[McQueen (OP)]

Physicists have often been amazed at the  invariance of the speed of light. This means that regardless of whether the source is moving or the destination is moving or even if both are moving, the speed of light remains constant at 3 x 10⁵ km/s approx.  What is so unusual about this? Unusual ! It goes absolutely against every practical experience known to mankind! In the normal world things obey what are known as Galilean transformations. Thus  take two fast cars 150 Kms apart and travelling towards each other. Car (a) going at 150 kmh and car(b) at 100 kmh. If they both start off at exactly the same time when will they meet ?  It might surprise you at first to learn that the time at which they will meet is governed by their combined speed or 100 kmh + 150 kmh = 250 kmh. They will therefore meet after  36 minutes during which time  car (a) would have covered 90 Km and car (b) would have covered 60 km. The same would apply if the cars were moving away from each other here, the speed of the two cars is again combined but this time they are moving away from each other, thus they are departing from each other at a relative speed of 100 km + 150 kmh = 250 kmh.  If both cars are moving in the same direction then the speed of car (a) relative to the speed of car (b) would be the difference in speed 150 kmh - 100 kmh = 50 kmh.  These cars are moving according to Galilean transformations.

Imagine then the surprise of scientists when they found that light does not obey these Galilean transformations. Take the following case. Suppose you have a light at a fixed source (A) shining towards a point (B) that is 100,000 Kms. away then we know that since the speed of light is 300,000 km/sec that it should take 0.33 secs for the light to travel from point A to Point B.  And this is how long it does take. (note: Actually according to relativity this is by no means certain) Now suppose you fit the light onto a superfast train travelling at 150,000 km/s then surely it should take the light whose combined speed is 300,000 km/s + 150,000 km/s = 450,000 km/s and it should now take the light only 0.222 s to reach point B! Wrong! Say the scientists it would still take the light 0.33 secs to cover the distance from (A) to (B)!
 


How could this be true? More important how could it be proved to be either true or false? I was thinking about this problem when it occurred to me that the speed of sound (because it is a wave)  is also invariant. Just like light the speed of sound is also independent of the speed of the source or of the destination or even if both were moving together. How could this be. I was thinking about something else when the answer came to me and it is ridiculously simple.  Look at this problem. First you have a stationary sound at (A) travelling towards a point (b) which is 600 m distant.  Consider that sound travels at 1257.12 kmh therefore it will take approximately 1.72 secs to cover the distance to (B). Now imagine that the sound (Siren or whatever) is fitted onto a car travelling at 150 kmh , then the sound should now take 600/ (150 kmh  + 1257.12) = 1.53 sec to cover the distance to B, right ? Wrong say the physicists the sound will still take 1.72 sec to travel from point A to point B.  How could this be ?

It becomes very simple to understand when we take into account that the speed of the car depends on its mass, the force with which it can press onto the tarmac, the speed with which the wheel revolves, the force of gravity etc., While the speed of sound is solely dependent on the properties of the medium it is travelling through. The two velocities have nothing to do with each other. It is like comparing apples and oranges you can't do it!  So the sound will still take 1.72 secs to travel from point (A) to point (B) while the car would take 14.35 secs to cover the distance from (A) to (B).
 That's all there is to the invariance of the speed of light or of the speed of sound.  Apples and oranges.

[Bored chemist]

"t goes absolutely against every practical experience known to mankind! "
Does your GPS  work?
If so, that's an experience which goes along with the invariance of the speed of light.

[Janus]

How could this be true? More important how could it be proved to be either true or false? I was thinking about this problem when it occurred  to me that the speed of sound (because it is a wave)  is also invariant.

