Relativity: A New Flat Earth Perspective?

The facts and fables of Lorentzian Contraction.

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Note that this is a continuation of the previous free post Relativity Unmasked: How energy flows shape our experience.
Technical details on both of these posts may be seen in the (premium) post An In-Depth Look at The Lorentz Transformation.
[Posts are sequential, to be read/heard in date order - opposite to the order they’re generally displayed in. Premium posts have technical content.]
Please note: You may not fully understand the significance of this post if you haven’t read or listened to the previous free posts in this thread - preferably in order.

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The picture below shows Earth as it is in its own rest frame, also as it is in the reference frames of various high-speed particles. Note that from the SR perspective these are not just subjective impressions, the Earth actually physically exists in these different forms in those reference frames, so these are totally valid representations of our planet. A generally accepted explanation of a well-documented physical phenomenon depends on this being so.

More on that in a short while.
In the meantime, though, we’ll put this many-worlds perspective on SR to one side for consideration later and get back to those flat-bed trucks in the previous post where there’s one further detail that needs to be wrapped up. We can see this quite readily if we just reverse up those trucks back to the signal box.
[Just one minor point: for technical accuracy we’re taking the signal box and the railway track, and the planet they’re on, to be in the objectively static universal rest frame that we’ve referred to as a key feature of the spun-light understanding of the structure of matter.]

Let’s assume now that the signalman at S sets off that light signal fractionally before S and G are perfectly aligned (i.e. G is a little to the left of S), so the signal reaches R at precisely the time that S and G synchronise their clocks to zero. (We’ll put R a little closer to the signal box so we don’t run out of trucks!). When the light signal reaches R it automatically sets off a relay that puts a paint mark at P on the truck right beside R.
We don’t need the time calculation, of course, since we know the time for this event is zero for S, which is all we need here. If we apply the Lorentz Transformation for a time of zero and a distance x in the static frame, we find that the distance x’ as perceived by the guard in the moving frame turns out to be longer than x: the length of the string of trucks up to the point where paint was sprayed on one of them at R appears greater than the actual distance from S to R! So how does that work??

Let’s consider a possible scenario:
Gus the guard leaves the trucks (+ locomotive) at the previous station and drives over for a coffee with Sam the stationmaster. Together they take a stroll along the track and measure the distance x from S to R, which they note. Gus then returns to the trucks, which are then accelerated up to some speed v by the time Gus passes Sam at point S; at exactly that time* (synchronised in the static frame) paint is sprayed on one of the trucks at R. [*By coincidence or careful calculation.]
As the train continues at speed v, Gus leaves the very back of the string of trucks and measures the distance x’ along them to the paint mark. Sure enough, that distance is greater than the distance x! Greater than the distance taken up in the static frame by exactly that same section of the string of trucks at the time the paint was sprayed!
So now the complete train is reversed back to the point where G once again coincides with S, where it is halted. Sam and Gus once again walk along the track together to R - and find that the paint mark on the truck is now a short distance further on than R. It appears this string of trucks has got longer since that paint mark was made!

In fact, that’s exactly what has happened. Contraction of material objects travelling at speed is a well-established fact, whatever one’s view of Relativity. Some time before Einstein presented his theory in 1905, three of his noted scientific contemporaries - Lorentz, Fitzgerald and Larmor - each separately drew this conclusion, based on Maxwell’s equations as they relate to interactions between particles of matter. It was adopted by Einstein as part of his theory, but on the basis that it applied equally to all states of motion as perceived from any other reference frame. Put simply: if my train is in motion relative to your static railway track, then my train will be shortened in length in relation to your reality - but equally, your track is in motion relative to my train (which can equally validly be considered to be at rest) and in my reality your moving track is shortened.

Again, it’s crucial to note that in SR both of these views are totally valid: these are not just illusions in SR: the train is shortened, yet at the same time it is not; the track is shortened, yet at the same time it is not. And if a jet aircraft flies overhead whilst all this is happening, there is yet another valid version of reality, given by the reference frame of that aircraft, in which both the train and the track are contracted.

We can see clearly, then, why the train is shorter when moving than when static, in Sam’s reference frame. Looking at the situation in the reference frame of the moving train, we make yet another bizarre discovery: applying the Lorentz transformation to x and t in the reference frame of the stationmaster we find that the time as registered by Gus for the paint-spray at R is not zero - it’s negative! In other words, whilst the paint spray and the mutual zeroing of clocks at S were simultaneous for Sam, there’s a clear time difference between them for Gus!

This is another strange aspect of SR: simultaneity is not conserved across frames; the fact that two events are simultaneous in one frame doesn’t mean that they will be so in another. In SR this isn’t just a difference in perception or delay due to a difference in the distance light travels: the same two events are both simultaneous and some time apart - in the same instance. They can even occur opposite ways around. In the spun-light understanding of matter, by contrast, the universe has just one unique ordering of events (including simultaneity) - as common sense would strongly suggest; all other apparent orderings are perceptions brought about by a state of motion.

So how does the paint-spray event pan out in Gus’s moving frame? Well, since for Gus the paint was sprayed before the clocks were synchronised, this also means before G and S came into alignment. So for Gus, the track and signal box (and the rest of the world, of course) was moving relative to G - and so was contracted. This all works because, for Gus, the distance between G and R was greater than x at the time of paint-spraying (not yet aligned, remember), which is consistent with S-to-R being contracted for Gus (whether objectively or subjectively).
[For any who may be wondering how Gus’s tape measure showed the same length for his trucks when moving as when static, bear in mind that the same contraction factor will also apply to the tape measure when it’s in motion.]

