- #1
Al68
Einstein's resolution of the "clock paradox"
I have read that most physicists believe that Einstein's resolution of the "clock paradox" or "twins paradox" is flawed and just plain wrong. I'm curious about what everyone here thinks about it.
And I believe Einstein generally was interested in the more profound aspect of the "paradox", ie why inertial frames must be treated "special", from his writings, not the trivial exercise found here and elsewhere just showing how to do the math in SR from the inertial frame's point of view.
Another example of a related idea might be the spinning globes. For those unfamiliar, Einstein referred to two adjacent liquid globes in deep space each one spinning relative to the other about a common axis, and only one of them had a bulging equator, so we conclude that it's the one "really" spinning while the other is stationary. But, he asks, it's spinning relative to what? He finally concluded that since each globe was spinning relative to the other, the cause of the one's bulging equator must lie outside the system containing the globes, since nothing locally could explain why one equator bulged but not the other.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Al
I have read that most physicists believe that Einstein's resolution of the "clock paradox" or "twins paradox" is flawed and just plain wrong. I'm curious about what everyone here thinks about it.
And I believe Einstein generally was interested in the more profound aspect of the "paradox", ie why inertial frames must be treated "special", from his writings, not the trivial exercise found here and elsewhere just showing how to do the math in SR from the inertial frame's point of view.
Another example of a related idea might be the spinning globes. For those unfamiliar, Einstein referred to two adjacent liquid globes in deep space each one spinning relative to the other about a common axis, and only one of them had a bulging equator, so we conclude that it's the one "really" spinning while the other is stationary. But, he asks, it's spinning relative to what? He finally concluded that since each globe was spinning relative to the other, the cause of the one's bulging equator must lie outside the system containing the globes, since nothing locally could explain why one equator bulged but not the other.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Al