On Aug 25, 2010, at 1:57 PM, Paul Zielinski wrote:
On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 1:41 PM, JACK SARFATTI <
Yes, but "objective" must mean some local tensor way of measuring the retardation relative to an identical clock in the absolute rest frame.
Yes. In relativity theory the tensor description of quantities like proper time reflects physical objectivity (frame invariance) of the quantities concerned. The only property we need from a Poincare-type ether is a preferred rest frame, in which otherwise "good" clocks register true time intervals. Then "time dilation" is an objective physical effect of inertial motion, judged *theoretically* with respect to that preferred frame.
There are at least two different aspects here in the measurement theory.
1) Locally Alice knows she is moving at constant velocity vector v relative to the global absolute co-moving frame by measuring Doppler shift anisotropy of the cosmic blackbody radiation from surface of last contact about 380,000 years after Big Bang.
2) Independent of 1) can Alice locally and independently detect her objective time dilation relative to the absolute rest frame? I think not. There is no intrinsic v-dependent Minkowski SR tensor that gives the "real" gamma factor (1 - (v/c)^2)^-1/2 > 1 - this is unlike measuring intrinsic curvature - a curved spacetime tensor property.
3) Said another way - Alice's clock clicks off NA tick-tocks, a measurement of objective proper time along her world line. Comparing tick-tocks for Alice and Bob starting and ending in coincidence: all they can do is measure their respective number of tick-tocks initially and finally along their worldlines respectively. They can also compare time series plotting their respective CMB Doppler anisotropies, but there is no tensor v-dependent quantity that measure say a distortion of Rydberg atom electron orbits - nothing analogous to local curvature tensor measurements. Therefore, a literal dynamical interpretation of SR time dilation and length contraction does not seem meaningful.
That is a *minimal* ether hypothesis that satisfies the relativity principle. Nothing else need be said about the properties of the vacuum to get objective clock retardation. All you need is a preferred inertial frame.
Depends what you mean by "preferred." It can't be in the action principle - it is already in the vacuum as spontaneous broken translation symmetry in the accelerating universe solutions to Einstein's action that has no preferred frames. Indeed, that is why total dark energy is not conserved.
I don't see why you can't have that in a condensate model. As long as everything is Lorentz invariant, there should be no problem.
Not only Lorentz invariant, but also general coordinate invariant and internal symmetry invariant. My condensate model is better than the competition because I get the LIF tetrads and spin connections automatically from the macro-quantum coherent vacuum supersolid hologram phases. So all of the symmetries of Einstein's classical field theory are trivially obeyed. That is, there would have to be some new tensor observable that depended on absolute velocity v. In other words, the guy on the moving clock would have to have a local absolute velocity meter - of course scanning the CMB over 4pi solid angle quickly and computing its redshift-blueshift anisotropy does that.
Yes, but according to the relativity principle inertial motion is not detectable by any experimental means. However -- unless you are a troglodyte positivist -- that does NOT necessarily imply that such a preferred frame is "scientifically meaningless".
On Aug 25, 2010, at 1:32 PM, Paul Zielinski wrote:
The real issue here is objective *clock retardation* as referred to a hypothetical fixed ether frame. Then the same argument that is used in special relativity -- that all measurements of the lengths of moving objects rely on simultaneity determined by moving clocks -- can be deployed in exactly the same manner, except that the moving clocks according to this view do not record the kinematically correct time, but only apparent "local" time. Any positivist argument that theory cannot correct readings of clocks in inertial motion for the objective effects of their inertial motion is simply naive, as even Einstein himself later acknowledged. Einstein himself even talked about the "original sin" of special relativity, which was taking rods and clocks as primitives without reference to their microscopic physical constitution.
So we don't even have to propose a mechanism for length contraction, but just for objective universal clock retardation, in a Lorentz-Poincare type theory. Again, how has Mach's principle been implemented in GR? If it hasn't been implemented, what's left? An obvious candidate is: local interaction of moving matter with a Lorentz-invariant physical vacuum!
Notwithstanding the kind of antiquated positivist nonsense that is constantly wheeled out by troglodytes like Nick.
On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 1:16 PM, JACK SARFATTI <
Here is what I think is the real issue here. You are free-floating on a zero g-force timelike geodesic in curved spacetime. You will nevertheless feel Weyl stretch-squeeze & Ricci compression tensor forces in your relative to your center of mass coordinates. Now suppose you are in globally flat spacetime and that there is an absolute rest frame in which Bohm's Q acts instantly and that this is the global comoving frame where the CMB is maximally isotropic - i.e. spontaneous symmetry breaking of the T4 group in the vacuum.
Consider length contraction - well if this is dynamical in Lorentz's sense, then there should be an actual physical compression in the direction of motion - this would need to be a tensor under the Poincare group. I don't think there is any evidence for that. In the standard ontology, the "contraction" is merely an optical illusion from the time delays of light signals coming from different parts of the moving object relative to the detector and there are no actual tensor contractions depending on uniform velocity relative to the absolute rest frame. Note, that the objects actually look rotated not contracted - as shown by Terrell.
On Aug 25, 2010, at 1:03 PM, Paul Zielinski wrote:
The same erroneous positivistic arguments were made at the end of the 19th century against the reality of atoms. Mach for one never accepted atoms as scientifically meaningful. Einstein's 1905 paradigm was rooted in Mach's positivist philosophy, later abandoned and repudiated by Einstein himself. If science accepts the reality of atoms, then how can the same threadbare positivist argument be used to exclude any ether hypothesis (AKA "quantum vacuum")? Why the double standard? Nick's methodological ideas seem to me to have frozen in 1905. He now seems to be outscoring Mach for sheer anti-intellectual pigheadedness -- no mean accomplishment, Anyone who today like Nick flatly denies, for specious positivist reasons, that there is no such thing as an objective physical vacuum simply has his head firmly stuck in the sand IMHO.
Of course any viable ether hypothesis has to respect the relativity principle. Anyone competent in this field should know that the electrodynamics of Poincare and Lorentz did precisely that. After all it was Poincare who coined the term "Lorenz transformations", well before Einstein published his 1905 relativity paper!
Ignorance is bliss.