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Removed two paragraphs that made assumptions about the OP
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Cleonis
Cleonis
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The effort you are putting in to this question is admirable. You most certainly deserve a satisfactory answer.

Your question is: as a matter of principle Special Relativity asserts total symmetry: how is that accommodated?


The diagrams that you are creating are at best snapshots of the ongoing process. I believe you need to create an animation. I believe you need to create an animation to explain it to yourself. I say that because I did that too: I created an animation. The process of working out how things *proceed over time*, so that the animation was correct, helped me absorb the most counter-intuitive aspects of SR.

Let me recount a memory. As a kidteenager I would read books for kids about science/physics. I would read about special relativity too, I looked at the diagrams, and I was aware that I didn't understand it, at least not to my satisfaction. At some point there was a series of educational television programs about relativity. With the usual trains. But being television the creators of that series had taken the opportunity to present the spacetime physics with an animation!

I remember it vividly: Einstein on one train and Poincaré on the other, clocks in the front, the middle, and the rear, the trains passing each other. Most importantly: the shift of reference frame from one train to the other was also represented in animated form! At the start you had the spatial axis (horizontal) and the time axis (vertical) at right angles to each other. When that coordinate system is subjected to a Lorentz transformation the axes move relative to each other in a scissor-like manner. And I saw the complete symmetry. You can use a frame co-moving with the Einstein train or a frame co-moving with the Poincaré train, and you can transform symmetrically between them.



Years later I wanted to experience that vividness again, and I created an animation like the animation in that television program I remembered. The animation I created depicts pulses of light shuttling between clocks, etc., etc. (Incidentally; that animation isn't just lying around, I added it to my website.)
Your thinking on this issue seems to be newtonian/relativistic hybrid, and your static diagrams *are not helping you*. You find yourself running into selfcontradiction because you haven't made the full transition to thinking in terms of Minkowski spacetime.

So, you you'll have

Years later I wanted to rethink; the problem is not within SR. Rethinking will be hardexperience that vividness again, because if it was anywhere easy you would have figured it out alreadyand I created an animation like the animation in that television program I remembered. The criterium is self-consistenceanimation I created depicts pulses of light shuttling between clocks, etc. While Special Relativity is counter-intuitive, there is no doubtetc. (Incidentally; that animation isn't just lying around, I added it is self-consistentto my website.)

The effort you are putting in to this question is admirable. You most certainly deserve a satisfactory answer.

Your question is: as a matter of principle Special Relativity asserts total symmetry: how is that accommodated?


The diagrams that you are creating are at best snapshots of the ongoing process. I believe you need to create an animation. I believe you need to create an animation to explain it to yourself. I say that because I did that too: I created an animation. The process of working out how things *proceed over time*, so that the animation was correct, helped me absorb the most counter-intuitive aspects of SR.

Let me recount a memory. As a kid I would read books for kids about science/physics. I would read about special relativity too, I looked at the diagrams, and I was aware that I didn't understand it, at least not to my satisfaction. At some point there was a series of educational television programs about relativity. With the usual trains. But being television the creators of that series had taken the opportunity to present the spacetime physics with an animation!

I remember it vividly: Einstein on one train and Poincaré on the other, clocks in the front, the middle, and the rear, the trains passing each other. Most importantly: the shift of reference frame from one train to the other was also represented in animated form! At the start you had the spatial axis (horizontal) and the time axis (vertical) at right angles to each other. When that coordinate system is subjected to a Lorentz transformation the axes move relative to each other in a scissor-like manner. And I saw the complete symmetry. You can use a frame co-moving with the Einstein train or a frame co-moving with the Poincaré train, and you can transform symmetrically between them.



Years later I wanted to experience that vividness again, and I created an animation like the animation in that television program I remembered. The animation I created depicts pulses of light shuttling between clocks, etc., etc. (Incidentally; that animation isn't just lying around, I added it to my website.)
Your thinking on this issue seems to be newtonian/relativistic hybrid, and your static diagrams *are not helping you*. You find yourself running into selfcontradiction because you haven't made the full transition to thinking in terms of Minkowski spacetime.

