Implications of the statement Acceleration is not relative

[GregAshmore]

Implications of the statement "Acceleration is not relative"

As a result of the discussion which ensues from this post I hope to understand the implications of this statement: "Acceleration is not relative."

First, I think it will be helpful to establish some context.

Context point 1: I am not an "objector" looking for a paradox, or hoping to catch relativists in a contradiction. I am asking my question in good faith, ready to learn from those who know more than I. (I reserve the right to evaluate responses, as any intellectually honest person must do, but I promise to give a fair and open-minded hearing to all.)

Context point 2: Since my last post, in which I made a dumb mistake in the interpretation of the spacetime diagram (or rather, failed to check my mental image of a pole-in-barn episode against the spacetime diagram), I've worked through the problem in sufficient detail to understand my mistake, and hopefully avoid similar mistakes in future. So, you are not (I hope) wasting your time as you respond to my question. [As a side note, I have not succeeded in forming a mental picture of the "one reality represented by the spacetime diagram", as I had hoped to do. I've come to the conclusion, for now at least, that there is no way to form such a mental image from the spacetime diagram. The Lorentz transformation provides a means of predicting how an episode (collection of events) will be observed in any chosen inertial reference frame. If an extra-frame view of the episode is to be had, it is not going to come from the spacetime diagram by itself.]

Context point 3: Having come to an understanding of the pole-in-barn paradox, I was naturally drawn to consider the last remaining paradox that is unresolved for me. This is the twin paradox. One might say that there are two aspects to the paradox. The first is that the twins would be of different ages when they meet at the end of the episode. That is not really a paradox; it is explained by the notion of proper time, and well illustrated by a spacetime diagram in which the Earth is considered to be at rest and the rocket twin is moving. The second aspect of the twin paradox comes about when one considers the rocket twin to be at rest and the Earth to be moving. In that case, it is the Earth twin who will be younger, a contradiction in that both twins cannot be younger. That paradox I have not resolved, though I have read multiple explanations of it. Yesterday I decided to try again.

I began with Taylor and Wheeler. The twin paradox is dealt with in section 4.6 of Spacetime Physics. The proper time for each twin is calculated, showing the age difference on return of the traveler. Then, the (always rude and unreasonable) objector says, "If there is any justice, if relativity makes any sense at all, it should be equally possible to regard you [the earthbound twin] as the stay-at-home." There follows a detailed explanation that ends with, "notice that the traveler is unique in changing frames, only the traveler suffers the terrible jolt of reversing direction of motion." But this explanation does not address the objection, for the objection is that the rocket twin should be considered at rest. A resting twin cannot reverse motion. The jolt that the resting rocket twin feels must come from some other cause than reversal of motion.

I went to Born, in Einstein's Theory of Relativity. In VI-5, he deals with the objection of the resting rocket twin by asserting that only the rocket twin accelerates. Once again, it seems to me that this objection sidesteps the issue, for by definition the resting rocket twin does not accelerate.

So this morning I searched on this forum, wishing to avoid being the 9,488th person to ask about the twin paradox. I found this thread. Quite quickly I saw what must be at the root of the explanation of the paradox, but which I do not recall ever seeing stated explicitly: "Acceleration is not relative." (This statement was not challenged in the first twelve pages; and anyway I think it merits its own thread.)

I say "at the root of the explanation" because it is the immediate implication of the statement which avoids the paradox: The rocket twin cannot be considered at rest. (More precisely, the rocket twin cannot be considered at rest while he is accelerating. This is implicit in ghwells statement in post #161.)

This statement, to one who began the study of relativity with Einstein's Relativity, is nothing short of shocking. In a religious context (which this is not, of course, but the analogy is too striking to omit mention), this would be tantamount to heresy.

So I went to Einstein's book to see if I had missed something. No, I don't think so. He begins by expressing his desire to bring acceleration into the realm of the principle of relativity. In doing so, his development of the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass is premised on the example of a man in an accelerating chest who considers himself to be at rest.

I then reread Einstein's http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dialog_about_objections_against_the_theory_of_relativity. Again, the rocket twin is unambiguously at rest when the rocket frame is the reference frame.

It is quite clear to me that Einstein considered acceleration to be relative, and that he considered it perfectly justifiable to consider an observer who accelerates with respect to an inertial frame to be at rest.

I will take a moment here to object to the reason given for the claim that acceleration is not relative. The reason given (post #10 and following) is that acceleration may be independently measured, or felt, without reference to some other frame. But what one measures or feels is force, not acceleration. This distinction, together with the necessary equivalence of inertial mass and gravitational mass in all frames, is the basis for Einstein's claim that an observer in an accelerating frame may consider himself to be at rest in a gravitational field.

What are the broader implications of the statement that acceleration is not relative? Does this mean, as it certainly would appear to mean, that modern relativity is in this very important respect not Einsteinian relativity? Are there other implications as to the meaning of the principle of relativity?

 

[Dale]

I will take a moment here to object to the reason given for the claim that acceleration is not relative. The reason given (post #10 and following) is that acceleration may be independently measured, or felt, without reference to some other frame. But what one measures or feels is force, not acceleration.

If you will go back to post #10 you will see that I already discussed this objection in the * comments.

Do you understand the difference between proper acceleration (the kind of acceleration measured by accelerometers independently of any reference frame) and coordinate acceleration (the kind of acceleration relative to some reference frame)?

 

[GregAshmore]

If you will go back to post #10 you will see that I already discussed this objection in the * comments.

Do you understand the difference between proper acceleration (the kind of acceleration measured by accelerometers independently of any reference frame) and coordinate acceleration (the kind of acceleration relative to some reference frame)?

My objection is that accelerometers do not measure acceleration, but force. Force does not imply acceleration--at least, not according to Einstein.

 

[GregAshmore]

I should probably mention why I have had difficulty accepting Einstein's explanation of the paradox. In it, the gravitational field is posed as the result of induction from the distant stars. I don't see how a gravitational signal (which as I understand travels at the speed of light) can cause the force felt by the resting rocket traveler. It is true that Einstein first argues that the gravitational field is just as real as kinetic energy, which also "disappears" with the appropriate choice of reference frame. But he does not seem convinced by this explanation, and looks to the massive stars as the source.

 

[Dale]

My objection is that accelerometers do not measure acceleration, but force. Force does not imply acceleration--at least, not according to Einstein.

They measure proper acceleration. Proper acceleration does not imply coordinate acceleration.

I get the impression that you may not be familiar with the distinction between the two concepts. Here are some places to start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerometer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_acceleration

 

[PeterDonis]

[Edit: I see I didn't type fast enough. However, I still think the following is worth consideration.]

I hope to understand the implications of this statement: "Acceleration is not relative."

The first thing to do, IMO, is to state it properly (pun intended, as you will see in a moment):

Proper acceleration is not relative. (It is a direct observable.)

Coordinate acceleration is relative. (It depends on the coordinates you adopt.)

This distinction is crucial; it's only a very slight exaggeration to say that every time I've seen someone confused about "acceleration", it's because they're confusing the two types of acceleration given above.

the twins would be of different ages when they meet at the end of the episode. That is not really a paradox; it is explained by the notion of proper time

Yes, that's correct, and it's good that you recognize it; if only all the people who have been posting twin paradox threads recently would do so... However, you don't appear to fully understand *why* it is true. See below.

The second aspect of the twin paradox comes about when one considers the rocket twin to be at rest and the Earth to be moving. In that case, it is the Earth twin who will be younger

No, this is not correct. The calculation of the two proper times, which is illustrated in a spacetime diagram in which the stay-at-home twin is at rest, as you say, assumes that the stay-at-home twin is at rest in a single inertial frame (the frame in which the diagram is drawn) for the entire scenario. The traveling twin does not satisfy that condition; there is no single inertial frame in which he is at rest for the entire scenario. So you can't run the same argument for the traveling twin.

the objection is that the rocket twin should be considered at rest. A resting twin cannot reverse motion.

If you define "motion" as "inertial motion", then this is true. But with this definition of "motion", you *cannot* simply declare by fiat that you are going to consider the rocket twin as being at rest. "Being at rest", on this definition of "motion", is not a convention; it's a physical condition that can be objectively tested--just test whether the observer feels acceleration. The traveling twin does; the stay-at-home twin doesn't. So the stay-at-home twin can be considered to be "at rest", but the traveling twin can't.

Alternatively, you could define "motion" in such a way that you can legitimately say that the traveling twin does not "reverse motion", so he can be considered "at rest" during the entire scenario. But if you do *that*, then you can't simply declare by fiat that the twin who is "at rest" is the one whose proper time is greater. You have defined "at rest" so that it no longer always corresponds to maximal proper time; an observer "at rest" may feel acceleration, and if he does, you will be able to find some other observer who experiences more proper time between two given events than the observer "at rest" does.

Notice that I have basically just re-stated what I said at the start of this post, that proper acceleration is not relative. The traveling twin has a nonzero proper acceleration for at least some portion of his trip; the stay-at-home twin has zero proper acceleration during the entire scenario. That is an invariant physical difference between them.

The jolt that the resting rocket twin feels must come from some other cause than reversal of motion.

It does; it comes from his firing the rocket. There's no need to stipulate that his motion "reverses". The fact of his feeling acceleration, where the stay-at-home twin does not, is an objective physical difference between them that doesn't depend on whether or not he "reverses motion".

