Absolute Velocity?

[Perpetual Student]

OK, thanks for all the helpful responses. I am not quite convinced that there is not something a bit more significant about the frame of reference defined by the CMB, but so be it, for now.
Is it surprising in any way that we are moving so slowly relative to the CBM? Our local system of galaxies is moving at approximately 627,000 meters per second relative to the CMB. That is only roughly .2% of the speed of light. Is there a reason that most galaxies in the universe would be so close to being at rest with respect to the CMB? Given over 13 billion years of expansion, I would have expected some systems to have significant velocities with respect to the speed of light. Is our local area exceptional in some way? If the universe is infinite, the following makes no sense, but if it's not, could it imply that we are somewhere near the center of the universe?

 

[sol invictus]

Correction - my post above should have said "at most once per year", not twice.

Is it surprising in any way that we are moving so slowly relative to the CBM? Our local system of galaxies is moving at approximately 627,000 meters per second relative to the CMB. That is only roughly .2% of the speed of light. Is there a reason that most galaxies in the universe would be so close to being at rest with respect to the CMB? Given over 13 billion years of expansion, I would have expected some systems to have significant velocities with respect to the speed of light.

That's related to the horizon problem. The accepted answer is inflation.

Is our local area exceptional in some way? If the universe is infinite, the following makes no sense, but if it's not, could it imply that we are somewhere near the center of the universe?

No. Even if the universe is finite it makes no sense - it still has no center. What's the center point on the surface of the earth?

 

[Thabiguy]

Is there a reason that most galaxies in the universe would be so close to being at rest with respect to the CMB? Given over 13 billion years of expansion, I would have expected some systems to have significant velocities with respect to the speed of light.

I guess you don't mean their velocities (d comoving distance / d cosmological time) with respect to our CMB rest frame, but their local velocities with respect to their local CMB rest frame.

The peculiar velocities of galaxies and clusters are related to important aspects of our cosmological models such as initial stages of expansion, density of the universe etc. So it's more like the peculiar velocities that we observe give us more information about universe and its history, rather than them being a consequence of something else we already know by other means.

In yet other words: yes, in our current cosmological models the peculiar velocities are expected to be relatively low, because we base our cosmological models on what we see around us. If the peculiar velocities were huge, our cosmological models would be different.

 

[GMB]

Special relativity is a philosophy of velocity-absolutism. All this talk of reference frames is just silly. Special relativity contradicts itself. Now it purports to be a doctrine of relativity but it isn't. Despite a bit of a preamble to do with trains at the station it then goes on to contradict itself outright. It ought to be dumped because its just getting in the way.

 

[sol invictus]

Special relativity is a philosophy of velocity-absolutism. All this talk of reference frames is just silly. Special relativity contradicts itself. Now it purports to be a doctrine of relativity but it isn't. Despite a bit of a preamble to do with trains at the station it then goes on to contradict itself outright. It ought to be dumped because its just getting in the way.

I can't tell if that's a parody or not.

If not, you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about.

If so, it's not a very good one (since it doesn't parody any of the woos I've seen around here very well).

 

[GMB]

The matter of special relativity could be put to rest but for bloody-mindedness. Its a great big fantasy involving ideas that ought to be recognizable as absurdities. Here is an explanation of an internal contradiction of this business:

"Dingle’s Question:

University of London Professor Herbert Dingle showed why Special Relativity will always conflict with logic, no matter when we first learn it. According to the theory, if two observers are equipped with clocks, and one moves in relation to the other, the moving clock runs slower than the non-moving clock. But the Relativity principle itself (an integral part of the theory) makes the claim that if one thing is moving in a straight line in relation to another, either one is entitled to be regarded as moving. It follows that if there are two clocks, A and B, and one of them is moved, clock A runs slower than B, and clock B runs slower than A. Which is absurd.

Dingle’s Question was this: Which clock runs slow? "

That ought to be the end of the matter and no more time ought to be wasted on this disproven nonsense. But the spoon-benders don't want to let go.

 

[paximperium]

I can't tell if that's a parody or not.

If not, you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about.

If so, it's not a very good one (since it doesn't parody any of the woos I've seen around here very well).

It's not a parody. If you read any of what he's posted(along with his blog) you can see that he buys into just about every woo out there.

