Absolute Time Clock Experiments: Einstein's Special Relativity

[nismaratwork]

This will be good only when the spaceship/jet/train is accelerating, Once it start travling at a constent speed, Time dilation will take over and the clock will start to lag.

ghwellsjr:You did a really god job with those animations. Thank you. And I know that a clock in Boulder Colorado should loose time when compared to the clock in Greenwich England.

So the question remains, is it possible to build such a clock?

AFAIK it's impossible, without needing even more clocks, then more... etc. This is why I'm a little confused... the OP talked about light undergoing time dilation, which is the same as saying, "forget Relativity".

 

[Dale]

This will be good only when the spaceship/jet/train is accelerating, Once it start travling at a constent speed, Time dilation will take over and the clock will start to lag.

No. That is why you integrate the acceleration to get rapidity.

 

[Dale]

How is an accelerometer going to distinguish between an acceleration that results in a speed change and an acceleration caused by gravity that does not result in a speed change?

You are correct. If we are talking about SR then nothing more is needed, but if we are talking about GR then a map of the spacetime metric is needed. This is in principle similar to how cruise missiles work.

And how, without gyroscopes can the "clock" tell when the clock is rotated so that it knows if the next acceleration actually results in a speed change or merely a direction change?

Yes. When we talk about an accelerometer in relativity we are talking about the 6 degree-of-freedom kind that measures three axes of acceleration and 3 axes of rotation, so the gyroscopes are implied. It just gets too cumbersome to always specify all of those details. So "accelerometer" becomes shorthand for "six degree of freedom inertial guidance unit containing three orthogonal simple accelerometers and three orthogonal ring laser gyroscopes".

 

[nismaratwork]

You are correct. If we are talking about SR then nothing more is needed, but if we are talking about GR then a map of the spacetime metric is needed. This is in principle similar to how cruise missiles work.

Yes. When we talk about an accelerometer in relativity we are talking about the 6 degree-of-freedom kind that measures three axes of acceleration and 3 axes of rotation, so the gyroscopes are implied. It just gets too cumbersome to always specify all of those details. So "accelerometer" becomes shorthand for "six degree of freedom inertial guidance unit containing three orthogonal simple accelerometers and three orthogonal ring laser gyroscopes".

at bolded: Heh... I actually like that much more.

 

[ghwellsjr]

ghwellsjr,

I need some time now to learn the text and animations.
If you have more, please let me know.

Thanks,
Roi.

I do have more but I want to make sure you understand what I have uploaded so far before proceeding. Please ask if there are any points of confusion or anything you want more clarification on.

 

[roineust]

ghwellsjr,

I went over the text and animations several times.
I think it is an estimable effort to make SR more accessible to non-mathematicians...

My problem is that for me personally, it is still too complicated to understand.
Maybe it is because the of use animated forms such as circles and ellipse...isn't it possible to explain SR using animations of rectangular and straight lines?

Thanks,
Roi.

 

[ghwellsjr]

ghwellsjr,

I went over the text and animations several times.
I think it is an estimable effort to make SR more accessible to non-mathematicians...

My problem is that for me personally, it is still too complicated to understand.
Maybe it is because the of use animated forms such as circles and ellipse...isn't it possible to explain SR using animations of rectangular and straight lines?

Thanks,
Roi.

If you are going to limit the illustrations to straight lines, then you don't need an animation. That's what normal spacetime diagrams do. They show time on the vertical axis and one spatial dimension (corresponding to the direction of motion) along the horizontal axis. A century ago, that was all that technology could support, but nowadays, why not show time as time and allow for two dimensions of space?

Perhaps if you were to think of these animations as showing the progression of waves on the surface of water, would that help you understand them? If not, why don't you take them one at a time and describe what it is about them that makes them too complicated to understand. I want them to be simple to understand and you could help me improve them. I'd really appreciate it if you could help me do that.

 

[roineust]

I will go over it again and see if I am able to ask a particular question.

It is not that easy for me to do - the way I ask questions regarding SR is a sort of a stronghold that enables me not to end up with 'magical' or a paradoxical conclusions. You are asking me to open up my mind in a way that most likely will end up again with what is for me a conclusion that is 'falling through the rabbit hole'.

I think what is not clear for me at this point, and that I am not sure I will understand by this way of using animation of circular forms, has to do with why the two postulates of 1. The C velocity invariance and 2. Invariance of the laws of physics - Do not contradict with each other.

1: C invariance seems a very narrow, specific and testable postulate that I can trust, but, 2: The invariance of the laws of physics, seems to me a very broad, general, unreliable postulate, that is prone to amendments, especially regarding contradictions that arise from no.1 postulate.