No, the speed on sound is not invariant. The speed of sound is constant relative to the medium carrying it, and thus the speed of sound relative to you depends of the motion of the medium relative to you.  If someone is upwind of you the sound they make would take less time to reach you than the sound made by someone an equal distance from you but downwind. Relative to you, the sound coming from one direction travels faster.
The same would happen on a calm day if you were moving relative to the air from pone person to the other. If both of them made a sound at the exact moment you were have way between them, you would hear the sound coming from the person you are heading towards before you hear it coming from the one you are walking towards. If you were standing still relative o the air, and they were both traveling in the same direction, then if they made sounds at the same time, you would hear them at the same time.  While the speed of sound relative to you does not depend on the source's velocity with respect to the medium, it does depend on your velocity with respect to the medium.
With light in a vacuum, this is not the case. You always measure the speed of light as being c relative to you. So for example with your flashlight and plane example, if you are at rest with respect to the flashlight you measure both the flashlight and plane's light running neck and neck at ~300,000 km/sec relative to yourself. (the plane and the front edge of the beams would be separating at 0.1c) If you are riding in the plane, you would measure both lights traveling neck and neck relative to the plane.(the flashlight and front edge of the beams would be separating at 1.9c)

With sound, if the plane where traveling at mach 0.9 relative to the air and the flashlight at rest with with respect to it, both the plane and flashlight would agree that the sound traveled at mach 1 relative to the flashlight and at mach 0.1 relative to the Plane. 
Sound and light can not be equated in this manner.

[mrsmith2211]

It can also depend on observational methods. It is known light can be bent by gravity, ie:, path of the photon being affected by the gravity of the sun. To the photon, there is no change in speed, but from point a to point b one would logically assume because of the greater distance traveled there would be a discrepancy in the apparent speed of light. Now carry that further and you can assume the medium the photon travels in can affect the observed speed. Could the speed of light potentially be affected by air molecules due to gravitational pull of the molecules, Yes in my book, significant difference, it depends on the time of travel.

[PhysBang]

Physicists have often been amazed at the  invariance of the speed of light. This means that regardless of whether the source is moving or the destination is moving or even if both are moving, the speed of light remains constant at 3 x 10⁵ km/s approx.  What is so unusual about this? Unusual ! It goes absolutely against every practical experience known to mankind!

I understand the point, but the constancy of the speed of light doesn't go against attempts to measure the speed of light: those always show a constant speed in a vacuum relative to a local system of coordinates.

One could say that things that are colored red go against all experience of things that aren't red, but that wouldn't be particularly informative. Language that ignores the real evidence for contemporary relativity theory makes it seem that relativity theory is merely conceptual and undercuts the empirical evidence for the theory.

In the normal world things obey what are known as Galilean transformations. Thus  take two fast cars 150 Kms apart and travelling towards each other. Car (a) going at 150 kmh and car(b) at 100 kmh. If they both start off at exactly the same time when will they meet ?  It might surprise you at first to learn that the time at which they will meet is governed by their combined speed or 100 kmh = 150 kmh = 250 kmh. They will therefore meet after  36 minutes during which time  car (a) would have covered 90 Km and car (b) would have covered 60 km. The same would apply if the cars were moving away from each other here, the speed of the two cars is again combined but this time they are moving away from each other, thus they are departing from each other at a relative speed of 100 km + 150 kmh = 250 kmh.  If both cars are moving in the same direction than the speed of car (a) relative to the speed of car (b) would be the difference in speed 150 kmh - 100 kmh = 50 kmh.  These cars are moving according to Galilean transformations.

Except that we have reasons to believe that, in the normal world, the cars aren't actually moving according to Galilean transformations; it's just that Galilean transformations are a really good approximation to the actual transformations that the cars obey. We can use the Lorentz transformations for the cars and get the same answers, well within allowable error, to the standard physics problems. We just know that there are circumstances where the Lorentz transformations give us a more accurate picture of the relevant physics.

I was thinking about this problem when it occurred  to me that the speed of sound (because it is a wave)  is also invariant.

It might be invariant with respect to the medium, but the speed of a particular sound on Earth relative to Mars will be different than the speed of that sound relative to the Earth. This is different to the constancy of the speed of light: the speed is constant relative to any well-formed system of coordinates that we might choose. This is not a simple difference, since our time coordinates can be different as well as the relative position of spatial axes over time. And the ramification of this do trickle down to the transformations that govern cars, unlike the limitations of the speed of sound in a medium.

