@ Valentin,

Why you have not tried publishing it to a peer-reviewed physics journal?

Special relativity has already been tested with atomic clocks, muon decay etc etc etc.

Many many times over and there is no deviation

Universal time can  be defined as the stationary clock  in zero gravity. The latter hardly ever exists in reality, but in a low gravity field like Earth, it makes very little contribution, so the best you can do is  be a stationary observer.

And this is where a lot of people have difficulty understanding special relativity- a good book is AP. French 2001 Special Relativity.

The viewing process makes no difference it is the relative speed which determine the equations 

I agree that the theoretical predictions matches with the experimental observations, but still I feel there is something which is either not correct or not complete in the theory. Like I said in my first post; the way we have decided to involve light in the measurement of time brings in all those phenomena.

@ Valentin,

I haven't downvoted you, just fyi.  However, muon decay has been observed in accordance to SRT? Isn't it?

A quick attempt:

First, remark that we can observe accurate ,or approximate, ratios between the duration of various phenomena: an egg, in order to become hard boiled, takes about 500 oscillations of a 1 meter pendulum. A pendulum of 1 meter oscillates in about 385 times the time needed for a muon to decay on average. And so on.

Now the principle of relativity: it says you cannot tell whether you are at rest or whether you are moving in rectiinear uniform motion. So the ratios I mentioned above must remain constant: if the number 500 between an egg getting cooked and the oscillations of the 1 meter pendulum were to change, then we would be able to determine whether or not we are in motion, simply by comparing the cooking of an egg and the oscillations of a pendulum. Ever since Galileo, physicists do not believe this to be possible.

Finally, we have experiment: it turns out that muons going at 0.995 c in the atmosphere decay 10 times more slowly than do muons at rest with respect to Earth. That is experimental fact. Since the muons move in rectilinear uniform motion, if we were to cook an egg while moving together with the muon, it should also appear to us to take 10 times longer, since the ratio between muon decay time and the boiling of an egg should not vary.

This, by the way, concerns what Danci says: yes, there are many ways to measure time, but if two of them are equivalent in one inertial reference frame, that is, when you are, say, at rest with respect to the Earth, then they should be equivalent in all reference frames. And if the oscillation of light gives equivalent results to those of your favourite grandfather clock, then the grandfather clock and the light clock should still be equivalent when both are moving uniformly. But we can analyse easily the behaviour of light clocks, so we are confident that grandfather clocks will behave the same way.

''The muons which enter Earth's atmosphere are *highly* accelerated,''

Wrong: they have very high spéed, but since they interact very little with the atmosphere, they are essentially unaccelerated. Speed and acceleration are two different things in physics. How much should we trust someone who does not understand the difference?

``You claim a high speed is obtained out of nothing''

What do you call ``a high speed''? No speed is high in the system's own rest frame. Cosmic rays have been accelerated, it is true, a long time ago. But the cosmic rays arrive with a high relative speed wrt the Earth (not ``at high speed'' which is meaningless) and there produce muons, which proceed to move through the atmosphere without substantial acceleration.

``In the laboratories they've been subjected to accelerations as high as 10^15 g.''

Absolutely correct. Atmospheric muons have little or no accelerations. Muons in CERN were accelerated up to 10^{15} g. The results in the two sets of experiments were entirely compatible, showing that acceleration does not matter in the issue of ``time dilation''.  But  there truly is no acceleration in the atmospheric muon experiment, and your saying the contrary seemed to me to be a fundamental error, which it was important to correct.

``Are you sure we are talking about physics?'' About myself, I am quite positive. As to you, I am rather convinced you have built up an irrational antirelativist religion, and your posts show it: they have no rational foundation, refer to a world wholly divorced from experimental reality, confuse different issues, falsify facts and never discuss a subject to the end: whenever you find yourself in trouble you introduce some new issue (witness the acceleration claim you made: first it was a mistake (so I assume) and then you mix this up with accelerator muons, which are indeed highly accelerated, but for which this was shown not to affect the final result).

