand to avoid seeing the problem, armies of people will continue to regard SR as witchcraft rather than science. If you seriously think SR works, you (or some other representative of the Church of Einstein) should be able to find a point where the argument presented in the interactive exam is faulty, but hundreds of experts have already run away from it without daring to say where it told them they'd failed. Only one has said where he failed it (question #1 - he believes that time doesn't run), and he ran away from the follow-up question that I put to him because he realised that his version of the model can't generate anything at all. All I'm doing is asking the awkward questions that anyone should ask and which the SR mob don't know how to answer, and the reason they have no answers to offer is very simple: SR is broken.

[David Cooper (OP)]

This diagram is depicting a mathematical means to a concept I'm calling observational time frame  dependency.  Although actual numbers can be attributed to this system, what I'm describing is a formula, so it doesn't 'need' them in order to work.  I just don't know how to express the formula mathematically.

But you must be getting numbers out for the proportions on each line (which I suspect you're doing differently from me). Why not provide a list of those numbers. You must have such a list - just measure them off your diagram with a ruler.

Perhaps you can now see the possibility that observing that vastly lengthened second from the length of the standard second can result in not being able to actually see very much of that longer second.  Resulting in not being able to see all of the rocket travelling at that speed. ie: length contraction

But one problem there is that we do observe the whole of the longer second - we see the action in slow motion. As for the contraction, that could certainly make it harder to see the detail, but none of the detail is missing - we just need to magnify it more to see it.

(edit: although these numbers are completly arbitary, the natural divisions would be the length of nano seconds)

Nanoseconds are no less arbitrary.

This is depicting the ratio of what a reference frame with a length of second as per line 1 will and will not observe of a reference frame that has a length of second as per line 2.

What have you actually worked out from this? Can you use it to determine how much length contraction and time dilation there will be when you observe something moving relative to you at 0.866c? Can you get the number 2 or 1/2 out of it? And, if so, can you work out why that answer comes out of it? Does it work for other speeds too? Do you own a calculator capable of doing a square root or are you just doing everything on hope and guesses? If you've found something worthwhile, you need to find out whether it stands up or not, and that means checking the numbers.

and 'hopefully' can be matched to the maths of the expected length contraction of a reference frame in relative motion as per its expected time dilation.

Do you have the formula Lorentz uses for calculating length contraction and time dilation? If you don't have a calculator capable of handling roots, would you like someone to give you a list of a range of speeds and their associated length contractions? Feel free to post a list of a hundred speeds and I'll do the maths for you to give you the numbers you need - it'll only take a few minutes to write a little program capable of churning out thousands of them, so you can have as many as you need. You've got to check that your proportions are actually giving you something that matches up to the real numbers of length contraction, because until you've done that you can't possibly know if you've got anything relevant to this business at all.

[PhysBang]

Nonsense: time can be treated as a time or a distance. Newtonian time treats it as a time while SR treats it as a distance, and indeed it's the only distance that isn't variable within the non-Euclidean geometry where other lengths are different depending on which frame you measure them from.

I'm sorry that you are so limited by whatever you taught yourself and that you refuse to learn anything new. Mathematically, one could always treat time as a length and this was done well before Einstein developed SR. Again, I'm sorry to see you embarrass yourself like this.

I'm only standing up for reason. If your SR model can't generate the future out of the past without generating contradictions, it's broken and needs to be modified until it works.

And, as everyone working on it has shown for over a century, SR is a deterministic theory for which future events are completely determined by the past. If you think otherwise, then you are making a mistake. You have a significant burden of proof, given the immense amount of study given to the fundamentals of SR.

If you're at a Spacetime location and asking questions about what's going on at another Spacetime location while the calculations using one frame of reference are telling you that some event has happened there but the calculations using a different frame of reference are telling you that it hasn't happened yet, one of those accounts is wrong.

So you are simply choosing to believe, regardless of any argument, that there is a holy, true frame of reference. So you are just begging the question for your conclusion.

Anyone who believes they're both correct is in need of medication.

I would be careful about making that accusation, given that you are the person up against a century of published work and that you are siding with bona fide crackpots against SR.

Where can I find an animation/simulation that does the job in a way you approve of then?

Have you heard of google?

Here are some of the first results:
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/~ts2/Animation/special_relativity.html

http://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/einsteinlight/
http://www.kcvs.ca/site/projects/specialRelativity.html

How do they perform the magic trick of avoiding generating contradictions?

They, unlike you, actually use the Lorentz transformations.

Absolute baloney: reference frames in SR give a narrow view of a deeper reality in which objects sit in non-Euclidean space where their true dimensions don't vary in the way they appear to do to us. The maximum lengths we measure for their dimensions (by co-moving with them) are the true lengths - the rest are just warped images of them.

This is your spacial David Cooper Relativity theory. You are free to use your own theory, but do not lie to us and say that it is SR.

It is SR's fabrication. If you have calculations based on one frame telling you that clock A is ticking faster than clock B while your calculations based on a different frame are telling you that clock B is ticking faster than clock A, they cannot both be telling you the truth. Not all the accounts generated by the analysis based on different frames are valid.

This is your own, special desire to have a holy frame of reference. Most other people have moved on.

That is why the interactive exam is there - it's designed to force those who are brave enough to take it on to confront the problems and to try to get useful answers from them, and yet what happens? They run away from it and snipe at other things instead because they have no answers.

If you ask questions based on falsehoods, then people will point this out.

If they did have answers they would be able to point straight to a site that would show how their SR model can generate the future out of the past without generating contradictions, without a preferred frame, and without event-meshing failures, but there is no such site out there because they have no such model.

