Recent content by curiousburke

I agree with you; however, I find it difficult to reconcile two related ideas. The first is that appeal to authority is not proof. The second is what you said. While a single authority isn't proof, the lifetimes works of a century of authorities should be weighed heavily.

Thank you Dale for continuing with this thread. Clearly, part of the problem was my attempt to sum up the paper without going into enough detail. The author does not do a great job of defining terms to begin with, but my telephone game describing his work just added to the mess.

Ahhh, yes! I see it now. Thank you! I'll be charitable and assume the author is making a mistake, but i assume his whole platform is based on similar errors. From a novice perspective, it seems rational to assume that whatever is happening on Earth when the muon is created is simultaneous...

I have no doubt that we can solve for ##L' = \frac{L}{\gamma}##. The question is: what is the mistake in his manipulation of the same equation such that he obtains ##L' = \gamma L## ?

Yes, I do. It's a compliment; I thought I could roughly describe the setup and the more SR knowledgeable minds here could simply point to the error. I'll try to write it up better and come back.

In what frame would the muon creation and the muon hitting the Earth's surface be simultaneous?

I 100% agree that it is likely to be a simultaneity issue. I said the same to the person I was discussing it with; however, I want to figure out the details of the error.

I don't think that is what was meant. I think he is saying that the distance between the two origins as defined can be viewed from either reference frame, so there are two values. Admittedly, I'm no expert, but I worked it through shifting the origins to be the same, and it made no difference...

yes, I agree about the origins not being the same, but changing them to be the same does not change their result as far as I can tell.

I don't think the symbols are inconsistent, but I apologize for not having explained them thoroughly from time start.

better notation might be: ##\Delta x _e## and ##\Delta x_\mu## to denote the change in position of Earth and the muon respectively as seen from the Earth frame

Sorry, I think the notation is a source of confusion. ##\Delta x## without a prime is as seen from Earth reference frame. ##\Delta x'## is as seen from muon reference frame. ##\Delta x(Earth)## is the change in position of Earth as seen in Earth frame, which would be zero. ##\Delta...

I don't understand how the Earth position as seen from the Earth reference frame can change, nor how the muon position as seen from the muon reference frame can change. They are each stationary in their respective frames. Therefore, the difference in Earth position at 2 times as seen from the...

As I understand, it is two events: muon creation and muon hits Earth

It's been years since I have done LaTex, but I will try. ##\Delta x(earth)## refers to the position of Earths surface where the muon hits from the Earth reference frame. Maybe I see your point, but I'm not sure. As I understand it, he is assuming that change the muon position as seen from the...