 

[nismaratwork]

I will go over it again and see if I am able to ask a particular question.

It is not that easy for me to do - the way I ask questions regarding SR is a sort of a stronghold that enables me not to end up with 'magical' or a paradoxical conclusions. You are asking me to open up my mind in a way that most likely will end up again with what is for me a conclusion that is 'falling through the rabbit hole'.

I think what is not clear for me at this point, and that I am not sure I will understand by this way of using animation of circular forms, has to do with why the two postulates of 1. The C velocity invariance and 2. Invariance of the laws of physics - Do not contradict with each other.

1: C invariance seems a very narrow, specific and testable postulate that I can trust, but, 2: The invariance of the laws of physics, seems to me a very broad, general, unreliable postulate, that is prone to amendments, especially regarding contradictions that arise from no.1 postulate.

You may be running into issues that are solved through the relativity of simultaneity... give that material a read, and it may help.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I will go over it again and see if I am able to ask a particular question.

It is not that easy for me to do - the way I ask questions regarding SR is a sort of a stronghold that enables me not to end up with 'magical' or a paradoxical conclusions. You are asking me to open up my mind in a way that most likely will end up again with what is for me a conclusion that is 'falling through the rabbit hole'.

I think what is not clear for me at this point, and that I am not sure I will understand by this way of using animation of circular forms, has to do with why the two postulates of 1. The C velocity invariance and 2. Invariance of the laws of physics - Do not contradict with each other.

1: C invariance seems a very narrow, specific and testable postulate that I can trust, but, 2: The invariance of the laws of physics, seems to me a very broad, general, unreliable postulate, that is prone to amendments, especially regarding contradictions that arise with no.1 postulate.

Forget about Relativity. Forget about Einstein's two postulates. The text for my first animation says to get into the mindset of the scientists before Einstein came along. I'm sure you have tossed a pebble into a pond and seen the ever expanding ring of waves that emits from where the pebble entered the water. The first two animations are no more complicated than that, are they?

 

[nismaratwork]

Forget about Relativity. Forget about Einstein's two postulates. The text for my first animation says to get into the mindset of the scientists before Einstein came along. I'm sure you have tossed a pebble into a pond and seen the ever expanding ring of waves that emits from where the pebble entered the water. The first two animations are no more complicated than that, are they?

I'm not new to this, but they seem extremely clear to me, and I think they would were I new and you had given me a similar introduction.

 

[roineust]

The problem arise as soon as I try to understand the things that happen with the moving source of light.

 

[nismaratwork]

The problem arise as soon as I try to understand the things that happen with the moving source of light.

What is the very first issue that puzzles you once the source begins to move?

 

[ghwellsjr]

The problem arise as soon as I try to understand the things that happen with the moving source of light.

If you dropped a pebble into a quiet pond from a bridge, the ringlets expand around the point of entry, correct? But if you throw a pebble into a pond while you are standing on the shore, do the ringlets expand around the point of entry just as if you could have reached way out over the water and dropped the pebble in, or do the ringlets move away from you with the same speed that the pebble hit the water?

 

[roineust]

What do you mean by "...in just the right place at just the right time..." in:

"... First, we want to learn how we know where to put the mirrors so that the expanding circle of light can create a reflection that results in a collapsing circle of light in just the right place at just the right time. For Homer, it's easy: ..."

You mean that at that stage you want to learn how to put the mirrors in a way that for the moving guy it will be reflected so that it doesn't seem to him as if he were stationary, but rather as if he actually was in a water pond?

 

[nismaratwork]

I'm stumped... ghwellsjr seems to be answering your question. I guess I don't know the material well enough to teach it... sorry.

 

[roineust]

If the rock hit the water while flying away from me... Do you mean if the ringlets move in relation to the shore away from me, or do you mean that each time the rock bounces over the water, also the new ringlets that will be created of course will become more and more distant...?

 

[ghwellsjr]

What do you mean by "...in just the right place at just the right time..." in:

"... First, we want to learn how we know where to put the mirrors so that the expanding circle of light can create a reflection that results in a collapsing circle of light in just the right place at just the right time. For Homer, it's easy: ..."

You mean that at that stage you want to learn how to put the mirrors in a way that for the moving guy it will be reflected so that it doesn't seem to him as if he were stationary, but rather as if he actually was in a water pond?

