Home Is Where The Wind Blows

An immortal fumble by Androcles (14-Oct-2004)

Roberts' persusaive rhetoric - We have a problem.
Roberts writes:

"This is why most (if not all) physicists today believe in Special
Relativity - it is IMPOSSIBLE to construct an alternative description
without violating one of the postulates or disregarding a very large
body of experimental evidence. If you truly believe that Special
Relativity simply must be false (for whatever reason), go back and
review the four Postulates, and find a hole in them."

This is why most (if not all) physicists today are failed mathematicians-
it is IMPOSSIBLE for special relativity to be anything other than false.
There is nothing wrong with the group postulates, but SR violates the 
second.
" 2. Any transformation has an inverse, which is also a transformation."

So what is the inverse transformation to
    x' = (x-vt)/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2) ?
A little algebra and
    x' * sqrt(1-v^2/c^2) = x-vt
    x = x' * sqrt(1-v^2/c^2) + vt.

That is not an equation you'll ever see in SR.
However, the PoR must hold.


 Consider v = 0.866c, and this lasts for a period of time of 1 year; c, of 
course, is one light-year per year.
By definition, in the frame of S', we must move a distance from (0',0')
to (0.866', 1.0') if we have a velocity v = 0.866.
We know ask what this distance is in S, and to do that we use
    x = x' * sqrt(1-v^2/c^2) +vt.
      = 0.866 * 0.5 + 0.866*.. err... t? ....  [1] ah, we have a problem. 
We do not yet have t.
Well,
    t' = (t-vx/c^2) / sqrt(1-v^2/c^2), so

    t' * sqrt(1-v^2/c^2) = t-vx/c^2,
    t = t' * sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)  + vx/c^2.
      = 0.866 * 0.5 + 0.866 * ?....[2], again we have a problem.
 Fumble Index  Original post & context:
 9fAbd.61468$ay5.17284@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk