Experiment to test the basic assumption of SR

[Vanadium 50]

Why are we engaging ralfcis? We already had a thread locked because, well, let me just quote Jedishrfu

The goal here is to strip away the various wrong preconceptions and misinterpretations that people latch onto in trying to understand Relativity theory and begin to see the real physics behind it all. This can only be done with an open mind and a desire to learn what others have discovered in their pursuit of this rich theory of physics.

We're right back in the same mess. Repeating the same arguments to someone who won't accept them is wasting everyone's time.

 

[Ibix]

Ok I've tainted the evidence. a bit because relativity CAN handle reunification scenarios. My point is when there's no reunification, relativity says there can be no determination. My experiment, with the one way spaceship to the station or the one way trtip to pluto or the outbound hafele-keating plane says the clocks WILL have a reading. If relativity is right, the reading will show from the ship's perspective, that the relatively stationary point's clock will be slower than the ship's clock. I say, if the experiment is done, the opposite will be true. I guess we'll never know for sure.

To make the maths easy, let's have a ship set out from the Earth to a space station one light hour away, traveling at 0.6c. At the time (according to the Earth) that the ship reaches the station, Mission Control hosts a celebratory party. This gives us three events. Working in the frame of the Earth, these are:

• Departure, D, which occurs at $(x,t)=(0,0)$
• Arrival, A, which occurs at $(x,t)=(1,5/3)$ (we're measuring time in hours and distance in light hours)
• Party, P, which occurs at $(x,t)=(0,5/3)$

What does the ship determine will have happened? You need to Lorentz transform each event into the coordinates of a frame moving with velocity v=0.6c in the +x direction. This gives us:

• D', which occurs at $(x',t')=(0,0)$
• A', which occurs at $(x',t')=(0,5/3)$
• P', which occurs at $(x',t')=(-5/4,25/12)$

So now we can describe how each party describes the trip.

• According to the Earth, the ship took 1 hour and 40 minutes to cross the distance. Due to time dilation, its clocks only read 1 hour and 20minutes.
• According to the ship, the crossing took 1 hour and 20 minutes (in fact, the ship stayed still and the station came to it). For some reason, Mission Control decided to throw a party two hours and five minutes after launch.

Actually your scenario is a little more complex because you are expecting to stop at the station - but you are talking about what happens in flight, so I'm supposing that the ship just does a flyby of the station and continues on. The point is that both descriptions are self consistent and consistent with one another. Neither is quite what the observers will see because we have not factored light speed delay into work out when they see what they see, but you can do this if you wish. The point is that A' and P' are not simultaneous, so the ship has no problem reconciling the Earth's slow clocks with the "arrival" party - Mission Control held the party late.

 

[DrClaude]

The OP has been answered. Thread closed.