Archive for ed-lake.com
February 2018

Comments for Sunday, February 25, 2018, thru Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018:

February 28, 2018 - I awoke this morning (at around 4 a.m.) thinking that I need to start a new thread on the Google Science, Physics & Relativity discussion forum.  I continued to think about it until 7:35 a.m. when it was time to get out of bed.  The title of the thread would be "Proper Time, Clock Tick Rates and Relativity."  It would explain in very simple terms how those subjects relate to one another, while at the same time re-starting my debate with "tjrob137." 

Since you cannot change or edit a post after it has been submitted to the Google forum, I'll need to work on getting it right before I submit it.  I can do that here, and then I'll just copy and paste it to the Google forum.   Some of it has been posted here before, so I apologize in advance for repeating myself.  Here goes:

---- start post ----

A couple weeks ago, I tried to get tjrob137 to explain why he believes the Hafele-Keating experiments do not show that clocks tick at different rates in different reference frames.  His entire explanation was:
Hafele and Keating compared ELAPSED PROPER TIMES of clocks, not clock rates.
How is comparing "elapsed proper times" different from comparing "clock rates"?  There's no point in asking tjrob137, since he seems unable to explain anything.  Here is what the text book "Spacetime Physics: an Introduction to Special Relativity" by Edwin F. Taylor & John Archibald Wheeler says on page 10 about "proper time":
When two events both occur at the position of a certain clock, that special clock measures directly the interval between these two events. The interval is called the proper time (or sometimes the local time). The special clock that records the proper time directly has the name proper clock for this pair of events. In this book we often call the proper time the wristwatch time and the proper clock the wristwatch to emphasize that the proper clock is carried so that it is "present" at each of the two events as the events occur. In Einstein's German, the word for proper time is Eigenzeit, or "own-time," implying "one's very own time." The German word provides a more accurate description than the English. In English, the word "proper" has come to mean  "following conventional rules." Proper time certainly does not do that!
So, "proper time" just means "an observer's local time."  And what Hafele and Keating did was compare the local time they observed to the local time observed at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington D.C.  First they made certain that their 4 atomic clocks ticked at the same rate as an atomic clock at the Naval Observatory, then they flew the 4 atomic clocks around the world on commercial airliners, and then they again compare the 4 clocks to the local time observed at the Naval Observatory's relatively stationary atomic clock.  Then they performed the experiment a second time, flying in the opposite direction.  The experiments confirmed that the clocks that were moved showed a different amount of time had passed than the stationary clock showed, confirming Einstein's theories. 

And, of course, since the moved clocks showed a different amount of time had passed, that means they ticked at different RATES because time moved different RATES for the traveling clocks versus the Naval Observatory clock.

But, tjrob137 endlessly argues that high-speed movement does NOT cause clocks to tick at different rates nor does it cause TIME to move at different rates, nor does the distance from a gravitational source, and he believes that applies to the Hafele-Keating clocks.

His attempts at explaining his beliefs clearly indicate he is confused over the difference between clock tick RATES and clock tick COUNTS.

The official length of a second is defined as "The duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom." 

In simple terms, a second is 9,192,631,770 ticks of a cesium atomic clock.  That means that when the clock has COUNTED 9,192,631,770 ticks, it has measured 1 second. If a different method of measuring time were used, it would be a different number of ticks per second.  The important point is: It's not a tick RATE, it is a tick COUNT.  When you have COUNTED 9,192,631,770 ticks, you have measured 1 second.  And that is true whether you are atop a mountain, at the bottom of a mountain or traveling at 95% of the speed of light.  A second is measured by COUNTING clock ticks.

However, the tick RATE is different at the top of a mountain than at the bottom of a mountain, and it is different if you are traveling versus being stationary.  Relativity is about clock tick RATES, not clock tick COUNTS.

"Spacetime Physics: an Introduction to Special Relativity" by Edwin F. Taylor & John Archibald Wheeler explains in sections 3.2 and 3.3 the difference between rates and counts by explaining what can be very different in different inertial reference frames versus what is the same in ALL inertial reference frames.

Same:
1. Laws of physics are the same in different frames.

2.  Fundamental constants are the same. 

3. The speed of light is the same.
Different:
1. Space and time separations are not the same in different frames.

2. Velocity is not the same.

3. Acceleration is not the same.

4. Force is not the same.

5. Electric and magnetic fields not the same.
The key difference is #1.  Space and time separations are not the same in different frames.  That means that the separations between ticks of a clock (a.k.a. the TICK RATE) can be different in one frame versus another.  And, if there is a greater interval or separation between ticks, that means that time is going slower even though you may still be COUNTING 9,192,631,770 ticks when measuring 1 second.

Do you understand this, tjrob137?

----- end post ----  

Okay, I just uploaded that new thread.  Click HERE to go to it.  The statistics currently show 1 post with 0 views.   I'm now wondering if I should expand upon it and write it as a scientific paper.     

February 27, 2018 - I was a bit surprised this morning to see that people on the Google Science, Physics & Relativity discussion forum were arguing yesterday about the meaning of "proper time":  
Koobee Wublee wrote: "Since the proper time is a mythical quantity, the clocks DO NOT MEASURE proper time.  Instead and in reality, the clocks ALWAYS MEASURE local time."

And "tjrob137" responded: "This is NONSENSE and merely shows how ignorant and out-of-touch you are. Proper time is not "mythical" at all, it _IS_ what clocks measure, because THAT IS WHAT THESE WORDS MEAN."
I was surprised because it was like they were reading my mind.  Just before turning off my computer yesterday evening, I was reviewing two different definitions of "proper time."  The first comes from Wikipedia:
In relativity, proper time along a timelike world line is defined as the time as measured by a clock following that line. It is thus independent of coordinates, and a Lorentz scalar. The proper time interval between two events on a world line is the change in proper time. This interval is the quantity of interest, since proper time itself is fixed only up to an arbitrary additive constant, namely the setting of the clock at some event along the world line. The proper time between two events depends not only on the events but also the world line connecting them, and hence on the motion of the clock between the events.
I haven't found the spare time (or is it "proper time"?) to attempt decipher that definition.  "Timelike world line"?  "An arbitrary additive constant"?  Instead, I did a search through the book Spacetime Physics: an Introduction to Special Relativity for the word "proper" and found this very different definition of "proper time" on page 10:
When two events both occur at the position of a certain clock, that special clock measures directly the interval between these two events. The interval is called the proper time (or sometimes the local time). The special clock that records the proper time directly has the name proper clock for this pair of events. In this book we often call the proper time the wristwatch time and the proper clock the wristwatch to emphasize that the proper clock is carried so that it is "present" at each of the two events as the events occur. In Einstein's German, the word for proper time is Eigenzeit, or "own-time," implying "one's very own time." The German word provides a more accurate description than the English. In English, the word "proper" has come to mean  "following conventional rules." Proper time certainly does not do that!
Ah!  Okay!  So, "proper time" just means "the observer's time."  That's simple enough.  Why not call it "observer's time"?   Evidently, they can't, because then all the physicists who memorized the old terminology won't know what you're talking about.  They only understand the terminology they memorized, and if you do not use the memorized terminology, then they consider you to be wrong.

I also checked page 962 of the college physics textbook Physics for Scientists & Engineers with Modern Physics by Douglas C. Giancoli.  It basically agrees with Spacetime Physics, but Giancoli specifically applies it to"the shortest time between [two] events any observer can measure."  The 9th edition of College Physics by Raymond A. Serway & Chris Vuille says on page 892: "In general, proper time is the time interval between two events as measured by an observer who sees the events occur at the same position." Page 1116 of the 10th edition of Fundamentals of Physics by Jearl Walker says, "If two successive events occur at the same place in an inertial reference frame, the time interval between them, measured on a single clock where they occur, is the proper time between them."  Page 1224 of the 14th edition of University Physics with Modern Physics by Hugh D. Young & Roger A. Freedman it says, "We use the term proper time to describe the time interval between two events that occur at the same point."  Okay.  Understood.

Which brings me back to "tjrob137's" refusal to discuss the Hafele-Keating experiments because:
Hafele and Keating compared ELAPSED PROPER TIMES of clocks, not clock rates.
In other words (apparently), the fact that there was a difference in elapsed time for the two traveling observers has no meaning when the question is about the rates at which their clocks were ticking.  Or to put it another way, the fact that the clocks that were carried on the westward airplane flight showed less time passed than was showed by a stationary clock does NOT mean that the moving clocks "ticked slower."  Why not?  Evidently because that requires (quoting "tjrob137") "a MAGICAL and OMNISCIENT observer -- that's NONSENSE and simply is not possible in the world we inhabit (nor in the worlds we model in GR)."

In other words, it requires someone who understands what is going on.  There is apparently no such person in Quantum Mechanics.  In Quantum Mechanics you can only measure and compute, you cannot understand how anything relates to the real world.  Understanding the workings of the real world requires LOGIC, and there is no place in Quantum Mechanics for logic.  That is why "tjrob137" admits and even stated that Quantum Mechanics is illogical.

Hmm.  You learn something new every day ..... or some people do.

 February 26, 2018 (B) - I awoke this morning thinking about the "dumbest" ideas held by mathematicians.  In my (A) comment yesterday, I wrote that the dumbest idea was that time moves at the same rate everywhere, and the second dumbest idea was that all movement is reciprocal.

This morning I realized that the idea that all movement is reciprocal has to be #1. That is truly a dumb idea.  If I drop a pencil to the floor, is it really reasonable to believe that the floor is equally likely to have moved upward to meet the pencil?

So, I went back and revised yesterday's (A) comment.  Then I realized the idea I had as #2 should be #3, and I should add a #4 and #5.  And when I was at the gym this afternoon, I thought of a few more.  So, as I view them right now, here are the eight dumbest ideas in physics held by mathematicians:
#1.  All movement is reciprocal.

#2.  The speed of light is always measured to be the same by the emitter and all outside observers, regardless of their own velocity.

#3.  Time ticks at the same rate everywhere.

#4.  Math is logic.

#5.  It is perfectly acceptable for physics to be illogical.

#6.  Light travels as waves.

#7.  The Big Bang didn't occur at  any spot, it happened everywhere.

#8.  Singularities are real.
I would probably put #5 in position #1 if I had any information that many other scientists besides "tjrob137" hold that belief.  It seems to be the explanation for most of the other "dumbest" ideas.

I should probably write a paper titled "The 10 Most Absurd Ideas in Physics."  (It is probably not a good idea to use the word "dumbest" in a scientific paper.)  Or, maybe it should be the title of the book I'm thinking of writing.  (I can definitely used "dumbest" in the title of a book.)  There are probably more than 8 truly dumb ideas in physics, but I haven't been keeping track of them.  Maybe I'll think of more.  Having a "Top Ten" would be better than just 8. 

Meanwhile, I just created a new blog thread titled "The 10 DUMBEST Ideas in Physics" where people can make comments.  It also currently has only 8 dumb ideas, but I can add more as I think of them.  :-)

February 26, 2018 (A) - Yesterday, the scientist who posts as "tjrob137" on the Google Science, Physics & Relativity discussion forum posted another message addressed to me.  It said (in part):
You are implicitly placing yourself in the position of a GLOBAL AND OMNISCIENT observer. That is hopeless, and does not make sense -- it is IMPOSSIBLE in the world we inhabit.  You CANNOT observe a distant clock, you can only observe SIGNALS from it to you [@]. To determine how the clock itself behaves, you MUST take the measurements of those SIGNALS and correct for any effects on their propagation and on the measurement of the SIGNALS. Do that and you find the clock is ticking at its usual rate -- its tick rate is UNCHANGED, and the ENTIRE effect is on how you measure the SIGNALS.

        [@] This is true even for a clock on the wall or on your
        own wrist held a millimeter from your eye -- THINK ABOUT
        IT.  But for these, any effects on the signals or your measurement
        are negligible.
There's no point in me responding.  All that would happen is that a lot of others would attack me for lying when I said I wasn't going to post in that thread any further.  And "tjrob137" would just continue to argue that I "cannot read," and that is why I do not accept his explanations. 

But the comment is still interesting.  "Tjrob137" seems to be saying that if I try to understand what is going on, that would put me in the position of "a GLOBAL AND OMNISCIENT observer."  So, I should not try to understand anything.  Instead, I should only measure what I can see and can measure in my location.  I cannot actually see the clock atop the mountain miles away, so, if I accept the mathematical model that "tjrob137" uses, then time can tick at the same rate atop the mountain as it does where I am, and the difference will be just how I "measure the signals."