Once again, it seems to me that this objection sidesteps the issue, for by definition the resting rocket twin does not accelerate.

Here you are, once again, confusing proper acceleration with coordinate acceleration. The "resting" twin does not have any coordinate acceleration; but that doesn't mean he has no proper acceleration. And it's proper acceleration that is relevant for determining elapsed proper time, because proper acceleration is the direct observable.

"Acceleration is not relative."

Again, see my clarification at the start of this post. Which someone probably gave in the thread you linked to; certainly I've given it in plenty of twin paradox threads lately, in more or less the form I've given it here.

The rocket twin cannot be considered at rest. (More precisely, the rocket twin cannot be considered at rest while he is accelerating. This is implicit in ghwells statement in post #161.)

This is true if you define "at rest" as "at rest in an inertial frame". Which I believe was the implicit definition of "at rest" that was being used in that thread. The reason it's a common definition is that, as I said above, inertial motion has special properties, physically, because it corresponds to zero proper acceleration and therefore maximal proper time. If you define "at rest" to allow observers with nonzero proper acceleration to be "at rest", as I noted above, you lose that key property.

So I went to Einstein's book to see if I had missed something. No, I don't think so. He begins by expressing his desire to bring acceleration into the realm of the principle of relativity. In doing so, his development of the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass is premised on the example of a man in an accelerating chest who considers himself to be at rest.

Note that the man feels acceleration; he feels his own weight and can stand on the "floor" of the chest as he would stand on the Earth's surface. So he has nonzero proper acceleration, and if he is considered to be "at rest" then we have adopted a definition of "at rest" which does not guarantee that "at rest" corresponds to "maximal proper time".

It is quite clear to me that Einstein considered acceleration to be relative, and that he considered it perfectly justifiable to consider an observer who accelerates with respect to an inertial frame to be at rest.

Again, don't confuse coordinate acceleration with proper acceleration. Einstein did consider coordinate acceleration to be relative; the observer who accelerates with respect to an inertial frame has nonzero coordinate acceleration with respect to that inertial frame, but zero coordinate acceleration with respect to his own "rest frame" (which is not an inertial frame). But he has nonzero proper acceleration regardless of which frame you choose; proper acceleration is not relative, and Einstein agreed with that too.

The reason given (post #10 and following) is that acceleration may be independently measured, or felt, without reference to some other frame. But what one measures or feels is force, not acceleration.

This is a distinction without a difference, because in order to make this claim, you have to define "force" in such a way that only "proper force" (force that corresponds to nonzero proper acceleration) is defined as a force. So gravity is *not* a force on this definition; a person at rest on Earth's surface, for example, does *not* feel the "force of gravity"; he feels the force of the Earth's surface pushing up on him. A person who only moves under the "force of gravity", such as an observer in orbit about the Earth, feels *no* force; he is moving inertially, in free fall, weightless. Similarly, the traveling twin feels the force of his rocket engine pushing on him, whereas the stay-at-home twin never feels any force at all. Just substitute "feels force" for "feels acceleration" in everything I said above and all my arguments still go through just fine.

What are the broader implications of the statement that acceleration is not relative?

It means you have to pay attention to the crucial distinction between proper acceleration (or "feeling force", if you like that term better) and coordinate acceleration (which may or may not correspond to a felt force). The latter is relative; the former is not.

Does this mean, as it certainly would appear to mean, that modern relativity is in this very important respect not Einsteinian relativity?

No. The distinction was always there in relativity, and Einstein was well aware of it.

Are there other implications as to the meaning of the principle of relativity?

Only that, once again, the difference between inertial and non-inertial motion (feeling no force vs. feeling a force, in the terms you appear to prefer) is an observable, invariant physical difference; it's not relative.

 

[GregAshmore]

They measure proper acceleration. Proper acceleration does not imply coordinate acceleration.

I get the impression that you may not be familiar with the distinction between the two concepts. Here are some places to start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerometer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_acceleration

I will read them. The premise of Einstein's approach, as I understand it, is that there is no acceleration at all in the reference frame of the resting rocket twin--proper or otherwise.

 

[PeterDonis]

The premise of Einstein's approach, as I understand it, is that there is no acceleration at all in the reference frame of the resting rocket twin--proper or otherwise.

No, that's not the premise. There is no coordinate acceleration, but there is proper acceleration. You can't make proper acceleration disappear by changing frames; it's an invariant. Einstein knew that.

 

[Dale]

[Now it is my turn to not type fast enough ]

The premise of Einstein's approach, as I understand it, is that there is no acceleration at all in the reference frame of the resting rocket twin--proper or otherwise.

I am not sure when the term "proper acceleration" was coined, but it is safe to say that if Einstein made such a premise then he was referring to coordinate acceleration.

Proper acceleration is the measurement on an accelerometer, so it is necessarily a frame invariant quantity. All coordinates will agree on the reading on an accelerometer even though they may not agree that the reading represents (coordinate) acceleration.

Perhaps you can see the parallel between proper time and coordinate time. Proper time is the measurement on a clock, so it is necessarily a frame invariant quantity. All coordinates will agree on the reading on a clock even though they may not agree that the reading represents (coordinate) time.

 

[GregAshmore]

An accelerometer is a device that measures proper acceleration.

This is an inference.

Conceptually, an accelerometer behaves as a damped mass on a spring. When the accelerometer experiences an acceleration, the mass is displaced to the point that the spring is able to accelerate the mass at the same rate as the casing. The displacement is then measured to give the acceleration.

Again, the bold text is an inference. Einstein interprets the behavior of the instrument in two ways. Observed from the inertial reference frame, it is indeed acceleration that causes the displacement and counteracting force. Observed from the non-inertial frame, it is a gravitational field and the forcible restraint from acceleration that displaces the mechanism. There is no acceleration in the non-inertial frame, according to Einstein's interpretation.

In relativity theory, proper acceleration[1] is the physical acceleration (i.e., measurable acceleration as by an accelerometer) experienced by an object. It is thus acceleration relative to a free-fall, or inertial, observer who is momentarily at rest relative to the object being measured. Gravitation therefore does not cause proper acceleration, since gravity acts upon the inertial observer that any proper acceleration must depart from (accelerate from). A corollary is that all inertial observers always have a proper acceleration of zero.

The bold text is contrary to Einstein's explicit statement that there is no gravitational field in the inertial frame. What does not exist in the frame cannot act on the observer in the frame. He explicitly and repeatedly states that the gravitational field exists only in the non-inertial frame. I'm not saying that I agree or disagree with his interpretation; just that this is his interpretation.

 

[Nugatory]

As a
I will take a moment here to object to the reason given for the claim that acceleration is not relative. The reason given (post #10 and following) is that acceleration may be independently measured, or felt, without reference to some other frame. But what one measures or feels is force, not acceleration...What are the broader implications of the statement that acceleration is not relative? Does this mean, as it certainly would appear to mean, that modern relativity is in this very important respect not Einsteinian relativity? Are there other implications as to the meaning of the principle of relativity?

All it means is that Einstein was sometimes careless about distinguishing between coordinate and proper acceleration when it was clear from the context which was intended... And there's no broader implication beyond that. Coordinate acceleration is relative and can be produced without applying any force, simply by choosing non-inertial coordinates. Proper acceleration is not relative, doesn't depend on the coordinates, and happens if and only if a force is applied.

You are right that it is force rather than acceleration that we measure directly, but if we have net force we can infer (proper) acceleration; we don't get one without the other.

 

[Alain2.7183]

The Wikipedia page on the twin paradox, in the section on the "viewpoint of the traveling twin", explains the use of "gravitational time dilation" (via the "equivalence principle") to resolve the paradox from the traveler's viewpoint. The result is that, according to the traveler, the home twin's age increases a lot during the traveler's turnaround, enough to more than make up for the home twin's slower aging when the traveler isn't turning around. They also show how to get that same result, by using accelerated motion instead of a fictitious gravitational field.

 

[Nugatory]

The Wikipedia page on the twin paradox, in the section on the "viewpoint of the traveling twin", explains the use of "gravitational time dilation" (via the "equivalence principle") to resolve the paradox from the traveler's viewpoint. The result is that, according to the traveler, the home twin's age increases a lot during the traveler's turnaround, enough to more than make up for the home twin's slower aging when the traveler isn't turning around. They also show how to get that same result, by using accelerated motion instead of a fictitious gravitational field.

Those are ways of calculating the differential aging in the traveler's coordinate time. They do not change the coordinate-independent facts: the traveler follows a path of shorter proper time; the traveler clearly is not inertial for his entire journey.

 

[PeterDonis]

Observed from the inertial reference frame, it is indeed acceleration that causes the displacement and counteracting force. Observed from the non-inertial frame, it is a gravitational field and the forcible restraint from acceleration that displaces the mechanism. There is no acceleration in the non-inertial frame, according to Einstein's interpretation.

This is a matter of terminology, not physics. The acceleration--or force, if you prefer--that is felt by the mechanism is the same regardless of which frame you use. That's the physics. Similarly, in the twin paradox, the traveling twin feels a force; the stay-at-home twin does not. That's a physical difference, and it's there regardless of which frame you use to describe the scenario.

 

[Dale]

This is an inference.

I would call it a definition, but your manner makes me curious. What is wrong with inference? It seems like you are using it as a perjorative, but I don't understand why.

