On Sunday, December 22, 2024 at 10:39:28 PM UTC-7 Jesse Mazer wrote:

On Mon, Dec 23, 2024 at 12:10 AM Alan Grayson <[email protected]> wrote:

On Sunday, December 22, 2024 at 9:43:56 PM UTC-7 Jesse Mazer wrote:

On Sun, Dec 22, 2024 at 10:12 PM Alan Grayson <[email protected]> wrote:

On Sunday, December 22, 2024 at 4:20:57 PM UTC-7 Jesse Mazer wrote:

On Sun, Dec 22, 2024 at 5:40 PM Alan Grayson <[email protected]> wrote:

On Sunday, December 22, 2024 at 1:55:07 PM UTC-7 Jesse Mazer wrote:

On Sun, Dec 22, 2024 at 12:35 AM Alan Grayson <[email protected]> wrote:

On Saturday, December 21, 2024 at 2:10:00 PM UTC-7 Jesse Mazer wrote:

On Sat, Dec 21, 2024 at 4:12 AM Alan Grayson <[email protected]> wrote:

On Saturday, December 21, 2024 at 12:41:56 AM UTC-7 Jesse Mazer wrote:

On Sat, Dec 21, 2024 at 1:41 AM Alan Grayson <[email protected]> wrote:

On Friday, December 20, 2024 at 11:20:30 PM UTC-7 Jesse Mazer wrote:

On Fri, Dec 20, 2024 at 11:06 PM Alan Grayson <[email protected]> wrote:

On Friday, December 20, 2024 at 8:03:38 PM UTC-7 Alan Grayson wrote:

On Friday, December 20, 2024 at 7:47:47 PM UTC-7 Jesse Mazer wrote:

On Fri, Dec 20, 2024 at 6:53 PM Alan Grayson <[email protected]> wrote:

On Friday, December 20, 2024 at 3:03:36 PM UTC-7 Jesse Mazer wrote:

On Fri, Dec 20, 2024 at 6:14 AM Alan Grayson <[email protected]> wrote:

Please define what you mean by local events, with some examples. 


I did that in my last two comments on the other thread, the first of which 
you had said you were going to respond to in more detail. In my 
second-to-last post see the two paragraphs beginning with the sentence 'But 
are you asking a different question about what is the motive for demanding 
that any claims about how things work in different frames needs to pass the 
test of giving identical local predictions, in order to qualify as good 
physics?' with the example of the mini bomb and the glass of water, and in 
my last post see the paragraphs beginning with '"The car fits" or "the car 
fits" are not statements about local events, i.e. statements about things 
that happen at a single spacetime point in one of Brent's diagrams'--in 
that comment I then went on to give examples involving endpoints of the car 
and garage crossing paths with clock readings and ruler markings given at 
those specific crossing points in spacetime. Can you re-read those 
carefully, and if you're still unclear ask follow-up questions to either of 
those comments?

Note that in these kinds of problems we idealize things like clocks and 
endpoints of the car as being like point particles that only have a single 
position coordinate at a single time coordinate (likewise the bomb and the 
glass of water), which I assume you won't have a problem with if you are 
willing to similarly idealize the car and garage as 1-dimensional. But if 
you were to treat clocks etc. as having an extension in space that was tiny 
compared to the lengths of the car/garage, and passing by the ends of the 
car garage at a similarly tiny distance, this would differ only negligibly 
from the idealized calculation of treating them as points.

Jesse


I don't have a problem with idealizations and it's clear that we're using 
them in this issue. I didn't want to reply on the other thread in order not 
to mess up your long post which I will eventually respond to. And I realize 
that the simultaneous endpoints of a perfectly fitting car are not local 
events but why does the fact that they're not simultaneous in the car frame 
solve this apparent paradox? And you'll notice the author I quoted doesn't 
state exactly what the paradox is. AG 


What I'm saying is that "solving the paradox" requires understanding that 
despite the disagreement over fit, there is no actual disagreement about 
local events like the ones I mentioned with rulers and clocks at different 
positions. But to understand conceptually how it can be possible that they 
can disagree on fitting but still agree on all details about local events, 
you really need to look at the way the frames have differing definitions of 
simultaneity. As I pointed out on the other thread, if you imagine a 
hypothetical world where there is *no* disagreement over simultaneity but 
each frame still predicts that objects moving in that frame are 
Lorentz-contracted, then two frames that make different claims about 
whether the car fit would automatically *also* be disagreeing over clock 
readings at some local events.