[McQueen (OP)]

No, the speed on sound is not invariant. The speed of sound is constant relative to the medium carrying it, and thus the speed of sound relative to you depends of the motion of the medium relative to you.  If someone is upwind of you the sound they make would take less time to reach you than the sound made by someone an equal distance from you but downwind. Relative to you, the sound coming from one direction travels faster.

Bringing the wind into it is surely not the point in question here?  For instance when talking about the constancy of the speed of light it is always "The speed of light in a vacuum is constant." and never just the speed of light is constant. I think you have a lot of your facts mixed up. 

The speed of sound is a property of the medium. Sound is not an object, but a disturbance in a given medium, so it will always travel at the rate the medium prescribes. The only way to change its speed is to change the medium somehow (typically temperature in air). This means that the fact a person is moving or not is immaterial to the speed that the sound travels with providing that the medium remains unchanged.  If you are moving relative to the sound the frequency might change but the velocity of the sound will remain the same.

[GoC]

It's interesting how when a statement is made most look for the differences rather than the sameness. Sound through a medium is very similar to light in the wave form. The medium of a vacuum obviously cannot be transported but that does not mean there is no medium. Air can be transported so we have a difference. If there is an Aether type medium it has to be somewhat static by position and rotate by c. This would actually create relativity measurements. A photon would propagate by c and the electron would rotationally cycle by c. Creating the background for mechanical and light clocks tick at the same rate in every frame.

Dilation by mass would dilute the Aether by expanding the distance between Aether particles. So energy would be of space and not mass. Mass would just be a conduit for c spin as energy of space. How can a slower electron produce a faster photon in any mechanical sense?

[David Cooper]

If you're looking for a parallel, consider thought experiments using a sound clock. If it's moving along through the air it will run slow, but if you have a second sound clock and accelerate it away from the first one to travel at higher or slower speed, then turn it round and bring it back to reunite it with the first one, the one that's done these accelerations will have recorded less time than the one which moved at a constant speed throughout (the difference being down to the second clock's different speeds of travel through the air). The relationship between the time kept by these clocks is exactly the same mathematically as the one you get with light clocks. The big difference is that we have a means to detect our movement through air, so we don't make the mistake of assuming the air doesn't exist when doing experiments with sound clocks. What is weird though is that people make exactly that mistake when it comes to light, because even though the fabric of space can't be detected, we know that it must be there because it has a crucial role in hosting the functionality of separation and distance between all the things that we can detect. If it's literally nothing, then there can be no separation or distance between things. It is a fabric within which things reside and through which they travel.

Not only must light travel through a medium (a space fabric such as "aether" or "Spacetime"), but it also has to have a consistent speed limit through that medium rather than doing a wide range of different speeds along the same path all at the same time. When you actually push SR to its extremes though, you reach a point where you realise that light has to travel all paths in zero time covering zero distance, and while the believers deny that, it is a necessary extension of their insistence that fast moving objects moving close to the speed of light cover their journeys in next to zero time while covering next to zero distance. This ability of light to travel from the start of the universe to the end in zero time on a path of zero distance also destroys all possibility of causality having any real role in anything, leaving you depending on infinite improbability instead to account for all the apparent causation which is written through the universe. Shifting to an alternative explanation of SR to avoid that problem immediately kills the claim that time never runs slow on any path, which turns it into a contrived version of Lorentz Ether Theory with a superfluous "time dimension" cobbled onto it to work in conjunction with Newtonian time (which would be needed to allow "time" to run slow on some paths). Sadly, few people appear to be able to hold all these ideas in their head well enough to process them all and recognise that the Spacetime model doesn't work, so they generally jump between incompatible explanations and models while imagining that they all somehow hang together as a viable theory, but they don't. Where there are contradictions in a theory, that theory is broken.