Observed from the inertial reference frame, it is indeed acceleration that causes the displacement and counteracting force. Observed from the non-inertial frame, it is a gravitational field and the forcible restraint from acceleration that displaces the mechanism.

Therefore, the proper acceleration is frame invariant.

There is no acceleration in the non-inertial frame, according to Einstein's interpretation.

There is no coordinate acceleration in the non inertial frame.

 

[ghwellsjr]

So this morning I searched on this forum, wishing to avoid being the 9,488th person to ask about the twin paradox. I found this thread. Quite quickly I saw what must be at the root of the explanation of the paradox, but which I do not recall ever seeing stated explicitly: "Acceleration is not relative." (This statement was not challenged in the first twelve pages; and anyway I think it merits its own thread.)

I say "at the root of the explanation" because it is the immediate implication of the statement which avoids the paradox: The rocket twin cannot be considered at rest. (More precisely, the rocket twin cannot be considered at rest while he is accelerating. This is implicit in ghwells statement in post #161.)

This statement, to one who began the study of relativity with Einstein's Relativity, is nothing short of shocking. In a religious context (which this is not, of course, but the analogy is too striking to omit mention), this would be tantamount to heresy.

What statement of mine are you referring to in post #161?

 

[stevendaryl]

My objection is that accelerometers do not measure acceleration, but force. Force does not imply acceleration--at least, not according to Einstein.

Why do you say that? Conceptually, you could think of an accelerometer as just a box with a metal ball in the center held in place by springs. When you accelerate the box, the position of the ball within the box is altered. By measuring the position of the ball, you can determine the acceleration of the box.

 

[stevendaryl]

Again, the bold text is an inference. Einstein interprets the behavior of the instrument in two ways. Observed from the inertial reference frame, it is indeed acceleration that causes the displacement and counteracting force. Observed from the non-inertial frame, it is a gravitational field and the forcible restraint from acceleration that displaces the mechanism. There is no acceleration in the non-inertial frame, according to Einstein's interpretation.

That depends on how you define "acceleration". As people have pointed out, you're right that in the noninertial frame coordinate acceleration is zero. But that is an artifact of the coordinate system you are using, and doesn't have any physical meaning. The physically meaningful notion of acceleration is proper acceleration, which is nonzero for an accelerating rocket, no matter what coordinate system you use.

You're getting things all mixed up by saying there is a gravitational field in the noninertial frame. Why do you believe that? Because of Einstein's Equivalence Principle? If so, then you're mixing up two different theories, if you're trying to understand the twin paradox. The twin paradox is pure Special Relativity (according to the modern view of the distinction between General and Special Relativity), and the Equivalence Principle has no relevance to Special Relativity, and therefore to the twin paradox. Special Relativity has no gravitational fields.

 

[GregAshmore]

What statement of mine are you referring to in post #161?

It was this one: "So what I did was transform from the IRF in which the black inertial twin is at rest to the IRF in which the blue traveling twin is at rest during the outbound portion of his trip."
However, reading it again I see that it does not necessarily imply that the traveling twin is not at rest while accelerating wtr to the stay-at-home twin. I inferred that from the context. My apologies if I attributed a position to you which you do not hold.

 

[Dale]

GregAshmore, I think that it is pretty clear from your comments that you do not get the difference between proper acceleration and coordinate acceleration. As PeterDonis mentioned, this distinction is critical and is the source of almost all confusion about acceleration. Let's use the following as the definitions of proper and coordinate acceleration:

Proper acceleration is the acceleration that would be measured by an ideal accelerometer.

Coordinate acceleration is the second time derivative of the coordinate position.

From those definitions, do you understand why proper acceleration must be frame invariant and coordinate acceleration must be frame variant?

 

[GregAshmore]

I have now read all your comments. My responses to this point (with the exception of my answer to ghwells) were to comments made by DaleSpam, as I had not yet seen comments from anyone else. I probably needed to refresh my browser.

I understand that the distinction between proper acceleration and coordinate acceleration is important to this discussion. I don't get that distinction yet--I'm not able to point to one example that I am sure is coordinate acceleration and another that I am sure is proper acceleration. I will study it.

[I see that while writing this, DaleSpam has provided definitions for proper acceleration and coordinate acceleration. I'll have to think about what they mean. What follows in this post is unaffected.]

In his book Relativity, Einstein talks about different kinds of gravitational fields. He points out that only gravitational fields of a "quite special form" (his words) can be made to "go away" (my words) by the choice of reference frame. Perhaps there is a correspondence between the various kinds of gravitational fields and proper acceleration versus coordinate acceleration.

However, whatever the kind of acceleration that we are dealing with in the twin paradox, Einstein states unequivocally that it is relative.

At the end of section XVIII in Relativity he says,

At all events it is clear that the Galileian law does not hold with respect to the non-uniformly moving [railway] carriage. Because of this, we feel compelled at the present juncture to grant a kind of absolute physical reality to non-uniform motion, in opposition to the general principle of relativity.

A few pages later, after developing the principle of equivalence of inertial mass and gravitational mass, he says,

We can now appreciate why that argument is not convincing, which we brought forward against the general principle of relativity at the end of Section XVIII. It is certainly true that the observer in the railway carriage experiences a jerk forwards as a result of the application of the brake, and that he recognises in this the non-uniformity of motion (retardation) of the carriage. But he is compelled by nobody to refer this jerk to a "real" acceleration (retardation) of the carriage. He might also interpret his experience thus: "My body of reference (the carriage) remains permanently at rest. With reference to it, however, there exists (during the period of application of the brakes) a gravitational field which is directed forwards and which is variable with respect to time. Under the influence of this field, the embankment together with the Earth moves non-uniformly in such a manner that their original velocity in the backwards direction is continually reduced."

According to Einstein, the rocket twin may be considered at rest throughout the episode. The rest frame is not inertial, of course. But it is a rest frame nonetheless. In that rest frame, the acceleration of the rocket is not "real"; there is no acceleration. What the rocket twin feels is not acceleration, but the force (transmitted through the seat) that holds the rocket still in a gravitational field.

According to Einstein, the acceleration of the rocket is relative. Taken at face value, the statement, "Acceleration is not relative", is at odds with Einstein's statement.

 

[Dale]

I understand that the distinction between proper acceleration and coordinate acceleration is important to this discussion. I don't get that distinction yet--I'm not able to point to one example that I am sure is coordinate acceleration and another that I am sure is proper acceleration. I will study it.

This is where we should start then. Please study and come up with questions that we can discuss about the two concepts.

In his book Relativity, Einstein talks about different kinds of gravitational fields.

Once you understand the concepts of proper and coordinate acceleration then understanding his writings is easy, but going the other way is not so easy. So let's concentrate on the concepts first.

 

[PeterDonis]

I'm not able to point to one example that I am sure is coordinate acceleration and another that I am sure is proper acceleration.

An object in free fall has zero proper acceleration. So if you are standing at rest on the surface of the Earth, and use coordinates in which you are at rest, then if you drop a rock, the rock has zero proper acceleration and nonzero coordinate acceleration; but you have zero coordinate acceleration and nonzero proper acceleration.

In his book Relativity, Einstein talks about different kinds of gravitational fields. He points out that only gravitational fields of a "quite special form" (his words) can be made to "go away" (my words) by the choice of reference frame. Perhaps there is a correspondence between the various kinds of gravitational fields and proper acceleration versus coordinate acceleration.

Kind of. Here's a restatement of what Einstein was saying that may help: in flat spacetime, we can choose coordinates so that objects in free fall have nonzero coordinate acceleration; but we are never forced to. In flat spacetime, we can always find coordinates where objects in free fall have zero coordinate acceleration, and objects not in free fall don't. In other words, we can always find coordinates in which coordinate acceleration is present if and only if proper acceleration is present.

In curved spacetime, however, we can never find such coordinates; no matter which coordinates we choose, there will be objects in free fall that have nonzero coordinate acceleration. So we can never find coordinates in curved spacetime that will allow us to clearly distinguish, using coordinates alone, between free fall and proper acceleration.

What Einstein meant by "gravitational fields of a special form" was the apparent "field" produced by choosing coordinates in flat spacetime so that objects in free fall have nonzero coordinate acceleration. You can make them go away by choosing coordinates where objects in free fall never have nonzero coordinate acceleration; but as above, you can only do that in flat spacetime.

However, whatever the kind of acceleration that we are dealing with in the twin paradox, Einstein states unequivocally that it is relative.

I'm not sure how you are inferring this from the passages you quote. He is saying that coordinate acceleration is relative, because we can make it disappear by choosing coordinates in which the railway carriage is at rest. But that doesn't make the jerk that the passengers in the carriage feel disappear, and the felt jerk is what corresponds to nonzero proper acceleration. Einstein never says the jerk is only there in one set of coordinates.

Similarly, in the twin paradox, the traveling twin feels a jerk when he fires his rocket to turn around. He feels it regardless of the coordinates we choose.

According to Einstein, the acceleration of the rocket is relative. Taken at face value, the statement, "Acceleration is not relative", is at odds with Einstein's statement.

That's why you shouldn't take it at face value. You need to look at what the terms being used actually *mean*. In the statement "acceleration is not relative", "acceleration" means proper acceleration, and the statement is correct.

It's true that Einstein did not use the term "acceleration" to refer to what we have been calling proper acceleration. But as I said before, that's a matter of terminology, not physics. You can't change the physics by changing terminology, any more than you can change it by changing coordinates. By "proper acceleration" we are talking about "the real thing that corresponds to the felt jerk". If you want to know why we use the term "acceleration" for that, we can go into that, but it seems to me to be a separate question.

