basis for the postulate that all physics is the same for all inertial reference frame

leright

SR is based on the postulate that all physics experiments yield the same results regardless of inertial reference frame? What was Einstein's basis for this assumption? What thought process did he go through to come to that conclusion? How could he know the speed of light was the same regardless of inertial reference frame when he did not have the experimental apparatus at the time to know? People have said that the measurement of e0 and mu0 are the same in all reference frames, so therefore the speed of light must be the same in all reference frames. I am not entirely convinced by this statement.

pervect

The Michelson-Morley experiment was performed in 1887, so Einstein was aware well before he wrote his SR paper in 1905 about the problems with the idea of an "ether".

Einstein realized that assuming that the speed of light was constant for all observers would explain the M.M. experiment results. I'm not really clear on how many replications of the MM experiment had been performed in Einstein's time period, but the result was well-accepted, being 18 years old in 1905.

JesseM

This article has a lot of good info on what the historical information suggests about Einstein's process of discovering special relativity:

http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/...relativity.htm

It seems that he was aware that experiments to try to detect changes in the speed of light due to different motion through the ether, like the Michelson-Morley experiment, had failed to find such changes; and he was also aware of Lorentz's hypothesis of Lorentz contraction which was supposed to account for this and save the ether, but in a seemingly contrived and unmotivated way. Some other puzzles, such as the fact that the relative motion of a magnet and a conducting wire loop will be the same regardless of whether the magnet was at rest or moving relative to the ether, yet the ether theory would have to explain these cases in completely different ways, might also have influenced him. Once he had begun moving towards rejecting the ether, he may also have been influenced by the philosophy of Ernst Mach (who also is known to have influenced him in his discover of general relativity), which said that motion can only be defined in relative terms. Finally, at the same time he was thinking about the photoelectric effect and how light could be considered as a particle, which does not seem to fit well with the ether theory of light as a pure wave.

leright

Also, I am aware that Lorentz formulated the time dilation and length contraction formulas using the assumption that there was an ether, and measurements of the speed of light are only ~300,000 m/s wrt the ether frame. However, why is time dilation and length contraction necessary under an ether theory? I do not completely understand where the time dilation and length contraction formulas come from in Lorentz's original ether theory.

leright

I still feel that if light is to be the same speed in all inertial frames, then we can take all inertial frames to be in the frame of the "ether". I am much more capable to accept an ether theory than SR. I will have to sleep on it for a few years before I truly come to terms with this subject.

I like the idea that all different inertial frames are perhaps in the same "frame", as time and space are shifted accordingly to allow for this.

JesseM

If the ether was an actual physical substance, how could it be at rest in multiple frames simultaneously?

leright

Perhaps we are not really in motion wrt one another...it just seems that way?

JesseM

But physics only deals with what we measure, not with what "really is" in some ultimate philosophical sense. If you set up a coordinate system out of physical rulers and clocks, and you find that my coordinate position changes with coordinate time while yours does not, that's all it means to say we are in motion wrt one another.

franznietzsche

It boils down to Maxwel's equations being unchanged between inertial frames. Magnetic and electric fields change, but the real effects of these fields (induced currents) do not.

Time-dialtion and length contraction were contrived by lorentz to make ether theory agree with MM.

It just so happened that you get these same effects when you make the two basic assumptions, that c is the same in all inertial frames, and that all observers agree on events (i.e. the laws of physics are the same for all intertial observers).

leright

If I look at Maxwell's equations it appears as though they are not invariant, but this may just be the fields that are variant, but the actual effects are invariant. But how exactly are the field representations in MAxwell's equations variant, but the resulting effects NOT variant??

masudr

You can either do the brute force approach of changing from one reference frame to another, and seeing what Maxwell's Eqns. look like, and their effects in the new frame, or you can formulate things in tensor notation, which shows automatically, that Maxwell's Eqns. are covariant (which means they change, but in the expected way, so as to produce effects that don't change).

franznietzsche

Quoted for saving me from having to say the exact same thing.

leright

Well, I have seen modified MAxwell's equations that take into account relativistic effects, but those just correct the field expressions, but the end result does not change?

leright

Honestly, I think I lack the mathematical skill to perform these traansformations....I've never taken a rigorous relativity class. I am in modern physics right now, and it just spends a few weeks going over relativity (SR and GR) in a fairly non-rigorous way. I've taken an electromagnetics class, but again, relativistic effects were not covered.

Aether

Do you mean, "we can take any inertial frame to be an ether frame"? That would be correct. SR and Lorentz ether theory are the same physical theory (SR) cast in different coordinate systems. The "two postulates" do not define SR per se, but only one formulation of it.Not sure what this means, but it is the space-time interval that is invariant.That's right, if you're talking about 3-velocity; 4-velocity is what's real.

bernhard.rothenstein

I think we should not neglect Galileo's invitation in the cabin of a ship isolated from the surrounding, trying to detect if the ship is in a state of rest or in uniform motion.
sine ira et studio

yogi

But that is Galilean relativity - everyone was already pretty much convinced that you could not detect a difference in the actions between mechanical components when all of the elements had the same velocity (e.g., everything moving uniformly in the same direction). What SR did was extend the physics to em phenomena - light which was thought to have a velocity relative to the ether would not be expected to propagate at the same velocity when the ship velocity changed relative to space - that was the shocking result that MMx revealed - but even Michelson never really accepted the result.