To Danci's message on the pendulum: I must admit that my example was poorly chosen: the period of a pendulum depends on the Earth. So consider a pendulum in a reference frame that moves at 0.995 c with respect to the Earth: it is not obvious that such a pendulum, behaves physically like a pendulum at rest with respect to the Earth. So choose, rather, a quartz crystal like that  mentioned in the question. So a muon will decay, on average, in a fixed number of oscillations of the quartz crystal.

Then that number must be the same in the rest frame of the moving muon, otherwise we would be able to notice that we are moving simply by comparing the muon decay rate and the quartz vibration rate. But it is generally accepted that straight line motion cannot be detected, so the ratio should be unaffected.

If a muon is sent on a circle (strongly accelerated) then it is experimentally found that the decay time of the muon is only affected by the muon's speed, not by its acceleration. That is not, in itself, a consequence of the relativity principle: it is an experimental fact, which was assumed to be true for a long time before it was put to test by experiment.

``To move any frame you need to accelerate it.'' You are confusing the muon and the frame in which it is described. A particle is not a frame. If you have an appropriate frame moving at 0.995 c, the muon is at rest with respect to it. The frame is not accelerated, so it is equivalent to the Earth frame, at least to the extent that the Earth frame itself is not accelerated

There is no acceleration in the atmospheric muon experiment: I stand by that statement. The muons are moving through the atmosphere with negligible acceleration. The idea that you need ``acceleration'' to acquire ``high speed'' only makes sense if you constantly refer everything to Earth.

The measurement of muons' decay rates occurs during the period in which they move freely through the atmosphere. That cosmic rays may have been accelerated way before the muons’ decay is simply irrelevant to the whole issue.

As to what you said, let me quote you again:

``As I said before, to test two systems for SRT, they both need to be equivalent, which means they both need to be *equally* accelerated.’’

And indeed, the Earth and the freely flying muon are both not accelerated, at least to relevant accuracy.

Additionally, while you are right to say that SR should be tested in inertial frames, you are wrong to say that acceleration invalidates the SR treatment of time dilation. Accelerated muons have decays that slow down in exactly the same way as inertial muons: one has experiments on both.

Finally, I used the boiling egg as a measure of time because it is an entirely valid, though low accuracy, method of measuring time. Further, it has direct bearing on the question, which asks whether biological processes are also affected by being in a moving reference frame. The answer being that the ratio between the time of boiling an egg and the muon decay time should not depend on the state of motion, since that would allow detecting uniform rectilinear motion. And since moving muons are observed to decay more slowly, so eggs must take longer to be hard-boiled. 

``For the muons to enter the atmosphere at a constant 0.995 c , before that they need to be brought from 0 to 0.995 c !''

More or less true. But that concerns the *muon*. I am talking about the frame. I am saying that a frame is a set of mathematical conventions used to describe positions and times. In an appropriate *uniformly moving* frame, the muon is at rest. Since this frame is in uniform motion, it is equivalent to the Earth frame. And since the muon is at rest wrt that frame from its first appearance to its decay, it decays, in that frame, in the usual 2.26 microseconds. On the other hand, seen from Earth, the decay takes 10 times longer. That is what is meant by time dilation.

Also, you may capitalise the word ``absolute'' to your heart's content. I do agree that acceleration makes frames different.I have never denied that. But the frame in this case is not accelerated: it is chosen, by *convention* to have a speed equal to that of the muon as it is created.

@ Christian,

I will read your article, but the unresting part in SR is that it does not fits into my intuition. I have asked the question to many academicians and the only explanation they give it that .. it is experimentally verified! I am not blaming the theory to be wrong, I am just looking for that missing piece which enables the fit!

I have a simple question. You and I sync our digital watches. You get onboard a spaceship traveling with 0.99 c, from earth to sun and then come back to earth! And then, we compare our watches again! Will they show the same time or will there be a difference? Is relativistic effect apparent or real?

