[General] Muon decay and energy in a bottle

[Mark, Martin van der]

Hi John, thanks for the Terrell paper. Indeed this is at least part of what I meant when I  suggested a book about “perspective in/on special relativity”.
There is an interesting point to be made here, I believe. There is a difference between diffusively glowing objects, diffusively scattering objects (being lit by a source of some, perhaps other velocity) and specular or directionally emitting objects, such as mirrors or lasers.
In any case, that Terrell says that a sphere looks like a sphere, whatever, makes me very happy. Note that the electron picture in our paper (though illustrative and just an artist impression) is not explained too well since the electron looks like an ellipse, just like (and consistent with) its field lines depicted in the Feynman lectures.
I have to read Terrell first before I possibly comment any further.
Cheers, Martin

Dr. Martin B. van der Mark
Principal Scientist, Minimally Invasive Healthcare

Philips Research Europe - Eindhoven
High Tech Campus, Building 34 (WB2.025)
Prof. Holstlaan 4
5656 AE  Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 40 2747548

From: General [mailto:general-bounces+martin.van.der.mark=philips.com at lists.natureoflightandparticles.org] On Behalf Of John Williamson
Sent: zondag 18 oktober 2015 11:26
To: Nature of Light and Particles - General Discussion
Cc: Nick Bailey; Anthony Booth; quicycle at gmail.com; ARNOLD BENN
Subject: [General] Muon decay and energy in a bottle

This is a reply to another thread  - but have started a new one because its is also relevant to another. It is a reply to Al - on relativity and particle decays.

From John W: … Hi Al, I am quite sure we actually agree in almost every respect. It is only, really, the reality of relative time as measured in clock experiments and in particle lifetimes – or am I wrong? I have put my contributions this time round in dark blue – my older comments in light blue. I am very interested on ideas of “absolute time” as well – do not get me wrong. I would also be very interested if any lifetime experiments for certain particles varied by a factor of 2 (if anyone knows anything about these). Sorry the reply has taken a long time – am just ridiculously busy with the day job (which has turned into a bit of a night and weekend job too). The paper I’ve attached is on perspective in relativity and also has a bit on Wolf’s light-in-the-bottle from the lit at the end. Enjoy.

Al, Albrecht is right. There is no contradiction - just something you need to understand about the symmetry. You seem to see a contradiction where there is none present. You make some statements as though they are fact which are not fact.
For example you say >>>
AK: Albrecht is at least ambigious if he doesn't make the distinction between appearances via projection and ontological modifications via mysterious consequences for "molecular force" and the like.  His e-mail, as are mine and everybody else often, was written on the fly. Incomplete.  True.

"Two entities cannot at once be both be dialted in the other's view and not their own."
AK: Take note here that I said "be", not "appear."  (Even Einstein always said "appear"!)


Yes they can. Yes they must, it has to be symmetric! Saying something does not make it true, however sensible it may seem to the sayer. There is no actual dilation. The existence of another entity somewhere has no bearing on the local properties elsewhere. All is as viewed, all is perspective (good word). If this is what you are on about then we agree.
AK: Evidently, we agree (to some extent).  I hold the view (not mine by orignation) that the perspective view-point is self consistent, but that the ontological-modification view-point leads to contradictions (Agreed).  An entity in its own frame cannot BE both long and short.  As I recall this is what the logicians call the "Principle of Excluded Middle."

Of course not. Just who is saying it is?

It seems to me though that is not all those textbook writers that are missing something but you. Both observers DO see each other clocks running slow.
AK: No. they see each other's VIRTUAL image of the other's clock running slow.  That makes sense.

Nope, to say this better imagine two blind observers: they observe (by listening to the robot voice readout from both clocks) that the clock that has accelerated rapidly moved away for some time, then accelerated and come back, then accelerated to stop and rejoin the first clock has run slow in the meantime. This is just exactly where Dingle (and Selleri) did not get it. Blinded by logic! Indeed.

The Muon in the muon decay sees the earth as approaching it at near lightspeed  -in its primary stillness and pure stationary state. The Earth it observes is still round - but as round as a pancake. The muon decays in 2.2 microseconds, in its frame, as usual. This layers multiple kilometres into the earth in the earth frame though. This is because the muon thinks the earth is as flat as a pancake. No  contradiction - no problem. If it were two earths colliding, with muons in them, each muon in each earth would see the other earth as flat. Perfectly symmetrically. Both sets of observers (as their last act in this case) would observe muons to live longer when moving fast in their frame.

AK: Your assertions, made, as you claim mine are, "ex cathdra," are in crass conflict with Terrell analysis of what a relativistic traveler sees.  His analysis is nowadays generally accepted by the so-called main-stream even.

Glad we are on the same page with Terrel.

Here is his abstract for "Invisibility of the Lorentz contraction" with red emphasis from me: ...

It is shown that, if the apparent directions of objects are plotted as points on a sphere surrounding the observer, the Lorentz transformation corresponds to a conformal transformation on the surface of this sphere. Thus, for sufficiently small subtended solid angle, an object will appear—optically—the same shape to all observers. A sphere will photograph with precisely the same circular outline whether stationary or in motion with respect to the camera. An object of less symmetry than a sphere, such as a meter stick, will appear, when in rapid motion with respect to an observer, to have undergone rotation, not contraction. The extent of this rotation is given by the aberration angle (θ−θ′), in which θ is the angle at which the object is seen by the observer and θ′ is the angle at which the object would be seen by another observer at the same point stationary with respect to the object. Observers photographing the meter stick simultaneously from the same position will obtain precisely the same picture, except for a change in scale given by the Doppler shift ratio, irrespective of their velocity relative to the meter stick. Even if methods of measuring distance, such as stereoscopic photography, are used, the Lorentz contraction will not be visible, although correction for the finite velocity of light will reveal it to be present.