My web page on this subject ( http://www.magicschoolbook.com/science/relativity.html ) has been up for several years now and it has survived all the attempts of a number of professional physicists to shoot it down - all they ever do is run away when they realise they have no answers and that they can't find a fault in it, because none of them have had sufficient courage to admit that it's right. The interactive exam (which requires nothing more than a series of yes/no answers) is designed to force them to identify the point at which they believe my argument is broken, but they refuse to say which question they failed the exam on because it spells out to them the consequences if that part is to be rejected - the result is that they don't dare to point to a fault but have to run away instead (or more often, slink away silently while hoping no one will notice). The open invitation remains in place - if any of them really understand relativity as well as they claim they do, they should be able to find the fault in the argument and spell out what it is, at which point I have promised to rewrite the page to explain where the argument is wrong and to turn it into the endorsement of Einstein's relativity that I had originally intended it to be when I started writing it a decade ago. It really can't be made any easier for them than it is - a short series of simple questions with yes/no answers, and the right answer to each question is the one on the left, making it hard to fail. To pass the exam is to agree that my argument is correct. To fail it involves failing on a numbered question which should identify a clear point at which the person takes issue with the argument, but it would be embarrassing for anyone to state the number of the question(s) they failed on because the interactive exam always spells out to them exactly what magic they have to believe in in order to get the wrong answer, and that's why they don't admit where they failed the test. This has now become an important psychological study into herd mentality and the degree to which standard "scientific" beliefs can be equivalent to a religion with people failing to recognise that they have bought into the irrational.

[jeffreyH]

I know exactly where you are coming from and good on you. A shake up now and then is a very good thing. I have been investigating your trigonometry for time dilation. That was a breath of fresh air.

[Thebox]

If observers disagree on the ''speed'' of time, they must disagree on speed.

t₁(γ)/dx is not equal to t₂(γ)/dx

[Colin2B]

My web page on this subject ( http://www.magicschoolbook.com/science/relativity.html ) has been up for several years now

Thanks David, I'll take a look.
I have always had a great respect for you and your posts. Unlike many who claim to know physics but make fundamental errors, you are sound in your understanding.
I take an agnostic view, that we don't know what lies below the vacuum or em field, and may never know, but it is clearly different from the luminiferous ether that was postulated.
I'll have a read, might not be back soon as rather busy.
Good to see you back

[GoC]

Very interesting David but I had to stop taking the relativity test because to me you made a straw man argument about time claiming that is how Einstein recognized time. Time is just energy related to a measurement of distance. So different frames have different energy levels available and the energy level dictates the tick rate of a clock. Everything is in the present but the view is always from the past. We can only observe an event that already happened but not when it happened in its present. Its your understanding of time that allows you to disbelieve relativity and if what you are saying about what is being taught is true no wonder we have not progressed. I am shocked if what you are saying about Einstein is true about his understanding. All views are equally valid because none are valid. It would be incorrect to say they are equally invalid. The present - relativity of simultaneity is the equally valid view.

Contraction of time is actually an increase in distance as you have suggested. Contraction of view is an angle different from perpendicular.

If you follow the postulates properly you will notice there is no such thing as a perpendicular view with velocity. And everything has velocity

Take half the speed of light you are looking at perpendicular from a past position at an angle of the hypotenuse of a 30,60,90 triangle. Cos 30 = 0.866025 relative to 1 at rest. So basically light has to travel 1.133075 relative between mirrors for the clocks tick rate. At your 0.866 relative speed to an at rest observer the distance of space added between mirrors reduces the tick rate to 1/2 that of the observer at relative rest. Time is just an artifact of distance traveled relative to a straight line c. There are two types of energy. Well actually only one c. Kinetic energy is a conduit for total space energy c. Total available energy c - kinetic energy used = clock tick rate. Why would anyone consider time as anything other than a chosen cycle distance?

The equivalence is in GR as dilation where the radius expands for the density of energy particles c. At the speed of light the expansion of energy can no longer keep atoms apart and a BH forms

[David Cooper]

Very interesting David but I had to stop taking the relativity test because to me you made a straw man argument about time claiming that is how Einstein recognized time.

I need to know which question number you had a problem with so that I can find out where this straw man argument was and whether it breaks the argument or if the argument needs to be modified to resolve whatever issue you have with it.

