Time Dilation. The faster you travel the longer I have to wait for you to return?

DaleSpam

Nonsense, LET uses the Lorentz transformations for its predictions, so any feature of the LT is obviously compatible with LET. The relativity of simultaneity is an inherent part of the LT. In LET just as in SR different frames disagree about whether or not two events are simultaneous.

Vandam

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Vandam

Nonsense. You have to step away from the ether (LET) to make all the time coordinates physical. Lorentz never did this. And he admited this:
<<The chief cause of my failure was my clinging to the idea that the variable t only can be considered as the true time and that my local time t' must be regarded as no more than an auxiliary mathematical quantity. In Einstein's theory, on the contrary, t' plays the same part as t; if we want to describe phenomena in terms of x'; y'; z'; t' we must work with these variables exactly as we could do with x; y; z; t.>>
The LT only have a full physical meaning in SR, not LET.

DaleSpam

So what? The relativity of simultaneity doesn't require you to "make all the time coordinates physical", whatever that means. All it requires is that different frames disagree on which events are simultaneous, which they do in LET.

Vandam

That's mathematical mumbo jumbo with no physical sygnificance.
You are lucky Einstein does not read you.

DaleSpam

I agree. And yet, there is no experimental evidence which can select the LET mumbo jumbo over the block universe mumbo jumbo.

As long as we are channleing Einstein and pretending to know what he would say, I think that he would strongly object to your idea that any coordinates are physical. Certainly by the time GR was well established it was understood that coordinates are not physical, they are just mathematical conveniences.

Vandam

I wonder what you exactly mean by 'experimental evidence'. That includes observation and measurements. We then have to agree on what you observe. Without observer independent events you only will end up in some bizarre philosophical interpretations such as solipsism. And if you do accept observer independent events as Einstein saw it (he was a realist and not a solipsist) it leads automatically to block universe.

Lorentz admitted that LT time-coordinates can not work in an ether (LET) context. LET with LT is a contradiction in terms. If you think you know better than Lorentz himself you have to do more work to convince me.

Vandam

Here is what I mean.
Green is the ether world. If you put green's coordinates of event A (0.5, 0.5) in the LT it gives you the red coordinates (Lorentz' local time) (0,289, 0,289).
The red coordinates (time and space dimensions) have no meaning at all in the green ether context. Not even if you consider the green ether through event R3.
In LET only the green coordinates have a physical meaning. Not the red ones. For the red ones you have to consider a physical red 3D world through R3 and A, which Einstein's SR allowed, but not Lorentz' LET.
That's why Lorentz said:
<<The chief cause of my failure was my clinging to the idea that the variable t only can be considered as the true time and that my local time t' must be regarded as no more than an auxiliary mathematical quantity. In Einstein's theory, on the contrary, t' plays the same part as t; if we want to describe phenomena in terms of x'; y'; z'; t' we must work with these variables exactly as we could do with x; y; z; t.>>
The LT only have a full physical meaning in SR, not LET.

DaleSpam

Yes, exactly. And LET predicts the exact same observations and measurements in all situations as does the block universe. Thus there can never be any experimental evidence distinguising the two, regardless of your philosophical preferences and arguments.

bobc2

How do you square that with the obvious: A 3-D universe evolving in time is physically not the same as a 4-D universe that is "...just all there." Or, "...things do not happen, they are just there."

Except that LET is not consistent with the results of entanglement experiments, whereas the block universe is.

And again, the block universe is more fundamental as compared to the ad hoc LET. It's a little bit like the difference between the heliocentric model of our solar system vs. the mathematical model of the earth centered solar system with cycles and epicycles, etc.

Austin0

It is true that Lorentz considered "the idea that the variable t only can be considered as the true time and that my local time t' must be regarded as no more than an auxiliary mathematical quantity. And SR considers both equivalent. But what that means is that SR considers BOTH t and t' as simply mathematical quantities with no implication that either one was "true" time or defining actual or physical simultaneity.

So your implication that SR considers t and t' as absolute in the sense Lorentz meant is not logically valid and in fact is antithetical to SR as it depends on the idea of an absolute scale or reference.