@ All,

Scaling time by including the "c" or "gamma" factor makes things hard to digest. The strongest evidence in support of SR is that its fits with the experimental predictions (say, our GPS systems with takes into account both SR and GR).

But, what if I introduce a new scale where 2 meter distance is 1 meter, and then it will fit all experimental measurements, I suppose.  However that doesn't necessarily imply that the new scaling is correct. I guess there should be an alternative explanation of experimental phenomena without struggling with the mind-boggling implications of SR.

By the way what would be the readings in the watches in the problem I mentioned above?

@ Christian,

We can idealize the  scenario by assuming.. let earth be at a rest position wrt Sun in space. And the motion of the spaceship is in parallel to the line (imaginary) joining earth and Sun.

So, per your answer, the relativistic effects are not apparent, but rather true? And it can be extended to physiological effects such as heartbeats and aging as well?

Well, we must admit that SR is applicable only when there is relative uniform motion (constant relative velocity), not in an accelerated frame. This is well outlined in SR theory. So trying to explain accelerated frames using SR is nor fair!

In my scenario explained above, assume the spaceship cruises with uniform velocity of 0.99 c during the whole course of journey!

@ Valentin

what if we consider only the non-accelerated part of the journey?

@valentin

I once thought of an absolute frame of reference - but you should  not do that with SR. There are two relevant frames of reference that of the speed of light and that of relative velocity.

If you are having difficulty with that concept, I can explain further.

@Vikash

In your example the clocks will read differently the "travelling" clock having a a slower time than the "apparentlly" stationary one. 

Real effect. if you are having difficulty with the concept I can explain further.

``Well, we must admit that SR is applicable only when there is relative uniform motion (constant relative velocity), not in an accelerated frame. ''

That is only correct in a limited sense. It is true that having a global frame which is accelerated can cause problems in SR. But if you ask: what happens to an accelerated particle, then it is part of SR as it is usually understood, that the accelerated particle experiences a time, the so-called proper time tau, which is connected to the time t measured in a fixed reference frame by the relation

d tau = dt sqrt/[1 - v(t)^2/c^2]

where v(t) is the speed of the object at time t. The accelerated frame is indeed, that is a point on which Valentin is undoubtedly correct, inequivalent to any inertial frame. That is why you can have a real effect: if the spaceship goes from an immobile Earth to some distant star and comes back, it must be accelerated, as Valentin correctly says. That is why we cannot interchange the roles of the spaceship and the Earth which is at rest (or at constant velocity).

In any case, the applicability of SR to accelerated particles is unquestioned, and important: particle accelerators are routinely and correctly described by SR to high accuracy, and again, as Valentin states with admirable correctness, the particles in accelerators are subjected to accelerations of up to 10^{15} g. But the formula I just gave for the proper time has been verified to high accuracy even under these extreme conditions. So SR works very well indeed for accelerated particles, as Danci reminds us.

`` But it is heavily questioned and criticized by many scientists and researchers whose lives do not depend on the dictatorial institutions of Physics.''

References!

And how do they get around the extraordinary experimental agreement in accelerators, at huge accelerations?

Of course, they are so divorced from the obverall enterprise of doing science (the inexistent ``dictatorial institutions'') that nothing could be further from their minds than experiments.

Of course, I fully realise that there is nothing unbalanced, nothing unreasonable nothing slanderous, about the use of such an expression.

``How many times you need to be reminded that accelerated motion is absolute''

Have I ever denied it? Of course acceleration is absolute, that is why there is no twin paradox: the accelerated twin is inequivalent to the inertial one. The point is, that we can use the formulae of SR locally, also for accelerated particles. That is why *both* muons in accelerators (strongly accelerated) and free muons in the atmosphere, decay at rates that can be computed by the formulae of SR. But, of course, accelerated frames are inequivalent to inertial ones.

As to references: I have no interest in theories, but would be more than happy with only *one* reference showing why SR does not apply to accelerators, in view of the extraordinary agreement between the predictions of SR for accelerated particles and the results found experimentally.