Time is just energy related to a measurement of distance.

Time is tied tightly to the sequence of events in chains of causation with past events dictating the ability of future ones to occur, so how can that be tied into your definition? Causation chains depend on befores and afters and must run through all in sequence. When running through those events in sequence, there are points during the processing when future events have not happened yet while past events have happened, and the time that clocks measure can vary on different paths from the same starting point to the same end point. The big issue here is whether those clocks are all running time at the same speed (with some reaching a destination Spacetime location before others, leading to event-meshing failure) or if some of them are being forced to run slow (which allows events to mesh correctly but requires the time of a preferred frame of reference to govern the slowing of clocks for all other frames). You need to show me how your definition relates to any of that.

So different frames have different energy levels available and the energy level dictates the tick rate of a clock.

Depending on which frame you pick to work with for your calculations, those energy levels are different and the tick rate of clocks will vary too, so whenever you change the frame you're using as the base for your calculations, you will then generate new numbers with contradict the previous ones, meaning that different frames produce accounts of events that contradict each other. Only one of those accounts can be true unless you can demonstrate that your system is somehow Lorentz invariant, and if you achieve that, you still need to show that it can avoid event-meshing failure. Just changing the definition of time into one that calls it "energy related to a measurement of distance" doesn't make the problems go away.

Everything is in the present but the view is always from the past. We can only observe an event that already happened but not when it happened in its present.

Everything was or will be in the present when it happened or happens, but from any position that is present, we can only have measurements of the past. But how does that add anything to the argument?

Its your understanding of time that allows you to disbelieve relativity and if what you are saying about what is being taught is true no wonder we have not progressed.

What we need is clear description of what's what. All the objections that I make should be standard ones that everyone asks when learning about relativity and there should be standard answers available which clear them all up systematically. What I actually find though are people who claim to understand relativity who don't know how to handle those objections - they are unable to provide clear, rational explanations that show where those objections contain errors, and that's what leads me to believe that they have no answers. "You don't understand time!" is their usual response, but they never show where the faults are with my understanding of time, and their own understanding of time is shown by my argument to be an understanding which depends squarely on toleration of contradictions.

I am shocked if what you are saying about Einstein is true about his understanding. All views are equally valid because none are valid. It would be incorrect to say they are equally invalid. The present - relativity of simultaneity is the equally valid view.

I can't work out from that which part of what I said you're taking issue with, and I don't know if those sentences are meant to be representations of what I've said or if they're what you're claiming. What I say is this: where different accounts contradict each other, only one can be valid (though all of them are potentially valid so long as they can't be disproved). If none of them were valid, it would be correct to say that all of them are equally invalid and that all of them are equally valid, but saying that they are equally valid wouldn't mean that any of them are valid, and saying that they are equally invalid wouldn't mean they are all invalid if they're all valid, but neither of those cases has anything to do with my argument where we're looking at a case where at least one account is true and wherever two accounts contradict each other, one of them must be wrong.

Contraction of time is actually an increase in distance as you have suggested. Contraction of view is an angle different from perpendicular.

If you follow the postulates properly you will notice there is no such thing as a perpendicular view with velocity. And everything has velocity

Again this doesn't appear to address the issues (I don't know if it's in agreement with my argument or against it in some way), so how do you relate it to the argument?

Why would anyone consider time as anything other than a chosen cycle distance?

But with measured distances changing as you change frame, you're on shifting sands, which brings you up against all the points in my argument, and you aren't resolving any of them.

The equivalence is in GR as dilation where the radius expands for the density of energy particles c. At the speed of light the expansion of energy can no longer keep atoms apart and a BH forms

If this relates to my argument, please show how it does it. How are you dealing with event-meshing failure? How are you avoiding having a preferred frame? Etc. Thanks for raising my hopes that you might be able to find a place where my argument breaks (because I would like to see it destroyed if it's wrong), but you need to show me that point and explain what the error is with it.