As for the other author you quoted, that person is dealing with a different 
version of the car/garage paradox where the car is supposed to 
instantaneously accelerate to come to rest relative to the garage when the 
front end reaches the back of the garage, and they're saying that this 
would lead to different physical scenarios depending on whether all points 
in the car accelerate simultaneously in the car frame, or if they 
accelerate simultaneously in the garage frame. In the first scenario the 
back end of the car will come to rest relative to the garage when it's 
outside the garage (so the car never fit in either frame) and in the second 
scenario the back end of the car will come to rest when it's inside the 
garage (so the car did fit in both frames). This wouldn't be a mere 
difference between frames as in Brent's scenario where there's no 
acceleration, these would be two physically different options for how to 
accelerate the car.


There's nothing in that scenario which models it as accelerating (actually 
decelerating) to get a perfect fit. In fact, the author states that the car 
fits in the garage from the garage frame, but not in the garage in the car 
frame. He then states that simultaneity fails in car frame and this is the 
alleged solution. At least he seems to agree with my concept of what 
constitutes a paradox. AG


Wrong. The author does have the car stopping to get a perfect fit, but I 
don't think this matters. We can assume the car is in constant motion and 
get the same result re; differerence in simultaneity between frames. AG 


There are different ways of formulating the paradox, and as you seem to 
acknowledge, the author you linked at 
http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~siegel/sr.html does talk about the car 
stopping, and notes there are different possible physical scenarios for 
when the back of the car stops if the front stops when it reaches the back 
wall (i.e. whether the back of the car stops simultaneously with the front 
according to the car frame's definition of simultaneity or the garage 
frame's definition of simultaneity). Of course you can also formulate the 
paradox in terms of different frames' perspective on a car moving 
inertially through the garage without stopping as Brent did (that's the way 
the paradox is usually formulated), but then why did you specifically ask 
about a page that has a completely different version of the problem? 


*That scenario was posted, IIRC, by Quentin, in part his demonstration of 
how simple the solution, and how stupid I am. I prefer the scenario where 
the car doesn't cease its motion, and IIUC, the alleged solution is the 
same, which I don't understand; disagreement about simultaneity. AG *


I also prefer to talk about an inertial scenario with no stopping, so let's 
drop the discussion of that webpage.


*OK. You've stated several times that events are invariant under the LT, 
and you've defined "event" as a point in spacetime.*


No, what I've said is invariant are the local physical facts i.e. *things 
that are physically happening" at a single point in spacetime, like the 
reading on a physical clock there, 


*You seem to offer ambiguous definitions of "events" which are frame 
independent, like the reading of a clock.*


Just calling it ambiguous without explaining why you find it ambiguous 
isn't helpful. What is ambiguous about the notion of local physical facts 
that are about configurations of particles in a small local region of 
spacetime? 
 

* I am not claiming time labels as such are frame independent. I plan to 
spend some time reading your long statement below. In the meantime, since 
you affirm disagreement about simultaneity is the solution to the apparent 
paradox, please define exactly what paradox you are trying to solve. In my 
analysis using length contraction, we have the car fitting in garage frame, 
but not in car frame. Anything wrong with just accepting this result? If 
not, why not? How exactly does disagreement about simultaneity solve the 
paradox, whatever it is? TY, AG*