 

[nathan]

The matter of special relativity could be put to rest but for bloody-mindedness. Its a great big fantasy involving ideas that ought to be recognizable as absurdities. Here is an explanation of an internal contradiction of this business:

"Dingle’s Question:

University of London Professor Herbert Dingle showed why Special Relativity will always conflict with logic, no matter when we first learn it. According to the theory, if two observers are equipped with clocks, and one moves in relation to the other, the moving clock runs slower than the non-moving clock. But the Relativity principle itself (an integral part of the theory) makes the claim that if one thing is moving in a straight line in relation to another, either one is entitled to be regarded as moving. It follows that if there are two clocks, A and B, and one of them is moved, clock A runs slower than B, and clock B runs slower than A. Which is absurd.

Dingle’s Question was this: Which clock runs slow? "

You're trying to force an absolute answer, and your description of the two clocks is lacking an important detail.

 

[GMB]

If you look at the history of special relativity you see that it was one of the early examples of true believers pulling off a coup by hype alone. Take the experiment with the eclipse. Didn't prove anything at all. Nothing. What it did rather was fail to falsify. The test itself was arbitrary. It involved a made-up view of what Newtons version of gravity said about how light would act. Plus it made it sound like people had never investigated eclipses. But people have been looking at eclipses for hundreds of years. It is far more likely that Einstein knew in advance the answer and the whole project was a waste of money during wartime.

So anyway, though the experiment proved nothing at all it was followed by a blaze of publicity that kicked off the adoption of all these paradoxical views that we are stuck with but that ought to be jettisoned. The whole enterprise of physics has ground down to a place of no progress simply because the academy refuses to apply Ockhams razor on this thing.

 

[GMB]

The description of the clock is not lacking anything. There is only one reality. Not an infinite number of starting points. Or "inertial frames". Starting points are irrelevant. Since all velocity is relative we don't need to know any of that jive. You take a Gods eye point of view. There being only one reality.

 

[sol invictus]

I'll assume you're serious....

"Dingle’s Question:

University of London Professor Herbert Dingle showed why Special Relativity will always conflict with logic, no matter when we first learn it. According to the theory, if two observers are equipped with clocks, and one moves in relation to the other, the moving clock runs slower than the non-moving clock. But the Relativity principle itself (an integral part of the theory) makes the claim that if one thing is moving in a straight line in relation to another, either one is entitled to be regarded as moving. It follows that if there are two clocks, A and B, and one of them is moved, clock A runs slower than B, and clock B runs slower than A. Which is absurd.

Dingle’s Question was this: Which clock runs slow? "

That ought to be the end of the matter and no more time ought to be wasted on this disproven nonsense. But the spoon-benders don't want to let go.

What a concentrated dose of stupid. That's not even interesting - at least some of the special relativity "paradoxes" first-year physics students like to play with take more than a moment to unwind.

For those that haven't studied physics, both clocks run slow as observed by the other. This doesn't lead to paradoxes because of the relativity of simultaneity, i.e. one of the most basic principles of special relativity. This "paradox" is a problem only if there is a fixed and absolute time, which of course is the first thing out the window relativistically.

By the way, time dilation is tested with extreme precision literally billions of times per day in particle accelerators across the world (not to mention in countless other experiments).

 

[GMB]

You're trying to force an absolute answer

Since the question cannot be answered the theory of special relativity is wrong. Simple as that. I can see you are holding back a lot of non-falsifiable garbage.

Truly the only way someone can put up with special relativity is to suspend all skepticism and give oneself over to voodoo.

 

[GMB]

\



What a concentrated dose of stupid.

No mate. Its you that is the idiot. A totally credulous moron who has fallen for this crap. When it takes about two seconds to disprove it outright.

You are a spoon-bender don't doubt it. I don't wish to ask you which clock is slower. It will just produce a filibuster.

 

[sol invictus]

If you look at the history of special relativity you see that it was one of the early examples of true believers pulling off a coup by hype alone. Take the experiment with the eclipse.

That had more or less nothing to do with special relativity. That was a test of general relativity. Fail.

Didn't prove anything at all. Nothing. What it did rather was fail to falsify. The test itself was arbitrary. It involved a made-up view of what Newtons version of gravity said about how light would act. Plus it made it sound like people had never investigated eclipses. But people have been looking at eclipses for hundreds of years.