 

[PeterDonis]

If you want to know why we use the term "acceleration" for that, we can go into that, but it seems to me to be a separate question.

On second thought, perhaps it isn't a separate question. Here's a quick answer: proper acceleration is the derivative of proper velocity (usually called 4-velocity) with respect to proper time. This is obviously analogous to coordinate acceleration, which is the derivative of coordinate velocity with respect to coordinate time.

The key difference, though, is that proper acceleration is independent of coordinates, because proper velocity and proper time are independent of coordinates. In fact, you don't even need coordinates at all to define any of them. And in relativity, the physical content of the theory is entirely contained in quantities that are independent of coordinates and can be defined without needing coordinates. (Einstein said that, too; I'm pretty sure he said it, or something close to it, in the relativity book that has been quoted from.)

 

[GregAshmore]

I'll respond to this one first.

On second thought, perhaps it isn't a separate question. Here's a quick answer: proper acceleration is the derivative of proper velocity (usually called 4-velocity) with respect to proper time. This is obviously analogous to coordinate acceleration, which is the derivative of coordinate velocity with respect to coordinate time.

The key difference, though, is that proper acceleration is independent of coordinates, because proper velocity and proper time are independent of coordinates. In fact, you don't even need coordinates at all to define any of them. And in relativity, the physical content of the theory is entirely contained in quantities that are independent of coordinates and can be defined without needing coordinates. (Einstein said that, too; I'm pretty sure he said it, or something close to it, in the relativity book that has been quoted from.)

I don't know what Einstein may have said on the subject of coordinate systems outside of the two documents I have cited, so I do not claim that what follows is the sum total of his views on the subject. It's probably not important at this time to be concerned with the totality of his thought on that subject. I make the following comments mostly out of general interest.

In Relativity, Einstein is content to speak strictly in terms of the coordinates of a reference body while discussing special relativity. When he gets into general relativity, he dispenses with the reference body and introduces the idea of Gaussian coordinates. These coordinates, he points out, have no physical meaning in themselves. Even so, the principle of general relativity is stated in terms of coordinates: "All Gaussian coordinate systems are essentially equivalent for the formulation of the general laws of nature."

In the magazine article in which he explains the twin paradox, Einstein says that while it is desirable to divorce the laws of physics from coordinate systems, the effort to do so has failed. The relevant text follows. The first paragraph sets the context for the discussion of coordinate systems. The meat of the matter begins with the bold text. The "money quote" is: "Only certain, generally quite complicated expressions, that are constructed out of field components and coordinates [my emphasis], correspond to coordinate-independent, measurable (that is, real) quantities."

From the magazine article:

It should be kept in mind that in the left and in the right section exactly the same proceedings are described, it is just that the description on the left relates to the coordinate system K, the description on the right relates to the coordinate system K'. According to both descriptions the clock U2 is running a certain amount behind clock U1 at the end of the observed process. When relating to the coordinate system K' the behaviour explains itself as follows: During the partial processes 2 and 4 the clock U1, going at a velocity v, runs indeed at a slower pace than the resting clock U2. However, this is more than compensated by a faster pace of U1 during partial process 3. According to the general theory of relativity, a clock will go faster the higher the gravitational potential of the location where it is located, and during partial process 3 U2 happens to be located at a higher gravitational potential than U1. The calculation shows that this speeding ahead constitutes exactly twice as much as the lagging behind during the partial processes 2 and 4. This consideration completely clears up the paradox that you brought up.
Critic:
I do see that you have cleverly pulled away from the noose, but I would be lying if I would declare myself fully satisfied. The stumbling stone has not been removed; it has been relocated. You see, your consideration only shows the connection of the difficulty that was just discussed with another difficulty, that has also often been presented. You have solved the paradox, by taking the influence on the clocks into account of a gravitational field relative to K'. But isn't this gravitational field merely fictitious? Its existence is conjured up by a mere choice of coordinate system. Surely, real gravitational fields are brought forth by mass, and cannot be made to disappear by a suitable choice of coordinate system. How are we supposed to believe that a merely fictitious field could have such an influence on the pace of a clock?
Relativist:
In the first place I must point out that the distinction real - unreal is hardly helpful. In relation to K' the gravitational field "exists" in the same sense as any other physical entity that can only be defined with reference to a coordinate system, even though it is not present in relation to the system K. No special peculiarity resides here, as can easily be seen from the following example from classical mechanics. Nobody doubts the "reality" of kinetic energy, otherwise the very reality of energy would have to be denied. But it is clear that the kinetic energy of a body is dependent on the state of motion of the coordinate system, with a suitable choice of the latter one can arrange for the kinetic energy of the continuous motion of a body to assume a given positive value or the value of zero. In the special case where all the masses have a velocity in the same direction and of the same magnitude, a suitable choice of coordinate system can adjust the collective kinetic energy to zero. To me it appears that the analogy is complete.
Rather than distinguishing between "real" and "unreal" we want to more clearly distinguish between quantities that are inherent in the physical system as such (independent from the choice of coordinate system), and quantities that depend on the coordinate system. The next step would be to demand that only quantities of the first kind enter the laws of physics. However, it has been found that this objective cannot be realized in practice, as has already been demonstrated clearly by the development of classical mechanics. One could for instance consider, and this has actually been attempted, to enter into the laws of classical mechanics not the coordinates, but instead just the distances between the material points; a priori one could expect that in this way the goal of the theory of relativity would be reached most easily. The scientific development has however not confirmed this expectation. She cannot dispense with the coordinate system, and therefore has to use in the coordinates quantities that cannot be construed as results of definite measurements. According to the general theory of relativity the four coordinates of the space-time continuum are entirely arbitrary choosable parameters, devoid of any independent physical meaning. This arbitrariness partially affects also those quantities (field components) that are instrumental in describing the physical reality. Only certain, generally quite complicated expressions, that are constructed out of field components and coordinates, correspond to coordinate-independent, measurable (that is, real) quantities. For example, the component of the gravitational field in a space-time point is still not a quantity that is independent of coordinate choice; thus the gravitational field at a certain place does not correspond to something "physically real", but in connection with other data it does. Therefore one can neither say, that the gravitational field in a certain place is something "real', nor that it is "merely fictitious".
The circumstance that according to the general theory of relativity the connection between the quantities that occur in the equations and the measurable quantities is much more indirect than in terms of the usual theories, probably constitutes the main difficulty that one encounters when studying this theory. Also your last objection was based on the fact that you did not keep this circumstance constantly in mind.
You declared the fields that were called for in the clock example also as merely fictitious, only because the field lines of actual gravitational fields are necessarily brought forth by mass; in the discussed examples no mass that could bring forth those fields was present. This can be elaborated upon in two ways. Firstly, it is not an a priori necessity that the particular concept of the Newtonian theory, according to which every gravitational field is conceived as being brought forth by mass, should be retained in the general theory of relativity. This question is interconnected with the circumstance pointed out previously, that the meaning of the field components is much less directly defined as in the Newtonian theory. Secondly, it cannot be maintained that there are no masses present, that can be attributed with bringing forth the fields. To be sure, the accelerated coordinate systems cannot be called upon as real causes for the field, an opinion that a jocular critic saw fit to attribute to me on one occasion. But all the stars that are in the universe, can be conceived as taking part in bringing forth the gravitational field; because during the accelerated phases of the coordinate system K' they are accelerated relative to the latter and thereby can induce a gravitational field, similar to how electric charges in accelerated motion can induce an electric field. Approximate integration of the gravitational equations has in fact yielded the result that induction effects must occur when masses are in accelerated motion. This consideration makes it clear that a complete clarification of the questions you have raised can only be attained if one envisions for the geometric-mechanical constitution of the Universe a representation that complies with the theory. I have attempted to do so last year, and I have reached a conception that - to my mind - is completely satisfactory; going into this would however take us too far.

 

[PeterDonis]

Einstein says that while it is desirable to divorce the laws of physics from coordinate systems, the effort to do so has failed.

I'm not entirely sure he was right even when he wrote the article; I believe that differential geometry even then had developed to the point of being able to write down coordinate-free expressions, similar to vector notation. However that may be, though, it certainly is not true today. There are well-developed formalisms for dealing with physical problems without ever having to choose or deal with coordinates. MTW goes into this in some detail.

"Only certain, generally quite complicated expressions, that are constructed out of field components and coordinates [my emphasis], correspond to coordinate-independent, measurable (that is, real) quantities."

Again, even if this was true when he wrote the article (which I'm not sure it was, as above), I don't think it's true today.

However, even if we allow for the sake of argument that these statements of Einstein are correct, I don't see how they are relevant to the question at issue, because Einstein agrees that it is "coordinate-independent" quantities which are "measurable (that is, real)". And that is all that is needed to make sense of the statement "acceleration is not relative". Proper acceleration is a coordinate-independent, measurable (that is, real) quantity, and such quantities are not relative.

 

[GregAshmore]

An object in free fall has zero proper acceleration. So if you are standing at rest on the surface of the Earth, and use coordinates in which you are at rest, then if you drop a rock, the rock has zero proper acceleration and nonzero coordinate acceleration; but you have zero coordinate acceleration and nonzero proper acceleration.

