Re: [Phys-l] how to prove relativity

[chuck britton <cvbritton@mac.com>]

At 10:32 AM -0700 6/3/10, John Denker wrote:
> On 06/02/2010 09:29 PM, Bernard Cleyet wrote:
>
> >  Satellite clocks are slowed by their orbital speed
>
> Really?  I wouldn't have said that.

	because of their orbital speed they would have 'appeared' to 
have ticked fewer times than their stay-at-home twin clocks. 
(acceptable statement/?)

>  > but sped up by
> >  their distance out of the Earth's gravitational well.
>
> Really?

	but because of their height they 'appear' to have ticked more 
times than their stay-ay-home twin clocks.
		(acceptable??)


	neither of these 'observations' has called upon the outmoded 
Lorentz transformations.

I agree wholeheartedly that Minkowski has it beat all over Lorentz.

But we still have to be able to simply explain (to twelve year olds 
etc.) the 'appearances' that are relativity.
Shadows are good analogies of projections in 4D space-time.


> If we send two identical cars on different trips, and
> their odometers come back with very different elapsed
> distance readings, do you assume that the odometers must
> have been miscalibrated, or do you consider it more likely
> that one of them simply followed a longer path?
>
> If the clocks in the cars come back with very different
> elapsed time readings, do you assume that one of the
> clocks was "slowed" in some spooky way, or do you consider
> it more likely that one of them simply followed a longer
> path, longer in the timelike direction?


	But when clocks repeatedly come back to the same location 
overhead in their orbits - having ticked more times than their 
earthbound counterparts - I have absolutely NO problem in saying to a 
12 year old that it was 'gravity' that 'caused' it to tick more 
frequently.

	I'm not quite ready to give up on explaining the 
'appearances' in some simple manner.

	Gravity appears to slow clocks down.

	Plato said that we sometimes only can grasp appearances.