To get a fuller picture of the SR take on relativistic contraction, though, we need to go a bit further afield. Specifically we need to head up into Earth’s upper atmosphere, where we find large numbers of particles known as muons barrelling down towards our planet at 98% of the speed of light. Now muons have a half-life of only 1.56 microseconds, meaning that after every 1.56 microseconds there’ll be just half as many of them as there were before that tiny time interval (the time it takes them to cover 460 metres). Even at the speed they’re travelling, halving their numbers every half a kilometre means there shouldn’t be many left by the time they reach ground zero.

So scientists were rather puzzled when they found well over 100,000 times as many muons hitting the ground as they expected. Then they realised those muons had had their time-sense slowed down by travelling at high speed (this is mentioned briefly in a previous post) - so for them those 1.56 microsecond half-lives are effectively extended to five times as long. So one-fifth as many half-lives in their journey time, just over four rather than almost 22 in a typical 10-kilometre drop to Earth - which translates into over 160,000 times as many muons making it to terra firma.

So ok, we know all about that sort of stuff, we’ve been talking about time dilation for a while now - though maybe not quite as extreme as this. But how about these events as seen from the perspective of those muons: if a muon could talk, how would it explain the fact that it had lasted five times as long as one might reasonably have expected? Don’t forget, after all, that in the muons’ own frame of reference they’re the ones that are static (so no time dilation as they see it), the atmosphere and the planet are the ones in high-speed motion, rushing around them and towards them at 98% of light speed. And that’s a totally valid view to take, according to SR; this picture of the situation is absolutely as real as the one seen by scientists on Earth.

Now let’s get this clear: in the spun-light understanding of matter, as for those contemporaries of Einstein, contraction of matter moving at speed is a physical reality resulting from the nature of that matter itself. ‘Moving at speed’ can only be in relation to some objective base state from which speeds can be measured - arguably the rest frame of the universe itself, most likely corresponding to the rest frame of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Such an effect cannot apply symmetrically between two states of motion in an objective sense - though the Lorentz Transform shows that it does apply subjectively, in the sense of perceptual experience, due to the altered perception of space, time and speeds for an object in motion.

SR, though, takes a radically different view. For SR the Lorentz Transformation does not simply describe a different perception or experience due to the subject’s own state of motion; rather, it describes a whole different version of reality resulting from a hyperbolic rotation of 4-dimensional Spacetime. That rotation applies to everything in the cosmos, no matter how far distant or unrelated it may be to the object in motion. In SR, when we move through a Lorentz Transformation we are stepping into a whole new version of the universe - and that new version of the universe is equally valid to the version we just stepped out of. This is because SR regards reference frames, or states of motion, as properties of the whole of space and time, not just of an object that happens to ‘inhabit’ that reference frame, i.e. to be in that motion state.

So if we transfer to the reference frame of those muons, to ‘see things as a muon sees them’, so to speak, we’re buying in to a new version of space-time reality, just as real as the space-time reality being observed by scientists on Earth who are studying them. In this new take on reality, Earth - and the rest of the cosmos - is racing towards those static muons at almost light speed, causing not just the atmosphere, not just our planet, but the very fabric of space itself to be contracted by the Lorentzian factor for that speed - which corresponds precisely to the time dilation factor attributed to the muons by those scientists on Earth.

[Notice that the term ‘reference frame’ can be likened to a framework that might be used, e.g. by a builder, for alignment of front-back, left-right and vertical. Here we have to include a 4th dimension, time, which is imaginary, making for some pretty cool maths - but also leaving a major question mark hanging over the SR perception of time and how it does what it does (not a problem for the spun-light take on time). Shifting to a different reference frame is like that builder rotating his framework so as to consider his building from a different angle - except that in SR time is included in the mix and it’s the whole universe that’s being rotated.]

Moving on: the muon reference frame shows our atmosphere (and the Earth itself) being contracted so the muons only have 1/5th as far to travel - or for the atmosphere to travel past them, properly speaking. 1/5th distance at normal speed gives exactly the same outcome as full distance at time dilation factor 1/5th. This is how conventional SR ‘explains’ the fact that so many muons survive the trip even though in SR time dilation doesn’t apply to those muons in their own reference frame. As always, SR balances the books perfectly: Einstein was a mathematician par excellence.

We are, though, left with 100% valid representations of our planet, just in different reference frames from the one we’re used to, as shown in the multiple pictures at the top of this post. Note again that these are not just subjective impressions, they’re true pictures of the Earth as it is, according to SR. Just as in SR Earth’s atmosphere is one-fifth as thick in the muons’ frame - not just an impression, note, they physically took less time passing through it, with no time dilation in their own frame - so the Earth itself is contracted by that same factor. The ultra-thin version is our Earth as it is in the reference frame of neutrinos emitted by a supernova, crossing space at up to 99.9999999% of the speed of light.

Don’t let anyone tell you that the concept of a flat Earth is bad science. It’s bang up to date, right up there with observations of neutrinos from supernovae hundreds of thousands of light years away. Of course, it’s more usual to view Earth, or anything else, in its own reference frame, but for those who subscribe to the conventional SR take on reality the reference frame of a near-light-speed neutrino is as valid as any other - and in that frame mother Earth is as flat as a pancake.

Alternatively you can see the universe as founded on just one objectively static rest state, with all other perspectives being subjective experiences arising from states of motion. This understanding fits all known data perfectly, with no bizarre add-ons, and it presents just one version of Earth: the near-spherical planet that we were all born on, that’s given every one of us our form.

In the next free post we’ll look at the whole issue of inertia: why force is needed to accelerate any object; why every object gets heavier with increasing speed, approaching infinite mass as it approaches the speed of light; and why the Higgs boson could well turn out to be a red herring.

To see technical details relating to the Lorentz Transformation, including full maths, check out the premium post An In-Depth Look at The Lorentz Transformation.

In the meantime, be sure to check out Transfinite Mind for books plus free articles and presentations.