[David Cooper]

I should also expand a little on the sound parallel. If a sound clock is aligned perpendicular to the direction of its travel through the air, the maths matches the maths of what happens with light clocks. If you align a sound clock in the same direction as its direction of travel through the air, the same will not apply unless the sound clock is carefully constructed to govern its length using signals sent at the speed of sound rather than at the speed of light.

If we use three drones, A, B and C to hold parts of our sound clocks, we can have two sound clocks with one running from drone A to drone B aligned with the direction of travel of all the drones, while the other sound clock runs from drone A to drone C and is perpendicular to the direction of travel of the drones. If these are stationary within the air, they will adjust their positions until the clock ticks are the same for both clocks and they will be arranged like three corners of a square. If they are moving along through the air though, either A and B will have to move closer together or A and C will have to move further apart, or a mixture of both, and we will end up with the three drones being arranged like three corners of a rectangle. This produces length contraction to exactly the same degree as you get for light clocks, which shows that length contraction is not ad hoc but is a natural consequence of moving along through the air/aether. Not only that, but you also get a sound equivalent of the headlights effect with the sound being projected forward more strongly and backwards less strongly.

That leaves one issue though - why does the length contract and the width stay the same rather than things widening as they contract (or widening instead of contracting)? It has to be about the way force is applied. If we take a system with a small object orbiting a massive one in a circular orbit, when we change reference frame we see it orbiting in an elliptical orbit instead, but with the massive object at the absolute centre of the ellipse instead of one of the foci. That unlikely orbit follows the laws of physics, automatically producing a shape that's length contracted and not widened. Length contraction is automatic, and the effects of length contraction feed into the shape of the distribution of energy with the headlights effect. All of this boils down to classical physics, once the incorrect assumptions of classical physics (which actually went against classical physics, if only they'd realised they'd made errors) are eliminated.

[timey]

Depending on which frame you pick to work with for your calculations, those energy levels are different and the tick rate of clocks will vary too, so whenever you change the frame you're using as the base for your calculations, you will then generate new numbers with contradict the previous ones, meaning that different frames produce accounts of events that contradict each other. Only one of those accounts can be true

David - consider that we are measuring at ground level only.  We measure the energy, frequency and wavelength of a whole bunch of phenomenon 'at' ground level 'from' ground level via the rate of time of ground level clock.
We then place clocks at each elevation and observe from the lower potential at ground level that each clock at each higher elevation is ticking faster than the next.

Now take the length of second of each elevated clock and systematically measure the energy, frequency and wavelength of the phenomenon that you previously measured via the ground level clock's rate of time by each elevated clock's rate of time.

What will happen is that these measurements that you are making 'of' the lower potential, 'from' the lower potential, but via the rate of time of each elevated clock will result in a lower energy, a lower frequency and a longer wavelength as you measure via each faster rate of time.

Remaining at ground level, now measure the energy, frequency and wavelength of the clock at elevation 6 via the rate of time at elevation 3...
This will give the same results as measuring the clock at elevation 3 via the ground level clock's rate of time.

I think by now it should be clear why all accounts can be true, and that its just a case of which rate of time one measures what by... and accepting that one must refer back to the value of the gravity field to understand that which one is observing.

[GoC]

I need to know which question number you had a problem with so that I can find out where this straw man argument was and whether it breaks the argument or if the argument needs to be modified to resolve whatever issue you have with it.

I stopped at 4. I could not maintain the fictitious block of time. The subjective definition of time being something that you can travel through was ridicules. Everything is in the present as motion caused by energy which we label as time. Time is nothing more than distance of a cycle relative to distance traveled. c is the fixed frame of available energy. Clocks measure the available energy of a frame. Take the cycle of the electron. In SR velocity of the atom the electron goes through its cycle adding distance through space. The at rest space and the velocity space are two different distances through space so the clock slows by that extra distance. There is no such thing as a fixed dimension of time that is silly sci fi stuff.
 

Time is tied tightly to the sequence of events in chains of causation with past events dictating the ability of future ones to occur, so how can that be tied into your definition? 

