Trying to understand The twin paradox for a year and a half

dcbingaman

Joined Jun 30, 2021
1,065
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The twin flying away sees the supposed stationary's clock of his twin on earth to run slower than his, no matter which direction he moves..... so why he is surprised when he arriving on earth finds out he was wrong. He is a nut first to question his own observation and worse yet finds out it is false and that it was his own clock that was running slower.
I agree with you.
There is one important difference: The twin in the space ship finds that the distance to the star he is traveling to instead of being say 10 light years away is 1 light year away. This is due to both length contraction and time dilation. (Making up the numbers but you get the idea). That is the universe is flatter in the direction of travel. So he calculates two years to get to the star turn around and come back while the twin on earth finds he takes 20 years to get to the star, turn around and come back. There is no universe contraction for the twin on earth but only for the twin in the space ship. Thus 20 years goes by on earth but the twin in the space ship states that 2 years went by. I am assuming he is traveling like at 90% of c. The exact numbers are a little different but that is the idea.

The other major difference is the twin in the space ship finds that not only is the clock on earth running slower but every clock in the entire universe is running slower. The twin on earth observes no such effect for the entire universe but only for the twin in the space ship. That is also a significant difference between the two.

Because of this there is no twin paradox issue: the one in the space ship and the one on earth both say the others clock is running slow. That is not a problem because the twin in the space ship thinks the clock on earth ran slow for only 2 years while the twin on earth thinks the clock in the spaceship ran slow for 20 years. That washes out and no issues in that case.
 
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dcbingaman

Joined Jun 30, 2021
1,065
I don't think that is a safe assumption. Clearly the two ships could tie a string between them and then fly on identical profiles effectively as one ship and the two clocks would obviously be synched. But they could also fly radically different profiles and I don't think the argument total energy consumption somehow equates to degree of space/time dilation stands on its own. For instance, one could boost out in a straight line at high accel up to a high speed and then coast for a long time, then boost again at high speed to turn around, and then boost a final time to come to rest at the original location. The second could just boost continuously at low accel in a relatively small circle around the original location. The amount of time coasting is simply adjusted so that, when the first ship comes to rest relative to the second ship they have both used the same amount of fuel. This essentially reduces to the original twin paradox problem.
True, I would have to look very carefully at the math. My reasoning being the total work done from say 1 newton of force over a distance of 2 meters is the same amount of work as 2 newtons of force over 1 meter. So granted they could be have difference amounts of force applied over different distances the total work done (thus energy) is the product of force and distance. So if the same amount of energy is expended by two space ships the total work done is the same. This is my intuition but it could be completely wrong. I would have to look at the math and take into account the sqrt((v/c)^2) contractions and time dilations. Maybe if I get some time on my hands I could perform a thought experiment that takes into account e=mv^2, f=ma, and the Lorenz transformations. I think that might be a rather major task.
 

Thread Starter

Alchemy One

Joined Oct 5, 2019
217
No, the twin flying away sees the other clock running slow, and when flying back he sees it running fast. This is why we have red shift and blue shift.
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You might want to do some more research. I am not an arrogant academic know how to flaunt on you that it is not so. All I ask is either do some more research or then you will be stuck with I have to say.
It is exactly what I thought for some months without knowing that it is not so. The dopper effect is just the effect related to distance... just like sound.... coming towards you or going away... But I won't say anymore...
I take no pleasure in telling someone they are wrong or it is not so.
I have tip toed and fallen more times than I care to cry about.
I have aged double in the last year....
 

Thread Starter

Alchemy One

Joined Oct 5, 2019
217
There is one important difference: The twin in the space ship finds that the distance to the star he is traveling to instead of being say 10 light years away is 1 light year away. This is due to both length contraction and time dilation. (Making up the numbers but you get the idea). That is the universe is flatter in the direction of travel. So he calculates two years to get to the star turn around and come back while the twin on earth finds he takes 20 years to get to the star, turn around and come back. There is no universe contraction for the twin on earth but only for the twin in the space ship. Thus 20 years goes by on earth but the twin in the space ship states that 2 years went by. I am assuming he is traveling like at 90% of c. The exact numbers are a little different but that is the idea.

The other major difference is the twin in the space ship finds that not only is the clock on earth running slower but every clock in the entire universe is running slower. The twin on earth observes no such effect for the entire universe but only for the twin in the space ship. That is also a significant difference between the two.

Because of this there is no twin paradox issue: the one in the space ship and the one on earth both say the others clock is running slow. That is not a problem because the twin in the space ship thinks the clock on earth ran slow for only 2 years while the twin on earth thinks the clock in the spaceship ran slow for 20 years. That washes out and no issues in that case.
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That whole earth/ vessel departing...treating people like kids to keep them distracted so they don't have suddenly look at the real, the actual, that one that stares paradox and doesn't go away.

The real one?
Sure, no problem:

Two inertial frames are at some respectable distant in an empty space with no other reference frame to be made into a judge or a refree as if it would help.
Now go from there.... you wanna try it?
 

BobTPH

Joined Jun 5, 2013
11,665
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You might want to do some more research. I am not an arrogant academic know how to flaunt on you that it is not so. All I ask is either do some more research or then you will be stuck with I have to say.
It is exactly what I thought for some months without knowing that it is not so. The dopper effect is just the effect related to distance... just like sound.... coming towards you or going away... But I won't say anymore...
I take no pleasure in telling someone they are wrong or it is not so.
I have tip toed and fallen more times than I care to cry about.
I have aged double in the last year....
Explain how one sees the clock in a different moving frame without the dopier effect altering its frequency.

Perhaps you did not actually mean seeing the clock. If you meant something else, let’s hear what you really meant, because then I can respond to what your are actually saying.

If you really did mean observing the clock visually, or by any other means, then my original objection stands.
 

BobTPH

Joined Jun 5, 2013
11,665
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That whole earth/ vessel departing...treating people like kids to keep them distracted so they don't have suddenly look at the real, the actual, that one that stares paradox and doesn't go away.

The real one?
Sure, no problem:

Two inertial frames are at some respectable distant in an empty space with no other reference frame to be made into a judge or a refree as if it would help.
Now go from there.... you wanna try it?
If you think special relativity is wrong, propose an actual experiment that disproves it, get funding and do the experiment. Otherwise you are just babbling. It is not for us to disprove your nonsense, the onus is on you to prove it.
 

dcbingaman

Joined Jun 30, 2021
1,065
I thought I would have some fun with this stuff. It took me most of the day but I managed to put together and excel spreadsheet that shows a space traveler with respect to an earthly friend. This excel spread sheet has time, distance, mass, velocity and time, distance, mass and velocity for the twin on a trip where we accelerate at 1G from earth coast a while and decelerate, turn around accelerate and decelerate again back to earth. I approximated the integrals of the Lorenz transformations by using this simple Reimann sum process with an interval of days in the excel spread sheet. I have more work to do but it is interesting. It might be more fun to convert this into a PC Program where you could enter the different parameters of accelerations, destination etc. And have the program calculate the trip itinerary. Like they do for airport flight trips :)

The work is not yet completed, just wanted to see if there is any glaring mistakes.

If you just change the acceleration profile on the spread sheet and leave everything else the same, you should be able to make up just about any scenario you desire to simulate. All the rest of the column's calculate using the acceleration with respect to earth column.
 

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