You can interpret Einsteins thoughts as meaning conventionally synchronized clocks define actual or absolute simultaneity , which is the basis of your interpretation of Block Time but I don't think you can back up that interpretation with Einstein's actual statements and I flatly don't believe it. It seems fundamental to SR that simultaneity is totally indeterminate and relative with the exception of co-located events.

It is true that SR denies the classical concept of a universal or absolute now but it does not replace it with a set of many universal or absolute "nows" . One for every velocity.

In actuality SR does not explicitly negate the possibility of a universal "now" it simply shows that any such instant is indeterminate and thus superfluous. Like an ether, or absolute motion.

Even given a hypothetical persistent and pre-created 4-d continuum , it is clear that consciousness exists in a limited slice of time and so in effect moves. SO there is neither any objection to the possibility that all consciousness is absolutely simultaneous. I.e a single slice of awareness progressing through the continuum nor any means of empirically falsifying such a concept.
It is self evident that the various clocks throughout the universe would not correspond to this simultaneity but how could this be observed or measured within the structure???

There may be a number of people who are open to the possibility of Block time in some form ( I don't completely reject it) but I would be surprised if there are many people who understand SR who consider conventionally synchronized clocks to be absolutely simultaneous.
WHich is exactly what you are claiming wouldn't you agree???

DaleSpam

It isn't obvious to me. If a 3D evolving universe were physically different from a 4D universe then I would expect there to be some testable consequences, which there aren't. So I think they are philosophically different but physically identical.

Please provide a mainstream scientific reference for this claim. Since both LET and QFT use the LT your claim seems patently false to me.

I agree completely, but this is a philosophical or aesthetic preference.

bobc2

That does not imply that LET is consistent with results of entanglement experiments. On the contrary, LET specifically requires light cone causality--that's the basis of Lorentz's derivations. That's why LET is tied directly to a 3-D universe evolving in time model. Entanglement experimental results violate light cone causality. Violation of light cone causality is not a problem for the block universe model. Thus, results of entanglement experiments provide the distinction you are looking for.

PeterDonis

No, they don't. You can't send signals faster than light by using entanglement. The statistical correlations between results *appear* to "travel faster than light", but that's only an appearance; when you work out the underlying quantum field theory, the field operators commute at spacelike separations, so light cone causality is obeyed.

It would be if it actually happened; the block universe model still depends on a well-defined light cone structure that determines causal relationships between events.

DaleSpam

Yes, it does. Entanglement follows the LT, just as predicted by LET. That is the epitome of consistency.

PeterDonis already dealt with the rest of your post.

Vandam

Austin0,
Thanks for your reaction, I read it 4 times, but I am unable to understand what you exactly mean. I especially do not understand your 'absolute' and universal' terminology in the context what I mean. I think you didn't understand what I mean.
If my spacetime diagram is wrong , tell me where it is wrong.
How would you draw the spacetime diagram showing the Lt time coordinates?

Same advice for Dalespam.
If my spacetime diagram is wrong , tell me where it is wrong.
How would you draw the spacetime diagram showing the Lt time coordinates?
You just keep on telling me that the LT transformations give the same result in LET and SR, but if you can not tell me where the primed time coordinates should be read on a simple ether space and time diagram I am not impressed with your statement.

bobc2

You are missing the whole point of my comments. I didn't say that signals are sent faster than light with entangled particles. It is for exactly that reason that LET fails with entanglement experiments. LET was developed specifically for explaining related events via the model of a fixed ether through which all processes evolve as a result of signals transmitting at the speed of light as ether waves.

Processes involving entangled particles at a distance (not local) simply do not fit that model. LET is inconsistent with that. A fixed ether medium does not work with quantum field theory. However, the block universe model is not at all inconsistent with that.

It certainly does not. The worldlines of the elementary particles are all there in the 4-dimensional structure. They can begin anywhere and end anywhere QM and QFT would like. It has no constraints by a fixed ether which includes only light cone causal influences.