We are always in the present as motion. The idea of future and past is a man made concept to differentiate what has happened and what is expected to happen. A cycle distance related to the available energy state of a frame remains in the present no matter what that energy state reads on a clock.
 

Causation chains depend on befores and afters and must run through all in sequence. When running through those events in sequence,

The present motion affects the new present motion that is physics What is the issue?
 

there are points during the processing when future events have not happened yet while past events have happened, and the time that clocks measure can vary on different paths from the same starting point to the same end point. The big issue here is whether those clocks are all running time at the same speed (with some reaching a destination Spacetime location before others, leading to event-meshing failure)

The failure is the definition you are using for time. Event meshing is always in the present no matter what value you put on a clock that measures the energy state of a frame.
 

or if some of them are being forced to run slow (which allows events to mesh correctly but requires the time of a preferred frame of reference to govern the slowing of clocks for all other frames). You need to show me how your definition relates to any of that. 

Time is a measurement of available energy from c. It is not a dimension you can travel through. Motion creates our ability to live and for our brain to function which we describe as the present. It does not matter about which energy state you are in you are always in the present. If you could go the speed of light all the energy for the electron would be used for velocity and none for cycle so your biological clock for aging would stop. No reaction could proceed.
 

Depending on which frame you pick to work with for your calculations, those energy levels are different and the tick rate of clocks will vary too, so whenever you change the frame you're using as the base for your calculations, you will then generate new numbers with contradict the previous ones, meaning that different frames produce accounts of events that contradict each other. Only one of those accounts can be true unless you can demonstrate that your system is somehow Lorentz invariant, and if you achieve that, you still need to show that it can avoid event-meshing failure. Just changing the definition of time into one that calls it "energy related to a measurement of distance" doesn't make the problems go away. 

Its your mistaken understanding that creates them in the first place. There was never a problem. All energy measurements are in the present. A slow clock is in the present and a fast clock is in the present. Aging is a reaction based on your energy state.
 

Everything was or will be in the present when it happened or happens, but from any position that is present, we can only have measurements of the past. But how does that add anything to the argument? 

We understand relativity differently. You say it is incorrect and I say it is completely correct. Not the subjective interpretations (especially about time) but the observations, math and postulates

 

What we need is clear description of what's what. All the objections that I make should be standard ones that everyone asks when learning about relativity and there should be standard answers available which clear them all up systematically. What I actually find though are people who claim to understand relativity who don't know how to handle those objections - they are unable to provide clear, rational explanations that show where those objections contain errors, and that's what leads me to believe that they have no answers. "You don't understand time!" is their usual response, but they never show where the faults are with my understanding of time, and their own understanding of time is shown by my argument to be an understanding which depends squarely on toleration of contradictions. 

If you were taught when you were young that witches and warlocks were real you would go through life possibly believing in them. If you were taught there is a God once again you might believe. If you believe time is a dimension then you might believe in time travel. Subjective interpretations abound. How can I argue with you if you say God creates time and he created it this way so there is time travel?

 

I can't work out from that which part of what I said you're taking issue with, and I don't know if those sentences are meant to be representations of what I've said or if they're what you're claiming. What I say is this: where different accounts contradict each other, only one can be valid (though all of them are potentially valid so long as they can't be disproved). If none of them were valid, it would be correct to say that all of them are equally invalid

No because they are not equally invalid. They are invalid differently. Einstein had a deep understanding that may not be interpreted correctly. They can have equal validity because they are not valid.
 

 and that all of them are equally valid, but saying that they are equally valid wouldn't mean that any of them are valid, and saying that they are equally invalid wouldn't mean they are all invalid if they're all valid, but neither of those cases has anything to do with my argument where we're looking at a case where at least one account is true and wherever two accounts contradict each other, one of them must be wrong.

And there is the straw man argument.]
 

But with measured distances changing as you change frame, you're on shifting sands, which brings you up against all the points in my argument, and you aren't resolving any of them. 

I cannot resolve your subjective understanding. My subjective understanding is relativity being correct. Your creation of your relativity based on the subjective interpretations of others is the only thing in conflict.