Sorry, "tjrob137," I want to understand what is happening.  I don't just want to make the math work to fit my beliefs. 

February 25, 2018 (B) -  While I haven't been posting to the "Einstein's 1905 Invalid Argument" thread on Google's Science, Physics & Relativity discussion forum for about a week, I have still been checking it every morning to see what is being written.  There are currently over 600 posts in the thread.  My last post was message #549.  Yesterday, "tjrob137" posted message #603.  It was a response to something I had posted on February 18.  I found it interesting, since it seems that "tjrob137" is actually trying to communicate.  The first part of yesterday's message begins by repeating what was argued on Feb. 18:
On 2/18/18 at 11:57 AM, Ed Lake wrote: "'signals' traveling at a constant speed of light BETWEEN LOCATIONS THAT ARE STATIONARY RELATIVE TO ONE ANOTHER will arrive at the same rate they were sent."
 
And "tjrob137" responded: "This is WRONG when the two locations are at different altitudes in a (static) gravitational field."

And I responded: "AGAIN you APPEAR to be saying that the signals somehow change rates."
Then yesterday "tjrob137" evidently attempted to restart that conversation by adding this:
It is not really the signals that change rates. Rather it is MEASUREMENTS OF THOSE SIGNALS' RATES that change. This is more subtle than it is possible for you to understand, because you refuse to learn the concepts involved.

        Like many situations in relativity, this is a geometrical
        projection that does not affect the intrinsic properties
        of the object being measured. So "time dilation" does not
        affect clocks, "length contraction" does not affect rulers
        -- these are geometrical projections that only affect the
        MEASUREMENTS [@].
        In this case the displacement 4-vector between signals from
        successive ticks has a constant norm [#], but MEASURING the
        time between the signals requires a geometrical projection
        of that displacement 4-vector onto the clock doing the
        measuring, and that PROJECTION is what changes [@].

        [@] These are all differential measurements. Physical
        situations based on integral measurements (e.g. the twin
        paradox) involve different (but related) geometrical
        properties.

        [#] That displacement 4-vector is parallel-propagated along
        the null geodesic followed by the signals. Parallel
        propagation along a geodesic never changes the norm of the
        4-vector being propagated.

If you want to know the "cause" of this, you are seeking the snark. Because there _IS_ no "cause" (in a physical sense), this is simply geometry.

        Ask yourself: what is it that "causes" two sides of a triangle
        to be longer than the third? -- whatever "answer" you accept
        also applies to this, because both are really geometry.
And then he quoted more from the Feb. 18 argument:
I wrote: "I repeat:  It is NOT a matter of understanding, it is a matter of COMMUNICATION."

And "tjrob137" replied: "It simply is not possible to communicate subtle concepts to you, because YOU CANNOT READ. Your problem, not mine." 
He seems to be saying that it is geometry that changes the speed of time, not some real life property of matter or time.  Thus, only measurements change when a comparison is made between a clock atop a mountain and a clock at the bottom of the mountain, not anything in real life.  Measure things one way and there's a difference.  Measure them another way and there is no difference. 

The problem is that he seems also to be saying, It is irrelevant what happens to time and matter in real life.  The only thing of relevance is what happens in geometry.  And, in geometry here are no "causes," things are just the way they are.

And, of course, I'm only interested in what is happening to matter and time in real life.  And I want to know the causes for what happens.  You can only understand what is happening if you understand what causes it to happen.  I don't care about different ways of measuring the same thing - unless it has some meaning to matter and time in real life.

Obviously, "tjrob137" is never going to be able to explain anything except in convoluted mathematical terminology, so I'm going to have to try to figure out what the difference is between his way of doing things and my way of doing things. 

The book "tjrob137" recommended to me last June, Spacetime Physics: An Introduction to Special Relativity by Edwin F. Taylor & John Archibald Wheeler, appears to try to explain that difference.  It begins with a "Parable of the Surveyors" in which two different teams of surveyors ("Daytimers" and "Nighttimers") using different units of measurement have a disagreement about where something is located.  One team uses meters, the other team uses feet, one team uses magnetic North, the other team uses the North Star as being North. The argument goes on and on for a long long time, until a student who took the time to study both methods of measurement found a way to mathematically convert one method into another. The "parable" concludes with this:
He said he had discovered the principle of invariance of distance; he reckoned exactly the same value for distance from Daytime measurements as from Nighttime measurements, despite the fact that the two sets of surveyors' numbers differed significantly. After some initial confusion and resistance, Daytimers and Nighttimers welcomed the student's new idea. The invariance of distance, along with further results, made it possible to harmonize Daytime and Nighttime surveys, so everyone could agree on the location of each plot of land. In this way the last source of friction between Day timers and Nighttimers was removed.   
Does "tjrob137" think the argument we're having are just because there are two different mathematical models?  That's definitely not true.  And I have to wonder if "tjrob137" actually read Spacetime Physics.  I've skimmed through it several times and carefully studied several parts of it.  What I see is that the authors say that there are two different ways of viewing the laws of physics.  One way is to view each experiment inside a closed room with the shades drawn (i.e., inside an "inertial frame of reference").  The other way is to raise the shades and look out from your "frame of reference" at another "frame of reference" so you can compare the experimental results of your frame of reference to that of the other frame of reference that is moving at different speeds or that is located at a different altitude.  

Perhaps you can use mathematics to convert what is seen in one frame to what is seen in a second frame, but you also have to do as the student did in the parable, you have to understand the problem first.  You have to understand how the findings in one frame of reference can appear to be identical to the findings in another frame of reference when you assume units of measure for time and distance have equal values in both frames.  But, when you understand that time and distance actually have different values in different reference frames, suddenly what was equal becomes unequal.  

In my paper about Einstein's FIRST postulate, I referred to the appearance of getting identical results in two different closed reference frames as an "illusion."  "Illusion" is probably not the right word to use.  I just haven't come up with a better word.  It's more of a misunderstanding than an illusion.  But the word "misunderstanding" requires too much explanation, and may not be the right word, either.   Is a belief that the world is flat a "misunderstanding"?  If you will not listen to other viewpoints, do you have "a misunderstanding" when you argue that all atomic clocks tick at the same rate in all frames of reference?  

I could go on and on.  But, instead I'll conclude this Sunday comment with some quotes from Spacetime Physics (which I'm definitely going to have to study more carefully).

Section 3.2 is titled "WHAT IS NOT THE SAME IN DIFFERENT FRAMES.  It lists examples of what is not the same:
Space and time separations are not the same in different frames.

Velocity is not the same.

Acceleration is not the same.

Force is not the same.

Electric and magnetic fields not the same.
Section 3.3 is titled WHAT IS THE SAME IN DIFFERENT FRAMES.  Here are those examples: 
Laws of physics are the same in different frames.

Fundamental constants are the same.  

The speed of light is the same.
So, time separations are NOT the same in different frames.  Ticks of a clock are time separations.  When going fast or when close to a gravitational mass, the separation time between ticks is greater than when going slow or when far from a gravitational mass.  In other words, clocks tick slower.  Time slows down.

But fundamental constants and the speed of light ARE the same. The speed of light is a fundamental constant: c.  It is measured to be the same in all inertial frames.  On page 60 in Spacetime Physics it says:
Values of the speed of light as measured by laboratory and by rocket observer turn out identical. This agreement has cast a new light on light. Its speed rates no longer as a constant of nature. Instead, today the speed of light ranks as mere conversion factor between the meter and the second, like the factor of conversion from the centimeter to the meter. The value of this conversion factor has now been set by decree and the meter defined in terms of it (Box 3.2). This decree assumes the invariance of the speed of light. No experimental result contradicts this assumption.
Box 3.2 includes this:
Since 1967, "The second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the fundamental state of the atom cesium 133."
So, the speed of light is measured to be "the same" in different frames, but it CAN actually be different when you compare the length of a second (using the "time separation" of the "periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the fundamental state of the atom cesium-133) in one frame versus another."   If the amount of time between those "periods" is greater in Frame-A than in Frame-B, then time runs slower in Frame-A.

Spacetime Physics seems to explain this same idea in many different ways.  Maybe I just need to find the one way that I can quote without people arguing that I'm misinterpreting things.  Past experience has shown, however, that when I find something that is so clear it cannot be misinterpreted, the mathematicians will just argue that that may be what the authors wrote, but it isn't what the authors meant.  And then they'll point to something else that the authors wrote that they can easily twist and distort to make it fit their beliefs.  And we'll have another opinion versus opinion argument, which never accomplish anything.  

February 25, 2018 (A) - This morning I awoke realizing something.   There's a person on Google's Science, Physics & Relativity discussion forum who posts as "Kenseto."  And I have a book in my library titled "Model Mechanics: The Final Theory" by Ken H. Seto.  I suddenly realized they are probably the same person.  Duh!

Back on February 18 and 19, I was arguing with "Kenseto" about what was written in "Model Mechanics."  I was arguing that the book contained the "idiotic" claim that all motion is reciprocal.  And "Kenseto" argued that the book didn't say that.  I then quoted from where the book said exactly that, and "Kenseto" promptly changed the argument to be about something else I'd mentioned in the same comment - whether or not Special Relativity says anything about acceleration.  And then a bunch of others jumped in to also argue that Special Relativity includes acceleration as part of the theory.  And "Kenseto" stopped posting for awhile.  And then I stopped posting there altogether.

The idea that all motion is reciprocal is what I consider to be the dumbest idea held by mathematicians.  The #2 dumbest idea is that the speed of light is measured to be the same by the emitter and by all outside observers, regardless of their own velocity.  Dumbest idea #3 is that time moves at the same rate everywhere and for everyone.  (Sometimes it seems like that idea should be #1, but it is also easy to see how it can be believed.)  Dumbest idea #4 is that mathematics is logic.  Dumbest idea #5 is that it is perfectly acceptable for physics to be illogical.  (That also seems sometimes like it should be #1, but I don't know how many mathematicians other than "tjrob137" would actually argue that idea.)  


Comments for Sunday, February 18, 2018, thru Saturday, Feb. 24, 2018:

February 23, 2018 - There weren't any problems with the TVs at the gym on Monday and Tuesday, so when I went into the gym yesterday and saw that the manager wasn't busy with anything, I walked over to his desk and asked him if he'd fixed the problem with the cable boxes turning off.  He said it had happened earlier in the day.  So, I explained to him that I thought it was the Power Saver switch, and I told him how to check it.  He seemed very interested and thanked me.  Then I went about doing my regular exercises.

About an hour later, while I was on an Exercycle, which is the last thing I do before heading for the showers, four of the TVs on the wall in front of me suddenly started showing a message saying the Power Saver option was about to turn off the TVs unless someone hit any button to show that people were actually watching the TVs.  I immediately got off the Exercycle and headed toward the office part of the building.  But the manager wasn't there, and no one knew where he was.  So, I went out to the reception desk to talk with the young woman there who also handles the problem and has access to the remote controls.  She was talking to some big guy, and there were two other big guys behind the counter with her, guys who I think I've seen before but who do not normally work in the gym when I'm there. 

I interrupted and told her that there was a message on the TV screens that the TVs were about to turn off.  The big guy who'd been talking with the young woman smiled condescendingly and said something about some imaginary problem I was seeing.  And the two other big guys joined in, basically ridiculing my report.  I explained that it was the Power Saver switch, and the young woman grabbed a remote control and followed me out to look at the TVs.  She played with the remote control, but it was for the TVs, not for the cable boxes.  I explained that she needed to turn the cable boxes on.  She went into the back room where the cable boxes are located, and a short time later three of the four TVs turned back on.

Meanwhile, I had gotten back on the Exercycle to finish my session.  I was still peddling away when the manager returned and tried to turn on the TV that was still off.  He wasn't able to do it with the TV remote or by going into the back room.  He looked dead serious, and didn't even look at me.  Maybe he didn't notice me.

The TV was still off when I checked it after showering, dressing and putting on my coat to leave.  I walked past the group behind the counter.  The big guys were still there talking with the counter staff.  The manager was nowhere in sight.

