Nope, that is simply not true. The momentum term in E² = m₀²c⁴ + p²c² has nothing to do with sight. It is really disapointing that you will not listen and instead stick to your guns no matter how wrong you are. What is the point of that kind of attitude? I really do not get it....
We can see part of the visual spectrum. We then build tools which can see the rest of the spectrum and then output data which we see in the visible spectrum. It come back to the eyes and processing energy, instead of substance. The sense of smell does not use relativity. Motion causes changes in concentration but does not alter the chemicals; red or blue shift the molecules into new molecules. One can do universal balance. As far as Christian evangelism, dark energy and dark matter is based on earth and solar system reference. We cannot see from the reference of another galaxy to compare these numbers. We assume earth reference is the center for those calculations.
Did you read my example that uses the sense of smell and compares this to sight? Focus on that. The traditions are based on the limitations of sight. How about we go one year with all experimental physicists having to wear blind folds. They would need to make use of another sense, which would open up physics in a new direction. One can still touch substance.
If we use the sense of smell the bakery in relative motion always remains the center of fragrance. If we switch to the eyes, and only look at the energy reflecting off the bakery's sign, motion now become relative. Which is correct and which is an illusion? If it interesting that smell is how many animals navigate toward the distant unknown. Eyes come into play after the references are fixed by smell.
I'm inclined to think that all of these things that physics talks about (mass, energy, momentum, electric charge...) are abstractions from experience. So in a sense they are conceptual constructs. Yet people seem to assume that they have ontological reality too. (Some seem to think that they are the only things that are truly real.) So it's valuable to inquire into the relationship between our physical concepts and reality. You lost me there. I'm not sure what that means. Does it mean that the rest mass of the entire universe would be calculated by all observers as a single value x if observers in relative motion all factor out all of their relative motions? (Cosmologists seem to kind of assume that, don't they?) The invariance of the speed of light seems to me to invariant in a rather different and more fundamental way. I don't think that changes in relativistic mass in objects in relative motion are just a perceptual illusion. It's something more fundamental than that. I'm not sure what 'universal energy balance' means, but I don't believe that the mass variance in special relativity is just a function of the limitations of the human brain. Kantians might be more inclined to agree with you though. And many of the German-trained physicists a hundred years ago were at least implicit Kantians. So it would be interesting to read their letters and correspondence and see if any of them were toying with similar ideas. I wouldn't be surprised if they were. (We see it with speculations about observation in early quantum mechanics.) I'm not entirely comfortable philosophizing about physics. My exposure to physics is limited to the introductory physics-with-calculus sequence that I took as a biology major. I don't really understand the deep conceptual subtleties of special relativity, and I would wager that few Sciforums participants do.
Once again, I respect Wellwisher's attempts to think creatively about this stuff, even if the results don't persuade me. It's much more interesting than tossing out insults.
Creative, is that what you call it. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! You know they throw people in jail when they get too creative with accounting or some of the other professions. There needs to be some tie to reality and reason.
Let me define the universal energy balance. If we start with the primordial atom; singularity of the big bang, and calculate its energy at time=0, we get the universal energy balance. If the entire universe came from that humble beginning, then that humble beginning contains all the energy of the universe. Once the big bang is all spread out, as the modern universe, that energy balance has to correspond. That is called the conservation of energy, which is one of the very few law of physics, therefore it has top priority over theories and postulates. If two relative references can see two different amounts of relativistic mass, where does the difference in energy come from? They can't both be right, nor does the universe define its energy based on what humans see and then forming a consensus. Our eyes measure energy signals, directly. However, eye based data collection has to infer matter from energy, with energy relative and variant with reference POV. The variant mass or the relativistic mass is inferred by our eyes, using energy as a middleman. The brain interprets the visual signals a certain way. This is not the same in all references, therefore the universal energy balance will not be agreed upon by all references. This is why many have postulated new energy appearing out of the vacuum of space or dark energy as fudge factors due to low estimates. This is why my preferred approach is to make the speed of light the ground state, since this is the same in all references. It can also be inferred from the net conversion of matter to energy in our universe. This ground state does not allow us to use our eyes as easily, removing the sight bias. There is a resistance to the blindfold, and having to use a more appropriate sense.
The relative velocity. If this bothers you just look at both frames as a single system. Of course that system will also have a relative velocity to another system.... Sure they can. I am sorry this is so difficult for you. The fact that you do not understand relativity is no reason to make up absurdities as an alternative.
