Isn't this a weak basis for time paradoxes ?

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David said:
The changes in atomic clock rates that are observed today ARE “electrodynamical” effects.

Surely you are aware that atomic clocks are shielded to prevent or limit any frequency changes due to the presence of or fluctuations in external electric or magnetic fields.
 
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Perhaps someone can explain to me the following issue: I taught SR, among other subjects, some 40 years ago from Goldstein's Classical Mechanics, Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics, and Landau and Lefschitz's Theory of Classical Fields. If they are so mistaken, why are they still used? And why is it that the theories they explain all seem to work so well -- in their areas of application?

From what I can see, the various mentors have got it right.
Just curious,
Reilly Atkinson
 
ndvcx said:
Your wide spaceship has inside a light and a receiver, widely separated, sideways to direction of travel. As pilot, you notice the blinking light always takes the same time to hit the receiver, whether you are approaching speed of light or not. But an outside observer notices that the path the light traveled was much, much longer when you are in motion, and therefore perceives it as slower (at near C it creeps along the sidewalls) - so the conclusion is: time is slowing for you as the pilot.

I agree that light travels a much longer distance, but to insist that because of the constancy of C, time must be slowing down, is a jump. How well is the constancy of C established ?

This must not be confused with the simultaneity experiment: If you were seeing a synchronized huge digital clock on Mars, it would be lagging. Here there is no time compression, the report of time is merely delayed. The absence of an ability to verify simultaneity over huge distances to me does not threaten it as a concept ? We are just finding out late about what time it is, but can still have full confidence in the clock..

True, but then nothing can be said to be what it seems, And physics is useless. Of course physical laws only model what we see, which isn't necessairly what IS. These debates must be brought up periodicaly to remind us that what we do is not dogma. You can say that the parameter t changes in scale from one reference frame to another, as well as each observers platinum rods from Sèvres, or you can say that the fabric of spacetime is dialated/contracted. The wording might seem important, but it acually is not because experiment can't distinguish them. I don't think anyone can convince me of this, but try me. Ciao!
 
I wrote my earlier post without reading all the previous ones. It is incredible David can say what he says with all the information on paper and electronic there is available. What would he say 2 hundred years ago when there was nothing for the lay-man and all the knowledge was in universities and in the power of rich amateurs?? What a waste of neurons, no offense meant.
 
Please David, a part from the teaching classics classics, Jackson and Goldstein (SR), there is Landau, as pointed out by Reilly. Also on GR, Schutz, Wald, Misner/Thorne/Wheeler, d'Inverno (not a classic but very nice),Weinberg and many, many others. Just do a Google search.