Recent content by nosepot

Thank you for the references, atyy.

Yes, the title of this thread has sounded the crackpot alarm! Anyway, I'm curious for your thoughts and suggested readings... As background, I've learned that Neo-Lorentzian Ether Theory is a valid alternate for Einstein's Special Relativity. This ether is undetectable, but does in imply a...

Maxwell's equations can be derived from Coulomb's law and postulates of relativity (choose your version of relativity here, as both are fine); check out Elliott, Relativity and Electricity, IEEE Spectrum, 1966, for a nice example. Maxwell's eqs are only descriptive of the behavior of these...

So, we can't detect the absolute frame, so for that reason you might banish the medium to the North Pole. But just because you can't detect it doesn't mean it ain't there. But how do we explain all these waves? What's waving? The presence of waves would appear a strong motive to keep a...

I recently got a copy of Purcell's very excellent Electricity and Magetism book. In the chapter about moving charge, he states without proof that the electric field due to a moving charge points at where the charge is now, as if there is instantaneous action at a distance. This is of course...

The problem with the Wiki page is that that paragraph is embedded among a mess of poorly structured information. That paragraph occurs half way down the page. There is also a large emphasis on the acceleration and deceleration of the traveller in the material which comes further up the page. The...

It's a good start. I'll assume that's not condescension. :) Means the latter part of his explanation was hard to follow (or wrong?). By the way, I was trying to find the 48 light-months (4 ly) that you mentioned for planet X in your diagram in #105. I saw approx 92 months. Did I miss...

I did. The answer is there, but I'm asking you to consider if the protracted answer you have given me would connect with a reasonably smart 10 year old (about the level I'm putting myself)? Try again but don't say gamma, worldline, lorentz, transform, etc. Is there a more lay explanation? I...

Also, I was wrong about the target planet "looking" immediately bigger from the point of view of the traveling twin. Some simple trigonometry shows a shortening of the ship would make image appear smaller in the front window. There is a cool video here (you've probably seen it) which shows an...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I would not consider that explanation anything less than bamboozling. I'm trying to appeal to the idea of giving a plain explanation for a lay person. I don't dispute your spacetime diagram will convey that to a skilled individual, but to a layman it looks...

Point taken. Thanks. Not sure that approach helps the uninitiated too much though in the beginning.

Do we really need to go spacetime to get an answer? As a less capable learner (which I must be) it is more natural to place myself sequentially in either frame and play each out with an understanding that frames moving relative to me will be contracted and they will experience time more slowly...

Ok, I understand where we have been disgreeing all this time. I'm seeing the length contraction and time dilation as the fundamental effect which the spacetime diagram explains. You see the spacetime as the fundmental of which length contraction and time dilation are a result. Fair enough. I...

Yes, it does. Thank you for your reply. What do you reckon about the part that length contraction plays in the explanation of the twin paradox?

Suppose the traveling twin is in a windowless ship and after he embarks has no knowledge of the outside. How could he program his ship in advance to stop when he has reached his destination? He would anticipate that time would slow down for him when he gets to speed, so he better decelerate a...