You have already asked this question about why we need to go beyond length 
contraction a bunch of times and I've answered a bunch of times: the 
paradox lies in the idea that a disagreement in predictions about whether 
the car fits would naively *seem* to imply genuine physical contradiciton 
i.e. different predictions about local physical facts as defined above, but 
an analysis involving simultaneity can show this isn't the case. I'll copy 
and paste my answer from 
https://groups.google.com/g/everything-list/c/gbOE5B-7a6g/m/p5wwz5C5AQAJ 
(an answer you didn't really address in your response), and which was 
itself copying and pasting from some earlier posts:

I have already explained the point here is pedagogical (in several other 
posts that you never responded to--I think it would help the discussion if 
you would respond to every post where I ask you a question, instead of 
taking a sporadic approach). Here was what I said in the first post where I 
made this point:

'The reason physicists bother to talk about a hypothetical scenario like 
this is pedagogical, they want to get students to think about situations 
where the perspective of different frames might *seem* to lead to real 
physical contradictions, and then looking at it more closely they'll 
understand how the "real" physical predictions in relativity are always 
about local events, and that by considering different definitions of 
simultaneity we can show the two frames do agree about all local events on 
rulers and clocks.
Do you disagree with my point that if different frames *didn't* have 
differing definitions of simultaneity, it would be impossible for the two 
frames to disagree about whether the car or garage was shorter without this 
leading to conflicting predictions about local events, like what the clocks 
mounted to front and back of the car will read at the instant they pass 
clocks attached to the front and back of the garage?'

And in a later post, I elaborated on why differences in simultaneity are 
critical to avoiding contradictory predictions about localized physical 
events:

'In an imaginary alternative physics where different frames had no 
disagreement about simultaneity but different observers still all believed 
the length contraction equation should apply in their frame, then this 
would be a genuine paradox/physical contradiction, because different frames 
would end up making different predictions about local events. Think about 
it this way--if there were no disagreement about simultaneity, there could 
be no disagreement about the *order* of any two events (this would be the 
case even if observers predicted moving clocks run slow like in 
relativity). But if observer #1 thinks the car is shorter than the garage, 
he will predict the event A (the back of the car passing the front of the 
garage) happens before event B (the front of the car reaches the back of 
the garage), and if observer #2 thinks the car is longer than the garage, 
he will predict B happens before A. If there were no disagreement about 
simultaneity this would lead them to different predictions about readings 
on synchronized clocks at the front and back of the car/garage at the 
moment of those events, specifically whether the clock at A would show a 
greater or lesser time than the clock at B.'

 

or the crossing point of the worldlines of two physical objects like the 
back of the car and the front of the garage. (In relativity the word 
'event' can either be used to refer to a physical point in spacetime and 
all the physical things that occur there, or it can be used to refer to 
some specific physical thing happening there like a clock reading) Since 
you were OK with the idea of "point in spacetime" as a sort of idealized 
limit of very small finite regions of spacetime, just think of 
coordinate-invariant statements about the arrangement of particles (like 
the atoms making up a clock or a ruler or the end of a car, or the photons 
making up a light ray) that are inside a very small volume in space if you 
looked at the particles in that region for a very brief moment of time (we 
could think of this as an 'infinitesimal' region of spacetime). Things like 
the hand of an analog clock pointing at a particular mark on the clock 
within that infinitesimal spacetime region, or a set of photons passing 
through the region that carry an image of some other event that's on the 
past light cone of that region.

The *coordinates* associated with a point in spacetime in some frame are 
not part of what I mean by physical events at that point in spacetime, 
although there may be some physical clock readings and ruler markings that 
match up with those coordinates, but not all frames will take those 
clock/ruler readings as "canonical" in terms of defining coordinates.
 

* So, if the moving car fits exactly, what basis you do have for claiming 
the two events in the garage frame, front and back of car with same time, 
fail to transform simultaneously under the LT, to the car frame?*


By "fail to transform simultaneously" do you just mean the idea that two 
different points in spacetime which are assigned the same time coordinate 
in one frame are assigned different time coordinates in another frame? 