Homer is stationary in the pond so if we place reflectors in a circle around him, the expanding ringlets will all hit the reflectors (in the case of water, we would want to do this in a circular pool) at the same time and change the expanding ringlet into a contracting ringlet which will collapse on Homer simultaneously from all directions. Remember, Homer can't see the waves like we can, he's only aware of when they start, and later, when they collapse on him and that makes him believe that he is stationary with respect to the medium that is propagating the waves.

In the case of Rover, he is moving through the water at one-half the speed that the waves move, although we have to stipulate that not only can he not see the waves, he cannot feel the water, nor does his motion create any additional waves. He doesn't even know that he is moving.

Now we put Rover in an oval-shaped pool and when he gets to the blue dot shown on the animation, he creates a wave that starts expanding outward from the blue dot. The elliptical shape of the pool causes the expanding ringlet to collapse on the red dot at the exact moment that Rover arrives there and so he, too, concludes that he is stationary with respect to the medium that is propagating the waves, that is, if he thought, like Homer that he was in the middle of a circular arrangement of reflectors.

 

[ghwellsjr]

If the rock hit the water while flying away from me... Do you mean if the ringlets move in relation to the shore away from me, or do you mean that each time the rock bounces over the water, also the new ringlets that will be created of course will become more and more distant...?

I'm assuming that the pebble does not skip across the water, it enters the water with some horizontal velocity and I was asking if that horizontal velocity causes the ringlets to move away from you (and the shore) or if they expand outward from the stationay point of entry?

 

[roineust]

I am not sure. I guess there will be some sort of movement of the ringlet not only by way of expanding from a center, but also of the center itself moving away from the shore.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I am not sure. I guess there will be some sort of movement of the ringlet not only by way of expanding from a center, but also of the center itself moving away from the shore.

Maybe you could try it some time, but let me assure you that the expanding ringlets will stay centered on the point of entry.

 

[roineust]

OK,
I accept that this is what happens, maybe I will check it out at summer time.
So, please continue...

 

[ghwellsjr]

Did you have any questions on this post?

Homer is stationary in the pond so if we place reflectors in a circle around him, the expanding ringlets will all hit the reflectors (in the case of water, we would want to do this in a circular pool) at the same time and change the expanding ringlet into a contracting ringlet which will collapse on Homer simultaneously from all directions. Remember, Homer can't see the waves like we can, he's only aware of when they start, and later, when they collapse on him and that makes him believe that he is stationary with respect to the medium that is propagating the waves.

In the case of Rover, he is moving through the water at one-half the speed that the waves move, although we have to stipulate that not only can he not see the waves, he cannot feel the water, nor does his motion create any additional waves. He doesn't even know that he is moving.

Now we put Rover in an oval-shaped pool and when he gets to the blue dot shown on the animation, he creates a wave that starts expanding outward from the blue dot. The elliptical shape of the pool causes the expanding ringlet to collapse on the red dot at the exact moment that Rover arrives there and so he, too, concludes that he is stationary with respect to the medium that is propagating the waves, that is, if he thought, like Homer that he was in the middle of a circular arrangement of reflectors.

 

[roineust]

No problem,
I understand that post and stage now!
Please continue...

 

[ghwellsjr]

I'm not sure where you are in your understanding of the animations. Are you clear on all of them now and wanting more animations or do you have more questions on some of the ones I already posted?

For example, do you understand what the Michelson-Morley Experiment (MMX) was attempting to do and how it worked and why the result was so surprising to all the scientists of the time? And do you understand how Lorentz explained the result?

 

[flashprogram]

Homer is stationary in the pond so if we place reflectors in a circle around him, the expanding ringlets will all hit the reflectors (in the case of water, we would want to do this in a circular pool) at the same time and change the expanding ringlet into a contracting ringlet which will collapse on Homer simultaneously from all directions. Remember, Homer can't see the waves like we can, he's only aware of when they start, and later, when they collapse on him and that makes him believe that he is stationary with respect to the medium that is propagating the waves.

In the case of Rover, he is moving through the water at one-half the speed that the waves move, although we have to stipulate that not only can he not see the waves, he cannot feel the water, nor does his motion create any additional waves. He doesn't even know that he is moving.

Now we put Rover in an oval-shaped pool and when he gets to the blue dot shown on the animation, he creates a wave that starts expanding outward from the blue dot. The elliptical shape of the pool causes the expanding ringlet to collapse on the red dot at the exact moment that Rover arrives there and so he, too, concludes that he is stationary with respect to the medium that is propagating the waves, that is, if he thought, like Homer that he was in the middle of a circular arrangement of reflectors.

ridiculous if that could work you'd have a perpetual energy light source? how plausible is that? Haven't people being climbing those rocks for ages when will they find something that is not a rock, but if everything's made of rock you're in big trouble.