Since the big guys were behind the counter, I had to assume they had something to do with the running of the gym, or the shopping center in which the gym was located, or with the corporation that owned the gym.  But why would they treat a member of the gym like a jerk when he reports a problem with the TVs?  The only answer I could come up with was: because they were the cause of the problems with the TVs.  When I had mentioned the problem in front of them, they certainly reacted as if they were.

I decided I'd gotten myself into some kind of internal conflict.  The manager of the gym and most of his staff are black (but not the young woman I'd talked with).  The big guys were white and looked like former school yard bullies.  I could be jumping to conclusions, but I'm definitely going to have to be careful about what I say and do when those big bully-type guys are in the gym.

Added Note: While I was on the treadmill at the gym this afternoon, four of the TVs on the wall showed the "Power Saver" message and then turned off.  I was nearly done with my session on the treadmill, so I waiting until I was done before advising the manager.  He seemed in a bad mood and said he'd take care of it.  The young woman who normally tends to the front desk wasn't there.  No one was behind the front desk during the entire time I was at the gym.  I don't know what is going on, but for the foreseeable future I'm just going to do like everyone else does:  If the TVs go dark, I'm going to wait for someone else to notice it and tell the gym personnel.

February 22, 2018 (B) - While I'm far from understanding exactly what it means, this morning I noticed a Science Daily article titled "Physicists create new form of light."  It's hard to visualize exactly what's going on when two photons get stuck together, and how (or if) it would work in some other environment other than inside "a dense cloud of ultracold rubidium atoms," but it's certainly another challenge to the highly questionable belief taught in colleges around the world that light consists of waves.  And, it's encouraging to see that someone is working with photons to better understand how they work and what properties they have. 

February 22, 2018 (A) - While I'm taking a break from posting to Google's Science, Physics & Relativity discussion forum, I still do check the latest posts to the "Einstein's 1905 Invalid Argument" thread each morning.  This morning I noticed that someone restarted an argument from February 14.  This morning's posts went like this (only the first post is from Feb. 14):
Paul Ansing (on Feb. 14):  What do you think of someone who essentially refuses to do the actual study needed to intelligently enter into discussions of physics, John? Is there a kinder, gentler way to tell someone to go get a book and study that little bastard until you can quote it backwards and forwards, John? Sound familiar, John? Hmmmmm? Perhaps... ignorant?

John Gogo: Yes, but a book which is usually written by a single person usually will enter their views... until the person even has particular versions of the models... until each scientist possesses an independent and unique viewpoint... different from every other scientist... everybody thinks their special... Paul... you have a bad case of this...

Paul Ansing: John, you are again just making this up. Authors of physics books don't 'enter their views', and each scientist doesn't 'possess an independent and unique viewpoint'... what would that ever accomplish? Had you ever read a few physics textbooks you would already know that this is not the case... but you haven't, so you don't, which is why you can only make it up!

Sorry, John, when it comes to general physics knowledge, you definitely fall into the ignorant category... and have no business making *any* of the claims that you make. I'm not at all sure why you gain as much attention as you do here, you certainly don't deserve it.
Hmm.  I'd been thinking about that exact same situation.  Paul Ansing is definitely wrong, since there would be no point in having dozens of different physics textbooks, if they all said the same things.  John Gogo is definitely correct (except that two or three authors working on the same book can have the same views, which different significantly from other authors and other books). 

I'm currently studying the second edition of Spacetime Physics: An Introduction to Special Relativity by Edwin F. Taylor & John Archibald Wheeler.  The back cover of the book says this about the authors:
Collaboration on the First Edition of Spacetime Physics began in the mid-1960s when Edwin Taylor took a junior faculty sabbatical at Princeton University where John Wheeler was a professor. The resulting text emphasized the unity of spacetime and those quantities (such as proper time, proper distance, mass) that are invariant, the same for all observers, rather than those quantities (such as space and time separations) that are relative, different for different observers. The text has become a standard for modern physics and relativity courses, as well as introductory physics.

The Second Edition of Spacetime Physics embodies what the authors have learned during an additional quarter century of teaching and research. They have updated the text to reflect the immense strides in physics during the same period and modernized and increased the number of exercises, for which the First Edition was famous. Enrichment boxes provide expanded coverage of intriguing topics. Sample problems encourage students to exercise their newfound power. An enlarged final chapter on general relativity includes new material on gravity waves, black holes, and cosmology. 
The book definitely has a different point of view from most other college physics textbooks, however it is also written in a very unusual and somewhat annoying style - particularly if you are reading the book on a computer.  I imagine it must be almost intolerable if you are reading it on a Kindle. 

It's kind of hard to describe the problem, but I'll give it a try: Chapter 3 begins on page 53.  It reads normally into page 54 where the text is interrupted by a drawing of Galileo and some quotes from him.  Then the text continues through page 55.  Page 56, however, begins with an "enrichment box" which starts a separate line of thought.  The text for that "enrichment box" line of thought is interrupted about 2/3rds of the way down the page by the restarting of the main line of thought.   Then page 57 begins with the continuation of the "enrichment box" line of thought.  About half way down page 57, the main line of thought restarts and continues.  But page 58 begins with a different "enrichment box" and another line of thought, with the main line of thought continuing at about 3/4th of the way down the page.

Here's an image of page 56:

Spacetime Physics - Page 56
Note that the "enrichment box" - Box 3-1, at the top of the page does not finish its thought, nor does the main text Section 3.2 which occupies the bottom third of the page.  Page 57 looks like this:

Spacetime Physics - Page 57
 
The top of the page is the second part of  "enrichment box" 3-1 and the bottom part of the page is the continuation of the main text, which doesn't finish there but continues at the bottom of page 58, which begins with "enrichment box" 3-2.  The main text then continues on the bottom of page 59 (which has a "comment box" occupying the top 3/4ths of the page) and ends on page 60.

It's probably relatively easy to read in paper form, but on a computer or Kindle it is very annoying.

Note, too, that in a note off to the left side of the main text on page 56 it says "Space and time separations not the same in different frames."  (I'm not sure how that would appear on a Kindle.)  And the sub-heading for the main text also says that time separations are not the same in different frames.  That would include the time separations between ticks of a clock.  

So, a clock ticks at different rates in one frame versus another.   What remains the same in one frame versus another? The laws of physics.

That's what I've been arguing.  And that is definitely not what most college text books say.  So, the task is to show everyone that there are TWO competing lines of thought about Relativity - Einstein's version and the mathematicians' version.   Many textbooks seem to promote the mathematicians' version, but there are some textbooks which promote Einstein's version.  I've found two such text books.  I think I need to find more in order to make my point. (And I think I also need to find out exactly what is meant by "proper time" and how it differs from what is measured by clocks.  The Wikipedia explanation of "proper time" doesn't help much, but maybe I just need to find time to study it carefully.  It's like it's written in some alien language that is nearly the same as English, except that some key words appear to have totally different meanings in the alien language.) 

February 21, 2018 - While having my first cup of (decaffeinated) coffee after eating breakfast this morning, I finished reading Al Franken's book "Al Franken, Giant of the Senate" on my Kindle.
Al Franken, Giant of the Senate

Al Franken, of course, was a stand-up comedian for decades and a comedy writer for Saturday Night Live for over a decade before running for U.S. Senate in 2008.  And, as almost everybody knows, he resigned from the Senate last month after several allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him - misconduct done years ago while he was a comedian, not while he was a Senator.  (Interestingly, yesterday Newsweek had an article about how Right Wing Twitter-bots helped force Franken's resignation, but today that story has been retracted.)

I thought it was a terrific book, very funny in parts, but deadly serious when Franken talks about how the Right Wing is corrupting America (helped by the Koch Brothers).  Franken certainly shares my opinion of Donald Trump.  Here's a quote from the book:
Watching Donald J. Trump take the oath of office to become the 45th president of the United States was perhaps the most depressing moment I’ve had since I entered politics, although that record has been repeatedly surpassed since January 20. The heartless and counterproductive Muslim ban; the barrage of racist and/or corrupt and/or unqualified staff appointments and Cabinet nominees; the unhinged tweets attacking anyone who opposes his agenda; the constant, constant, constant lying—Trump’s presidency so far has been one shock to the system after another.
Here's a comment about Trump's supporters:
Trump supporters seem to approve of the fact that he lies constantly, including to them. Like a movie that is loosely based on a true story, Trump’s fans seem to feel that he is making the dull reality of politics more fun and interesting by augmenting it with gross exaggeration, and often utter fantasy.
Franken also had a lot of interesting things to say about Senator Ted Cruz from Texas:
Ted Cruz isn’t just wrong about almost everything. He’s impossible to work with. And he doesn’t care that he’s impossible to work with. And that’s why, even when the choice was between Ted Cruz (who was a sitting member of the United States Senate) and Donald Trump (who was Donald Trump), establishment Republicans couldn’t bring themselves to rally behind Cruz.
I enjoyed the book so much that I burned 8 CDs for the audio version of another book by Franken, Lies: And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them.  I'll start listening to that book as soon as I finish My Week With Marilyn.  At lunch today, I'll start reading It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America on my Kindle (I don't always read and listen to science books.)

February 20, 2018 (C) - Well, it happened once again.  I got fed up with the way the debates were going in the "Einstein's 1905 Invalid Argument" thread on Google's Science, Physics & Relativity discussion forum this morning, and I told them I was going to stop posting to the forum for awhile.  Usually that means a month or two.  This time it might be longer.

The debates were taking too much of my time, there are a lot of other things I really want to get to work on, plus we'd hit an impasse where there was no way to convince them that they are wrong.  The key opponents to my arguments seem to only understand mathematical models, and I have no way to show them that the mathematical model they are using to argue that time flows at the same rate everywhere does not reflect reality.  I can explain how the Italian experiment worked, but they will argue that it really works according to their mathematical model, and they cannot explain (except in mathematical terms) how the "signals" transform themselves so that they only appear to show a difference in the rate of time atop a mountain versus at the bottom of the mountain while in their reality time moves at the same rate everywhere in the universe.  And any articles I show them which say otherwise are simply dismissed as "popularized" garbage for the lowly masses who cannot comprehend the reality of how physics actually works.

It was as very good discussion, however.  And I saved copies of all 559 posts in the thread.  Near the bottom of my "list of things to do" I'll put the chore of making another copy of the entire discussion and then eliminating from the new copy all the posts that were just insults and arguments between other people, trimming it down to just the meaningful posts.  There will probably be less than 100 of them, maybe less than 50.  But those that remain should clearly illustrate how mathematicians think and how they twist reality to fit their mathematical models.  It could make a good chapter for a book I keep thinking I should write. 

February 20, 2018 (B) - Groan!  Looking at the "Einstein's 1905 Invalid Argument" thread on Google's Science, Physics & Relativity discussion forum this morning, I see there were 35 new posts overnight.  #35 was posted while I was typing my (A) comment this morning.  It's from "tjrob137" and is not addressed to me, but it it says something I'm tempted to argue with:
There is no "point of the original big bang" -- because the big bang is
a SINGULARITY. Moreover, in all of the FLRW manifolds of GR used to model big-bang cosmologies, if you extend backwards all possible geodesics to their limit points at the big bang, the surface resulting from their union is of infinite area -- hardly a "point". 
Only mathematicians believe in "singularities."  An article from Scientific American magazine on the subject says, "singularities are an idealization" and "it is not really known whether or not the universe started from a singularity."  And note that "tjrob137" uses the term "FLRW manifolds" as if everyone is supposed to know what that means, and if you have ask what it means, he'll argue that it is proof that you are ignorant.  Looking it up, I found a arxiv.org article titled "The Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker Big Bang Singularities are Well Behaved."  "Tjrob137" also seems to argue that a singularity is not a point.  But he doesn't explain what is if it isn't a point.  In fact he suggests it is an "infinite area," which means everything (I think).  But he arrives at that using geodesics, which is about measuring distances on a curved surface.  Sigh. 

Well, I just thought I'd write something before jumping into the debate on the Google forum.  I could be in that debate for the rest of the day.     