I'm inclined to think of the 'laws' of physics as postulates. How could human beings ever come to know that a proposed law is universal, especially universal necessarily? (Historically, the whole idea of natural 'laws' is derived from Christian theology.) But that is a philosophical quibble. I agree with you so far. Let's assume the conservation of energy. I don't know. Like I said, my exposure to special relativity was merely at the introductory university level (many years ago). I expect that most of our Sciforums readers have no more background in relativistic physics than I do. My first guess would be that there might not be any violation of the conservation of energy. I would need to see the mathematics (but would probably be in no position to understand it) and also learn how the mathematical formulations were derived (ditto). Does an increase in something here (like mass) correspond with a decrease of something else there, so that it all balances out? Or does the conservation of energy only apply to rest mass, not to relativistic mass? I don't know. (It would be a good question to raise in a physics class though. I'm willing to bet that it's already been asked many times and the professors have a plausible answer to it.) Humans can't see all of the energy or all of the mass. Just as we can't see that our laws, including the conservation laws, are universally true. There's lots of assuming and postulating going on. Now you're veering from physics to perceptual psychology. That's why I called what you are doing creative (and the philosophy forum is a good place for it), but I'm having trouble understanding what your idea is and I'm not sure that I exactly agree with it. It's possible that future science will have to take measurement and human perception into account more than it currently does. What exactly is happening when a measurement is taken? How are judgements about measurements and what they tell us formed? We might already be seeing that with quantum mechanics in some of its guises, which place great weight on 'observation' without really getting into what it precisely is. I think that all the variables of physics, including energy, are abstractions from experience. Sure, but the question is why. Things are said to look different to the eye and brain at different relative velocities (it's said to have experimental verification), but is that an objective difference in what is seen or a subjective difference in perception? I'm inclined to think that special relativity is describing how the world is physically, not just how it presents itself in human consciousness. I agree that contemporary cosmology is filled with fudge factors (inflation, dark energy, flexible cosmological "constants" like 'lambda' and 'omega'). But being ad-hoc doesn't necessarily render them incorrect. I will say that I'm a little (but not tremendously) skeptical about a lot of it. (Of course I'm just a layman, but I gather that many professionals are uneasy too. Perhaps we are in a situation analogous to the late 19th century after the Michelson-Morley experiment, awaiting our next Einstein.) My layman's understanding is that was how Einstein derived his equations. He just worked out the implications for existing mathematical physics of the speed of light being constant in all frames. If the speed of light doesn't change, then what else has to change? Even if they are things (like space and time intervals) that classical physics assumed were unchanging. I'm not prepared to reduce it to a matter of visual psychology.
All our senses are extremely limited compared to sight. The only sense for which we have not reached an operational limit is sight. It is limited in time only by the speed of light, and in space only by the edge of the observable universe. Hearing, touch, smell and taste have operational limits ... a little shorter than that. So I'm not sure why you want to go backwards. There's not really a lot of astrophysics that can be done within the range of the sense of smell, or within the rate of travel of sound.
My point has less to do with the sensory organ, as it does with the parts of the brain that processes the raw data from each sensory source. These parts of the brain interface consciousness. The analogy is the telescope collects data, but of itself, does not interpret the data. The raw data is processed with a computer, which interprets the signals, based on known science, and the parameters of the telescope. Our sense of smell is not relative to reference, because matter does not change based on reference. A star composed of hydrogen, moving near C does, not become helium. We see the hydrogen star, based on its energy signature, which can change; red or blue shift. We use light because it is fast and can reach us easier that the matter. The brain interprets the star based on the nature of the sensory organ. Hydrogen is not energy, yet we interpret matter with energy. This is not the same, since energy is relative and matter is not relative. The olfactory sense was among the first to evolve. It is a direct extension of the transport proteins that are on the surface membranes of all cells. Molecules being transported into a cell need to fit with a lock and key arrangement onto the transport protein. There is an absolute relationship between source molecule and the transport protein. This is part of the limitation of the sense of smell. It does not have an extrapolative attribute like sight. The lock and key is not relative to reference or motion, accept in terms of concentration. Bee and ants, who use scent, can have an entire colony work as an integrated team, since their sense of smell is not relative to reference, but is the same for all. Early critters were fairly uniform in terms of their reaction to their programmed olfactory stimulus. All the same species would converge on a source no matter what their original reference. The sense of sight came later. The energy and relative nature of sight, was important, because the sense of sight helped to differentiate consciousness. With sight/energy relative to reference, each critter sees things in a slightly unique way ,based on reference. Unlike the ants and bees who all agree like a single entity, humans tend to use sight and sound; Doppler shift. This make us be more unique, based on our relative reference. This part of the brain extrapolates to more than one model of the universe, based on the prestige of one's relative reference. I am not saying the interpretation is wrong, based on that part of the brain, but it is biased by sight processing; relative bias. I am also saying you can also use other parts of the brain to process stored data so it is not relative.
