The forum discussion centers on the concept of Aether, historically viewed as a medium for light propagation, which has been largely discredited since the Michelson-Morley experiment. Participants argue that Aether has been replaced by quantum field theory, which describes particles as excitations of fields rather than as traveling through a medium. The conversation also touches on the implications of relativity and quantum mechanics, particularly regarding time dilation and the behavior of virtual particles. Ultimately, the consensus is that Aether theories lack practical utility and are mathematically unsound.
PREREQUISITESPhysicists, students of theoretical physics, and anyone interested in the historical and modern interpretations of light propagation and quantum mechanics.
Oh, yes indeed I am aware of these effects. What I don't understand is how they don't violate CoE. And more specifically, since a particle existing for a Planck Time in frame A exists for longer than a Planck Time in moving frame A', and we know that CoE cannot be violated in ANY frame or else the laws of physics would not be the same, how is this apparent paradox answered?peter: look into the casimir effect or hawking radiation as evidence of virtual particles "popping".
This is indeed a commonly used phrased, and I said above one cannot say that it is "wrong", because it all depends on certain coordinate choices. Nevertheless, I like to point out that this is not a necessary way to say it, nor even the best way in my opinion, for I prefer saying "the time between the events of creation and destruction of the muon, in our earthbound point of view with the Einstein convention, is longer than is that time in the muon frame". There is no need to specify a reason for this fact that has anything to do with what is happening to time, other than a result of the relative velocity between the frames, as any reason you cite will merely be exposing a choice of coordinate.matheinste said:As ehj says the muons age less and so decay later. This of course translates to "from our earthhbound point of view the muon's clock ticks more slowly than ours".
I'd say the explanation is that elapsed proper time depends on the spacetime path taken between two events. The inertial path is defined by the path of greatest proper time. The presence of forces coaxes the system to choose some other path, that involves a proper acceleration (that could be measured with an accelerometer). But why it even has the option to choose paths of smaller elapsed proper time is beyond me, I have no idea why that is, or even a good way to talk about it. Mathematicians speak of the Poincare group, but I'm afraid at the moment that adds little to my physical insight.mitesh9 said:By the way, In addition to my previous post, can anyone tell me what is the perfectly logical explanation for the (so called) "twin paradox" too? And what is the true (may not be logical, like SR), explanation for it?
It depends on what one means by "meaningful". To be sure, they are just different choices of words to describe calculations that are not going to get a different answer for some observable. But that does not necessarily imply there is no meaningful difference (is there a meaningful difference between the many-worlds and Copenhagen interpretations of quantum mechanics?). There is meaning in a good way of picturing something.matheinste said:Apart from not explicitly stating that the Einstein convention process was used ( which i assumed was understood when using SR ) i can't see any meaningful difference in the statements of ehj, you and myself.
The standard definition of an inertial frame is part of my beef here. I think it's fine that an observer has a clock to reference, and can recognize when he and other observers are not accelerating, but what business does he have extrapolating the concept of what his clock is saying to other places just because he can send light there? The latter is what sounds like pure coordinatization to me. The invariant physics is that I can take my time elapsed and my concept of distance and compute the time elapsed for someone else, and it might be less than mine, without anything having to "run slower".Perhaps i misunderstand the difference between a frame and a coordinate system and should not treat them as interchangeable although i did not mention coordinates explicitly
Again i assumed that it was understood that the standard definition of an inertial frame applied to both Earth and muon frames.