 

[flashprogram]

I recommend studying history and finding out if guyver units ever did come into existence or if that is just an entire hypothetical scenario

 

[nismaratwork]

ridiculous if that could work you'd have a perpetual energy light source? how plausible is that? Haven't people being climbing those rocks for ages when will they find something that is not a rock, but if everything's made of rock you're in big trouble.

Are you joking, and this is some Andy Kaufman **** that I don't get, or are you really saying that in earnest? Then guyver units... oh this is going to be rich.

 

[nismaratwork]

I recommend studying history and finding out if guyver units ever did come into existence or if that is just an entire hypothetical scenario

I recommend studying SR.

 

[roineust]

ghwellsjr,
If it is not possible to continue spontaneously from the point we got to, with the rock and pond examples, then I will need some more time to go through your exercise in an ordered fashion, and try to get to a point where I think we understand well enough each other's usage of terms.

 

[roineust]

I think that it is most important to emphasize (If I am wrong then please someone correct me), that both the invariance of C and time dilation, are first of all correct because they were proved through experimental results, and only then because they are also a derivation of a mathematical process, which is different from an experimental process.

 

[nismaratwork]

I think that it is most important to emphasize (If I am wrong then please someone correct me), that both the invariance of C and time dilation, are first of all correct because they were proved through experimental results, and only then because they are also a derivation of a mathematical process, which is different from an experimental process.

Switch, "proven" to, "never falsified, enormous support for" and you're getting it right.

 

[ghwellsjr]

ghwellsjr,
If it is not possible to continue spontaneously from the point we got to, with the rock and pond examples, then I will need some more time to go through your exercise in an ordered fashion, and try to get to a point where I think we understand well enough each other's usage of terms.

I was hoping that we could go through the animations one at a time, making sure that you clearly understood each one before moving on to the next one and I would like to continue that, but I'm not sure which one we got to, so maybe it would be good for you to go through them again in sequence until you get to one that you have questions on. When you ask a question, make sure you let me know which number it is for.

I think that it is most important to emphasize (If I am wrong then please someone correct me), that both the invariance of C and time dilation, are first of all correct because they were proved through experimental results, and only then because they are also a derivation of a mathematical process, which is different from an experimental process.

Just remember, we are trying to put ourselves in the shoes of the scientists prior to Einstein so that we can learn the process they had to go through to explain the surprising results of experiments like MMX (Michelson-Morley Experiment). At the time, they believed that the speed of light was c only in the presumed absolute ether frame, so that is all that we are taking for granted in the animations. At first, they (and we) know nothing about time dilation or length contraction or issues of simultaneity, so don’t jump the gun and try to see how they fit in before it's time. Eventually, I hope that these issues will make perfect sense to you but I'm sure it will take a lot of questions and answers.

 

[nismaratwork]

I was hoping that we could go through the animations one at a time, making sure that you clearly understood each one before moving on to the next one and I would like to continue that, but I'm not sure which one we got to, so maybe it would be good for you to go through them again in sequence until you get to one that you have questions on. When you ask a question, make sure you let me know which number it is for.

Just remember, we are trying to put ourselves in the shoes of the scientists prior to Einstein so that we can learn the process they had to go through to explain the surprising results of experiments like MMX (Michelson-Morley Experiment). At the time, they believed that the speed of light was c only in the presumed absolute ether frame, so that is all that we are taking for granted in the animations. At first, they (and we) know nothing about time dilation or length contraction or issues of simultaneity, so don’t jump the gun and try to see how they fit in before it's time. Eventually, I hope that these issues will make perfect sense to you but I'm sure it will take a lot of questions and answers.

I'm going to stick around for the lesson... it can never hurt, and you strike me as an excellent teacher.

I do enjoy this site.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I'm going to stick around for the lesson... it can never hurt, and you strike me as an excellent teacher.

I do enjoy this site.

You can ask questions too. The mark of an excellent teacher is excellent students.

 

[roineust]

ghwellsjr,
OK, going over the text & animations in a sequence.
From MMX to SR-2: How could they think such a thing, if they already knew about the invariance of C, from the Maxwell electromagnetic experimental results?

 

[ghwellsjr]

For context, here is the text that goes with the second animation:

They believed that if the source of light were moving with respect to this stationary ether frame, the source would not remain in the center of this expanding spherical shell but would move off-center.

And your questin is:

How could they think such a thing, if they already knew about the invariance of C, from the Maxwell electromagnetic experimental results?