*Not exactly. I'm thinking of measurable time, such as the same time the 
front of car reaches end of garage, and back of car reach the front of 
garage. (from pov of garage frame). These events seem to satisfy your 
definition of simultaneous events, and your claim that they are frame 
independent under the LT. If so, since they must transform **frame-independent 
using the LT, I don't see how they could yield any disagreement in 
simultaneity, which seems to be required to solve the paradox, whatever it 
might be. AG*


As I illustrate in my longer numerical example of local events which you 
say you're going to address in a future post, in the same local region of 
spacetime where the front of the car reaches the back of the garage you 
have two *different* clock readings, on clock #3 at the front of the car 
and clock #4 at the back of the garage, each of which had previously been 
synchronized with the clocks at the back of the car and the front of the 
garage using the Einstein synchronization procedure, used in the car rest 
frame to synchronize the two car clocks and used in the garage rest frame 
to synchronize the two garage clocks. Both the clocks at the back of the 
car and the front of the garage read 0 when they passed each other, but 
when the clock at the front of the car reaches the back of the garage, the 
car clock in that local region read -7.5 and the garage clock in the same 
local region read 3.5. So, without arbitrarily picking one set of clocks as 
canonical and discarding the other readings (i.e. picking which to use to 
define a frame-dependent notion of time), how are you supposed to get any 
definite statement about the "measurable time" between the local event of 
the back of the car passing the front of the garage and the local event of 
the front of the car reaching the back of the garage? Do you think the 
"measurable time" here would be -7.5 or 3.5 or neither?

 

 

If so, see above, time coordinates are not part of what I mean by "physical 
events".
 

* AND, supposing they do NOT transform simultaneously, what exactly is the 
apparent paradox you think you are trying to solve, and how is the alleged 
failure of simultaneity in the car frame, the solution**? AG *


The paradox is how the two frames can disagree (in coordinate terms) about 
whether the car fits, and in particular whether the event A="back of car 
passes front of garage" happens before or after event B="front of car 
reaches back of garage", and yet they can agree about *all* local physical 
facts at the point in spacetime where A occurs and at the point in 
spacetime where B occurs. 
 


In Brent's inertial version with no stopping, you need to consider 
simultaneity to see how both frames can agree on all local events, 


*But if frames agree on local events, an event being defined as a position 
and time in spacetime, there can be no violation of simultaneity. AG*


Did you read the comment before the one you are responding to here? I don't 
understand why you think agreement on local events would have anything to 
do with simultaneity, I explained why it doesn't there. 


*I don't understand it, because you keep saying events are invariant using 
the LT, so if you're transforming two events with the same time labels,*


I don't think I used the phrase "events are invariant using the LT". 
Physical events don't transform at all, only their coordinate labels do.


*OK, so if the time labels represent the measured time of physical events, 
they will transform simultaneously under the LT.*


See above, there are no local physical facts which represent "measured 
time" in some way that's independent of a convention about which set of 
physical clocks to treat as canonical. The only local physical facts are 
the clock readings themselves, which can differ in the same local region of 
spacetime, if you're looking at clocks in motion to each other which are 
part of sets that have been previously synchronized by the Einstein 
convention in their rest frames.

 

* But then how can you use failure of simultaneity to solve the paradox? 
Did Brent affirm or deny failure of simultaneity to "solve" the paradox? AG*
 

Also, if you don't *already know* what physical events occurred at a 
particular point in spacetime (for example you don't know what a clock 
reads there), but you are given a set of initial conditions in each frame 
(including initial reading on that same clock at time coordinate 0 in the 
frame), then you can can *derive* a prediction about the physical event in 
different ways in different frames, using formulas derived from the LT like 
the time dilation equation (which tells you how fast the physical clock 
ticks relative to the time coordinate). In that case both frames will end 
up with the same prediction about the local physical event, but arrived at 
with different calculations. If you'd like a numerical example of this 
using initial conditions from Brent's example, just ask and I can provide 
one.
 