Okay, I get that. I'm glad you explained why "proper acceleration"--which one has while at rest--is called "acceleration", because otherwise one might suspect that physicists are getting their kicks by playing a kind of nerdy language joke on the general population.

Kind of. Here's a restatement of what Einstein was saying that may help: in flat spacetime, we can choose coordinates so that objects in free fall have nonzero coordinate acceleration; but we are never forced to. In flat spacetime, we can always find coordinates where objects in free fall have zero coordinate acceleration, and objects not in free fall don't. In other words, we can always find coordinates in which coordinate acceleration is present if and only if proper acceleration is present.

okay.

In curved spacetime, however, we can never find such coordinates; no matter which coordinates we choose, there will be objects in free fall that have nonzero coordinate acceleration. So we can never find coordinates in curved spacetime that will allow us to clearly distinguish, using coordinates alone, between free fall and proper acceleration.

And, presumably, we make the distinction for an object based on whether there is a force on the object.

What Einstein meant by "gravitational fields of a special form" was the apparent "field" produced by choosing coordinates in flat spacetime so that objects in free fall have nonzero coordinate acceleration. You can make them go away by choosing coordinates where objects in free fall never have nonzero coordinate acceleration; but as above, you can only do that in flat spacetime.

Yes, except that Einstein put it in terms of the object which is experiencing the force, not the object in free fall. The gravitational field explains why the object, which is being acted on by a force, remains at rest.

I'm not sure how you are inferring this from the passages you quote.

Because that's what he says. I don't quarrel with your definitions of proper acceleration and coordinate acceleration. It's just that Einstein makes no such distinction in this text. He may have in other places. But in this text, even in the appendix added in 1952, he simply says "acceleration". Indeed, in the 1952 appendix he says, "The following concept is thus compatible with the observable facts: S2 [a non-inertial system] is also equivalent to an "inertial system", but with respect to S2 a (homogenous) gravitational field is present (about the origin of which one does not worry in this connection)."

To say it in the simplest language I can think of, Einstein was obviously proud of his having eliminated the absoluteness of acceleration, "relativising it", if you will. It's hard to imagine him doing anything but bristle at the unqualified statement, "Acceleration is not relative."

He is saying that coordinate acceleration is relative, because we can make it disappear by choosing coordinates in which the railway carriage is at rest. But that doesn't make the jerk that the passengers in the carriage feel disappear, and the felt jerk is what corresponds to nonzero proper acceleration. Einstein never says the jerk is only there in one set of coordinates.

Nor did I say that the jerk is only present in one set of coordinates. What Einstein actually says is that the jerk is the force which keeps the carriage/rocket at rest in a gravitational field. The "at rest" part is significant; see below.

That's why you shouldn't take it at face value. You need to look at what the terms being used actually *mean*. In the statement "acceleration is not relative", "acceleration" means proper acceleration, and the statement is correct.

Again, I don't quarrel with your definition of proper acceleration, nor do I suggest that Einstein would (or did) quarrel with it. In fact, I'm sure that I will come to appreciate it as I move forward with the math of relativity.

Now that I know what you [all] meant when you said acceleration is not relative, and what you meant when you said that the rocket ship cannot be considered at rest, there is not so much of a shock factor as at first.

There remain yet two issues in my mind.

First, with regard to treating the twin paradox as a problem of special relativity, it is my opinion that you do damage to the concept of relativity. According to the principle of relativity, every observer can legitimately consider himself to be at rest; there is no preference in principle for one frame over another. In terms of coordinate systems, the laws of nature have the same form in all coordinate systems, including the coordinate system in which any arbitrary observer is at rest. You have chosen to resolve the twin paradox by saying that the rocket twin cannot be considered at rest while undergoing proper acceleration. True, he cannot be considered to be at rest in an inertial frame while accelerating. Well, then, discuss the problem in terms of the non-inertial frame in which he is at rest. Until you do so, you have not satisfied the principle of relativity, and you have not resolved the paradox.

Second, it is not clear to me that Einstein successfully resolves the paradox in terms of general relativity. I understand that the math works out so that the traveling twin is younger. I do not challenge the calculation. I do wonder at the validity of the premise on which the calculations are based, though I do not go so far as to contradict it outright. The doubt is with regard to the physical reality of the gravitational field. Einstein himself felt the need to address that issue; hence his attempt to explain the field as the result of inductance originating in the distant stars. That explanation, lacking further detail, is unconvincing.

 

[Dale]

I don't quarrel with your definitions of proper acceleration and coordinate acceleration. It's just that Einstein makes no such distinction in this text. He may have in other places.

I don't think that he ever did use those terms. I think that they were invented after his death. However, with the advantage of hindsight and more sophisticated terminology it is clear that the concept he was describing as relative was coordinate acceleration.

To say it in the simplest language I can think of, Einstein was obviously proud of his having eliminated the absoluteness of acceleration, "relativising it", if you will. It's hard to imagine him doing anything but bristle at the unqualified statement, "Acceleration is not relative."

Which is why I did qualify it, at length, in the post you referenced earlier.

it is my opinion that you do damage to the concept of relativity. According to the principle of relativity, every observer can legitimately consider himself to be at rest; there is no preference in principle for one frame over another.

I think that your opinion is wrong in this case. The first postulate of special relativity is expressly stated in terms of inertial frames. That postulate was later generalized for general relativity, but for problems in special relativity it is reasonable to treat inertial frames as priveliged according to the first postulate.

Second, it is not clear to me that Einstein successfully resolves the paradox in terms of general relativity. I understand that the math works out so that the traveling twin is younger. I do not challenge the calculation. I do wonder at the validity of the premise on which the calculations are based, though I do not go so far as to contradict it outright. The doubt is with regard to the physical reality of the gravitational field. Einstein himself felt the need to address that issue; hence his attempt to explain the field as the result of inductance originating in the distant stars. That explanation, lacking further detail, is unconvincing.

You are right to be concerned about this. I think that the modern resolution has been to just leave it alone. The problem is that there are many quantities which could reasonably be called the "gravitational field" and none of them are so important as to clearly demand that they and not the others be called thus.

My personal preference is to call the Christoffel symbols the gravitational field, others prefer to use the Riemann curvature tensor or the Einstein tensor. Still others like to refer to the metric as the gravitational field. Before you can even discuss the "reality" of the field you need to decide what it is that you are talking about. If you have a preference then I would be glad to use your preference in the discussion.

 

[PeterDonis]

I'm glad you explained why "proper acceleration"--which one has while at rest--is called "acceleration", because otherwise one might suspect that physicists are getting their kicks by playing a kind of nerdy language joke on the general population.

That could be true in any case.

And, presumably, we make the distinction for an object based on whether there is a force on the object.

We make it based on whether an accelerometer attached to the object reads zero or not; that's the actual observable. Equating that with a "force" being present is fine, but once again, that's terminology. I suspect it's terminology Einstein would have preferred; see below.

It's just that Einstein makes no such distinction in this text. He may have in other places. But in this text, even in the appendix added in 1952, he simply says "acceleration".

To say it in the simplest language I can think of, Einstein was obviously proud of his having eliminated the absoluteness of acceleration, "relativising it", if you will. It's hard to imagine him doing anything but bristle at the unqualified statement, "Acceleration is not relative."

This might be true; Einstein might indeed have preferred to say "force is not relative". I think he was indeed proud of having "relativised" acceleration, because I think he saw that as the logical extension of "relativising" velocity in SR. In other words, I think he saw the equivalence principle as the logical extension of the principle of relativity.

However, trying to say that force is not relative (instead of acceleration) still raises the same kind of definitional issues; you have to define "force" properly. The kind of force which is not relative is the derivative of the object's 4-momentum with respect to its proper time; in other words, it's defined the same way proper acceleration is, just using 4-momentum instead of 4-velocity.

According to the principle of relativity, every observer can legitimately consider himself to be at rest

Note that this is the *generalized* principle of relativity, the one that Einstein was trying to reach by "relativising" acceleration. It is different from the principle of relativity that was first enunciated (so far as I know) by Galileo and was used in both Newtonian mechanics and special relativity.

the coordinate system in which any arbitrary observer is at rest.

Note that there is not one such coordinate system; so the word "the" is not really appropriate here. Given any observer, we can construct an infinite number of coordinate systems in which that observer is "at rest".

You have chosen to resolve the twin paradox by saying that the rocket twin cannot be considered at rest while undergoing proper acceleration.

I think this is also a matter of terminology; it depends on how you define "at rest". The physics, as I've pointed out several times, is that the traveling twin feels a force while the stay-at-home twin does not. That's an invariant physical difference, and it is sufficient to "resolve" the paradox without talking at all about coordinates or which twin is "at rest".

Well, then, discuss the problem in terms of the non-inertial frame in which he is at rest. Until you do so, you have not satisfied the principle of relativity, and you have not resolved the paradox.

I thought we had already done this; in the non-inertial frame in which the traveling twin is at rest, there is a gravitational field present while his rockets are firing. But here's a quick elaboration of that, if you like:

While the traveling twin's rockets are firing, in his non-inertial rest frame, there is a gravitational field present. He feels a force, and the force he feels holds him static in the gravitational field; but the stay-at-home twin feels no force, so he falls freely in the field. That does two things: one, it reverses their relative motion (they were moving away from each other before, now they are moving towards each other--this is shown, for example, by the switch from Doppler redshift to Doppler blueshift in light signals emitted by the stay-at-home twin and received by the traveling twin); and two, it causes the stay-at-home twin to age much faster while the field is present, because he is at a much higher "altitude" in the field.

