Ibix said:
obtronix said:
Exactly, this is Brian Greene's explanation of the twin paradox the only measurements you can trust are from an observer in an inertial frame. No time skips. Which is why I drew those diagrams, from three inertial frames.
I'd be interested in a reference to where Greene says this. Either there's some context you're missing or Greene is saying wrong things in his popularisations (again). There are plenty of non-inertial frames one can work with where there are no time skips (and Greene knows this - the study of non-inertial frames was a step on the road to the discovery of
general relativity). They are just mathematically harder to use than inertial frames.
WSU: Special Relativity with Brian Greene (The Twin Paradox, Explanation #1 &t=09h26m30s )
Here is how I would paraphrase his statements:
You must be an "inertial observer for the whole trip"
in order to claim that you (tautologically) are an "inertial observer for the whole trip".
Otherwise, the full analysis from a non-inertial observer (Gracie)
is not valid as if Gracie were an "inertial observer".
I think Greene's presentation of this point is fine (**in this format [of a recorded non-interactive lecture]**)...
although sometimes soundbites with missing context can lead to misinterpretations of the full message.
(More succinctly, as I often say, "𝐁𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞-𝐭𝐨-𝐛𝐞-𝐚𝐭-𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭"≠"𝐁𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥". )
**I think that if subtleties were raised by a live questioner, Greene would clarify his statements.**
In my interpretation, it's too strong to draw a conclusion that
any analysis (any measurement) from Gracie is invalid.
As
@Ibix suggests, one needs more care to handle non-inertial Gracie's measurements compared to inertial George's measurements.