Why don't you look at any of the major books by Lawrence Sklar, to pick a philosopher of physics out of a hat. It's likely that all of them go into this or at least give a citation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Sklar#Major_books You imagine that you have to answers, but you are merely poorly read and taught.

[timey]

This diagram is depicting a mathematical means to a concept I'm calling observational time frame  dependency.  Although actual numbers can be attributed to this system, what I'm describing is a formula, so it doesn't 'need' them in order to work.  I just don't know how to express the formula mathematically.

But you must be getting numbers out for the proportions on each line (which I suspect you're doing differently from me). Why not provide a list of those numbers. You must have such a list - just measure them off your diagram with a ruler.

Perhaps you can now see the possibility that observing that vastly lengthened second from the length of the standard second can result in not being able to actually see very much of that longer second.  Resulting in not being able to see all of the rocket travelling at that speed. ie: length contraction

But one problem there is that we do observe the whole of the longer second - we see the action in slow motion. As for the contraction, that could certainly make it harder to see the detail, but none of the detail is missing - we just need to magnify it more to see it.

(edit: although these numbers are completly arbitary, the natural divisions would be the length of nano seconds)

Nanoseconds are no less arbitrary.

This is depicting the ratio of what a reference frame with a length of second as per line 1 will and will not observe of a reference frame that has a length of second as per line 2.

What have you actually worked out from this? Can you use it to determine how much length contraction and time dilation there will be when you observe something moving relative to you at 0.866c? Can you get the number 2 or 1/2 out of it? And, if so, can you work out why that answer comes out of it? Does it work for other speeds too? Do you own a calculator capable of doing a square root or are you just doing everything on hope and guesses? If you've found something worthwhile, you need to find out whether it stands up or not, and that means checking the numbers.

and 'hopefully' can be matched to the maths of the expected length contraction of a reference frame in relative motion as per its expected time dilation.

Do you have the formula Lorentz uses for calculating length contraction and time dilation? If you don't have a calculator capable of handling roots, would you like someone to give you a list of a range of speeds and their associated length contractions? Feel free to post a list of a hundred speeds and I'll do the maths for you to give you the numbers you need - it'll only take a few minutes to write a little program capable of churning out thousands of them, so you can have as many as you need. You've got to check that your proportions are actually giving you something that matches up to the real numbers of length contraction, because until you've done that you can't possibly know if you've got anything relevant to this business at all.

I haven't created a diagram... I mostly do everything in my head, and this is really very simple indeed.  Formulas are numberless mathematics.

*

If you were to view a rocket experiencing dilated time and you saw the occupants of that rocket moving around their tasks in slow motion, then the rocket itself will also be moving in slow motion.  A rocket moving in slow motion is no longer travelling at the speed that causes the time dilation.
There is no way of avoiding this contradiction.

I am suggesting that the dilated time is directly causing the appearance of the associated length contraction and that this matches the fact of the current time dilation maths being the inverse of the current length contraction maths...
The ratios that you mention appearing in the diagram you have created at my instruction are depicting the inverse and non inverse of the maths currently employed to describe length contraction in relation to the inverse of these maths being motion related time dilation, except that my version of this description is not involving Newtonian time, only one rate of local time in relation to another.

*

Yes nano seconds also arbitrary - but we use the standard second to measure time in most respects.
Let's give this some numbers then... A million micro seconds to a standard second split into ten equals one hundred thousand microseconds to a time frame.  (edit: clearly a time frame of the value of 100 000 microseconds can be subdivided by power10 as many times as is necessary into smaller time frames comprised of nanoseconds)

Remembering that we created 10 spaces with 11 markers on the first line that we are saying represents a standard second, we are making markers on line 2 that depicts a longer second spaced equally to the first line.  Line 2 is longer, there will be more spaces on line 2 than line 1...

How many more spaces?  Well that would depend on how much longer the dilated second is.  We have given the length of the space between markers a value of 1 hundred thousand microseconds.  A 'time frame' has the value of 100 000 microseconds...
If you can work out by how many microseconds a standard second will be dilated by for a speed of 0.866c then this system can be checked against that speeds expected length contraction...
...But for now let's just increase the length of a standard second by 50 000 microseconds.  This is equal to half the length of a space between markers.  Line 2 will have 10.5 spaces in relation to line 1's 10 spaces.
We centralise line 1 in relation to line 2 so that line 2 is the value of 25 000 microseconds longer at top of line 2 in relation to line 1, and 25 000 microseconds longer at bottom of line 2 in relation to line 1.

We can see that if we extend the markers on line 1 horizontally to meet line 2, that the horizontal will divide a space between markers on line 2 into two spaces.  The length of these divisions of this space between markers on line 2 is the ratio we are looking at.

I am saying that it will be the greater part of this division of the space between markers on line 2 that one will observe.  The lesser part of the division 'should' be a ratio that matches the expected length contraction for a time dilation of that proportion.

[timey]

So in adding 50 000 microseconds to the million microseconds of the standard second to create line 2, it becomes clear that the observable proportionality of an observation of line 2, from line 1, is going to be missing 25 000 microseconds over the duration of the passing of its 10 time frames...
So - to clear up the overall ratio...
1000000 microseconds divided by a 1025000 microseconds = 0.97560976.

I'm suggesting that a length contraction associated with a second that is 50 000 microseconds longer than a standard second, will be of this ratio, and the reason the length appears contracted is because it is not possible to observe this ratio of the longer second from the shorter second. ((...and visa versa of the rocket's observation of the shorter second - but this will not be so obvious because the shorter second is not moving (or not moving as fast), relative to the longer second.))