A revolution in our understanding, will it unset !!

Theory of Relativity, restated in a different form: All processes in relative motion will appear to each other with contracted space and dilated time. This is only true in inertial frames, like all laws of physics, for non-inertial-ness additional corrections are to be formulated into the laws.

This is different from our ordinary understanding where the length of objects and length of time perceived were thought to be the same under all conditions of motion.

In other words previously we thought length of space and length of time were invariants of motions but relativity laws state that these are not invariant under such motion. What is invariant is a quantity from a specially formulated vector. In earlier understanding certain vectors were invariant for their magnitude, eg momentum vector, hence now the magnitude of these vectors with changed definitions will still be invariant. This time the vectors have 4 components. The reason why we say we live in a 4-dimensional world.

Relativity says if you throw a clock like you throw a baseball it will work slower, time works (that is ticks) slower which means for every second you spent the clock shows slightly more than a second, which is why the GPS clocks in the neutrino experiment would give you a slightly larger time than actually passed on the earth, but the clocks are significantly slower wrt to light so that this essentially does not count even into the nanosecond range.

that is for every second you spend, the clock as long as it is moving with a speed wrt you, will register slightly more than a second. If you believe such a clock **without corrections** you will think you have reached late for work. SO you need to correct for a time that is needed for the relay of information presumably occuring at a speed equals to that of light, because there is a relative motion in the situation. This I name as “delay in relay”. Since the GPS clocks are in-fact moving howsoever tiny time delay this is noting, it is saying: the neutrinos have taken longer time to arrive. But correction of delay would say neutrinos have arrived slightly earlier than quoted by the OPERA paper, assuming this delay is zero since the clock speed (GPS) is very very small compared to the speed of light. But even when this correction is taken into account it is such a significantly smaller number, But the hoax paper I pointed out yesterday was claiming the opposite of this. It was claiming a 64 nano-second delayed arrival of neutrino which cancels the 60 nano-seconds measured while relativity says if such a correction is needed in-fact neutrinos have arrived 64+60 = 124 nano-seconds earlier rather than just 60 ns. But for that effect the GPS closks itself would break the photon speed, what a phony.

at the same time this moving clock will notice that anything around you has a length which is slightly smaller than what you observe …

that is time elongates or dilates and space contracts so that their ratio for speed of light goes the same, this is so for photon/light; as for any other object this ratio gives their speed which is changed (not necessarily fixed like that of photon) but space and time always change like this. That is the main attribute of Theory of Relativity.

The constancy of speed of light comes only because mass of photon is “zero”. When this mass is not absolute zero this latter attribute has to be over-ruled. This is the case with light only when we are sensitive to it’s small rest-mass. In practice as of 2011 and for a long time to come unless there is an interesting phenomena, we won’t be sensitive to the photon mass, that is we won’t go measuring masses below photon’s calculated mass of say ~10^-18 eV.

When the mass is not zero this “ratio of change of space and time”, space and time (all three) are not invariant under Lorentz Transformation, but specially for photon this was overruled.

But for neutrino this ratio is not fixed, it’s a function of it’s energy. This was already known although forgotten even by eminent people. What is being seen as a heart-sroke is the fact that this ratio of change of neutrino’s space and time is a number which is in excess of speed of light. This was an adhoc attribute that set in as a prejudice for a 100 years and the neutrino behavior has challenged this for the 1st time.

(actually not, but for the 1st time it is so prominent that no one has been successful so far to reason that this is wrong, NO ONE)

Perhaps Relativity just gave a way to deal with phenomena when they occur at mindlessly large speed but that’s that. WE needed better reasoning and it is time WE are being forced to see alternatively. The MM experiment had done similarly things to what was understood about a 100 yrs ago. It had overhauled the Newton’s and Galileo’s schemes of motion by seriously challenging the concept of absoluteness. Now we are not going back to absoluteness. Now we are overthrowing the absoluteness of some aspects of Relativity which was unnecessary but lived in as there was nothing that was being hurt. (or was it?)

It was unnecessary and we must see that it has brought in some unnecessary degree of absoluteness.

(absoluteness of zero rest-mass, absoluteness of limiting speed, but these two are a result of only 1 absoluteness in the theory, bring in one the other comes in automatically)

If we realize that in quantum mechanics also this absoluteness was questioned even in the 1025~1930s we learn what we were so stubborn with. WE were stubborn with the authority of Einstein’s ideas in Physics even when the Guru himself did not believe in authority. But I think most of the genius just scattered in many directions, the Golden era of theory in the 1900-1950s concentrating in 1930s was lost for a long time for various reasons, one being many top minds worked in experiments and having been glorified didn’t see it compelling to work some theory out, 2nd being many glory of theory still remained but that mostly worked towards particle physics.

But the kind of theory that had come with Einstein and Schrodinger or Bohr didn’t come again. WE lost ourselves into a myriad oasis of meaningless analogies and exciting but futile developments. WE continued to stress on these for far too long without any massive revolution in our basic understanding. This is the latest situation in Physics. A massive amount of discoveries and inventions and strides of understanding but a lack of basic consistency, at-least in a few aspects that are so paramount to our progress in science that their unsetting would not be any less of a revolution in our understanding of the nature that really exist around us …

A popular relativity text written in the 1970s had stated what is now happening with the neutrino speed-excess measurement. It had said that the speed constancy and speed limit, in-fact a general validity of relativity, is subjected to experiments especially as a matter of scale of energy and distance and a change in our understanding is not to be rejected simply on the grounds of validity of relativity by experiments.

I conclude thusly: A new experiment and a new question raised on the validity of a fact is what makes science based on experimental truth an exciting and truer form of science.