February 20, 2018 (A) - Every morning when I turn on my computer, I go through a routine of checking my email accounts, downloading statistics for my web sites, checking the news, checking certain blogs and discussion forums, checking my library "wish list" to see if any books I want to read have become available, and I check NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day web site.  This morning they had a larger version of this picture:

Solar eclipse over Buenos Aires

The text that goes with the picture says,
The featured image was taken toward the end of the eclipse from the coast of Uruguay overlooking Argentina's Buenos Aires. Light-house adorned Farallón Island is seen in the foreground, and a plane is visible just to the left of the Sun. The image is actually a digital combination of two consecutive exposures taken with the same camera using the same settings -- one taken of the landscape and another of the background Sun.
So, it can be argued that the picture is a "fake," since it is "a digital combination of two consecutive exposures."  I wish they would show what the individual photos look like.  They say both shots use the "same settings" on the camera, but I can't make any sense of that.  I would think that one would use a setting where the aperture is open for less time in order to capture the sun and the other where the aperture was open longer, in order to capture the landscape.

Whatever they did, I think it's a great picture, and I just thought I'd share it by showing it here.

February 19, 2018 - Hmm.  I'm still waiting for "tjrob137" to challenge what I wrote about the Italian experiment that recently proved once again that clocks tick faster atop a mountain than at the bottom of the mountain.  While waiting, I periodically check the posts to the thread titled "Einstein's 1905 Invalid Argument" on Google's Science, Physics & Relativity discussion forum where our most recent argument have been taking place.

This morning, I noticed "Kenseto" had posted a comment containing a link to something he says supports his beliefs.  Checking the link, I found is to Chapter 4 from a book titled "Model Mechanics: The Final Theory" by Ken H. Seto.  It has another misinterpretation of Einstein's Second Postulate.  And it even argues the nonsense that Special Relativity says that if I'm moving faster than you, you can argue that you are going faster than me, because all movement is reciprocal.  

Whenever I see a new link to an article or book, I check to make sure I have a copy of the article or book in my files.  My collection currently consists of 849 documents (books,  articles and chapters of books for which I do not have the complete book).   I had both the chapter and the full book in my files.  But while checking for that book, I found  "Spacetime Physics: An Introduction to Special Relativity" by Edwin F. Taylor & John Archibald Wheeler, which directly contradicts the Seto book.  Oddly enough, "tjrob137" recommended "Spacetime Physics" to me last June during some argument we were having.  I'd been hunting for a book I remembered someone recommending to me, but I forgot the title and who recommended it.  Suddenly I had found it again.  I immediately highlighted in bold and in red the entry for that book in the spreadsheet where I try to keep track of everything.  I wasn't doing that last June.

Anyway, Spacetime Physics has this on page 53:
How do you know you are moving? Or at rest? In a car, you pause at a stoplight. You see the car next to you easing forward. With a shock you suddenly realize that, instead, your own car is rolling backward. On an international flight you watch a movie with the cabin shades drawn. Can you tell if the plane is traveling at minimum speed or full speed? In an elaborate joke, could the plane actually be sitting still on the runway, engines running? How would you know?

Everyday observations such as these form the basis for a conjecture that Einstein raised to the status of a postulate and set at the center of the theory of special relativity. He called it the Principle of Relativity. Roughly speaking, the Principle of Relativity says that without looking out the window you cannot cell which reference frame you are in or how fast you are moving.
And it has a lot more which says that what you measure in your inertial frame of reference may compute to be the same as everyone else measures in their inertial frames, BUT when you open the window and look out at what is actually happening in their "frame," you may find that there are great differences.  Of course, the length of a second is the main difference.

I'm going to have to go through Spacetime Physics to highlight passages that will make good additions to future arguments over whether time ticks at the same rate everywhere or varies depending upon velocity and gravity.  When someone attacks you and claims that you are arguing something that no one else in the world believes, it is always nice to have a college textbook handy which says exactly the same thing you just said.  

February 18, 2018 -  It's difficult to describe how fascinating the arguments on Google's Science, Physics & Relativity discussion forum have become for me, particularly the arguments I've been having with "tjrob137," who has an email account at Fermilab, but he says he does not work for Fermilab.  (He plays "word games," so that could just mean he works at Fermilab but for some other organization, such the University of California at Riverside, where has a web page.)  He once prowled my web site and wrote about it, and my logs indicated that his prowling was done from a computer in the vicinity of Fermilab.

The key cause of our arguments, however, is that he doesn't seem to understand anything except mathematics, and he seems totally incapable of explaining anything except in mathematical terms.

At one point in an argument during the past week, he wrote: 
Logic is a subset of math. But what I said has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with that, because the world is NOT math or logic, it just IS.  Physics is also neither math nor logic, and is the systematic effort to MODEL how the world works.

Moreover, your "logic" is FLAWED -- you do not consider all of the aspects of the experiments you think you understand (but don't).
Sometime later, after arguing that think that I understand Einstein's theories and how "tjrob's" beliefs conflict with those theories, I wrote:
So, I'm on the side of Einstein who felt that the universe IS logical.
And "tjrob137" responded:
He was wrong, too.

Note the non-logical aspects of the world are not related to relativity, they are related to quantum mechanics, which Einstein never accepted -- we know he was wrong in that. YOU are even more wrong than him, because he at least understood the math and physics underlying relativity, while you CLEARLY do not.
So, he is clearly saying that there are aspects of quantum mechanics which are not logical.  And that doesn't bother him at all.  Of course, I think Einstein was right in never accepting Quantum Mechanics.  Quantum Mechanics is all about mathematical models, not about what is happening in reality.  Yes, the mathematical model often work very well, but that just means they work until they no longer work because they do not represent reality.   The mathematical model of the earth-centered universe is a good example.  It worked for a thousand years, until someone noticed something was wrong. 

Then I asked this about the recent Italian experiment where they compared the "tick rates" of one clock atop a mountain against the tick rates of another clock at the bottom of the mountain ("Tjrob137" believes the tick rates are the same in both locations, and it is the "signals" that travel down the mountain to the observing station that cause the apparent tick rate difference):
Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you talking about "signals" that must travel at  the speed of light to get information about moving clock #2 to the location of stationary clock #1?  And the "signals" that must travel at the speed of light to get information about higher clock #1 to the location of  lower clock #2?
His reply:
Yes.
Then he added:
How can you possibly compare clocks that are SEPARATED???? -- by sending SIGNALS corresponding to clock ticks from one clock to the other, and comparing the rate of the signals to the rate of the clock. 
Then:
There is no question that in GR, gravitational redshift is an effect ON THE SIGNALS, NOT THE CLOCKS. All your popular articles that say different do not affect this, because they have simplified the discussion in a way that is tantamount to being wrong.  
So, he was definitely saying that the clock atop the mountain and the clock at the bottom of the mountain both tick at the same rate, but the "signals" sent down the mountain for comparison are affected by gravity, and those "signals" travel at a different rate than the signals from the clock that is sitting at the bottom of the mountain.  So, it isn't that the clock on the mountaintop is running faster, it is that the speed of the "signals" traveling down to the lower clock make it seem that the clock at the top of the mountain is running faster.

In another argument, "tjrob137" argued that "signals" travel faster along a optical fiber cable if the input end of the cable is lifted a foot than if the entire cable is laying parallel with the surface of the earth.  He says that is what was behind the difference in readings of the two clocks in the 2010 NIST experiment.  It wasn't that one clock was 1 foot higher than the other clock, it was that the "signals" from the higher clock had to travel downward, and thus went faster.

I went to bed Friday night thinking about "tjrob137's" arguments, trying to figure out some way to explain to him how TOTALLY NUTS his beliefs were.  I awoke on Saturday morning with a way to do it (I hoped), and I posted this message to him:
Let me try to explain the difference between your argument and mine.  Instead of using tiny fractions, I'll use whole numbers.  And the situation is like the one in Italy that was in the news this week.

My argument: Time and clocks tick at a faster rate atop a mountain than at the bottom of the mountain.

Your argument: Time ticks at the same rate in both places, and it is the rate of the "SIGNALS" traveling through the fiber optic cable that runs from the top of the mountain to the bottom that causes the difference in clock readings.

My argument:

From my frame of reference at the bottom of the mountain, the clocks at the top of the mountain tick 10 times (10T) per 1 unit of my time (1U), while the clocks at the bottom of the mountain with me tick 5 times (5T) per 1 unit of my time (1U).  

The "signals" coming down the cable from the top of the mountain travel at the constant speed of light, c.  It takes 10 ticks (10T) of MY clock at the bottom of the mountain for each tick to arrive from the top of the mountain.

So, I count the signals coming down from the top of the mountain, and I see that every 1U of my time I get 10T from the mountain top clock.  c is constant, so the arrival times are constant.  Meanwhile, my clock at my level shows 5T every 1U of my time.

Conclusion, time ticks at twice the speed at the top of the mountain than it does at the bottom of the mountain.

You claim this is not so.  As I understand it, you claim the "SIGNALS" traveling from the top of the mountain down to me move FASTER THAN c, causing the discrepancy.  You claim the clock at the top of the mountain also ticks 5T per 1U, the same as my clock.

But, according to your argument, signal #1 (the first tick of their clock) would take 10T to get from the top of the mountain to me while the second tick would take 8T, the 3rd would take 6T, the 4th 4T, etc.  That causes me to see 10 ticks arriving in 1 unit of my time, DOUBLE the number of ticks I measure on my clock.  

The problem with your belief, of course, is that the 5th tick would have to arrive at my location instantly, i.e., with no travel time.  And the 6th tick would arrive before it was sent, and the same with all the rest of the ticks.  The whole scheme is illogical.

But you claim that even if it is illogical, it is true and it is to be believed.

Richard Feynman famously said, "It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong."

What experiments show signals from the top of the mountain arriving at the bottom of the mountain BEFORE they were sent from the top of the mountain?

The Italian experiment shows my version is correct.  Because c is constant, the signals arrive at regular intervals.  
I sent that message on Saturday at 11:03 a.m.   "Tjrob137" didn't respond yesterday.  Looking at the thread this morning, I see there are now 470 posts in it, and there have been three posts by "Tjrob137" since my post, the last one at 4:37 yesterday afternoon, but none are a response to what I wrote.

I can probably write the same ideas I wrote above but much simpler and much shorter.  Every time I explain things to "tjrob137" I understand those things a bit better, and I can simplify my explanations a bit more.  The problem is, however, that my explanations are logic based, and "tjrob137" doesn't believe in logic, he believes in mathematics.  So, if something is totally illogical, he doesn't care.  He'll believe it anyway.  And, if he gets tired of arguing with me, he'll just stop posting.  He won't try explaining his beliefs in a different way.

I've tried to get "tjrob137" to discuss the Hafele-Keating experiment, which didn't use cables to connect one observing location to another.  His response was:
Hafele and Keating compared ELAPSED PROPER TIMES of clocks, not clock rates. 
And that was that.  "Proper times" has some meaning to him that he won't explain.  Looking the term up on the Internet doesn't help to clarify what "tjrob137" meant.  It just leads to more mathematical terms having to do with some mathematical model that doesn't seem to represent reality.  "Tjrob137 also wouldn't explain how comparing elapsed times for two clocks ticking at different rates is somehow totally unrelated to comparing tick rates.

Comments for Sunday, February 11, 2018, thru Saturday, Feb. 17, 2018:

February 16, 2018 (B) - Yesterday, someone brought another news article about Time to my attention.   It's titled "Some Physicists Think Time May Be Slowing Down — and Will Eventually Stop."  The article doesn't make much sense to me, and it seems to have been dreamed up by mathematicians who promote String Theory, which is a theory that cannot be proved or disproved, so it seems like a total waste of time to me.  What scientific purpose does it serve?  As I see it, it's just a meaningless "mathematical construct" that mathematicians love to play around with like some computer game.

And the article doesn't seem to provide any meaningful description of how time works in this "mathematical construct."  So, there wasn't much I could say about it.  However, I noticed that the idea was dreamed up at the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain.  That I found to be very interesting, since I've been noticing a lot of visits to my web site from one or many people in Bilbao, Spain.  There are lots of one-time visits, but I haven't analyzed them to determine if they represent many people visiting one time, or if they represent a single visitor who moves from location to location around Bilbao and visits many times.  It's one of the lesser "mysteries" that keep making each day  more interesting than the previous day. 

February 16, 2018 (A) - The "Gym TV Mystery" that has been bugging me for months reached a new level of intensity yesterday.  I was on the treadmill at about 1:45 p.m. when four of the seven TVs on the wall in front of me suddenly went dark and just showed the screen saver that indicates the TV is on but the cable connection has been turned off.  I immediately jumped off treadmill and when into the next room where the manager was sitting at his desk.  I jerked my thumb in the direction of the TVs on the wall, and he immediately knew what I was indicating.  He nodded and headed to the back room.  I waited, and after he had been in the back room for a moment or two, the TVs all showed their normal cable channels again.