 

If this relates to my argument, please show how it does it. How are you dealing with event-meshing failure?

There is no event meshing failure.
 

How are you avoiding having a preferred frame?

The preferred frame is total energy c never at rest. Clocks measure available energy state of a frame. There is no preferred energy state.

 

Thanks for raising my hopes that you might be able to find a place where my argument breaks (because I would like to see it destroyed if it's wrong), but you need to show me that point and explain what the error is with it.

The subjective parts of the standard model are incorrect. Quantum mechanics is c energy. Entanglement is a trick based on the misunderstanding of their standard model.

The error is not relativity! It is in the subjective interpretation of their standard model. This began to happen when they disregarded Einstein's 1920 papers and misinterpreted the MMX. There is no perpendicular view in relativity because light cannot travel in a perpendicular direction. SR light clocks prove that.

[David Cooper]

David - consider that we are measuring at ground level only.  We measure the energy, frequency and wavelength of a whole bunch of phenomenon 'at' ground level 'from' ground level via the rate of time of ground level clock.
We then place clocks at each elevation and observe from the lower potential at ground level that each clock at each higher elevation is ticking faster than the next...

You have focused in on something that doesn't generate contradictions - everyone making measurements of that agrees that the lowest clock ticks slowest (or that it's the one taking the shortest path into the future through the time dimension). With SR it's very different because there's no such agreement in the accounts generated from different frames with clocks in rockets moving relative to each other.

[Bored chemist]

Bringing the wind into it is surely not the point in question here?  For instance when talking about the constancy of the speed of light it is always "The speed of light in a vacuum is constant." and never just the speed of light is constant. I think you have a lot of your facts mixed up. 

The speed of sound is a property of the medium.

The speed of sound is dependent on the medium
It's calculated from the square root of the stiffness divided by the density.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound#Equations
And, in much the same way you can calculate the speed of light in a vacuum from Maxwell's equations and the properties of that vacuum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light#Propagation_of_light
The equation is even similar in form
I forget the detail- it's something like the square root of the reluctance divided by the permitivity.

And that's why it's constant for all observers.
If I measure the speed of sound in air I have to take account of the motion of the air relative to me- that's why wind makes a difference.
In principle you would expect to have to do the same with light- you need to take account of how fast the vacuum is travelling with respect to the observer.

But that's clearly absurd- a vacuum doesn't have a  "speed" wrt anything. How can you say how fast "nothing" is travelling?

That's why the speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers- because a vacuum isn't moving wrt any observer.

[GoC]

If I measure the speed of sound in air I have to take account of the motion of the air relative to me- that's why wind makes a difference.
In principle you would expect to have to do the same with light- you need to take account of how fast the vacuum is travelling with respect to the observer.

But that's clearly absurd- a vacuum doesn't have a  "speed" wrt anything. How can you say how fast "nothing" is travelling?

The model you use for a vacuum is incorrect Energy of space is stationary while mass moves because of energy c. Something is causing it to be constant and confounded with the electron

That's why the speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers- because a vacuum isn't moving wrt any observer.

The speed of light is measured to be the same for all observers in a vacuum. There is a subtle difference.


[/quote]

[Bored chemist]

If I measure the speed of sound in air I have to take account of the motion of the air relative to me- that's why wind makes a difference.
In principle you would expect to have to do the same with light- you need to take account of how fast the vacuum is travelling with respect to the observer.

But that's clearly absurd- a vacuum doesn't have a  "speed" wrt anything. How can you say how fast "nothing" is travelling?

The model you use for a vacuum is incorrect Energy of space is stationary while mass moves because of energy c. Something is causing it to be constant and confounded with the electron

That's why the speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers- because a vacuum isn't moving wrt any observer.

The speed of light is measured to be the same for all observers in a vacuum. There is a subtle difference.

[/quote]
Who invited that electron?
If it's there then there's no longer a vacuum.
Very subtle- so much so that it doesn't affect the outcome. C is fixed.