So, you you'll have to rethink; the problem is not within SR. Rethinking will be hard, because if it was anywhere easy you would have figured it out already. The criterium is self-consistence. While Special Relativity is counter-intuitive, there is no doubt that it is self-consistent.

The effort you are putting in to this question is admirable. You most certainly deserve a satisfactory answer.

Your question is: as a matter of principle Special Relativity asserts total symmetry: how is that accommodated?


The diagrams that you are creating are at best snapshots of the ongoing process. I believe you need to create an animation. I believe you need to create an animation to explain it to yourself. I say that because I did that too: I created an animation. The process of working out how things *proceed over time*, so that the animation was correct, helped me absorb the most counter-intuitive aspects of SR.

Let me recount a memory. As a teenager I would read books for kids about science/physics. I would read about special relativity too, I looked at the diagrams, and I was aware that I didn't understand it, at least not to my satisfaction. At some point there was a series of educational television programs about relativity. With the usual trains. But being television the creators of that series had taken the opportunity to present the spacetime physics with an animation!

I remember it vividly: Einstein on one train and Poincaré on the other, clocks in the front, the middle, and the rear, the trains passing each other. Most importantly: the shift of reference frame from one train to the other was also represented in animated form! At the start you had the spatial axis (horizontal) and the time axis (vertical) at right angles to each other. When that coordinate system is subjected to a Lorentz transformation the axes move relative to each other in a scissor-like manner. And I saw the complete symmetry. You can use a frame co-moving with the Einstein train or a frame co-moving with the Poincaré train, and you can transform symmetrically between them.

Years later I wanted to experience that vividness again, and I created an animation like the animation in that television program I remembered. The animation I created depicts pulses of light shuttling between clocks, etc., etc. (Incidentally; that animation isn't just lying around, I added it to my website.)

Source Link
Cleonis
Cleonis
  • 22.5k
  • 1
  • 25
  • 66

The effort you are putting in to this question is admirable. You most certainly deserve a satisfactory answer.

Your question is: as a matter of principle Special Relativity asserts total symmetry: how is that accommodated?


The diagrams that you are creating are at best snapshots of the ongoing process. I believe you need to create an animation. I believe you need to create an animation to explain it to yourself. I say that because I did that too: I created an animation. The process of working out how things *proceed over time*, so that the animation was correct, helped me absorb the most counter-intuitive aspects of SR.

Let me recount a memory. As a kid I would read books for kids about science/physics. I would read about special relativity too, I looked at the diagrams, and I was aware that I didn't understand it, at least not to my satisfaction. At some point there was a series of educational television programs about relativity. With the usual trains. But being television the creators of that series had taken the opportunity to present the spacetime physics with an animation!

I remember it vividly: Einstein on one train and Poincaré on the other, clocks in the front, the middle, and the rear, the trains passing each other. Most importantly: the shift of reference frame from one train to the other was also represented in animated form! At the start you had the spatial axis (horizontal) and the time axis (vertical) at right angles to each other. When that coordinate system is subjected to a Lorentz transformation the axes move relative to each other in a scissor-like manner. And I saw the complete symmetry. You can use a frame co-moving with the Einstein train or a frame co-moving with the Poincaré train, and you can transform symmetrically between them.



Years later I wanted to experience that vividness again, and I created an animation like the animation in that television program I remembered. The animation I created depicts pulses of light shuttling between clocks, etc., etc. (Incidentally; that animation isn't just lying around, I added it to my website.)
Your thinking on this issue seems to be newtonian/relativistic hybrid, and your static diagrams *are not helping you*. You find yourself running into selfcontradiction because you haven't made the full transition to thinking in terms of Minkowski spacetime.

So, you you'll have to rethink; the problem is not within SR. Rethinking will be hard, because if it was anywhere easy you would have figured it out already. The criterium is self-consistence. While Special Relativity is counter-intuitive, there is no doubt that it is self-consistent.