While waiting for the manager to return, I had a moment to think.  On Monday the TVs had turned off at 12:35 p.m. while I was walking into the cardio room.  (See my February 12 (A) comment.)  On Tuesday, the TVs turned off at 1:35 p.m. while I was on one of the Exercycles.  I don't go to the gym on Wednesdays, so I don't know what happened on that day.  And on Thursday, as described above, the TVs turned off at 1:45 p.m. while I was on the treadmill.  Three times in a row the TVs had turned off while I was in the gym.

When the manager returned, I asked him if the TVs were just turning off while I was in the gym, or do they turn off at other times, too.  He said they turn off at other times, too.  (I'm evidently just the only member who mentions it to him.)

We talked a bit about how the TVs and cable boxes work, and he kept talking about how a "timer" was turning off the TVs.  I couldn't figure out how that is possible.  Someone has to set a timer to turn the cable connection off at some specific time.  Who was setting the timer to turn off?  And WHY?  Or did someone just tell the manager that it was a "timer" problem and the manager was simply repeating that to me, without having a clue as to what kind of "timer" was involved or what it did?  I suggested to him that someone could be "messing" with him.   He nodded.  But I didn't want to take up too much of his time, so I just went back to my exercises.

Now I'm thinking about when the problem started.  It started in late October.  Several of the TVs when dark and stayed dark for over a week before I mentioned it.  The manager evidently called Spectrum, and Spectrum turned the TVs back on, but someone set the screen size on all of the TVs to show a "squished picture."  (See my January 30 comment.)  That lasted for months, until I showed the manager undeniable proof that the TVs were not "supposed to be that way."  Meanwhile, a week or two after the first time the TVs went dark and were than turned back on again, some of the TVs went dark again and remained dark for a week or so.  Then a week or two later, same thing.  That's when I started telling the manager whenever I saw the screens go dark.  And now some of the TVs evidently go dark almost every day at different times.

So, what's going on?  I'm still gathering clues.  Is it just a coincidence that there is a "movement" afoot to get gyms to turn off the TV channels that Donald Trump doesn't like (CNN specifically)?  Is it just a coincidence that a rival gym opened up in my town about 6 months ago, and it is located right across the street from the Spectrum store and service center?  I need to know what kind of "timer" they are talking about and what it is supposed to do.  I'll probably have to wait again for the TVs to turn off again while I'm there before I can work the question into a conversation with the manager.   'Tis a puzzlement.

ADDED NOTE: While I was at the gym this afternoon, the cable connection turned off once again to some of the TVs.  But, before it did, there was a message on the screen.  I saw it once before, but I don't wear m glasses while exercising, so I couldn't read it.  Same thing this time, but I was able to make out a bit more of it than the previous time.  It said something to the effect that, due to lack of activity, the cable connection was going to turn off unless someone pressed any of the buttons on the cable box. 

Aha!  So, it IS a "timer" problem.  It's some kind of timer that shuts down the cable connection if no one has done anything with it in 24 hours.  It's probably a "power saver" option or something to that effect.  And it can probably be easily changed.  But the manager was busy with something, so I'll wait until the next time the problem occurs.  Then I'll try to explain the problem as I see it.

February 15, 2018 - While I was lying in bed this morning waiting for it to be time to get up, it occurred to me that I should check to see what other news stories there might be about the Nature Physics "Geodesy and metrology with a transportable optical clock" article.  (See yesterday's comment.)  So, after breakfast this morning I did a Google news search for "Geodesy" and found two articles worth mentioning:  The first is from Science Daily and it titled "Portable optical clock used to measure gravitation for the first time."  The article says,
The transportable clock was driven in a vibration-damped and temperature-stabilised trailer to the French Modane Underground Laboratory (LSM). Operated by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Grenoble-Alpes University, the multidisciplinary lab is located in the middle of the Fréjus road tunnel between France and Italy.

There, the team measured the gravity potential difference between the exact location of the clock inside the mountain and a second clock at INRIM -- located 90 km away in Torino, Italy, at a height difference of about 1,000 m.

The accurate comparison of the two clocks was made possible using a 150 km long optical fibre link, set up by INRIM, and a frequency comb from NPL, to connect the clock to the link. Researchers from Leibniz Universität Hannover also determined the gravity potential difference using conventional geodetic techniques, and the two measurements were shown to be consistent.
Unfortunately, there's nothing in those paragraphs or in the entire article that I would highlight in red.  It says nothing about exactly how "the gravity potential difference" was determined.  And that is the key point of contention between me and the mathematicians.  I say that the lower clock ran slower, and that is how they measured the "gravity potential difference."  The mathematicians argue that time moves at the same rate everywhere, and all accurate clocks run at the same rate everywhere, so there can be no clock that "ran slower."  There was just some magical "signal" that made it seem that the lower clock "ran slower."

The second article is from ScienceAlert.com and is titled "For The First Time, a Portable Atomic Clock Has Been Used to Measure Gravity."  It has something worth highlighting in red:
The technology involved in atomic clocks is breathtaking. They keep track of the extremely regular oscillation of atoms trapped by lasers to keep the most accurate time possible, allowing it to be measured to the 18th decimal place.

The most accurate atomic clock ever built using strontium atoms contained in a lattice of lasers - what is known as an optical lattice atomic clock - won't lose or gain a second for 15 billion years. That's longer than the current age of the Universe.

The strontium atoms are cooled to a temperature just above that of absolute zero, trapped by the interference pattern of two laser beams. The laser excites the atom, which causes it to oscillate.

The new portable atomic clock, also a strontium optical lattice developed by researchers at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstal in Germany, is not quite as accurate as the 2015 record-breaker. It has an uncertainty of 7.4 × 10−17.

But it's accurate enough to measure gravitational redshift, as the international team of researchers has just discovered.

We know that gravity affects matter. We know that it affects light. And, yes, it also has an effect on time - where gravity is stronger, time moves slower.
Looking at all the messages that were posted to Google's Science, Physics & Relativity discussion forum overnight, I see they are "more of the same."  We had been talking about the NIST experiment where they showed that a clock lifted just one foot higher than another clock ran faster.  And we'd been talking about the Hafele-Keating experiment which showed that moving clocks run slower than stationary clocks.  Tom Roberts disbelieves both of those experiments and argues,
In particular, did the NIST experiment "bring the clocks together" to
"compare" them? -- of course not. Because it did NOT compare the clocks, it compared SIGNALS FROM THE CLOCKS, which you would know if you bothered to actually read the reports, not just articles written for popular consumption.
And when I asked "WHAT SIGNALS??!?!?!?!?!?!?" Tom replied,
The SIGNALS they actually compared.    
And he concluded his post with this,
Your fantasies and mis-reading of popular but inaccurate reports does
not change either the experimental method or results.  
He's evidently totally incapable of explaining what "signals" he's talking about, but I suspect that in this new experiment, he will admit that he's talking about the "signals" that get transmitted along the 150 km optical fiber cable connecting the two clocks.  He wants the two clocks to be side by side when they show the difference in tick rates.  But, of course, if they are side by side, they will show the same tick rates.  It is because one is higher than the other that they show different tick rates.  But, evidently, Tom's argument is that the clocks are actually ticking at the same rate, it is just the "signals" that are used to compare the clocks that cause the difference.   I think he means the "signals" have to move at the speed of light, so if you are looking at one clock, the "signals" from the other clock will have to get to you via a cable at the speed of light, and that delay is what all the fuss is about.  Therefore, the people who designed the experiments are all incompetent, since they didn't take into account the time it takes for those "signals" to move from point to point at the speed of light.

As I see it, the experiments are like taking videos of two clocks in two different locations and then comparing the videos.  The speed of light cannot cause the difference in what the videos record. 

Hmm.  The speed of light cannot cause any difference.  But a video shot near a black hole should run at a vastly faster speed when shown back on earth, because "30 frames PER SECOND" has a vastly different value near a black hole than back on earth. 

Sigh.  It's time for me to start working on replies to the posts that were made overnight.

February 14, 2018 - This morning someone sent me links to two recent articles that fit perfectly into the arguments I'm involved with on Google's Science, Physics & Relativity discussion forum.   The first link is to a Los Angeles Times article from yesterday titled "Scientists take an atomic clock on the road and use it to measure the height of a mountain."  It says,
This week, scientists described a major step forward in using time to determine height above sea level. For the first time, they took an optical atomic clock out of the lab. Their liberated device was brought into the French Alps.

By comparing the tick rate of the portable atomic clock on a mountain with a similar clock in a lab in Torino, Italy, the researchers were able to show that the altitude difference between the two locations was roughly 1,000 meters, or 3,280 feet.
and
According to Einstein's theory of relativity, time moves differently depending on where you are in a gravity field.

For example, a clock on top of a tall mountain — far from the center of the Earth — will move a tiny bit faster than a clock at the base of that mountain, where the gravity is stronger.

It's not a mechanical error. Time itself actually passes faster at the top of the mountain.
The article contains the second link, which is to the original article from two days ago as published online by the scientific journal Nature Physics.  It is titled "Geodesy and metrology with a transportable optical clock."  It says the same thing as the Los Angeles Times article, but using physics jargon and adds lots and lots of technical details.  For example, the article says,
The test site chosen for our demonstration of chronometric levelling11 with optical clocks was the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane (LSM) in France, with the Italian metrology institute INRIM in Torino serving as the reference site. The height difference between the two sites is approximately 1,000 m, corresponding to a fractional redshift of about 10–13.
So, they already knew what the height difference was.  They then just confirmed it with the atomic clocks.   The article uses this illustration:
using time to measure the height of a mountain

and it says under the illustration,
The red line shows the expected variation of the Sr clock transition frequency due to the relativistic redshift.
Presumably, "the red line" is actually two red lines, (1) the diagonal red line in the left chart showing zero altitude and (2) the second diagonal red line in the right chart showing a 1,000 meter altitude.  There's another "red line" that connects the second bar in the bar chart atop the mountain to the second bar in the bar chart at the bottom of the mountain.  That supposedly also represents a 150 km long cable connecting the two locations.  (You'd think that a paper with 24 authors could be more clear, but maybe it is difficult to read because it had 24 authors.)

The articles neatly dispute the claims by "tjrob137" who endlessly argues that time does NOT tick at different rates at different altitudes or at different speeds.  He claims that is just lies that many scientists feed to the ignorant public because the public is too dumb to understand real physics.  According to "tjrob137," in "real physics," there are some magical "signals" that somehow change everything that is observed.  The problem is that "tjrob137" cannot explain how those magical "signals" work except via mathematical jargon I cannot decipher. 

I posted a comment advising "tjrob137" of the LA Times and Nature Physics articles.  Presumably, he will just consider the LA Times article to be nothing but more lies fed to the ignorant pubic, and there will be something in the Nature Physics article that he can use to argue that it confirms his belief that time ticks at the same rate everywhere, and it is only the magical, unexplainable "signals" that only he understands that make it seem otherwise. 

The thread now has 309 comments in it, and it seems less and less worthwhile to continue to participate.  I'm curious to see how "tjrob137" and "paparios" react to the LA Times and Nature Physics articles, but, other than that, I think it may be time to get back to work on some article about all this - or maybe a book. 

February 13, 2018 - Ah!  Wow!  The arguments on Google's Science, Physics & Relativity discussion forum made actual progress this morning.  We were arguing about the Hafele-Keating experiment, which involved flying four atomic clocks around the world, twice, first traveling eastward and then traveling westward.  Before the flights, they compared the clocks to a "stationary" atomic clock.  The mathematicians claim the experiment proved nothing, because no one did any comparisons while the clocks were moving.  So, they argue you cannot claim the clocks were "running slow" while moving if no one did any measurements while they were moving to prove they were running slow.

LOGIC, of course, says that the clocks must have been running slow while moving, because they showed less time had passed when the comparisons were made to the "stationary" clock after the flights.  But the mathematicians do not accept logic.  They believe math IS logic.  And they have no math which shows the clocks were running slow while moving.

Several mathematicians hit me with that reasoning at the same time.  It means we may be at an impasse.  One of the mathematicians actually argued that scientists are lying when they tell people the clocks were running slow while flying on the airplanes.   I'm still trying to find out WHY he believes the scientists are lying to the public.  He seems to think the public is too stupid to understand physics, but that doesn't explain the need to lie.    