It was Maxwell who believed that his equations related the propagation of light to a fixed medium and who suggested in a letter that Michelson eventually got his hands on for an experiment to measure the speed of light relative to this fixed medium. It seemed entirely reasonable that if there were such a medium, such as the media for propaging water waves and air waves, then if a flash of light were set off at some location, the expanding ring of light waves would stay centered on the location of the source relative to the medium at the time the flash and not on the prior or subsequent motion of the source before and after the flash.

They believed the invariance of c was relative to a fixed medium. But since the surface of the Earth normally moves so slowly through that presummed fixed medium, it would be very difficult to detect the experimental difference between moving slowly and not moving at all. It would require a very precise experimental apparatus to detect such a difference and that is what Michelson and Morley devised for the very first time in their famous experiment.

Keep in mind, that my animation is showing the affect of moving through the ether at one-half the speed of light where the affects are quite large and easily discernable. If I made an animation that showed the assumed speed of the surface of the Earth through the ether that Michelson and Morley expected, you would not see any affect at all, in fact it would have to be a totally different kind of animation that was more closely aligned with the actual experiment that they did.

Another way of expressing the issue that we are concerned about here is that if two different observers with a relative motion between them are measuring the same wave from a flash of light, they both could not conclude that they were each in the center of the expanding sphere of light. Only if one of them were stationary with respect to the ether, would he observe the light expanding around himself, the other moving observer would be able to measure that he was not in the center of that expanding sphere of light. And it wouldn't matter which one was carrying the light bulb that emitted the flash of light. We are assuming a single flash, of course.

Now I may have totally missed what you are driving at in your question so if I have, please rephrase it and ask again. I don't want you to miss any important points before moving on.

 

[roineust]

OK ghwellsjr,
I got step by step to this animation:


I can not understand well enough how it shows length contraction. It is quite a complex animation, and it might need some more textual clarification regarding the colored and dashed lines, and how, or where exactly can a viewer see a contracted shape in it.

Besides that: Let's see what we have up to this point, according to your description, which I regard as a historically and geometrically accurate and reliable description:

We have an experiment: Maxwell electromagnetic experiment, that causes a conjecture which is ---> It only seems to be the invariance of C! Actually it is because Earth is moving too slow through ether! (Relatively to light), so there is a need for a more contrived experiment! That idea in its turn causes them to execute another experiment ---> MMX! which shows that the invariance of C is actually real at any speed, and that an ether is not showing up with the properties they think it has, so they come up with a new conjecture ---> Ether still exists! There is length contraction + time dilation and ---> THEN HAPPENS A VERY STRANGE THING...!

You might expect, according to the way things went up to this point (conjecture leads to experiment, leads to new conjecture or to reformulated conjecture and to a modified experiment, etc…) that the next step would be: OK let's test these 'Siamese twins' conjecture of length contraction and time dilation, but ---> When they get to the length contraction experiment...OOPS! There is no way, what so ever, to make an experiment that tests length contraction! That is because time dilation and length contraction nullify each other! So, say them, what should we do? NO PROBLEM! Says Einstein, we have got no problem with that stage, in which we need experimentally to verify a conjecture! Let us add just one more conjecture here, e.g. not reformulate the previous one (the duo)! But have one more conjecture besides the duo of time and length change!

STOP!

Hey! You couldn’t prove the duo conjecture! Instead you add one more conjecture? And is this new one testable? (I am referring of course to: LETS SAY THAT THE LAWS OF PHYSICS ALWAYS STAY THE SAME, NO MATTER WHAT THE RELATIVE VELOCITY IS!)

Yes! it is testable because we couldn't find any change relating to speed in MMX!

But you could also find no evidence for the later conjecture (later to MMX experiment) of length contraction, and now you are jumping over it back to MMX in order to justify it retroactively? so the result is:

1. It (invariance of physical laws) contradicts the invariance of C, because meanwhile, they had more experimental results coming in, which approve of half the duo (the time dilation half), and in order for both proved experiments (C invariance and time dilation), to 'live together', such a conjecture (invariance of physical laws), still might seem relevant, since any way it is not possible to test length contraction, and also the nature of time dilation prove they were able to gather, was of a specific nature (non-direct). But this results in a contradiction, that is gone undetected, which is: C undergoes time dilation as well!

2. The way time dilation was proved fits 'neatly' around 1905 because of 2 more elements:

A. The need to contrive a new experiment using the process that was acceptable up to MMX, such an experiment that will prove the duo as a whole, is not in question any more at this point! because by now there is a new standard, that says that when you have a conjecture that can not be proved, you just add one more conjecture, that is even more impossible, and actually even contradicts more new experimental results – but the fact that mathematically, this result is compatible with half of the duo experimental results that just came in, must mean that the (CONTRADICTIVE) conjecture was needed here! (NOP! Neither the contradictive conjecture nor the length contraction were needed here!)