``What you wrongly claim *again* is that the free muons are never accelerated in their existence.''

Nonsense, I never claimed that. It is, in fact, a proton coming from outer space at 0.995c which generates the muon. But, in any case, the muon m oves at uniform speed throughout the time in which its decay is monitored. From the viewpoint of SR, that is relevant.

``That is just DOUBLE TALK.''

Capitals mean insecurity. And when I try to explain, you refuse to listen.

As to SR, it is used for computations in accelerated systems, and experimentally it works. A comparison using very easy concepts might work: consider plane geometry. We can learn, from Euclid and other people whom you surely appreciate, how to compute plane triangles, trigonometry and the like. So we learn, for example, thta the sum of the internal angles of a triangle are 180 degrees.

Now, using these same concepts, we can generalise our calculations to triangles on the sphere. They are not the same, and indeed, the sum of the internal angles of a spherical triangle is larger than 180 degrees. But it is false to say that Euclidean geometry does not apply to spheres: to obtain these results, all you do  is apply the usual Euclidean rules to great circles of a sphere.

Shouting with capitals: A SPHERE IS NOT A PLANE; SO EUCLIDIAN GEOMETRY DOES NOT APPLY

is unhelpful, not to say a trifle foollish.

The situation is exactly the same with SR: already Einstein in 1905 showed how to do it, and many people have elaborated on it since. The standard description of accelerated particles is now part of SR, and is excellently corroborated by experiment

Of course, I have repeated many times that experiments justify SR calculations. You flee fearfully from these questions: you are ever willing to say ``SR is not applicable'' and never willing to even mention the experimental issues. I assume, as always, you are not being a blustering coward, but it becomes ever harder.

Moreover, why do we need to define “One second” as the time elapsed to bounce between two perpendicularly placed mirrors and hence resulting into all this “special relativity” phenomena ?

Our time unit is originally 1/86400 part of the Period of one Earth's revolution assumed stable beyond experimental detection. (which is not true) Additionally the accurate determination when the cycle is complete is a non trivial issue.

Another standard is:

  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.

We assume that if the rotation of the Earth was ideal, the continuous process of successive atomic cycles would yield the same value for every Earth's cycle.

We then assume that cycles due to inertia and atomic cycles can be always in synch. So then inertially measured time and atomic time are thought to be representative for demonstration of Special Relativity.

The pendulum clock in a fixed location can be synhronised as well, however letting the clock move upwards at constant velocity will cause immediate change of pendulum frequency and therefore its indication, but the frequency in cesium atom next to the clock will stay the same by definition. We have to be very careful what kind of clock we chose to prove relativity experiments.

None of this time standards represents "existing physical time" (as duration) . This is only an abstract concept attached to a particular measurement standard, but not an omnipresent physical entity.

Time in the platform that constraints the location of the cesium atom is just the number of detected cycles. Thats it.

Not sure where this is going, but SR is difficult at best to understand unless you understand the nature of spacetime -which we now know has inherent energy.

If you have a theory then you must specifically be able to address this new phenomenon

Valentin,

I agree...they shoud not have let Minkowsky build such spacetime. It comes out from the choice of how to measure the time whose measure is not consistent in the RF (clock retardation) and the acceptance of a constant speed of light.

Though it works fine in most cases except in the case of Simultaneity in which it is clueless (I don't want even hear that simultaneity does not exists because it is not possible to model it in SR).

 @ Amrit

Your article is not in a peer-reviewed journal, I guess! If thats the case, it implies your arguments are not strong enough!

@Valentin,

I am not shutting down.. but then what determines the correctness or acceptance of a given theory? Every individual can then come up with his/her version of the theory! There has to be an acceptance check!