The doubt is with regard to the physical reality of the gravitational field. Einstein himself felt the need to address that issue; hence his attempt to explain the field as the result of inductance originating in the distant stars. That explanation, lacking further detail, is unconvincing.

In a way Einstein was going down a blind alley here, I think. If you accept that every coordinate system is valid, then you accept that there are going to be "fictitious" entities in some coordinate systems. The "gravitational field" that exists in the traveling twin's non-inertial rest frame while his rockets are firing has the same sort of existential status as "fictitious forces" like centrifugal force. So asking whether it is "physically real" is a mistake, in my view.

There is another way to look at this, though. The standard twin paradox is set in flat spacetime; it is really that which makes the gravitational field in the traveling twin's rest frame (while the rockets are firing) "fictitious", because flat spacetime, as a solution to the Einstein Field Equation, requires that there are no masses present anywhere in the universe. Obviously that's not really true. However, there is an interesting theorem that says that, if we have a region of vacuum (no masses present) that is surrounded by a spherically symmetric mass distribution, the vacuum region is flat; that is, spacetime in that region looks just like the flat spacetime in which the standard twin paradox is set.

So suppose we set the standard twin paradox inside such a vacuum region of spacetime--a very large region with no mass present, surrounded by a spherically symmetric mass distribution. Then we could reason as follows: the gravitational field in the traveling twin's rest frame is "fictitious" because we can make it vanish by changing coordinates; but we can do that because spacetime in that region is flat. But spacetime in that region is flat because the region is surrounded by a spherically symmetric mass distribution; so really the gravitational field seen by the traveling twin is due to that mass distribution.

This is basically what Einstein was thinking of when he talked about inductance originating in the distant stars. To a first approximation, the distant stars are a spherically symmetric mass distribution, so an observer that accelerates in the vacuum spacetime region that is surrounded by the distant stars will see a "fictitious" gravitational field that is ultimately due to the distant stars, because they create the flat spacetime region. This is a perfectly valid way of interpreting the equations of General Relativity as applied to such a scenario.

 

[stevendaryl]

My personal preference is to call the Christoffel symbols the gravitational field, others prefer to use the Riemann curvature tensor or the Einstein tensor. Still others like to refer to the metric as the gravitational field.

The Christoffel symbol is the one that most directly relates to the Newtonian concept of a gravitational field. The relationship between the Riemann or Einstein tensors and Newtonian gravity is very indirect. Of course, people don't have to care about the correspondence with Newtonian gravity, but since the term "gravitational field" had a meaning before GR, it's kind of strange to completely change the meaning and keep the same term.

 

[PeterDonis]

The Christoffel symbol is the one that most directly relates to the Newtonian concept of a gravitational field.

It's also the sense in which Einstein was using the term in the quotes GregAshmore gave.

 

[stevendaryl]

First, with regard to treating the twin paradox as a problem of special relativity, it is my opinion that you do damage to the concept of relativity. According to the principle of relativity, every observer can legitimately consider himself to be at rest; there is no preference in principle for one frame over another. In terms of coordinate systems, the laws of nature have the same form in all coordinate systems, including the coordinate system in which any arbitrary observer is at rest. You have chosen to resolve the twin paradox by saying that the rocket twin cannot be considered at rest while undergoing proper acceleration. True, he cannot be considered to be at rest in an inertial frame while accelerating. Well, then, discuss the problem in terms of the non-inertial frame in which he is at rest. Until you do so, you have not satisfied the principle of relativity, and you have not resolved the paradox.

I think you're mixing up two different things. I have to say that Einstein himself was a little unclear about them, also, but they are, I think, understood better today.

The equivalence of all inertial frames is an empirical fact (or I should say, claim) about the physical world.
The equivalence of all coordinate systems is a mathematical fact about the way your theory was written.

The principle of relativity is just the claim that no experiment can distinguish between being at rest and moving at a constant velocity, that the only kind of velocity that is detectable is relative velocity. Newton's equations of motion and Newton's theory of gravity are both consistent with this principle. However, Newton's equations + Maxwell's equations are not consistent with the relativity principle. That's because Maxwell's equations (at least in the modern form) defines a universal speed of light, which by the relativity principle must be the same in every inertial reference frame. That's not consistent with Newton's laws of motion, which require all velocities to change when you change reference frames. So the point of Einstein's theory of Special Relativity was to come up with a combined theory of mechanics and light which again satisfies the relativity principle.

The equivalence of all coordinate systems is, as I said, just a fact about the way your theory is written. Newton's equations in their original form only apply in an inertial Cartesian coordinate system. Their form is preserved by Galilean transformations, but not by more general coordinate transformations. Einstein's equations of SR are also only valid in an inertial Cartesian coordinate system. Their form is preserved by Lorentz transformations, but not by more general transformations. On the other hand, General Relativity is generally covariant; it has the same form in any coordinate system whatsoever.

But having the same form under a coordinate transformation is not really a statement about the physics. Any theory of physics can be rewritten in a form that is generally covariant, and that makes no difference to the physical predictions of the theory.

Second, it is not clear to me that Einstein successfully resolves the paradox in terms of general relativity. I understand that the math works out so that the traveling twin is younger. I do not challenge the calculation. I do wonder at the validity of the premise on which the calculations are based, though I do not go so far as to contradict it outright. The doubt is with regard to the physical reality of the gravitational field. Einstein himself felt the need to address that issue; hence his attempt to explain the field as the result of inductance originating in the distant stars. That explanation, lacking further detail, is unconvincing.

Einstein's theory of General Relativity really doesn't make any mention of the distant stars. That's Mach's principle, that the concepts of rotation and acceleration should be relative to the distant stars. Einstein hoped that his theory would satisfy Mach's principle, but it doesn't.

 

[stevendaryl]

You have chosen to resolve the twin paradox by saying that the rocket twin cannot be considered at rest while undergoing proper acceleration. True, he cannot be considered to be at rest in an inertial frame while accelerating. Well, then, discuss the problem in terms of the non-inertial frame in which he is at rest. Until you do so, you have not satisfied the principle of relativity, and you have not resolved the paradox.

As I said in another post, making a theory so that it works in any coordinate system is just an exercise in mathematics.

To compute the elapsed time on a clock, just pick any coordinate system x^\mu. Pick absolutely any real-number quantity s that constantly, smoothly increases for the clock. (It could be the time, according to your coordinate system, or it could be some weird function of the time, like s = log(t), or absolutely anything, as long as s increases continuously.) Then in terms of x^\mu and s, give the clock's position as a function of s: x^\mu(s). Then the elapsed time on the clock will be given by:

\tau = \int \sqrt{\sum g_{\mu \nu} \dfrac{dx^\mu}{ds} \dfrac{dx^\nu}{ds}} ds

where g_{\mu \nu} is the components of the metric tensor for your coordinate system, and where the sum is over all possible values of \mu and \nu.

This works in any coordinate system whatsoever, but the values of the components g_{\mu \nu} are different in different coordinate systems.

 

[harrylin]

As a result of the discussion which ensues from this post I hope to understand the implications of this statement: "Acceleration is not relative."
[..]
What are the broader implications of the statement that acceleration is not relative? Does this mean, as it certainly would appear to mean, that modern relativity is in this very important respect not Einsteinian relativity? Are there other implications as to the meaning of the principle of relativity?

That's quite correct; that acceleration isn't as "relative" in the way Einstein suggested when he developed GR in 1907-1918 is perhaps one of the best "publicly known secrets" of modern science.
[addendum: see also the physics FAQ on this: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/TwinParadox/twin_gr.html]
And if I correctly understand it, in a somewhat obscured way Einstein admitted this himself in 1920, by saying that "acceleration or rotation" is to be "looked upon as something real" - http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ether_and_the_Theory_of_Relativity

For some older comments by myself on this topic see:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=4114490&highlight=acceleration#post4114490
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=4114579&highlight=acceleration#post4114579
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=4118016&highlight=acceleration#post4118016
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=4136348&highlight=acceleration#post4136348

Additional notes:
- in Langevin's "twin" example the accelerator reading is zero during turn-around; in early SR there was no "twin paradox". http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Space_and_Time
- as far as I could trace back from reading old papers, the "twin paradox" came with Einstein's attempt to make acceleration "relative" - as you saw in his 1918 paper (which, it appears, you didn't fully understand).
- coordinate acceleration is "absolute" in a qualitative way: at the turn-around all inertial reference systems measure that the traveler accelerates.

 

[PeterDonis]

Einstein's theory of General Relativity really doesn't make any mention of the distant stars.

If by the "theory" you mean the Einstein Field Equation, it doesn't mention any kind of matter specifically. But particular solutions do. For example, the scenario I mentioned in an earlier post, a vacuum region inside a spherically symmetric matter distribution, is a perfectly good solution; and the spherically symmetric matter distribution can be thought of as modeling the distant stars.

That's Mach's principle, that the concepts of rotation and acceleration should be relative to the distant stars. Einstein hoped that his theory would satisfy Mach's principle, but it doesn't.

I know there have been long PF threads on this before, and I don't want to start another one, but I don't think this claim is a slam dunk either way. For a good exposition of the view that GR *does* embody Mach's Principle in at least some form, see Cuifolini & Wheeler's book Gravitation and Inertia.