* I would assume the two events, which are simultaneous in the garage 
frame, will remain simultaneous in the car frame. *


No, time labels are just that, labels, they are not actual physical events 
at each point, or in my above alternative formulation, they are not 
necessary consequences of any specific arrangement of particles that occurs 
in a tiny region of spacetime. Please look again at what I posted at 
https://groups.google.com/g/everything-list/c/gbOE5B-7a6g/m/hYkasRQOAgAJ 
for some of the other physical events that happen at the same point as the 
event "front of car reaches back of garage" in Brent's example, and then 
look at my followup question after the quote:

"In Brent's scenario, assume clocks #1 and #3 at the back and front of the 
car were synchronized in the car's rest frame by the Einstein 
synchronization procedure, and clocks #2 and #4 at front and back of the 
garage were synchronized in the garage's rest frame using the 
synchronization procedure. Also assume the localized event of the back of 
the car passing the front of the garage coincided with both clock #1 and 
clock #2 there reading t=0 and t'=0 respectively, and that this happened 
right next to the x=0 mark on ruler Rc and the x'=0 mark on ruler Rg. All 
frames agree on these facts, which are exclusively about what happened at a 
single point in spacetime, namely the point where the back of the car 
passed the front of the garage. 

Given these assumptions, according to relativity they will *also* agree in 
all their predictions about a second event, the event of the front of the 
car reaching the back of the garage. Specifically they will agree that at 
the same point in spacetime as this second event, all the following are 
true:


So we have front and back of car satisfying simultaneity, as real events, 
and using the LT the transformed event to the car frame, are not 
simultaneous? AG


I don't understand what "So we have front and back of the car satisfying 
simultaneity, as real events" means. Front and back of the car describe 
worldlines that pass through many different events/points in spacetime, if 
you are talking about two specific events on the wordlines of front and 
back, which ones do you mean? And the statement of mine you are responding 
to said nothing about simultaneity so I don't know why you wrote "So" in 
response to what I wrote. Were you referring to the part where I talked 
about clocks and front and back of car and garage being synchronized by the 
Einstein synchronization procedure? If so, the Einstein procedure itself 
only "synchronizes" clocks in a frame-dependent way, you synchronize two 
clocks at rest relative to each other by assuming the time for light to 
travel from clock A to clock B must be the same as the time for the light 
to travel from B to A, that's true in the clocks' rest frame but other 
frames where the clocks are in motion say these two light travel times are 
*not* equal, so setting the time on the two clocks with this assumption 
leads them to be synchronized in the time coordinates of their rest frame 
but out-of-synch in the time coordinates of other frames.
 

 

--Clock #3 at the front of the car read t = -7.5
--Clock #4 at the back of the garage read t' = 3.5
--this event of the front of the car reaching the back of the garage 
coincided with the x=12 mark on ruler Rc
--this event of the front of the car reaching the back of the garage 
coincided with the x'=10 mark on ruler Rg

There is no disagreement on any of these local facts. The only disagreement 
is that each observer adopts a different *convention* about which ruler and 
clocks to treat as canonical for the sake of assigning coordinates--the car 
rest frame defines time-coordinates by the clocks at rest in the car frame 
(clocks #1 and #3) and the ruler at rest in the car frame (Rc), while the 
the garage frame defines time-coordinates by the clocks at rest in the 
garage frame (clocks #2 and #4) and the ruler at rest in the garage frame 
(Rg). Based on these conventions, the car observer says the event of the 
back of the car passing the front of the garage happened AFTER the event of 
the front of the car reaching the back of the garage, therefore the car 
never "fit", while the garage observer says the event of the back of the 
car passing the front of the garage happened BEFORE the event of the front 
of the car reaching the back of the garage, therefore the car "did" fit. 
But this is not a disagreement about any of the local facts I mentioned."