February 12, 2018 (B) - The arguments on Google's Science, Physics & Relativity discussion forum continue to rage.  Some of them are extremely interesting.  For example, today when I complained that "tjrob137" (also known as "Tom Roberts") wasn't explaining his bizarre claims, one of the people on my "Do Not Reply" list, "Odd Bodkin," posted this: 
I love it — just love it — when people like this insist that everyday folk have an entitlement to a compelling explanation at their level.
I couldn't reply, of course, but I could respond by writing a comment to someone else.  So, I wrote this to Tom Roberts, who often seems to feel the same way as Odd Bodkin:
Is that what Tom Roberts and Paparios also believe?  That "everyday folk" like me are NOT ENTITLED to any kind of "compelling explanation" at "our level"?

Then that is how you see our problem here, isn't it?  You simply cannot LOWER yourself to explain anything at the "everyday folk" level?
It certainly makes it look like you simply cannot explain anything because you do not UNDERSTAND anything.  As Einstein supposedly said, "You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother."  
So far,  no response to that from Tom Roberts.  But someone else who is on my "Do Not Reply" list posted this:
If someone is on your "Do Not REPLY" list, then
DO NOT REPLY, idiot. Androcles!
Since he's on my "Do Not Reply" list, I couldn't reply and explain that replying is not always the same as responding.
 
February 12, 2018 (A) - When I walked into the "cardio room" in my gym at 12:35 p.m. this afternoon, I noticed that about 4 of the 7 TVs  on the wall were showing a "no signal" message that moved around on the screen, indicating that the cable connection was turned off.  So, the cable connection had been turned off shortly before I entered the cardio room after changing clothes.  The "no signal" message displays for only about 10 minutes before the TV turns off automatically.

The gym manager noticed it at the same time, probably because he noticed me entering the room and then looked at the TV to see if there was anything wrong.  (Last week I'd finally convinced him that his TVs were all set to the wrong picture size, and he finally had someone correct the problem.)  So, he got up from his desk and went into a back room to turn the cable boxes on again. 

That made me wonder if the cable boxes were supposed to be set to turn off at 12:30 A.M., after the gym closed, and instead someone had set them to turn off at 12:30 P.M.  I asked the young woman behind the counter about it.  She told me, "The timer turns off the TV's."  I responded, "Yes, but who sets the timer?"  That question had never occurred to her.  She had no idea who did it.

I'm thinking that someone thinks that a.m. is "daytime," and p.m. is "nighttime," and that's why they set the timer to turn off at 12:30 p.m.  The gym is open 24 hours, except on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, when they close around 11 p.m.  Today is Monday, so the cable timer could still have been set for weekend hours.  I'll wait to see if it happens next Monday, or the Monday after that, before I try to explain the problem to the gym manager.  He's totally non-technical and admits he has no idea how the timer is set.

 February 11, 2018 -  While I haven't been mentioning it in my comments here, the arguments I'm having on Google's Science, Physics & Relativity discussion forum have been raging fast and furious all week.   It isn't just me against everyone else on the forum.  There have been a couple people who argue the same things I argue, but with a slight twist of one kind or another.   "Kenseto" is the prime example.  He doesn't support me, but he argues the same things I argue using different terminology.  For example, here is part of a discussion about different speeds at which points on Earth travel around the center of the Earth:
Me: Milwaukee moves at 800 mph, Miami moves at 950 mph, and London moves at 650  mph.  Do you deny those speeds?

Tom Roberts: No, relative to the ECI.
 
Me: Do you deny that IN THEORY, movements at those speeds would have different lengths for their seconds?
 
Tom Roberts: Yes, I deny that. Because EVERY clock ALWAYS ticks at its usual rate, and the second is defined to be 9,192,631,770 cycles of the Cs133 hyperfine transition.

Kenseto: No, clocks in relative motion do not accumulate clock seconds at the same rate. The reason is that a cycle of the Cs 133 atom has different TIME content in different frames. The SR math says so.....one second in observer A’s clock is worth (equal) 1/gamma seconds on B’s clock.
So, Kenseto and I agree, but Tom Roberts didn't respond to Kenseto.  Tom Roberts just stopped posting.  If he posts again, he'll probably ignore Kenseto's comment and just argue with me and some later post of mine.  And he'll claim that I am the only one who believes that clocks tick at different rates in different frames of references.

The thread that had only Pentcho Valev's originating comment in it when I first responded to Valev's comment on February 2, now has 118 comments from 21 different people. And it doesn't show any signs of being anywhere near a conclusion.  I probably posted about a quarter of those 118 comments.  I'm saving a copy of the discussion, since it is interesting and shows how the mathematicians think.  Many posts, of course, were nothing but personal attacks against me.  But you have to expect that if you post anything that conflicts with the beliefs of the mathematician-physicists on the forum.

This morning I see there were six posts overnight.  Mostly they are just bickering between other people.  Here's one interesting example:
Paul B. Anderson: All GPS clocks are synchronous in the non-rotating Earth centred frame (ECI).

Koobee Wublee: This in not true.

Paul B. Anderson:  I challenge you to tell us in which frame GPS-clocks and UTC [Coordinated Universal Time] clocks are synchronous.

mlwo...@wp.pl:  They are just synchronous, poor idiot. 
Paul B. Anderson is in Norway, and one comment from him this morning is addressed to me.  It's going to take me awhile to figure out how to respond, since his comment looks at things from a different angle than usual.  I'll start on it as soon as I finish the comment I'm writing here at this moment.

Oops.  I got involved in a different problem resulting from my web site host changing things.  I had to work on that and totally forgot that I hadn't posted this comment.  So, I'm posting it.  If I forgot anything, I'll update it later.

Here's an interesting and somewhat typical comment from one of the guys on my "Do Not Reply" list, David (Kronos Prime) Fuller, who seems upset with how I replied to Paul B. Anderson:
STUPID ASS ED DONKEY..... the orbiting satellite clock and ground based stationary clocks ARE CONNECTED THROUGH THE PROPERTIES OF THE VACUUM YOU STUPID DONKEY’S ASS.

The orbiting clock is skewed by VELOCITY
The ground base clock is skewed by the earth’s acceleration of gravity

“The Vacuum” connects the two clocks.

You’re Stupid

YOU ARE VERY VERY VERY STUPID & EQUALLY STUBBORN LIKE A DONKEY!!!
"'The vacuum' connects the two clocks"?  I have no idea what he's talking about, but since he's on my "Do Not Respond" list, I'm not going to try to find out.

Comments for Sunday, February 4, 2018, thru Saturday, Feb. 10, 2018:

February 9, 2018 - I awoke this morning thinking about GPS satellites and how they must disprove the mathematicians "All Observers" version of Einstein's Second Postulate.  But, I think I'm going to have to create some kind of illustration to help explain it.  The illustration would be something like this:

----------OA--------------------OB---------->

------------------X-----Y-----Z--------------->

OA and OB are two orbiting GPS satellites moving west to east around the Earth. X is where I am located on Earth at 8 a.m., and I am also moving west to east as the Earth spins on its axis, but at a different velocity than the velocity of the two satellites.  Y is where I am at 8:00:01 a.m. when I receive the 8 a.m. signal from the OB satellite.  I receive it first, because it arrives at c+v where v is my speed toward the OB satellite (the emitter).  Z is where I am at 8:00:02 a.m. when I receive the signal from the OA satellite.  It arrives later than the OB signal because I am traveling away from the OA satellite and the light arrives at c-v, where v is my speed away from the OA satellite.  

So, at 8:00:03 a.m., my GPS system tells me where I was at 8:00:00 a.m.  (In reality, it is more like 8:00:00.000003 a.m. and 8:00:00.000000 a.m.)  The system cannot tell me where I am, since that would require some prediction of where I will be a millionth of a second in the future when the signal arrives.

The system can tell me where I was at 8:00:00 a.m. because the clocks on the two satellites are synchronized with my clock.  8:00:00 a.m. is the same on all three clocks.  (Actually, you need 3 or 4 satellites to make things work, but that would complicate the illustration and explanation unnecessarily.)  And, of course it is known that the signals from the satellites to my GPS system travel at c, which is 299,792,458 meters per second.  If you know the speed of the signal and the length of time the signal traveled, you can determine the distance traveled.  And knowing the distance traveled allows the system to calculate/triangulate where I was on the surface of the Earth at 8:00:00 a.m.

If, however, the mathematicians were right, and if light travels at the same speed for ALL OBSERVERS, regardless of their movement relative to the source of the light signals, then how could the GPS system work?  Both signals would have to arrive when I am at position Y, even though the signal from OA would have had to travel a greater distance in the same amount of time.  The only way that would work is if light traveled instantaneously (at infinite speed).  And if that were true, you couldn't measure distances by how fast light gets from point to point. 

I can probably find better ways to explain this, but I'm going to have to think about it a bit.

February 8, 2018 - I don't remember exactly what I was looking for, but a couple days ago I found a scientific paper titled "One-Way Speed of Light Relative to a Moving Observer" by Stephan J. G. Gift.  It's also HERE.  Although I was intrigued by the title, it took awhile before I found the time to read it.  Wow!  It says what I have been saying about the screwball way that many colleges teach Einstein's Second Postulate.  And Stephan Gift uses the GPS system to show that what the colleges teach is wrong.  Here's the abstract:
The one-way speed of light relative to a moving observer is determined using the range measurement equation of the Global Positioning System. This equation has been rigorously tested and verified in the Earth-Centred Inertial frame where light signals propagate in straight lines at constant speed c. The result is a simple demonstration of light speed anisotropy that is consistent with light speed anisotropy detected in other experiments and inconsistent with the principle of light speed constancy. This light speed anisotropy was not observed before because there has been no direct one-way measurement of light speed relative to a moving observer.
"Anisotropy" is defined as "the property of being directionally dependent, which implies different properties in different directions, as opposed to isotropy."  In other words, "speed of light anisotropy" means you get a different measurement of the speed of light in one direction (heading toward the source) than you do in another (heading away from the source).   And that is "inconsistent with the principle of light speed constancy" which (according to mathematicians) says the speed of light is measured to be the same in all frames of reference, whether you are moving toward the source or away from the source. 
 
In the discussion section, Gift summarizes his paper this way:
The elapsed times determined in equations (7) and (13) indicate that the light transmitted from station A takes longer to arrive at station B when station B is moving away from A than towards it. Following from this equations (8) and (14) indicate that for an observer moving at a constant speed v relative to the ECI [Earth-Centered Intertial] frame, the speed of light from a source fixed in the ECI frame relative to that moving observer is c - v for the observer moving away from the source and c + v for the observer moving towards the source.
Essentially, what Gift is saying in his paper is that GPS satellites are not in geosynchronous orbits, so they orbit around the earth at a different rate than the earth spins on its axis.  That means that, when your car's GPS system (and the earth under it) is moving toward a satellite, the signal from the satellite arrives at c + v, and your car's GPS system (and the earth under it) is moving way from the satellite, the signal from the satellite arrives at c - v.  He writes:
These changed light speed values c + v observed in an inertial frame directly contradict the principle of light speed constancy which requires constant light speed c that is independent of the motion of the observer.
The "principle of speed of light constancy" is probably what Stephan Gift was taught in college.  It is the mathematicians' misinterpretation of Einstein's Second Postulate that can be found in many many college physics textbooks.  That's a problem with Gift's papers.  He's blaming Relativity for errors, when he should be blaming mathematicians and the incorrect version of Relativity they teach in many (if not most) colleges and universities.

Stephan Gift's paper says he works in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty of Engineering, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies.  I wondered what else he had written.  I found a copy of "The Invalidation of a Sacred Principle of Modern Physics" which has this as its abstract:
The principle underpinning modern physics, which states that the speed of light is constant and independent of the motion of the source and the observer, is shown to be invalid.
And, I found "Light Speed Invariance is a Remarkable Illusion."  Then, I checked my library and found maybe a dozen other papers by Stephan Gift on the same and similar subjects.  And I found a few others elsewhere.  

I don't know when I'll get the time to read them all, but the most interesting part of the process might be to check the references that Gift uses and cites.  I'd certainly like to find a lot of other people who have been arguing the same things I've been arguing.  It also looks like Gift gave up on writing papers several years ago.  I wonder why.  Did he realize that he was criticizing Relativity and Einstein's Second Postulate when he should have been criticizing the mathematician's misinterpretation of Relativity and the Second Postulate?  I may have to research that, too.

