Planet Formation: Unsolved Questions in Solar System Origin

[russ_watters]

Another problem, unfortunately, is that a few generally-accepted hypotheses also violate well-established principles of physics but are still accepted because everybody knows they must be right. Like the relativistic time-dilation paradox.

Time dilation does not violate any well established principles of physics - only once-upon-a-time believed but now understood to be wrong principles.

 

[stanz123]

Time dilation does not violate any well established principles of physics - only once-upon-a-time believed but now understood to be wrong principles.

If you take a look at the thread "Spacetime / Time Dilation Question" you may note that "once upon a time" actually seems to be "right now". There's a lot of discussion in that thread within the past few weeks of how fast or slow a relativistic space ship's clock will be when it gets back to Earth/home base/etc. - based purely on special relativity.

On the other hand, the link to "time dilation" in your post is very good (I humbly suggest) in that it says something like "apparent" or "observed" time dilation, but "no real change in clock time" (which can be shown to be impossible by symmetry in any of several experiments with multiple space ships, etc.) But the Science fiction keeps creeping back into the Physics, impossible or not...

 

[Vanadium 50]

I think a) this thread is drifting, and b) it would be good for people to read the stickies in the Relativity sub-forum.

 

[stanz123]

I think a) this thread is drifting, and b) it would be good for people to read the stickies in the Relativity sub-forum.

a) you're quite right b)I just did, thanks for the pointer, interesting commentary