 

[stevendaryl]

I know there have been long PF threads on this before, and I don't want to start another one, but I don't think this claim is a slam dunk either way. For a good exposition of the view that GR *does* embody Mach's Principle in at least some form, see Cuifolini & Wheeler's book Gravitation and Inertia.

Well, the sense in which it doesn't satisfy Mach's principle is that in flat spacetime, there are still inertial forces and there's still a difference between rotating frames and nonrotating frames, even though there are no distant stars for the rotation or acceleration to be relative to.

 

[PAllen]

Well, the sense in which it doesn't satisfy Mach's principle is that in flat spacetime, there are still inertial forces and there's still a difference between rotating frames and nonrotating frames, even though there are no distant stars for the rotation or acceleration to be relative to.

Agreed.

The best statement of the particular sense it does that I've seen is:

- In a closed universe, the distribution of matter completely picks out which paths are geodesics (in open universe, boundary conditions are crucial; SR universe is open). Thus matter determines what is inertial versus non-inertial motion (in a closed universe).

 

[PeterDonis]

Well, the sense in which it doesn't satisfy Mach's principle is that in flat spacetime, there are still inertial forces and there's still a difference between rotating frames and nonrotating frames, even though there are no distant stars for the rotation or acceleration to be relative to.

Yes, but that just raises the question of whether flat spacetime is a physically realistic solution, since it requires absolutely no stress-energy anywhere. I agree, though, that this is a "sense" in which GR doesn't satisfy Mach's Principle. But there are other senses in which it does. The Cuifolini and Wheeler book goes into this in detail.

 

[GregAshmore]

Which is why I did qualify it, at length, in the post you referenced earlier.

Yes, you did. I didn't appreciate the qualification, in large part because I did not understand it. There is another reason that I did not appreciate it, which I'll mention later in this post.

I think that your opinion is wrong in this case. The first postulate of special relativity is expressly stated in terms of inertial frames. That postulate was later generalized for general relativity, but for problems in special relativity it is reasonable to treat inertial frames as priveliged according to the first postulate.

Whenever a frame is privileged with respect to other frames, the principle of relativity is violated.

For someone who knows what he is doing, the violation may be a harmless convenience. For someone who is in the process of training his mind to think in accordance with the principle of relativity, the violation makes it extremely difficult to discern between truth and error in one's understanding of the subject.

Recall, if you will, the objection raised by the doubter in Taylor & Wheeler, which I quoted earlier. His objection consists of two claims, though he thinks of them as one claim. The first claim is that the principle of relativity insists that the rocket twin can be treated as permanently at rest, and the Earth moving. The second claim is that in the scenario in which the Earth moves, the Earth twin will be younger upon his return. That is the paradox.

The first claim is correct. The second claim is incorrect. The text never deals with the first claim, and therefore never shows that the second claim is incorrect. Instead, the text asserts that it is the "change of direction" of the rocket twin that results in the younger age of that twin. To which the reader instantly replies, "But the Earth changes direction too, when it is the traveler!" At the end of the section, this particular reader feels as though he has been tricked by sleight of hand--and frustrated because he is not capable of crafting a coherent refutation. And, in the case of T&W, insulted, to boot, as "objectors" are always made out to be buffoons.

I've read at least half a dozen explanations of the twin paradox; I recall only Einstein dealing with the case of the resting rocket twin. (Born mentions the gravitational field in passing in the section on SR, but he threw me off by saying that only the rocket accelerates--not addressing the fact that the Earth accelerates when the rocket is at rest. He must have meant proper acceleration, but did not say so. In fairness, he may deal with the resting rocket in the section on GR; I don't recall.)

With regard to the referenced thread, which dealt with the twin paradox, my recollection is that the OP did bring up the case of the stationary rocket early on, and that the non-relativity of proper acceleration was given as the basis for the assertion that only the rocket twin moves, and thus for saying that the rocket twin must be the younger one of the two. Hence my shock. A review of those posts might show that my interpretation of the flow of logic was wrong; I wouldn't be at all surprised. Even so, I read more than 160 posts and did not see the case of the resting rocket dealt with, or any indication that it needed to be dealt with.

Now, my thickheadedness is my own problem, and I make no excuses for it. And, I truly appreciate the effort put forth by all who patiently answer questions on this forum. In the context of that appreciation, I suggest that an approach that is careful to explicitly treat each frame as permanently at rest (as separate cases, of course) would go a long way toward dispelling confusion and training minds to think correctly about relativity.

All that said, this discussion has gone a long way toward solidifying the basics of relativity in my thinking, and (equally important, as it turns out) helping me to understand why the texts are written the way they are. I believe that I will make faster, steadier progress now.

Thank you, all.

You are right to be concerned about this. I think that the modern resolution has been to just leave it alone. The problem is that there are many quantities which could reasonably be called the "gravitational field" and none of them are so important as to clearly demand that they and not the others be called thus.

My personal preference is to call the Christoffel symbols the gravitational field, others prefer to use the Riemann curvature tensor or the Einstein tensor. Still others like to refer to the metric as the gravitational field. Before you can even discuss the "reality" of the field you need to decide what it is that you are talking about. If you have a preference then I would be glad to use your preference in the discussion.

I don't know enough to have a preference. I may get to that point; we'll see. Thanks for the offer.

 

[stevendaryl]

Whenever a frame is privileged with respect to other frames, the principle of relativity is violated.

The principle of relativity is the claim that all inertial frames are equivalent. It doesn't violate that to say that noninertial frames are not equivalent to inertial frames.

 

[PeterDonis]

Whenever a frame is privileged with respect to other frames, the principle of relativity is violated.

Only the generalized principle of relativity, which requires the equivalence principle, so that you can consider gravitational fields to exist in some frames and not others. But treatments of SR and the twin paradox that I'm familiar with always make it clear that they are only dealing with the principle of relativity in its original version, which only applied to inertial frames.

This is not just an arbitrary distinction: inertial frames are physically different, because objects at rest in them feel no force. Objects at rest in non-inertial frames feel force. That's a real physical difference. IMO, the emphasis on inertial frames is meant to focus your attention on which observers feel a force and which ones don't, rather than on who is "at rest" and who isn't.

Recall, if you will, the objection raised by the doubter in Taylor & Wheeler, which I quoted earlier. His objection consists of two claims, though he thinks of them as one claim. The first claim is that the principle of relativity insists that the rocket twin can be treated as permanently at rest, and the Earth moving. The second claim is that in the scenario in which the Earth moves, the Earth twin will be younger upon his return. That is the paradox.

The first claim is correct.

No, it isn't, because T&W specifically define the principle of relativity to only apply to inertial frames. If the objector was going to contest that, he would have to actually contest it; he would have to make some argument in favor of the generalized principle of relativity instead of the one that only applies to inertial frames. He doesn't; he just makes the flat claim that the rocket twin can be treated as being "at rest", which is simply false given the T&W definition.

The text never deals with the first claim, and therefore never shows that the second claim is incorrect.

This is wrong in two ways. First, as above, the text does define the principle of relativity to only apply to inertial frames, so it does deal with the first claim. Second, even if we extend the principle of relativity to apply to non-inertial frames, and allow a gravitational field to exist in some frames but not others, that still doesn't make the second claim correct, because the Earth doesn't feel a force and the traveling twin does. That means the situation is not symmetric, regardless of which frame you use to describe it.

There is also the issue of how to describe the scenario in a non-inertial frame in which the rocket twin is always at rest. In that frame, as we've seen, the twin firing his rocket causes a gravitational field to exist, which disappears when the rocket stops firing. That's a bit weird for a start. But also, there are issues with setting up coordinates in this non-inertial frame. There is no one unique way to do it (the way there is in an inertial frame), and the obvious ways of doing it run into problems; for example, there will be a portion of spacetime that can't be covered by such coordinates, because they would assign multiple coordinate values to the same points in spacetime.

There are ways of dealing with these issues, so that one can compute the elapsed proper time for both twins in the non-inertial frame, but they require some thought. And, of course, when you do get to the point of being able to do the computation, you find that you get the same answer as in the inertial frame: the Earthbound twin ages more.

Instead, the text asserts that it is the "change of direction" of the rocket twin that results in the younger age of that twin.

Perhaps the text should have said that the rocket twin feels a force, instead of that he changes direction. But again, the text makes clear that it is using inertial frames, and the rocket twin does change direction with respect to an inertial frame.

At the end of the section, this particular reader feels as though he has been tricked by sleight of hand--and frustrated because he is not capable of crafting a coherent refutation. And, in the case of T&W, insulted, to boot, as "objectors" are always made out to be buffoons.

I realize that this is really about pedagogy, not about physics; but one does need to pay careful attention to definitions. As I noted above, T&W specifically define the principle of relativity to apply only to inertial frames. You may not like that pedagogical approach, but it seems to be the one that every text on SR takes. I've never seen any text try to start with the generalized principle of relativity. The reason, I think, is that trying to deal with non-inertial frames at the outset brings in a lot of other issues, some of which I alluded to above.

the non-relativity of proper acceleration was given as the basis for the assertion that only the rocket twin moves, and thus for saying that the rocket twin must be the younger one of the two.

It's important to note, once again, that this is not the correct flow of the logic. The logic is that the non-relativity of proper acceleration means that the rocket twin is younger; there is no intermediate step where it is deduced that only the rocket twin moves. The theorem that the free-fall worldline between two given events has the largest elapsed proper time of all worldlines between those events does not require defining an inertial frame in which the free-fall object is at rest. In fairness, I don't know that this was made clear in the other thread.