B. Contriving a new experiment that will tests a reformulated conjecture (and not add one more conjecture), at this historical stage (MMX), was needed, but was impossible for technical reasons, why?

Because if you reformulate the conjecture at the MMX stage this way: NO length contraction, YES time dilation, but! Time dilation for mechanical reasons! This leads to: YES ether! but with totally different properties: 1.Has nothing to do with light, and 2.Acts on matter without causing inertial change.

Then you see that having light reflectors with whatever acute angel as you wish (in MMX), will not find ether that has such new properties! You need to accelerate a device that compares light to matter oscillations (amended contradiction), to a great speed, exactly because this ether will not influence light but only matter!

Now, saying what was said at the point between the Maxwell experiments and MMX, e.g. that there was not enough speed 'on-ground technological ability' and that they need to rely on the speed of Earth to have an experiment with such velocities, that was OK in the 1900's, but now (these days) suggesting that you need, not the speed of Earth around the sun, but the speed of a powerful accelerator pushing a very small (nano or very small scale) device to say 5% of the speed of light, how did such a suggestion become so 'illegitimate' a scenario? Well, I think I understand historically how…P.S
Please note that there is a correspondence between the fact that only half of the duo (time dilation and length contraction) was experimentally proved, to the fact that most of the experiments that prove time dilation are non-direct experiments (particles decay experiments). And that direct experiments (Jets and atomic clocks) – actually are not built in a way that also tests both physical laws invariance, as well as time dilation, but only try to re-check time dilation!

 

[nismaratwork]

I might be off here, completely, but it seems to me that you just went from not grasping any of this, to actively pressing a point about Lorentz Symmetry that I THINK, is completely cracked.

 

[ghwellsjr]

OK ghwellsjr,
I got step by step to this animation:


I can not understand well enough how it shows length contraction. It is quite a complex animation, and it might need some more textual clarification regarding the colored and dashed lines, and how, or where exactly can a viewer see a contracted shape in it.

If you go back to post #79, you'll read what the different colors mean. Here are some excerpts:

I represent the original expanding circle of light in blue as well as a blue dot to represent its source, the mirrors in brown...

I represent the moving observer in red and I call him Rover (think Red Rover). The light that reflects off the moving mirrors is shown in red...

Now for Rover, it's a little more complicated because his collapsing circle of light is not centered on the expanding circle of light but rather the location of where he will be later on, shown as a red dot. Try to visualize in this animation where the blue and red circles intersect...

Now this black dashed line shows the points of relection relative to the ether...

Does that help?

You first stated, "I can not understand well enough how it shows length contraction." Do you not see that the shape of the brown mirror is not a circle but is an ellipse and it is contracted in the direciton of Rover's motion?

Then you asked, "where exactly can a viewer see a contracted shape?" The answer depends on who you mean by "a viewer". If you mean Rover, he cannot see his own contracted shape or that of the mirror traveling with him. But Homer can measure Rover's length contraction and I will illustrate that in a future animation. We, outside the animation, can actually see the contracted shape of Rover and his mirror. Michelson and Morley could not "see" any of their own length contraction (if there was any). But here's the surprising thing: I will also show that Rover can measure Homer's length contraction, even though from our point of view, it is Rover that is experiencing length contraction and not Homer.

Besides that: Let's see what we have up to this point, according to your description, which I regard as a historically and geometrically accurate and reliable description:

We have an experiment: Maxwell electromagnetic experiment, that causes a conjecture which is ---> It only seems to be the invariance of C! Actually it is because Earth is moving too slow through ether! (Relatively to light), so there is a need for a more contrived experiment! That idea in its turn causes them to execute another experiment ---> MMX! which shows that the invariance of C is actually real at any speed, and that an ether is not showing up with the properties they think it has, so they come up with a new conjecture ---> Ether still exists! There is length contraction + time dilation and ---> THEN HAPPENS A VERY STRANGE THING...!

Before going on, I want to point out some misconceptions here. Although Maxwell did a lot of experiments regarding electricity and magnetism, he did not do his proposed experiment to measure the speed of light in an attempt to discover the stationary ether. He died shortly after he wrote a letter that Michelson read that inspired him to team up with Morley and do their famous experiment.