“… here is no such thing as "nature of spacetime" because there is no such thing as spacetime in Nature. Spacetime was an abstract construction .. ”

- Valentin, that isn't correct, of course. The Matter’s (as well of any other [informational, because of there is no any other] system, for example the Consciousness’s spacetime, which very probably has rather small common region with the Matter’s spacetime, at least different spaces) spacetime exists as an principally real “empty  container”, where Matter is placed. That is evidently necessary, for example you cannot write a text if you haven’t  a “space”, say a paper sheet. As well as if you will write some test violating the Rule “space”, i.e. without space intervals between words, then this text will be non-understandable; the Rule/possibility “Time” – analogously.

That is another point, that, though the Minkowski spacetime (and  the Minkowski formalism as a whole) is nothing more then a mathematical tool

 [which is convenient in some cases; and which can be correctly applied only when the Lorentz transformations are valid (and any problem, which is solvable by this formalism,  can be solved by using nothing more then the Lorentz transformation)],

in the SR  Minkowski (in the GR – pseudo Riemannian) spacetime is postulated as indeed real Matter’s spacetime, what, of course has no relation to the reality.

“…[Minkowski spacetime] in the case of Simultaneity in which it is clueless (I don't want even hear that simultaneity does not exists because it is not possible to model it in SR).”

- Stefano, the “simultaneity” is only some parameter that depends, first of all, the methods that are applied at synchronization of clocks  and at the establishing of a space unity. At that, since clocks and rules are some material objects, they, after a setting them in some time moment and space point, say, in an absolute frame, i.e., when they were  at absolute 3D rest,  changes their parameters if start move, say, to a speed V: clocks become show slower “times” then clocks, which remain at rest, sticks/rules’ space’s unity becomes be lesser, then the unity on rules at rest, etc. And all these processes happen complying with  the Lorentz transformation only if the moving system of clocks and  rules constitute some rigid enough system. In this case indeed, the system at acceleration to V rotates in the (X,ct) plain so, that i-th clocks placed along motion direction not only tick slower then clocks at rest; they occur also “lower in the time”  (“younger”) relating to a clock in the back end of the system on the Voigt-Lorentz decrement Vxi/c2. Thus in any time in different xi corresponding clocks will show different times.

 [Rigid] sticks/rules (and the system as a whole) are seen in the absolute frame as “contracted”, because of their spatial lengths  now is the projection of their physical lengths, etc.

When at any time moment clocks at rest show identical (clocks are very good) time; this fact in the SR is called “relativity of simultaneity”. That’s nearly all, no any mystic.

But if the system of clocks and rules is a system of free clocks and rules, then it doesn’t rotate at the acceleration, so only clocks tick rate slowing down happens, the distances between clocks remain be as they were at rest (no “space cvontraction”); and, including, all clocks in any time moment will show identical time – as clocks at rest, in this case there is no “relativity of simultaneity”…

Cheers

" Galileo, nor Newton, nor Einstein have published their most important works in "peer-reviewed" journals"

For Galileo and Newton, indeed, trivially true: there were no journals, peer reviewed or not. For Einstein, this is manifestly false. Einstein's papers were published in Annalen der Physik, a very respectable journal, where the papers were seen by the likes of Max Planck or Drude.

Even in the case of Newton, his book was judged by the Royal Society to be worth of publication. 

Science is a collective enterprise, and I am not aware of a single important theory to have appeared out of nothing, from someone entirely dissevered from the scientific community. 

Good luck!!

@ All

If a simple pendulum is placed inside a spaceship (of negligible weight) moving with uniform velocity in empty space, and then the bob is disturbed. What would be its time period? 

@ Valentin

Rotating about a fixed point, still time period is zero?

If there is a time period, then what about "g" from the formula, T = 2 pi sqrt(l/g).  When a pendulum is disturbed on earth, the g is of the earth. What is the source of g in the spaceship case?

Yes, you can define absolute Galilean time in STR. Actually clock time is invariant of Lorentz Transformation, which will never have time dilation. Time dilation is just a property of Einstein's newly defined time which is an artificial time and can never be measured by any clock. See my paper "Challenge to the special theory of relativity" which has disproved STR theoretically.