From: louisnews Newstrom (louisnews@comcast.net)
Date: Mon Aug 26 2002 - 08:00:46 MDT
Serafino:
> > Einstein avoided this situation. He imagined (1905) just one clock
> > moving, or (later) accelerating. What about the other?
Louis:
> >This is because symetrical situations are boring.
Amara Graps <amara@amara.com>:
> "This is because .." But how do you know?
You are right. I am only guessing Einstein's motive. But it does seem
obvious that explaining an event where two clocks remained in the same
frame of reference would be pretty boring. You'd just re-hash
Newtonian physics. But, no, I don't KNOW that that is Einstein's
reasoning.
> > Btw SR can manage non-inertial frames.
> > Can Special Relativity handle accelerations?
Louis:
> >It can "handle" all situations fine.
Amara Graps <amara@amara.com>:
> Are you sure, Louis?
In this case, yes. Relativity says inertial frames may (or may not)
have different laws of physics. This claim is a tautology. There's no
way it's NOT true.
Louis:
> >Only becuase people, like Dingle, quote the theory wrong, and
> then show
> >that (their version of) it is contradictory.
Amara Graps <amara@amara.com>:
> Again, are you sure?
Dingle quotes relativity as saying that after two clocks are
synchronized, no possible events in the universe can affect one cloock
without affecting the other. Yes. I am sure that this is wrong.
Amara Graps <amara@amara.com>:
> It wasn't until my
> graduate physics quantum course (I had one only), that the
> complexities emerged, and I learned that the topic was not so
> simple.
>
> There's nothing wrong with being confident, but I suggest you
> consider the possibility that _maybe_ it's not as simple as you think
> it is, and that maybe the reason that people like Einstein and
> Dingle (and Dirac) avoided it or said it was messy, is because
> they didn't have an answer (rather than it being boring or
> they didn't know the theory).
I agree that relativity is "messy" (as in having complex math), but the
twin paradox is not. It is usually the very first example presented in
any discussion of relativity. Rather than being "messy" it is the
cleanest, simplest, easiest example. That's why it's always used.
So while I'm not claiming to be an expert, sure of everything, I can be
confident that I understand the first example most books present.
--- Louis Newstrom louisnews@comcast.net
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