Maxwell's four equations describe how electric charges create an electromagnetic field and they predicted that as the charges move around, they cause changes in the electromagnetic field to propagate at a speed that Maxwell called "c". This speed just happened to be the speed of light, something Maxwell never even realized until he calculated its value. Well this lead him to conclude that light was just a changing electromagnetic field caused by moving electric charges and since, he believed, the field has a real physical existence, it must be the medium that propagates light waves.

You might expect, according to the way things went up to this point (conjecture leads to experiment, leads to new conjecture or to reformulated conjecture and to a modified experiment, etc…) that the next step would be: OK let's test these 'Siamese twins' conjecture of length contraction and time dilation, but ---> When they get to the length contraction experiment...OOPS! There is no way, what so ever, to make an experiment that tests length contraction! That is because time dilation and length contraction nullify each other!

You have a concern that there is no experiment to test length contraction like there is to test time dilation and yet you almost answer your own concern when you say they "nullify each other". Now if that is true, then how could time dilation be present unless length contraction is also present? I say "you almost answer your own concern" because have you considered that fact that time dilation means time is stretching out while the length is getting smaller? Don't you want both the time dilation and the length contraction to be getting larger by the same amount in order for them to "nullify each other"?

The rest of your post is totally unnecessary because once you understand how MMX inspired Lorentz to come up with his understanding of how the ether worked and he created the Lorentz Transform, the Transform was applied to Maxwell's equations and they remained the same which means that if Maxwell had understood this, he would not have suggested a way to discover the ether. So Maxwell's equations were substantiated by MMX and LET and there was no need to come up with another conjecture or to reformulate the previous one, everything fit just perfectly.

 

[roineust]

Here is a common 'Crackpot', or even let it be - A Crackpot Term - that I want to try and understand:

'Non-direct' (proof of time dilation): A proof that presumably can not be gathered from within the relative moving frame.

Right? Wrong? Why should there be any difference between direct and non-direct experimental proof?

 

[ghwellsjr]

Here is a common 'crackpot', or even let it be - A crackpot term -, I want to try and understand:

Non-direct (proof of time dilation): A proof that presumably can not be gathered from within the relative moving frame.

Right? Wrong? why should there be any difference between direct and non-direct experimental proof?

Keep in mind that virtually all scientists prior to Einstein believed that the Earth was constantly moving through the ether in different directions and at different speeds at different times of the day and year, although they didn't know how fast or in which direction--that is what they were trying to measure. In essence, they believed that MMX was moving in the fixed frame of the ether. They weren't thinking in terms of relativity where you can consider yourself at rest within your own frame.

So I don't understand your distinction between direct and non-direct experimental proof in terms of what I'm trying to help you understand. You need to focus on the animations and tell me if you understand how they are illustrating what the scientists of the time believed.

With that in mind, I need you to respond to my questions:

...Does that help?

You first stated, "I can not understand well enough how it shows length contraction." Do you not see that the shape of the brown mirror is not a circle but is an ellipse and it is contracted in the direciton of Rover's motion?

...
You have a concern that there is no experiment to test length contraction like there is to test time dilation and yet you almost answer your own concern when you say they "nullify each other". Now if that is true, then how could time dilation be present unless length contraction is also present? I say "you almost answer your own concern" because have you considered that fact that time dilation means time is stretching out while the length is getting smaller? Don't you want both the time dilation and the length contraction to be getting larger by the same amount in order for them to "nullify each other"?
...

Crackpots are people who don't listen to other people who are trying to help them but tenaciously keep harping on an idea that they think is valid in spite of their being the only one to hold that idea. Of course, crackpots think their own pot is intact while everyone else's pot is cracked. This forum is dedicated to helping people who don't understand relativity. Other viewpoints are not tolerated. There are other forums for that.

 

[roineust]

Hey ghwellsjr,

As I wrote - I got to this animation step by step, and I did notice, that you had in a previous post an index for the types of lines (colors and forms) - but still if I recall correctly, there is no explanation for the yellow line, and what more is, if the visually new contracted form, a result of different types of lines merging together, then it is not clear enough which ones...If there is an explanation for the yellow line, and I missed it, then pardon me and I will go over all the stages again.

Oh yes, tolerance...well, I might be just 'another one' or I might be 'the one!', but only when SR will not seem to me like a sort of unexplained magic, only then will I stop investigating this issue. What is the risk? Being out here? Well, I can take it...

 

[nismaratwork]

Hey ghwellsjr,

As I wrote - I got to this animation step by step, and I did notice, that you had in a previous post an index for the types of lines (colors and forms) - but still if I recall correctly, there is no explanation for the yellow line, and what more is, if the visually new contracted form, a result of different types of lines merging together, then it is not clear enough which ones...If there is an explanation for the yellow line, and I missed it, then pardon me and I will go over all the stages again.

