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Click here for a document which addresses how our absolute
approach to relativity is not affected by the news from CERN
regarding neutrinos possibly moving faster than light.
Inertial Frame in Special Relativity
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To appreciate the fundamental difference between RT's use of a universal
reference system and Einstein's use of a system to which he merely
accords the status of being "stationary", we need to consider how inertial
system is defined.
To define inertial system without appealing to a physical universal
system is to limit oneself to only kinematics (considerations of motions
of objects absent of force), and to define inertial system in a circular
(or some would say strictly relative) manner.
In a physical sense, to be in what is called an inertial system is to have
an absence of experience (detection) of any force that could be construed
as acceleration (or equivalently, gravity) based.
The origin of such force must come from a relationship with the totality
of the environment outside of the system in question, thus implying there
is such an environment and that if you changed your state of motion
relative to it, you would experience force. (Any generation of force
inside the system merely creates a new system within the system, with
no change in the overall motion of the system.) And no meaning can be
attached to a net movement of the totality of the external environment,
which is the universe itself.
There is no way around this.
It won't do you any good to imagine that your little system is all alone in
the universe and that there is therefore no external environment, for all
you would accomplish is to define your little system as the universe
itself, to which no meaning of net motion can be attached, and whereby
any motion inside that little system must now be seen as different from
its net external system, i.e., your original little system (the new universe).
And of course, the same difficulty arises even when the notion of force
is not considered. Without the effect of force, we can appeal only to
kinematic measures of acceleration between two reference frames.
One might say "A is in uniform motion relative to B". But then it might
be noticed that B is accelerated relative to C while C is in uniform
motion relative to D. Who is in an inertial frame, and who is not?
When inertial frame, or equivalently velocity, is defined in a circular
manner, it creates a double mind-set in a person attempting to reach
conclusions about uniform motion, with an unconscious borrowing from
the universal frame, both at the outset of the derivation, and then again
when analyzing the predicted result of a time differential between re-
united clocks. More on this in the pages ahead.
Reinforcing the popular interpretation of SR is the fact that, while
examiners correctly regard a change of inertial frame as an absolute
concept, they retain their belief that motion itself can be defined only in
a circular manner.
And since it is a change of inertial frame that dictates which clock will
return with the lesser reading, readers typically conclude that no absolute
baseline exists for defining the absolute speed of an inertial frame, and
even more fundamentally, for imparting the inertial properties of clock
rate and length to an object.
But it is the combination of the particular speed and distance covered by
objects against the universal frame that dictates the time differential
achieved over the course of a round trip. The God's eye view reveals an
asymmetry which can never be detected by the participants themselves.
Twins Paradox (html)
CERN - neutrinos
Twin Paradox Abstract (pdf)
Clock Paradox Animation (html)
Spacetime (html)
Twins Paradox in Relativity (html)
Twins Paradox Theory
Synopsis (pdf)
Book
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