February 5, 2018 - I was somewhat relieved this morning to see that the arguments on Google's Science, Physics and Relativity discussion forum had degenerated into arguments and personal attacks between other posters, with no comments addressed to me.  So, I went back to work on the new web page (or paper) I'm trying to write about Einstein's First and Second Postulates. 

I began by reading what I'd already written.  I'd written an explanation of why Einstein thought his Second Postulate was "only apparently irreconcilable with" the First Postulate.  But, I found I wasn't certain that I agreed with what I'd written on that subject.  That made me wonder if others on the Internet had addressed the question of why Einstein felt the Second Postulate "was only apparently irreconcilable with" the First Postulate.  So, I did a Google search for "Einstein Postulates Irreconcilable."  Surprisingly, my paper on Einstein's Second Postulate was the first item on the list provided by Google.  But, even more of a surprise was the second item on Google's list.  It was a link to a discussion from October 2012 between Pentcho Valev, "tjrob137" and some others who had also participated in yesterday's Google forum discussion.  The discussion was titled "Einstein's 1905 Postulates Irreconcilable After All."  So, they've been arguing the same argument for over 5 years!

In 2012, I was working on my book about the 2001 anthrax attacks and I hadn't even started to think about Relativity, Einstein's Postulates, or Time Dilation.  I hadn't even yet started my interactive blog.  My first comment there was dated October 9, 2014, and it was about buying a new laptop computer (the computer I'm currently using to write this comment).  I didn't post anything about Time Dilation until I posted "Time Dilation Explained" on April 15, 2015, which has a link back to my Time Dilation page on this web site that was started on March 23, 2014.

Anyway, the 2012 discussion I'd found begins with this post by Pentcho Valev:
A stationary source sends a light pulse towards a stationary observer/receiver. Then the source starts moving towards the observer and sends another pulse. The two pulses are physically different, judging from the different frequency they will have at reception, and the difference is obviously created BEFORE reception. What does the difference consist in? Two answers are conceivable:

(A) The speed of the second pulse (relative to the observer) is higher than the speed of the first. Needless to say, this is fatal for relativity.

(B) The wavelength of the second pulse is shorter than the wavelength of the first. This is also fatal for relativity but for a different reason. If the wavelength of light varies with the speed of the source (as is the case with sound waves), then the principle of relativity is violated - the motion of the light source towards the observer is not equivalent to the motion of the observer towards the source. As the source changes its speed, various wavelengths travel between source and receiver. This does not happen when the receiver changes its speed.
It seems Pentcho Valev has found the "irreconcilable" point.  But, as usual, he's misinterpreting everything.  First, as I see it, Einstein was saying that the two pulses mentioned in Pentcho's first paragraph are NOT "physically different" even though they would have a different frequency at reception. 

Pentcho's (A) comment is wrong, since Relativity is all about how measurements will be the same when viewed within a frame of reference, but they will be different when a comparison is made between different frames of reference.  The Second Postulate says nothing about what an outside observer will measure.

Pentcho's (B) comment is also wrong.  The wavelength will be the same when the emitter is stationary as when the emitter is moving.  That is because the emitter does not emit "waves," it emits photons which travel in a wave-like manner.  And, as stated in Einstein's Second Postulate, those photons will travel at c, independent of the motion of the emitter.

The sections of Pentcho's (B) comment that I highlighted in bold and in bold red are his key misunderstandings.  The first part suggests that Einstein in some way suggested that all motion is reciprocal, which is nonsense.  The section I highlighted in bold red says that Pentcho believes that when the light source moves the wavelengths change.  That is not true.  Pentcho also says "This does not happen when the receiver changes speed."  That may be the point of "apparent irreconcilability."  When the receiver changes speed, the measured incoming wavelengths will also change.  The actual wavelengths do not change, but when the observer is moving toward the source of light, it will appear that the wavelengths are shorter, and when the observer is moving away from the source of light it will appear that the wavelengths are longer.

Pentcho (and mathematicians) seem to believe that the First Postulate says that all frames of reference will measure the same things whether it is inside or outside of their frame of reference.

That is NOT what the First Postulate says.  The First Postulate says,
the same laws of electrodynamics and optics will be valid for all frames of reference for which the equations of mechanics hold good.
That says that the same laws of electrodynamics and optics will be valid in all local frames of reference, i.e., it won't make any difference if you are stationary
or moving at a steady rate.  You will get the same results to any experiment you perform inside your inertial frame of reference. 

The Second Postulate says,
light is always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c which is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body.
That might be "apparently irreconcilable" with the First Postulate because it says the emitting body can measures things different from the receiving body.  But that is only true if you do not understand Relativity, which is mostly about Time Dilation.  And the rest of Einstein's 1905 paper on Special Relativity is about explaining how time moves at different rates depending upon how fast you are moving.  And it is about how we can both measure things to be the same inside our individual frames of reference, but if we were to compare the length of a second in your frame versus my frame, unless we were stationary relative to each other, we would find that they are different.  Therefore, our measurements are actually different.  

The key to the misunderstandings seems to be that Einstein dismisses the idea of an "ether" that is stationary and can therefore be used to measure all velocities relative to the "ether."  Yet, he says that velocities are NOT reciprocal, they are relative to TIME.  The faster you move the more time slows down for you. 

Einstein's 1905 paper on Special Relativity was written before the evidence of the Big Bang was found.  As I see it, all motion is relative to the point where the Big Bang occurred.  Everything moved outward from that point and then began spinning.  Einstein seems to have believed that the motion of objects had some relationship to the lengths of objects, and that things (specifically "rods") become shorter when moving faster.  No evidence of any kind has been found to support that notion, but it seems it is still referred to as "space-time."

I think I understand Relativity, and I think I understand where Pentcho Valev and so many others misunderstand Relativity.  The problem, as usual, is how to discuss our two points of view intelligently so that we can arrive at a mutual understanding.  Pentcho and the others do not seem willing to do that.  They just state their views and attack anyone who disagrees with their views.   

February 4, 2018 -  Hmm.  As I sat down to begin work on this Sunday comment yesterday afternoon, I suddenly realized I have to be more careful in how I quote Albert Einstein.  When responding to a post by "Pentcho Valev" on Google's Science, Physics and Relativity discussion forum last week, I had quoted this sentence about Velocity Time Dilation from Einstein's 1905 paper on Special Relativity:
"Thence we conclude that a balance-clock at the equator must go more slowly, by a very small amount, than a precisely similar clock situated at one of the poles under otherwise identical conditions."
I received two responses that repeated what mathematicians tell me every time I use that quote.  "Steve BH," with whom I never exchanged posts before, wrote:
Einstein got this one wrong, and realized why later.

At sea level water flows to an equal level of gravitational minus centrifugal potential called the “geoid.” On the geoid clocks all go the same rate, as equatorial bulge lifts moving clocks out of the g field by just enough to compensate for their rotational speed.

Clocks on the geoid all go slower than clocks in interplanetary space. And clocks above sea level have an offset between these extremes. Clocks at elevation thus must offset before the contribute to global atomic time.

Clocks in orbit also must compensate for both motion and g potential, which cancel (with respect to geoid) at a distance of 1.5 Earth radii but not below or above that orbit. GOS clock are at 4.2 radio so the higher potential wins in their offset compared to sea level.
And a physicist from Fermi National Labs who posts as "tjrob137" wrote:
The earth is not a perfect sphere (as Einstein implicitly assumed). The earth is an oblate spheroid, and anywhere on the planet at mean sea level (i.e. the geoid), clocks will remain in sync.
I was talking about Einstein's theory, and they are talking about how that theory is wrong in practice.  Einstein was right if you consider the earth to be a perfect sphere.  But the earth is not a perfect sphere.  It is slightly flattened at the poles, which means the pull of gravity is greater at the poles than it is at the equator because the poles are closer to the center of the earth. 

Earth slightly flattened at the poles 

The image above shows the earth to be 42 kilometers greater in diameter at the equator than at the poles.  We know that gravity time dilation is greater the closer you are to the center of the earth, i, e., Time runs slower at the bottom of a mountain than at the top of the same mountain.  And the shape of the earth means that being at the equator is like being atop a mountain 21 kilometers high, while being at the poles is like being at the bottom of that same mountain. 

So, gravitational time dilation is less at the equator than at the poles, while, as Einstein stated in his 1905 paper, velocity time dilation is greater at the equator than at the poles.  The mathematicians claim the two forces exactly cancel each other out.  I can't dispute that.  And I'll have to stop using that quote from Einstein, since it always generates the same argument and derails the discussion of time dilation.

However, I'll continue to disagree with "tjrob137" on something else he wrote:
Clocks do NOT "tick faster or slower", they ALWAYS tick at their usual rate, regardless of how they might be moving (relative to anything), or where they might be located (e.g. at any gravitational potential). For a cesium atomic oscillator that rate is 9,192,631,770 Hz, BY DEFINITION.
I responded to the above comment the way I always respond to such arguments from "tjrob137":
And, "hz" means "hertz" which is "the SI unit of frequency, equal to one cycle PER SECOND."  Which means that if your SECOND is longer because you are moving, you still get 9,192,631,770 Hz, but it is not the same rate you get when you are stationary, even though you get 9,192,631,770 Hz then, too.  The length of a SECOND is different, therefore the cycle rates are different.  That is what Relativity is all about.
I see now I shouldn't have written "cycle rates are different."  I should have written "cycle periods are different" or "cycle lengths are different."  That would have made things clearer.  It is also what time dilation is all about.  You get the same speed PER SECOND in multiple "frames of reference," and you get the same number of cycles, but the length of a second can be different in different "frames of reference" because the length of a "cycle" is different.  

I asked "tjrob137" this question:
Do you deny that IN THEORY, movements at those speeds would have different lengths for their seconds?
And he responded,
Yes, I deny that. Because EVERY clock ALWAYS ticks at its usual rate, and the second is defined to be 9,192,631,770 cycles of the Cs133 hyperfine transition.
That's not a denial.  It's evidence that he misunderstands.  I responded:
Yes, the SECOND is defined that way, and the SECOND is longer when you are moving or are closer to a gravitational mass.  So, you still get the same number of cycles, but during a SECOND OF A DIFFERENT LENGTH.  So, the rate of time is different even though you get the same measurement in both places.  As stated before, that is what Relativity is all about.  
So, that time I was talking about "cycles" instead of a "rate."  As part of that same discussion, "tjrob137" also wrote:
Note however, that when one COMPARES SIGNALS from clocks that are moving differently (relative to each other), or are located at different gravitational potentials, one observes Doppler shift and/or "gravitational time dilation" in the SIGNALS.

        It is manifestly impossible to directly compare such clocks,
        one can only compare SIGNALS from them.
I've tried in vain to get him to explain what he means by "SIGNALS."  What "signals" did Joseph Hafele and Richard Keating get from the four atomic clocks they hauled around the globe on commercial aircraft in 1971, flying first in one direction and then in the opposite direction?  "tjrob137" refuses to explain, but it appears he believes that "signals" (whatever they are) speed up when they are going toward the earth and slow down when going away from the earth.  

And that was where the the conversation ended on Friday.  "tjrob137" posted nothing further on Saturday nor up until I posted this comment on Sunday, and I have no reason to believe he will restart the conversation.

However, this morning there was a new comment by Pentcho Valev at the end of the thread.  Pentcho doesn't respond to comments.  He posts new comments without mentioning any previous comments.  His new comment provides a lot of quotes from a bunch of links, with Pentcho's misinterpretations of the quotes.  He is always blaming Einstein for misinterpretations people have of Einstein's papers.  And that is what he did this morning.  Here is his entire comment:

------ start quote ----
So in 1905 Einstein concluded that the moving clock runs slower, and this was going to become "the traveling twin remains younger" later. But the conclusion was non sequitur - it didn't follow from Einstein's 1905 postulates. The situation was dangerous - at that time scientists were still not brainwashed by the Einsteinian propaganda.