Oh yes, tolerance...well, I might be just 'another one' or I might be 'the one!', but only when SR will not seem to me like a sort of unexplained magic, only then will I stop investigating this issue. What is the risk? Being out here? Well, I can take it...

I don't think you understand; you should read the rules you agreed to when you signed on the dotted line as it were. OH, and by, "The One"... you mean?...?

 

[ghwellsjr]

Hey ghwellsjr,

As I wrote - I got to this animation step by step, and I did notice, that you had in a previous post an index for the types of lines (colors and forms) - but still if I recall correctly, there is no explanation for the yellow line, and what more is, if the visually new contracted form, a result of different types of lines merging together, then it is not clear enough which ones...If there is an explanation for the yellow line, and I missed it, then pardon me and I will go over all the stages again.

Oh yes, tolerance...well, I might be just 'another one' or I might be 'the one!', but only when SR will not seem to me like a sort of unexplained magic, only then will I stop investigating this issue. What is the risk? Being out here? Well, I can take it...

I'm partially color-blind and I intended to make mirrors in my animations brown and they look brown to me but I guess they look yellow to normally-sighted people. So the mirrors are yellow, not brown.

With that added bit of information, can you now answer my questions?

My goal is to bring you to the point where SR not only doesn't seem "like a sort of unexplained magic", but it will make perfect sense to you and you will be able to teach it to others.

 

[Dale]

the fact that most of the experiments that prove time dilation are non-direct experiments

I have been away for a while, and I didn't really follow your manifesto, but this statement caught my eye. I don't know what you mean by "non-direct" experiments. All there is are experiments whose results agree with or disagree with the prediction of a theory (to within experimental error). So far all of them agree with SR and some of them disagree with Newtonian mechanics.

 

[roineust]

hey ghwellsjr,

As much as I understand, one perspective of the dotted line (the mirrors around the moving guy) in SR-10 becomes a yellow/brown line in SR-11, if there is a reason for that change, then I don't understand that reason.

Besides that, as I said before, I still don't understand how to look at SR-11 in way that I will see the contracted form. Is it a combination of different kind of lines that I should look for?

 

[ghwellsjr]

hey ghwellsjr,

As much as I understand, one perspective of the dotted line (the mirrors around the moving guy) in SR-10 becomes a yellow/brown line in SR-11, if there is a reason for that change, then I don't understand that reason.

Besides that, as I said before, I still don't understand how to look at SR-11 in way that I will see the contracted form. Is it a combination of different kind of lines that I should look for?

Do you understand that the goal here is to figure out where an observer must put his mirrors such that when he sets off a flash of light it will expand in a circle, relative to the ether, but then reflect off the mirrors in such a way that they create a contracting circle of light that eventually collapses on the observer in his final location?

To this end, do you understand that the dashed line in #9 shows the point of intersection of those two circles (one expanding and one contracting) and where we could put some mirrors if we wanted them to be relative to the ether?

And then #10 shows, in addition, where we could put the mirrors if we wanted them to be relative to the observer, in other words, moving with the observer so that he would see them as stationary with respect to himself. So we haven't actually put mirrors in #10, we merely trying to learn where to put the mirrors.

And finally in #11, we actually put a solid mirror moving with the observer in the place where the moving dashed line from #10 showed us to put it. Now, because the mirror is solid, the expanding blue circle gets reflected by the mirror (and so quits being a complete circle) and in the process, it creates the contracting red circle, but not all at once, it does it in pieces as you see the points of reflection sweeping across the mirror from left to right. Does this answer your question about the reason for the change from #10 to #11?

You last question is where to look in #11 for the contracted form. It's the overall shape of the mirror. Instead of being a perfectly round circle like the mirror is for Homer in #3, it is oval shaped. It isn't as wide as it is high. Can you see that? Compare #3 and #11 if you have trouble telling the difference.

If any of this doesn't make complete sense to you, then please ask more questions.

 

[roineust]

ghwellsjr,

Ok,
It seems you added quite detailed clarifications here,
So, it will take me some time now, to get familiar with the new post.

 

[roineust]

Hey Dalespam,

Please explain to me which experiment confirmed length contraction.

Regarding time dilation being proved, what minority people like me call - 'non-directly',
please try to give me another example from physics, be it any kind of Pre-SR physics, in which, in certain conditions, it is not possible to measure something, no matter what you do, and that there is a theory that backs it up, as completely legitimate.

Thanks,
Roi.