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Is Lorentz Contraction Objectively Real?

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Eugene Shubert
the new William Miller

Joined: 06 Apr 2002
Posts: 754
Location: Richardson Texas

Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 10:12 am Post subject: Is Lorentz Contraction Objectively Real?

Those who teach special relativity consider it a very important exercise to have students decide how to measure the length of a rapidly moving object. That's religious indoctrination and a wrongheaded approach to physics. The theoretical process that physicists talk about to measure the length of a rapidly moving object requires belief in simultaneity. In actual reality, according to the math of relativity theory, simultaneity doesn't exist. Lorentz contraction is just a peculiarity of a simplistic coordinate system that physicists believe in. http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf

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Eugene Shubert
the new William Miller

Joined: 06 Apr 2002
Posts: 754
Location: Richardson Texas

Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 10:30 am Post subject: Did Albert Einstein understand special relativity?

Tom Roberts wrote:

How silly. How is one to discuss motion without deciding how to measure it? And properties of moving objects?

The silliness is that either you don't understand the question or are purposely distorting my words. I'm not asserting that a mathematical formulation of motion or its measurement is impossible. [1]. I'm addressing the use of the convention called simultaneity and the use of a pure convention in deciding if something is objectively real. Simultaneity is used in hypothetically measuring the length of rapidly moving objects. [2]. The question is, Is Lorentz contraction objectively real?

Tom Roberts wrote:

If one marks the position of the front of a train at time T0, and marks the rear an hour later, the distance between those marks is only distantly related to the train's length.

Could you rephrase that so your meaning is clear?

Tom Roberts wrote:

Nothing you say can change this basic fact, or alter the need for simultaneity in measuring a moving object....

I'm not disputing the need for simultaneity in measuring [the length of] a moving object. I affirmed that very clearly. I'm asserting that Lorentz contractions are not objectively real. If Lorentz contractions were objectively real, then it would also be true that nature violates ~S-symmetry. See, Do the Laws of Physics Demand that Clocks be Synchronized? ~S-symmetry means that the laws of physics do not physically compel a special synchronization of clocks. Nature does not impose a preferred clock synchronization scheme.

Tom Roberts wrote:

> Lorentz contraction is just a peculiarity of a simplistic coordinate system that physicists believe in.

It's far more than mere "belief" -- these are the coordinates used in essentially every laboratory on earth. And in myriad engineering projects. And by anyone who thinks very much about it at all

Right. And the question is, How could there ever be objectively real experimental evidence demonstrating that Lorentz contraction is real without equally compelling experimental evidence that nature favors E-synchronization above ~S-symmetry?

Tom Roberts wrote:

Cartesian coordinates are clearly the simplest coordinates on Euclidean space, and Minkowski coordinates are likewise the simplest coordinates on spacetime (locally, of course).

I agree that most human conventions are the simplest that humans can conceive of. However, there's a big difference between human conventionalizations and the laws of the physical universe.

http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf

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Eugene Shubert
the new William Miller

Joined: 06 Apr 2002
Posts: 754
Location: Richardson Texas

Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 10:57 am Post subject: The essence of special relativity theory

Gregory L. Hansen wrote:

Just as it's religious indoctrination and a wrongheaded approach to have young students do arithmetic problems, or to have them work problems involving F=ma? It would be a strange philosophy that has a teacher teach special relativity, but to tell the students not to use the theory in the problem sets.

I'm just a precocious inquiring mind with a degree in math imagining that simultaneity and Lorentz contraction doesn't objectively exist. My thesis is that the Lorentz contraction is just as subjective as is simultaneity. I agree that we can pretend that such things exist and that such a pretense is internally self-consistent. Why is that relevant? I am asserting that the imagined everyday shrinking of rulers is not a real objective phenomenon.

Gregory L. Hansen wrote:

If you disagree with extant theory, or have a theory of your own, that doesn't make you a crackpot. But if you can't understand why anyone would have thought the theory was a good idea in the first place, can't understand why it would have been used world-wide for a hundred years, can't understand why it's good science even if it ultimately proves to be wrong, you're reaching beyond your abilities in criticizing it.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. -- The Apostle Paul to the Corinthians.

Gregory L. Hansen wrote:

Struggling to comprehend, the crackpot decides everyone is stupid except for himself.