In 1918 Einstein almost admitted the failure of special relativity but informed the scientific community that his general relativity did solve the problem:

Albert Einstein 1918: "A homogeneous gravitational field appears, that is directed towards the positive x-axis. Clock U1 is accelerated in the direction of the positive x-axis until it has reached the velocity v, then the gravitational field disappears again. An external force, acting upon U2 in the negative direction of the x-axis prevents U2 from being set in motion by the gravitational field. [...] According to the general theory of relativity, a clock will go faster the higher the gravitational potential of the location where it is located, and during partial process 3 U2 happens to be located at a higher gravitational potential than U1. The calculation shows that this speeding ahead constitutes exactly twice as much as the lagging behind during the partial processes 2 and 4."  http://sciliterature.50webs.com/Dialog.htm

The "homogeneous gravitational field" was an idiotic hoax of course. So idiotic that nowadays most Einsteinians avoid any discussion of it. Yet some do teach it, euphemistically:

David Morin, Introduction to Classical Mechanics With Problems and Solutions, Chapter 11, p. 14: "Twin A stays on the earth, while twin B flies quickly to a distant star and back. [...] For the entire outward and return parts of the trip, B does observe A's clock running slow, but enough strangeness occurs during the turning-around period to make A end up older."  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~djmorin/chap11.pdf

Physics Girl (4:30): "One last question. What's happening to the clocks during the period of acceleration? We still get time dilation, but we have to use a different set of rules from the general relativity. General relativity states that clocks runs slower in accelerated reference frames. So while your twin is turning around, her clock runs slower, and she sees the same thing. She sees your clock running faster than hers, so you're aging quicker. It's during this period of acceleration that you become the older twin."  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERgwVm9qWKA

"At the same time, the twin in the spaceship considers himself to be the stationary twin, and therefore as he looks back towards Earth he sees his brother ageing more slowly than himself. [...] When the twin in the spaceship turns around to make his journey home, the shift in his frame of reference causes his perception of his brother's age to change rapidly: he sees his brother getting suddenly older. This means that when the twins are finally reunited, the stay-at-home twin is the older of the two."  https://hubpages.com/education/Twin-Paradox

John Norton: "Moments after the turn-around, when the travelers clock reads just after 2 days, the traveler will judge the stay-at-home twin's clock to read just after 7 days. That is, the traveler will judge the stay-at-home twin's clock to have jumped suddenly from reading 1 day to reading 7 days. This huge jump puts the stay-at-home twin's clock so far ahead of the traveler's that it is now possible for the stay-at-home twin's clock to be ahead of the travelers when they reunite."  http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/spacetime_tachyon/index.html

Pentcho Valev
----- end quote -----

Those are some very interesting links.  The prime reason I check all of Pentcho Valev's posts is because he sometimes finds extremely interesting links that I'd never seen before.  His link to Einstein's 1918 paper Dialog about objections against the theory of relativity is a very good example. (If I had seen it, I'd never made a copy of it before.)  I'll have to study it when I find some time.  But, as I replied to Pentcho, it is an imaginary discussion between a "critic" and a "relativist," so, while quoting from it is technically "quoting Einstein," it isn't like quoting a statement from Einstein.  It's like me saying "John says Joe is crazy," and someone else saying Ed said "Joe is crazy."  Yeah, technically I said that, but I was quoting someone else.

Until this morning, I had saved only 1 file by David Morin, the same Chapter 11 file Pentcho cites.  The chapter shows that Morin teaches the "mathematician's all observers theory," and he makes the same silly misinterpretations of Einstein's theories that so many other mathematicians make.  Inexplicably, Morin also switches the postulates around, so what Einstein gave as his first postulate, Morin gives as the second postulate.  And Einstein's second postulate is Morin's first postulate.  Plus, Morin uses too much mathematics for my tastes.  Pentcho's post provided the title of the book.  It's titled "Introduction to Classical Mechanics - With Problems and Solutions."  And since Professor Morin teaches at Harvard University, his book might be a good source to quote in my papers which describe the nonsense being taught in colleges around the world.

The quote from the "Physics Girl" video has a different kind of screwball misunderstanding.  "Her clock runs slower" can mean that "her clocks runs slower than it was running before" or it can mean "her clock runs slower than the other twin's clock."  There's no situation where the stationary twin's clock "runs slower" than the moving twin's clock.  Excluding malfunctions, that isn't even possible.

The hubpage link is to an "article" that is nothing more than a blog comment.  It totally misinterprets Einstein.  There is no situation where "the twin in the spaceship considers himself to be the stationary twin, and therefore as he looks back towards Earth he sees his brother ageing more slowly than himself."  In Einstein's version of Relativity, people enclosed in different frames of reference may think they are stationary while they are actually moving, but as soon as they look outside, they see there is a difference between their "frame of reference" and someone else's "frame of reference."  (Like seconds being longer or shorter.)  Einstein doesn't imagine any situation where two space ships pass each other in empty space and they cannot tell which one is moving.  That is a situation dreamed up by mathematicians to argue their screwball beliefs about Einstein's theories.  Einstein lived in our REAL universe where people know they are in moving spaceships because it cost billions of dollars and tons of fuel to put them in that moving spaceship.    

Lastly, I previously used John D. Norton's writings as prime examples of how physics books misinterpret Einstein -- until I found better examples elsewhere.

So, posting a comment to the Google discussion forum wasn't a total waste of time.  I learned from it, and I got some new sources to use in papers I hope to write.  I do not expect Pentcho Valev to respond to what I wrote, but he might post something with some more interesting links.  I'm hoping that "tjrob137" will want to argue about the length of a second, but I doubt that he will.  If he posts anything further to that thread, it will probably just be some personal attacks.

ADDED NOTE:  Ah!  At about 2 p.m. this afternoon, "tjrob137" did indeed post a reply.   He posted this personal attack:
The situation is considerably more complicated than it is possible for
you to understand, because you have carefully kept yourself ignorant of basic physics. It simply is not possible to construct a SELF-CONSISTENT theory based on the notions you espouse. And, of course, GR is in complete disagreement with your claims -- in GR every clock ALWAYS ticks at its usual rate.

        That is, every clock advances by 1 second whenever the
        metric integrated over its worldline increases in path
        length by 1 second -- the correspondence between world
        and model is EXCELLENT. You have NOTHING but your own
        blather, and misreadings of some articles.
Which brings us back to the experiment at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) which showed that a second becomes longer when you raise a clock by just one foot.  When I showed that article to "tjrob137" in previous  discussions he simply argued that the people at the NIST do not know what they are doing, since they evidently do not take into account the "SIGNALS" that somehow change everything.

Comments for Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018, thru Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018:

February 2, 2018 (B) - Hmm.  When I went to the gym this afternoon, I found that they had fixed the aspect ratio on 6 of the 7 LG TVs on the wall in the "Cardio Room."  The screen images now fill the entire screen without any black bars at the top and bottom.  (See my January 30 comment.)  And they had also turned on the TVs showing CNN and ESPN, which had been turned off for a couple weeks.  Only the TV tuned to NBC was still off.  (It could be broken.)  However, the 5 Samsung TVs hanging from the ceiling still showed the black bars, including the TV showing CNN, which was turned on once again.  So, I've made some progress.  Everyone now knows that the vertically squeezed image is NOT "the way things are supposed to be."

Interestingly, half way through my session at the gym, the LG TV showing the Fox channel turned off.  I mentioned it to the manager, and to my stunned surprise he went into a back room that I didn't know existed and switched that TV back on again. He said it was a problem with "the timer."  Evidently, the TVs are connected to timers which turn them off when the gym closes at night and turn the TVs back on again when the gym reopens in the morning.  So, all someone has to do to turn off CNN is putter around with the timer.  Did the manager know about the timer before, or did he learn about it when the "Tech guy" fixed the aspect ratio on the LG TVs?  I dunno.  But, I certainly learned a lot about how things work.  And I'll know what to do when someone turns off CNN again.

February 2, 2018 (A) - Groan!  I couldn't control myself this morning, and I posted a comment to the Google Science, Physics and Relativity discussion forum.  It's the first time I've posted there in well over a month, although I check it every day.

This morning, a regular constant poster to that forum, Pentcho Valev, posted a comment that said,
Albert Einstein, On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, 1905: "From this there ensues the following peculiar consequence. If at the points A and B of K there are stationary clocks which, viewed in the stationary system, are synchronous; and if the clock at A is moved with the velocity v along the line AB to B, then on its arrival at B the two clocks no longer synchronize, but the clock moved from A to B lags behind the other which has remained at B by tv^2/2c^2 (up to magnitudes of fourth and higher order), t being the time occupied in the journey from A to B."  http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/

The conclusion

"the clock moved from A to B lags behind the other which has remained at B"

does not follow from Einstein's 1905 postulates - the argument is INVALID. The following two conclusions, in contrast, VALIDLY follow from the postulates:

Conclusion 1: The clock moved from A to B lags behind the other which has remained at B, as judged from the stationary system.

Conclusion 2: The clock which has remained at B lags behind the clock moved from A to B, as judged from the moving system.

Conclusions 1 and 2 (symmetrical time dilation) in their combination give no prediction for the readings of the two clocks as they meet at B. In contrast, the INVALIDLY deduced conclusion provides a straightforward prediction - the moving clock is slow, the stationary one is FAST (asymmetrical time dilation). The famous but idiotic "travel into the future" is a direct implication - the slowness of the moving clock means that its (moving) owner can remain virtually unchanged while sixty million years are passing for the stationary system:
I had to respond, since just two days ago I found that map showing how different places on planet Earth move at different rates depending upon their latitude.  (And this morning I found the original source for the image below.)

relative velocities on a spinning globe
Using this map, you can search for where your line of latitude crosses the black curve to determine the speed you're spinning in the cosmos.

I didn't realize it then, but the map is a terrific argument against the belief by some mathematicians that "all movement is reciprocal."  I.e., when I move away from you it is the same as if you move away from me.

The map shows that movement is NOT reciprocal on a globe.

So, I responded to Valev's post with this:
Pentcho Valev's "conclusions" are INCORRECT.  His "conclusions" assume that all movement is reciprocal.  It's not.  All movement is relative to the stationary point where the Big Bang occurred.  So, relative to the point where the Big Bang occurred, Clock A moved and Clock B did not move.  

Pentcho Valev also misunderstands relativity.  Relativity says that within Clock-A's "frame of reference," everything seems normal.  Time seems to tick at at its normal rate.  And the same with Clock-B in its "frame of reference."  Everything seems normal, and time seems to tick at its normal rate. BUT, if you compare the length of a second in one frame versus the other, Clock-A's frame of reference has a longer "second" because it moved.  Time slows down when you are moving.

In that same 1905 paper, Einstein wrote: "Thence we conclude that a balance-clock at the equator must go more slowly, by a very small amount, than a precisely similar clock situated at one of the poles under otherwise identical conditions."

In other words, a clock at the equator ticks more slowly than a clock at the poles, because the clock at the equator is moving around the earth at 1,040 miles per hour, while the clocks at the poles are just standing still while turning in place.

There's an interesting article at this link:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2546864/How-fast-YOU-spinning-Earths-axis.html

Using the map at that link, you can see how almost every place on Earth between the equator and poles experiences time ticking at a different rate.  Milwaukee is moving at 750 mph.  Miami is moving at about 900 mph.  London is moving at 620 mph.  Singapore is moving at 1,040 mph.  However, no one in London realizes that their clocks are ticking faster than clocks in Miami.  Everything in their frame of reference seems "normal."  But, if you COMPARE one frame to the other, you will see that the clock in Miami is ticking slower than the clock in London (by a few trillionths of a second).

Pentcho Valev's ridiculous argument claims that from Miami's point of view, London is moving slower, and from London's point of view, Miami is moving slower.  That is ABSURD.  How can that be possible on a spinning globe?

Movement is NOT RECIPROCAL.  Therefore time dilation is NOT RECIPROCAL. 
Now I'm waiting to see what kind of argument they can come up with to justify believing that a person in London will see the person in Miami as moving slower, while the person in Miami will see the person in London as moving slower.  That is not possible on a spinning globe, and yet, as Einstein wrote, "the same laws of electrodynamics and optics will be valid for all frames of reference."  So, even though a second is longer in Miami, both will get the same results in local experiments.  It is only when they compare the length of a second in Miami versus the length of a second in London that they will realize that the experiments did NOT show the same results.

Added note:  The first response was, of course, from someone on my "do not reply" list who merely attacked me as being "uneducated and uninformed," and who wrote nothing about the validity of my comment.










© 2018 by Ed Lake
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