John said, "If you agree that rotating a ruler does not change "the"
length, then boosting a clock does not change "the" time. The *projection*
onto the laboratory x and/or t axes might get changed, but the interesting
physics -- the /simple/ physics -- doesn't care about the projections. It
cares only about the proper length, the proper time, and the invariant
mass."
VERY nice, John. I hadn't thought about the situation quite this way. It is
indeed comical to say that when I rotate the xy axes the ruler suffers
"x-dilation" and "y-contraction".