I have attached the paper. Terrel is, indeed, talking about what one literally “sees”. As in with vision. Not about what actually happens in the variation of time and space in SR. The last paragraph in the paper (attached) says this explicitly. What he says is that SIZES will not appear Lorentz contracted. They will (appear) (visually) contracted (or expanded) – but only by a DOPPLER SHIFT. Exactly as I said in the previous emails and in the papers.  Also this Doppler shift – as I explain in my papers – is at the root of the reason WHY muons live so long in storage rings. Because everything is made of light-like stuff it is all different sizes in different frames (but always the same size in its own frame). This is NOT a contradiction – it is just the simple maths of the Doppler shift. Likewise clocks coming towards you will not appear to vibrate slow – but fast. Going away they will look (visually) slow. I know there is a lot said online in Wikipedia and in textbooks that betrays a lack of understanding of the author as to what is going on. This is perfectly normal. No one understands everything! What is shocking is that it took more than fifty years (and smart people like Terrel and Penrose) to get this stuff into print explicitly.

The reason one “sees” – (by which I do not mean “look at” I mean measure or observe) time going slow IS  perfectly well understood in standard relativity. I still do not get why anyone has a problem with this (who understands relativity). It is BOTH simply understood in relativity AND is what you actually measure. The reason is that light in free space travels in straight lines at lightspeed (neglecting gravity) in ALL possible frames. This means anything rod shaped in one frame appears (visually) rod shaped in every frame – by simple projection. All one sees with eye or photo is a ROTATION. Just as Terrel argues. Martin mentioned this earlier in the “seeing the gunman round the corner” reference. Actually one sees nothing – because humans take a tenth of a second or so to process anything visual so all one actually “sees” is a rapidly expanding and receding rather small and insignificant planet.


So, I'd say it pays not to dictate what a muon sees.  He doesn't see a damn thing (or least makes no use of it in the analysis of the decay.

True: poor muon is not one of the most gifted visual entities! This shows why and how we have been talking at cross-purposes. To see or not to see, anyone? Anyway – everyone knows that muons are she’s –its gotta be anti-muons that are the boys.

 And, if he did "see" the Earth approaching, it would have to be (as we just agreed) a virtual image.)

No: this is merely vision, not the underlying reality.

 I argue that the analysis of the muon story is a "dog's breakfast" of both some valid and mostly rejected (as being not from perspective-viewpoint) SR folklore notions.  A direct out from this situation would be to show that the ensemble of muon generation events is actually distributed down stream from the presumed (never observed) source location.

This out is (kind of) available for atmospheric muon experiments, but not for lab-created or other particles where both creation and decay ARE observed. The simple fact is that the slightly straighter paths (fractionally closer to lightspeed) do go tens or hundred of times further. There is no out. However much you may want it. It is not a conspiracy of silence on these experiments. I know. I have done them myself. Thousands and thousands of them. I analysed the biggest dataset in the world at the time on the worlds most powerful (then) computer. Short-lived hadronic particles do go for metres when they usually decay in nanoseconds. They just do.  Even light only goes a foot in a nanosecond – so how do they do that then? Relativity of time and space does explain this. If there is another theory which does I am happy to talk about it – but whatever it is it has to deal with what is observed in experiment.

This is all symmetric. The base reason (for space and time contraction) is explained in the first of my two papers to SPIE (where gamma is derived from photon energy transformations E=H nu) , and arises, simply, from the linearity and conservation of energy. It is just derivative of the Doppler shift of photons. Dead simple. Do the maths! You can discard SR if you like, but you must also lose energy conservation and the relation E=h nu if you do. SR is that relation which maintains energy linearity and conservation of energy for light.  Chandra is right: there are some things that are simply more fundamental than other things. Energy (and hence frequency) is, apparently, more fundamental than space and time scales. You need to get this! Read my paper!

Sorry Al – I was not referring to you in those comments – but to others in the same thread who appeared to be  wishing SR away.

AK: These comments show that you are not taking on board what I have actually said.

This is certainly true – when you talked about things actually stretching and contracting I should have realised it was joke.

 I have never rejected SR.  That complex afflicts others, not me.

Good!

 SR as 4-D space-time projection o 3/2 D is fine, as an agent of the modification of time (which I tend to see as absolute, contrary to clocks) is wild sci-fi!

No. The slowing of clocks and the long life of short-lived particles is real. It is measured. If you want to say it is sci-fi YOU, have to say why and explain the clock-slowing experiments in an equally convincing way. Sorry, this is the scientific method and it is brutal!

 Symmetry is also to be called upon carefully.  John Bell's string will not break becasue some cosmic ray passes the rocket ship complex with v ~ c. Or, at least, the premise to his story would have to be rejected becasue the string could never be tied, given the profusion of cosmic rays, in the first place!

BTW, maths per se cannot confirm some assertion, just negate it.  Can be that the maths coincide for wildly different entities or processes.

Could indeed be so (and probably is!).

ciao,  Al

Cheers, John W.


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