I've written a simple, flawless, easy to understand interpretation of the Lorentz transformation [1] but can't get a single endorsement for it to be included in the physics.ed-ph section of arXiv. I've made the announcement at sci.physics.research and, to this date, no one there can get beyond their irrational, emotional, knee-jerk reactions. [3]. Apparently, tradition and prejudice have greater weight than reason and logic.

Gregory L. Hansen wrote:

> The theoretical process that physicists talk about to measure the length of a rapidly moving object requires belief in simultaneity. In actual reality, according to the math of relativity theory, simultaneity doesn't exist.

In actual reality, according to the math of relativity theory, simultaneity exists.

I believe that physicists are promoting naive human conventionalizations as physical, natural law. Lorentz contraction, as represented by the high priests of physics and the popularizers of science, is a misleading and unscientific theory that falsely suggests that a subjective convention is a very objective and real fact about the nature of the physical universe. See my reply to Tom Roberts.

Gregory L. Hansen wrote:

> Lorentz contraction is just a peculiarity of a simplistic coordinate system that physicists believe in.

I suppose you'd rather replace relativity with your own religious indoctrination, then.

Relativity Lite is merely the most obvious interpretation of the Lorentz transformation without the imposed clutter of having to believe in the conventionality of simultaneity as objective reality.

http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf

One is, of course, permitted to add whatever clutter to the distilled essence of relativity that they desire. I just don't understand why including the non-essentials is required for publishing at http://xxx.lanl.gov.

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Eugene Shubert
the new William Miller

Joined: 06 Apr 2002
Posts: 754
Location: Richardson Texas

Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 6:44 pm Post subject:

Bilge wrote:

The point of relativity is that there is no such thing as absolute objectivity in a measurement. Measurements are coordinate dependent.

In relativity, there are plenty of statements and gedanken measurements that are coordinate independent. Such things are objectively real.

Lorentz contraction is coordinate dependent. It is subjective, misleading and not objectively real.

Away with such nonsense!

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Eugene Shubert
the new William Miller

Joined: 06 Apr 2002
Posts: 754
Location: Richardson Texas

Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2004 12:00 am Post subject:

Tom Roberts wrote:

When I carry a 2-meter long rod through a doorway that is 1 meter wide, I must rotate it so its 2-meter length is not parallel to that 1-meter aperture. Is that "objectively real"?

Yes.

Tom Roberts wrote:

If so, then so is "Lorentz contraction"; Note I did NOT shorten the rod in any way, I merely rotated it to fit.

Apparently, you don't perceive any physical distinction between rotating in space and traveling at relativistic speeds.

Tom Roberts wrote:

> Eugene Shubert wrote:
>>> Lorentz contraction is just a peculiarity of a simplistic coordinate system that physicists believe in.
> Tom Roberts replied:
>> It's far more than mere "belief" -- these are the coordinates used in essentially every laboratory on earth. And in myriad engineering projects. And by anyone who thinks very much about it at all
> Eugene Shubert responded:
> Right. And the question is, How could there ever be objectively real experimental evidence demonstrating that Lorentz contraction is real without equally compelling experimental evidence that nature favors E-synchronization above ~S-symmetry?

I was describing your sliiy claim about "belief in coordinate systems", not "belief in Lorentz contraction".

I believe in rulers. You believe in shrinking rulers and label my belief in rulers silly.

Tom Roberts wrote:

> Eugene Shubert wrote:
> I've written a simple, flawless, easy to understand interpretation of the Lorentz transformation but can't get a single endorsement for it to be included in the physics.ed-ph section of arXiv.
http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf

I would not call that paper "simple and flawless" at all. The very first sentence of the abstract shows quite clearly that the author does not understand the modern vocabulary of physics.

I wrote: "The Lorentz transformation group may be interpreted physically as a universal, everywhere present multi-clock that defines time at every point."
http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf

Is it that you don't understand the phrase, "may be interpreted" or are you insulted that I have discovered a revolutionary new way to think about relativity and that the limited vocabulary of traditional physics isn't rich enough to explain it?

Tom Roberts wrote:

> Eugene Shubert wrote:
> Relativity Lite is merely the most obvious interpretation of the Lorentz transformation

Somehow, imagining sliding rulers does not agree with "the most obvious"....

Hypocrite, Physicists are infatuated with shrinking rulers and they use the illustration incessantly, but when I ask my readers to imagine sliding rulers you disapprove as if such an idea is unimaginable.

http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf

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