No one had ever observed the relevant effect. Fail.

It is far more likely that Einstein knew in advance the answer and the whole project was a waste of money during wartime.

Of course he knew the answer. The experiment was conducted in May 1919, after the war was over. Fail.

So anyway, though the experiment proved nothing at all it was followed by a blaze of publicity that kicked off the adoption of all these paradoxical views that we are stuck with but that ought to be jettisoned. The whole enterprise of physics has ground down to a place of no progress simply because the academy refuses to apply Ockhams razor on this thing.

It's Occam, and both special and general relativity pass the razor test with flying colors - they are extremely simple, astonishingly elegant, and they explain perfectly a gargantuan amount of experimental evidence that no other theory every proposed can come close to accounting for.

 

[GMB]

"both clocks run slow as observed by the other"

You see that? Total idiocy. You could not get more stupid then that. And not only that this voodoo is unfalsifiable. Its WRONG. But its also unfalsifiable too.

So its just dribble.

 

[GMB]

Hey I'll tell you what dummy. PROVE that both clocks run slower at the same time as NOT observed by eachother. Since such observation is impossible.

Believe me people. The stupidity is not going to stop with the spoonbenders here.

 

[GMB]

It's Occam, and both special and general relativity pass the razor test with flying colors -

NO YOU ARE LYING. AND BEING A MORON. NOTHING COULD BE MORE STUPID THAN THAT STATEMENT.

they are extremely simple THEY CONTAIN ARBITRARY RUBBISH astonishingly elegant THATS NOT AN ARGUMENT FOR THEIR VALIDITY and they explain perfectly a gargantuan amount of experimental evidence that no other theory

THEY DON'T EXPLAIN ANYTHING. THEY ARE MERELY A TEMPLATE FOR CALCULATIONS.

Anyway. I've already disproved special relativity outright with the Dingle objection.

 

[GMB]

You are not going to get any sense out of this guy. For verily he is a religious nutball that cannot and will not prove that two clocks simultaneously run slower than eachother.

 

[69dodge]

The matter of special relativity could be put to rest but for bloody-mindedness. Its a great big fantasy involving ideas that ought to be recognizable as absurdities.

What do you think is the reason why so many people believe it to be true despite its apparent absurdity?

Here is an explanation of an internal contradiction of this business:

"Dingle’s Question:

University of London Professor Herbert Dingle showed why Special Relativity will always conflict with logic, no matter when we first learn it. According to the theory, if two observers are equipped with clocks, and one moves in relation to the other, the moving clock runs slower than the non-moving clock. But the Relativity principle itself (an integral part of the theory) makes the claim that if one thing is moving in a straight line in relation to another, either one is entitled to be regarded as moving. It follows that if there are two clocks, A and B, and one of them is moved, clock A runs slower than B, and clock B runs slower than A. Which is absurd.

Dingle’s Question was this: Which clock runs slow? "

That ought to be the end of the matter and no more time ought to be wasted on this disproven nonsense.

That doesn't demonstrate an internal contradiction in the theory. It merely demonstrates a contradiction between the theory and how you think the world works.

According to the theory, a clock doesn't have any single "inherent" rate. It has various rates when measured relative to various reference frames. Therefore, statements such as "clock A runs slower than B" and "clock B runs slower than A" are meaningless according to the theory, because they don't specify a reference frame.

Once you specify the reference frames, it becomes clear that the two statements do not contradict each other: if clocks A and B are moving relative to each other, clock A runs slower than B in the reference frame in which B is stationary, and clock B runs slower than A in the reference frame in which A is stationary.

An analogy: My car's steering wheel is on the left when I sit in the driver's seat, but it's on the right when I stand in front of the car facing it. How can this be? Is the steering wheel really on the left or really on the right? Help! My car contains an internal contradiction!

Obviously, it doesn't.

Left and right (as applied to steering wheels) are meaningless by themselves; to give them meaning, it is necessary to specify the direction in which the observer is facing relative to the car.

Likewise, slow and fast (as applied to clocks) are meaningless by themselves; to give them meaning, it is necessary to specify the speed at which the observer is moving relative to the clock.

 

[GMB]

No it demonstrates a total outright refutation.

But if you think otherwise how about you prove that the two clocks run slower than eachother.