If we were limited to experiencing the world around as utterly visceral, you might have a point. If all we could understand was the colour of a star as we see it with our eyes - our research would be limited to that prior to Galileo's telescope, or Newton's math. But we're not. By far and away, our best organ for experiencing the world around us is our brain. We can deduce how fast a star is moving, and therefore know, not only its Doppler shift, but the whole science of relative motion - far more than we could ever get through physical sense alone. We have surpassed our primitive sensory organs. We're flying jet planes to points distant and you're suggesting we take a canoe.
So... we should use our sense of smell? What does that even mean for an object light years away and moving at a sizeable fraction of c? Seriously though. All input is subject to distortion, Surely you're not suggesting other senses are not similarly distorted? Do I have to go into depth about how every form of input has its own characteristic distortions? The reason we use light/sight is because it is - by uncountable orders of magnitude - faster, more accurate and less prone to distortion than all our other senses put together.
There are sensory organ difference, with sight having the most utility for humans. There are also difference in terms of how the brain processes the data coming from those organs, based on the parameter of the sensory organ. For example, humans are not composed of light, but of matter. We are not ghosts or spirits, existing as energy outlines in the visible range. However, this is what the eyes will see, since the eyes only see energy. The eyes can see the light that is absorbed and reflected from the surface of each of us. From this energy facade, we infer the substance or the state of the substance. The eyes cannot touch the substance directly. The brain; visual cortex, needs to add a layer of extrapolation, often borrowing data coming from other senses to form a composite. For example, a male may see a pretty girl walking down the road. He does not see all of her matter, but only her light/energy facade. He will then extrapolate, what he thinks about her, from her energy/light image. This can lead to misunderstanding if he is biased with sexual attraction extrapolation of the visual data. Men are from Mars and women are from Venus because each internally extrapolates differently from the surface image. Men are more visual and females more audio, with both using relative reference since both light and sound Doppler shift, making the surface image, reference dependent. One gal can see a evil man and the other a misunderstood poet from the same words. The sense of smell depends on chemical matter directly attaching to receptors in the nose. Say the goal was to define the color of a spice, using only our sense of smell. We put on a blindfold, and start with only the matter attached to the receptors in our nose; scent, and from this we infer the color. This is like inferring matter from light. We will need to make assumptions based on other experiences, where we used both of sight and smell at same time; two parts of the brain. We might remember seeing a bottle brown spice that smells very similar, allowing us to extrapolate the color; educated guess. If the scent is new, we may need use our imagination and come up with a reasonable scenario. We can't cross over into the double sensory data set since this data is not there. If this is science, we need to make sure this scenario interfaces with other accepted scenarios; theories. Relativity adds a wild card to sight, because it can be shown that different references can see different amounts of kinetic energy attached to the matter each sees; relative velocity. The result is what can be seen with the visual sense, can conflict with the data from other sensory organs. This is why many people have a problem with relativity. They don't use pure eyes, but try to blend with other sensory data. For example, say I am sitting in the middle of a running track, watching the joggers run. My doctor says I need to exercise more, but I don't like to sweat. What I will do is use only my sense of sight and pretend I am running, and all the joggers are stationary; relative reference. This is called the relativistic workout. Since there is no preferred reference, I am now burning more calories while sitting on my chair. This scenario may appear to work, if I only use my eyes, but it will not add up properly, if I add the data from other sensory organs. No pain, no gain means I also need feel sensory pressure on my muscles to signify work. I need to feel my body temperature rise with thermal sensors to signify extra calories. If we isolate sight it adds up, but if we add other sensory parameters it is an illusion. As we look deeper into space, the eyes can go where the rest of the sensory systems cannot. However, this means there is no secondary POV of other sensors to verify, such as connected to tangible matter. The eyes are doing fine, but they are extrapolating scent without a nose to verify. Commons sense is said, not to apply, which means use only the eyes, and forget about the rest. Nerds to use the term in a respectful way; smarty pants, don't always get out and make use of the other sensory organs as much as practical people. go camping. The paradox of E=MC2 is energy uses sight, while M uses the rest of the sensors, yet science limits many things to sight due to the nature of the exploration so far away.
From Max Planck's first lecture at Columbia university: "In short, we may say that the characteristic feature of the entire previous development of theoretical physics is a definite elimination from all physical ideas of the anthropomorphic elements, particularly those of specific sense perceptions." https://books.google.com/books?id=K... first lecture at columbia university&f=false
I appears to be a version of special relativity's Twin Paradox. It's a fascinating problem and it isn't trivial. Entire scholarly books have been written about it. http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/TwinParadox/twin_intro.html