In the above example, do you understand that "Clock #3 at the front of the 
car read t = -7.5" would be a statement not about coordinates but about the 
actual configuration of particles in the infinitesimal region of the front 
of the car reaching the back of the garage, i.e. there is a specific 
collection of atoms we call "Clock #3" and its physical hand is pointing at 
a physical painted-on marking that reads -7.5? Likewise that "Clock #4 at 
the back of the garage read t' = 3.5" is a statement not about coordinates 
but about a second physical clock in this region and which marking its hand 
is pointing to? If so you can see why looking at these clock readings (and 
at the readings in the neighborhood of the different event 'back of car 
passes front of garage', where both clocks read 0) is not sufficient to 
settle definitively whether this event happens BEFORE or AFTER the event of 
the back of the car passing the front of the garage. As a matter of 
coordinate convention, the car frame takes clock #3 as "canonical" for 
defining time coordinates, while the garage frame takes clock #4 as 
canonical for defining time coordinates, so they get different answers in 
spite of agreeing about the physical readings of both clocks in this region.

 

*Are you claiming that if the car doesn't stop, Brent's model, then there 
is no failure of simultaneity? I've always thought failue of simultanaeity 
is alleged to be the solution. If not, then what's the problem we're trying 
to solve, and its solution? Sorry; I feel totally confused. AG*


No, in terms of the time-coordinates they assign to physical events, the 
two frames always disagree about simultaneity and in some cases about the 
order of pairs of events which aren't simultaneous in either frame, like 
the events A and B above. 


*Do you see how this can be confusing? You now claim the two events, with 
time measured in garage frame when car fits perfectly in garage, don't 
transform simultaneously, when previously you asserted they DO, under the 
LT? AG*


I never asserted that they do "transform simultaneously" in terms of time 
coordinates (and simultaneity is a purely coordinate-dependent notion), I 
just said that readings on each clock in the local neighborhood of a given 
event are agreed by all observers. But different observers disagree on 
which local clocks to treat as canonical for the sake of defining a time 
coordinate, and since they pick different local clocks they get different 
conclusions about the time coordinate (like -7.5 vs. 3.5 above).

Jesse


*To be perfectly candid, I don't understand most of your comments above, 
but I will study them much more, hopefully to change this situation. So 
it's not necessary to repeat them again. But what can enlighten me is if 
you would directly answer a few questions I have about the problem at 
hand.  Firstly, using Einstein's synchronization method, if we assume the 
car perfectly fits in the garage, and clocks in the garage frame are 
synchronized, can we assume the front and back end of car are synchronized 
in the garage frame?*


I don't understand what it means to say "front and back end of car are 
synchronized". Are you referring to a scenario like what I described where 
there are clocks attached to the front and back of the car (at rest 
relative to the car), which have been synchronized in the car's rest frame 
using the Einstein synchronization method? If so, the answer is no, these 
two clocks will *not* be synchronized in the garage frame. On the other 
hand, if you are considering a scenario where the car fits exactly from the 
perspective of the garage frame, are you just asking whether the event 
A="back of car passes front of garage" and the event B="front of car passes 
back of garage" are these events A and B simultaneous in the garage frame 
(ignoring the issue of what the car's own clocks read in the local 
neighborhood A and B)? If so, yes, this would be the definition of what it 
means for the car to fit exactly in the garage frame. Or did you mean 
something different than either of these?

 

* If so, is the proposed solution of the paradox the fact that these events 
are NOT synchronized in the car frame? Yes or No?*


If you meant the latter, i.e. the events A and B are simultaneous in the 
garage frame, then yes, it's essential to the resolution of the paradox to 
notice these events are non-simultaneous in the car frame.
 

* If this is how the solution is modeled, what EXACTLY is the problem this 
lack of synchronization in the car frame is supposed to resolve? That is, 
what EXACTLY is the paradox that you think you're resolving by relying on 
lack of synchronization in the car frame, when the front and rear end 
events of the car are synchronized in the garage frame? TY, AG *


Why do you keep asking the exact same question? See the section of my 
previous post on this thread starting with "You have already asked this 
question about why we need to go beyond length contraction a bunch of times 
and I've answered a bunch of times: the paradox lies in the idea that a 
disagreement in predictions about whether the car fits would naively *seem* 
to imply genuine physical contradiction i.e. different predictions about 
local physical facts as defined above, but an analysis involving 
simultaneity can show this isn't the case." I also copy and pasted a more 
detailed argument from a previous post where I explained why, in a 
hypothetical world where different observers did *not* disagree about 
simultaneity but still had different predictions to the question of whether 
the car fits, this would *necessarily* lead them to different predictions 
about local physical facts like clock readings. If you have 
questions/criticisms you can follow up by responding to that, but asking me 
the same question over and over and then never addressing the answer I give 
you isn't going to get us anywhere.

