Misconceptions in Relativity

Smooth Operator writes:

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Couldn't gravity actually be effecting the clock's mechanism?

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Well, yes. That's the entire point. However, it is not happening the way you think.That is, in a mechanical clock, gravity can have an effect as it pulls on the physical mechanisms, causing certains gears to press harder against each other than they would in an environment with less gravity.But that isn't how relativistic effects are measured. No mechanical or moving parts are involved. Under the international standard, the 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 caesium 133 atom." This is not affected by frame of reference. If you are in the same motion, experiencing the same acceleration and gravitic field, the amount of time is always constant for that transition.So the experiment is take one atomic clock and keep it down here on the ground while you take another atomic clock and send it up in the air so that it is moving and experiences a different gravitic field.When it comes back down, they are out of sync. But the difference cannot be accounted for by the motion of the clocks alone. Instead, the gravitational field is in play.Gravity does affect the clock but not by changing the way the clock functions. It affects it by changing the way time flows.One of the great paradoxes of relativity is that while you are in the changing gravitic field, you don't experience time any differently. That is, one second still seems to take just as much time as it did before. The difference is only in how time flows with respect to other frames of reference. That's why when you are moving with respect to another frame of reference, you can actually watch them moving faster.

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Again, maybe the particels themselves are slowed down, and not the time. How do you know it's time itslef?

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Because the methods used to calculate time at the atomic level are not so crude as to rely on motion. Instead, it uses an atomic method that is invariant under gravity.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

cavediver responds to me:

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One of the great paradoxes of relativity is that while you are in the changing gravitic field, you don't experience time any differently. That is, one second still seems to take just as much time as it did before.

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That's not so much paradox as tautology, unless I'm missing what you mean.

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What I'm referring to is the fact that from another frame of reference, you will appear to be going faster or slower, depending on the relative motion between you. But despite that observation, you don't feel as if you are taking more or less time. In the twin paradox, the moving twin doesn't feel like he's experiencing time more slowly than the twin who stays at home. Conversely, the twin who stays at home doesn't feel like he's experiencing time more quickly than the twin who goes on the trip. And yet, there is a difference in the way the two have experienced time. That's the idea I was going for.Each frame of reference thinks it is experiencing time "correctly."

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Smooth Operator responds to me:

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Please look at the atomis clock. It has more mechanical parts than than the regular one. Ofcourse it can be slowed down due to aether and gravity.

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Huh? You're not seriously claiming that because the clock has a mechanical "On" switch, that means its method of measuring time is mechanical?Question: Is the functioning of your computer mechanical or electrical? That is, in your computer chip are "gates." They control the flow of electricity. Is this gate mechanical?Now, there is no ether, but there is gravity. So thank you for agreeing that clocks are affected by gravity just as relativity theory predicts. Again, it is affecting the clock not by changing the way it functions but rather by changing the way time flows.

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Yes, and that field has been acting on the clock's mechanism.

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But if you are with the clock, you do not experience time any differently. By your logic, you as an external observer to the clock would notice that the clock was slowing down...unless you're saying that the human sense of time is also mechanically affected.

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How exactly do you know that?

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By the very experiment I just described to you: The clock's method of measuring time is not mechanical and therefore is invariant under mechanical shifts such as gravitational fields pulling on it or acceleration.Suppose you have a photon generator and a detector. You can measure how much time it takes for a photon to leave the generator and reach the detector. You set up an electronic trigger so that when a photon is detected, it triggers the release of the next photon. You have created a kind of clock. Since you know how much time it takes for one photon to travel the distance, by counting the number of photons that have been released, you can calculate how much time has passed.Now, suppose we make two of these contraptions, one of which we leave here on the ground and one of which we send on a journey through space and gravity. When the clock that made the journey returns, we find that it hasn't counted as many photons as the one that stayed here on the ground. And yet, this setup is invariant under motion. The motion of the clock does not change the distance between the generator and detector, right? Be careful as that is a bit of a trick question.Suppose you have this clock sitting right in front of you, not moving. Suppose you have the distance between the generator and the detector set to 1 m. The time it takes for the photon to go from the generator to the detector is 1/c seconds.Now, suppose the clock is moving away from you at a speed of 1 m/s. From the frame of reference of the clock, nothing has changed. The detector is still exactly 1 m away from the generator and thus it still takes 1/c seconds for the photon to travel from the generator to the detector. And from the frame of reference of the clock, that photon has traveled only one meter.But from your frame of reference here, with the clock moving away from you, the distance the photon has actually travelled more than one meter. Assuming that the generator/detector alignment is perpendicular to the path of motion, the photon will have traveled 1.4 meters. If we assume that the generator/detector alignment is parallel to the path of motion, the photon will have traveled two meters.So how much time did it take for the photon to reach the detector from the generator from your frame of reference? Well, since it traveled more than 1 meter, it must have taken longer since a photon can only travel one meter in 1/c seconds. And, indeed, that is precisely what we see: Time is flowing more slowly in the moving clock than it is in the stationary one. We see the photon physically moving more slowly, taking more time to travel the distance.But remember, from the photon's point of view, nothing has changed. It is still taking precisely 1/c seconds to go from the generator to the detector and it is travelling a distance of precisely 1 m.This is relativity. But notice, we haven't put gravity in this equation in any way (or at the very least, we are assuming a constant and equal gravitational field for both clocks.) If there are gravitic effects, they should make our result deviate from the expected results from simple motion.That's why we can measure the change in gravitational flow of time by the use of the clock experiment. We can account for the relativistic effects of motion upon the flow of time, but when we see that the actual results are different, we conclude that gravity is affecting the flow of time, too.

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Maybe because it doesn't happen?

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Except it does. We can directly measure it. Are you saying there is something wrong in the experiments that were done that measured it?

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Or it is the effect of gravity and the aether?

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There is no ether. There is gravity, however, and it is affecting the clock, but not by affecting the mechanism. Instead, it is affecting time itself. Our photon clock is not affected by mechanical means. It can only be affected by changes in time and space itself. So adding gravity to the mix and finding that it introduces a discrepancy beyond that of simple motion, we necessarily conclude that gravity changes time and space.

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If you have seen an atomic clock, you'd see it's pretty crude.

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Did you not see your own picture? You really think an oscilliscope is crude?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

cavediver reponds to me:

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I just wonder what experiencing time "incorrectly" would look like

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It's just like in the movies cuz everybody knows that movies would never distort the laws of physics for effect. When Peter Parker goes into "bullet time," he can physically experience time moving slower.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.