I suggest that an approach that is careful to explicitly treat each frame as permanently at rest (as separate cases, of course) would go a long way toward dispelling confusion and training minds to think correctly about relativity.

I could see doing this at some point, but I don't think it's a good idea to do it too soon, for the reasons I gave above. Non-inertial frames are not as straightforward as you appear to think. IMO the more emphasis that is put on things that are independent of coordinates and frames, the better.

 

[PAllen]

The principle of relativity is the claim that all inertial frames are equivalent. It doesn't violate that to say that noninertial frames are not equivalent to inertial frames.

An further [for the OP - you obviously know this very well], while Einstein was fond of a 'general principle of relativity', this does not in any way say that inertial and non-inertial frames are equivalent. Instead it says that a non-inertial frame can be considered to be stationary in a peculiar gravitational field. The more common modern view, which is completely equivalent, is that coordinates for an (proper) accelerated observer (in which the observer has zero coordinate motion) have a metric different from an inertial frame, and this causes trajectories of maximal time to involve coordinate acceleration in these coordinates. In other words, the coordinate accelerated Earth trajectory will be computed to pass greater proper time because of the non-trivial metric in these coordinates.

There is no form of principle of relativity that posits equivalence of inertial and non-inertial frames.

 

[stevendaryl]

Whenever a frame is privileged with respect to other frames, the principle of relativity is violated.

For someone who knows what he is doing, the violation may be a harmless convenience. For someone who is in the process of training his mind to think in accordance with the principle of relativity, the violation makes it extremely difficult to discern between truth and error in one's understanding of the subject.

Well, understanding that the principle of relativity means the equivalence between inertial reference frames is pretty critical. If you don't understand that, then you don't understand the principle of relativity.

Here's an analogy from Euclidean geometry: Take a piece of paper. Pick a line to call the x-axis, and pick a perpendicular line to call the y-axis. Call lines parallel to the x-axis "horizontal" and lines parallel to the y-axis "vertical".

Now, if you have a line that is neither vertical nor horizontal, then you can compute its length using the formula

L = \delta x \sqrt{1+m^2}

where m is the slope of the line, defined to be m = \dfrac{\delta y}{\delta x}

So now, imagine picking two points on the x-axis; them A and B. We draw on the paper two different paths connecting the points. Path 1 is a straight line running horizontally from A to B. Path 2 starts at A, goes off at slope +m until it is equally distant from A and B, and then comes back at slope -m until it reaches B.

We can use the length formula above to prove that Path 2 is longer than the first, by a factor of \sqrt{1+m^2}. But that's a paradox! Because slope is relative: If the slope of Path 2 relative to Path 1 is +m, then the slope of Path 1 relative to Path 2 is -m. So from the point of view of a traveler following Path 2, Path 1 is the one that has a nonzero slope, and so Path 1 should be longer by a factor of \sqrt{1+m^2}. That's a paradox.

But no, it's not. Although slope is relative, a change in slope is not. Regardless of how you pick your x-axis, everyone agrees that Path 2 changes slope half-way, and that Path 1 has constant slope. The slope formula can be used to prove that a path with a constant slope will be shorter than a path with a changing slope, if they connect the same two points.

There is a principle of "relativity of slopes" in Euclidean geometry, but there is no principle of relativity that allows you to treat a straight line the same as a nonstraight line.

 

[PAllen]

GregAshmore, let me describe a physical example to challenge any possibility of ignoring acceleration that you feel. I won't even use light or relativistic affects - just Newtonian physics. However the equivalence of inertial frames, as well as the equivalence principle, can both be considered to apply here (for low speeds and non-extreme gravity).

Consider that Bob is firing a machine gun at Joe, who is luckily ahead of, and moving at the same speed as the bullets. In Joe's rest frame, the bullets are suspended at a distance; Bob is receding so rapidly he is dropping stationary bullets. Now Joe feels a force from the side away from Bob. Bob is seen to slow down, and the bullets speed to Joe (unfortunately). Joe can say he remained stationary and a a sudden gravitational field appeared with unfortunate consequences. Only an observer feeling force will see such pseudo-gravity effects (to use the more common terminology). We call a frame with such pseudo-gravity effects 'accelerated' even though the origin of such a frame has constant coordinate position. It is completely distinguishable from a frame with no pseudo-gravity. Never, ever, did Einstein or any relativist suggest these two types of frames are equivalent.

 

[ghwellsjr]

Recall, if you will, the objection raised by the doubter in Taylor & Wheeler, which I quoted earlier. His objection consists of two claims, though he thinks of them as one claim. The first claim is that the principle of relativity insists that the rocket twin can be treated as permanently at rest, and the Earth moving. The second claim is that in the scenario in which the Earth moves, the Earth twin will be younger upon his return. That is the paradox.

The first claim is correct.

No, it isn't, because T&W specifically define the principle of relativity to only apply to inertial frames. If the objector was going to contest that, he would have to actually contest it; he would have to make some argument in favor of the generalized principle of relativity instead of the one that only applies to inertial frames. He doesn't; he just makes the flat claim that the rocket twin can be treated as being "at rest", which is simply false given the T&W definition.

You guys have totally missed the point that T&W are making. They are using the doubter to show the inferiority (according to them) of explaining SR by using inertial frames. They prefer an explanation using what they call Proper Clocks as defined at the bottom of page 10 in section 1.3 called Events and Intervals Alone!. They are agreeing with the doubter. They want the reader to identify with the doubter and reject any explanation involving inertial frames and adopt their preferred explanation which is that you carry an inertial wristwatch between each pair of events to measure the Proper Time between those two events. They prefer this explanation because they say all observers will agree on the calculation of the Proper Time displayed on a Proper Clock even though they don't actually send a physical Proper Clock between the two events in question. But any observer can use their own rest frame to calculate the Proper Time from the coordinate times and coordinate positions. They are talking about the time-like spacetime interval.

So their ideal explanation of the Twin Paradox is for the stay-at-home twin to have a Proper Clock and for the traveling twin to carry another Proper Clock, a wristwatch, with him on his trip out, and another, or the same, wristwatch on the trip back, an compare times on them. That, to me, is a ridiculous explanation because the twins already had such clocks.

This is not the first time someone has become confused by T&W's exclusive explanation of SR. I do not recommend the book, it does more harm than good.

 

[PeterDonis]

They want the reader to identify with the doubter and reject any explanation involving inertial frames and adopt their preferred explanation which is that you carry an inertial wristwatch between each pair of events to measure the Proper Time between those two events.

Note that it has to be an inertial wristwatch, though. See below.

But any observer can use their own rest frame to calculate the Proper Time from the coordinate times and coordinate positions.

For inertial frames, yes, this is clear from their exposition. But IIRC they don't go into non-inertial frames at all, so they don't give any way of doing what you're describing using a single non-inertial "rest frame" for the traveling twin, which is what the doubter is trying to do by saying we can treat the traveling twin as being at rest. You have to use two inertial frames, one outgoing and one returning. So I'm not sure T&W are trying to get the reader to identify with the doubter.

 

[PeterDonis]

This is not the first time someone has become confused by T&W's exclusive explanation of SR. I do not recommend the book, it does more harm than good.

I've recommended the book here before, but when I learned SR from it, it was in the context of a class, with a teacher teaching from it. I can see how that might make a difference; T&W's language is somewhat idiosyncratic (like that of MTW--I suspect it's Wheeler's influence), and it might come across better when there's a teacher to interpret, so to speak.

 

[Alain2.7183]

There is also the issue of how to describe the scenario in a non-inertial frame in which the rocket twin is always at rest. In that frame, as we've seen, the twin firing his rocket causes a gravitational field to exist, which disappears when the rocket stops firing. That's a bit weird for a start. But also, there are issues with setting up coordinates in this non-inertial frame. There is no one unique way to do it [...]

In the several descriptions I've seen that use a fictitious gravitational field to resolve the twin paradox from the traveler's viewpoint, I didn't see any ambiguity anywhere ... the procedure gave a specific (unique) answer to the question of how much the home twin ages during the traveler's turnaround (according to the traveler).

 

[PeterDonis]

In the several descriptions I've seen that use a fictitious gravitational field to resolve the twin paradox from the traveler's viewpoint, I didn't see any ambiguity anywhere ... the procedure gave a specific (unique) answer to the question of how much the home twin ages during the traveler's turnaround (according to the traveler).

Do you have a reference?

 

[Dale]

Whenever a frame is privileged with respect to other frames, the principle of relativity is violated.

This is simply not correct.

Suppose that I postulated the principle of beans which stated that "the price of all legumes is equal". Now, clearly the statement "the price of lima beans is higher than the price of pinto beans" violates the principle of beans since lima beans and pinto beans are legumes and the principle of beans states that their price should be equal. However, "the price of steel is higher than the price of lettuce" does not violate the principle of beans since neither are legumes. Similarly, "the price of vanilla is higher than the price of peas" does not violate the principle of beans. Although vanilla looks a lot like a bean and is sometimes even called a bean it is not, in fact, a legume, so the principle of beans does not make any statement about its price compared to the price of legumes like peas.

The principle of relativity states "The laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames of reference". So statements about non-inertial frames simply cannot violate it, anymore than statements about the price of steel can violate the principle of beans.