Jesse


*OK. I now have a clearer understanding of your position in this matter. 
Fundamentally, there are two contrary views; whether length contraction OR 
disagreement about simultaneity should inform us about reality.*


Where are you getting that? Obviously relativity involves both without 
contradiction, they are both directly derivable from the LT. My point is 
that if someone understands that each frame predicts length contraction but 
they do *not* also understand the relativity of simultaneity, they may 
naively be led to the view that the two frames predict contradictory things 
about local physical facts. Go back and read the post I referenced above if 
you don't understand why.
 

* In your view, in effect, the analysis leading to a paradox, length 
contraction, even though it depends on the LT, should be regarded as 
"naive", because, presumably, it establishes that relativity is a flawed 
theory.*


What I referred to as naive is the assumption of length contraction without 
relativity of simultaneity, which would *not* be what you'd get from the 
LT. There is no similar flaw (or genuine as opposed to apparent paradox) 
when you assume both together, which is how special relativity works.

Are you in fact confident that relativity leads to contradictory 
predictions about local physical facts? Or is it that you're not sure, or 
maybe even inclined to trust the judgment of generations of physicists and 
physics students who have studied such scenarios and think no such 
contradictions about local facts are possible in SR, but your position is 
that "relativity is a flawed theory" *even if* all frames make consistent 
predictions about local physical facts?

Jesse


*The apparent paradox starts in the rest frame where the car has greater 
length than the garage. No one doubts the car will NOT fit in the garage 
given these initial conditions. Now, with the car moving, using the LT, in 
the garage frame the car's length can go arbitrarily close to zero as the 
car's velocity approaches c, while the length of the garage remains 
unchanged. So, at this point in the analysis, everyone is in agreement that 
the car can, and will easily fit in the garage for large enough velocity. 
This, in effect, absent other considerations, shows a flaw in SR. *


Why? What's the flaw is saying that if the car's length as seen in the 
garage frame is different depending on its velocity in that frame, the 
question of whether it fits in a garage can change depending on its 
velocity too? Even people who naively think there's a flaw in relativity 
usually argue this based on considering that *both* observers are supposed 
to see things moving relative to themselves contracted, so they disagree 
about which of the two objects is experiencing contraction. Are you 
suggesting above that even if we don't consider the perspective of the car 
observer at all, the mere fact that the answer to "does the car fit" 
changes in the garage frame depending on whether the car is at rest or 
moving in the garage frame would indicate a flaw?
 

*However, disagreement about simultaneity appears to come to the rescue. 
But why does it supercede the results of length contraction?*


It doesn't supercede it at all, as I said above they both work together.
 

* Is it because we're modeling the situation that requires the car to 
perfectly fit in the garage from the garage frame at the same time as 
viewed from the car frame? I can't claim to be sure of what's going on 
here, but I don't think a flaw in relativity can be absolutely ruled out. 
AG*


OK, does this mean your answer to my question "Are you in fact confident 
that relativity leads to contradictory predictions about local physical 
facts?" would be something like "no, I'm not confident, but I'm not 
confident such a contradiction can be absolutely ruled out"? Or when you 
say "I don't think a flaw in relativity can be absolutely ruled out", are 
you talking about some kind of flaw distinct from a disagreement about 
local physical facts like clock readings?

Jesse


*I can't answer your questions until I fully understand your numerical 
example in your last post. I have always been agnostic on whether SR is 
flawed. Ostensibly, it seems inconsistent, but I can't rule out the 
opposite, that it is consistent. AG *

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