In my prior Post, I have discussed the present scientific view on the relativity of simultaneity and more specifically the misstatement: “the actual one-way speed of light (in vacuum) equals the constant ‘c’ in every inertial frame of reference”. I have shown that Einstein chose it as a very convenient convention and that it is in fact the best convention to choose – it makes the physics “as simple as possible, but not simpler”. In this delivery of Cosmic Engineering, I want to discuss an equally common misstatement about the actual tick rates of clocks in relative inertial motion.

Relativity 'controversy' 2 “The actual tick rates of clocks in relative inertial motion in free space are necessarily different”. The correct interpretation of the facts is that for clocks moving inertially in free space, it is impossible to determine any tick rate difference, because they can only meet once. In order to compare tick rates, one of the two cl...

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I promised to help readers to walk the relativity and cosmology landscape, telling them where I discovered dead-ends. I will start with perhaps the biggest "controversies", those that kept me out of sleep for many nights. But, be warned, battle-hardened relativists will probably raise an eyebrow at what I have to say. To them, do not worry, I will not deviate from the mainstream, just from some dogmatic statements that have been proven untenable by reputable theorists in the field.

Relativity 'controversy' 1. “The actual one-way speed of light (in vacuum) equals the constant ‘c’ in every inertial frame of reference”. The correct interpretation of the facts is that although the two-way speed of light is an absolute constant of nature, the one-way speed of light is a convenient convention. Why? Because one has to define 'simultaneity' before you can measure speed as time over a distance.

In his 1905 paper on Special Relativity, Einstein wrote in his ...

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I'm an engineering microbe (EM), living on a spinning ball, which is part of a bearing deep inside the cosmic machine. We call this ball Earth. To explore my machine, I would love to get off this ball in order to get a better view. I found that pretty difficult, maybe even impossible, so the only thing that seems feasible is to roam around on the surface of the ball.

Scientist microbes (SMs) tell me that I would need a pretty high speed to get off this ball, never mind getting to other parts of the ball bearing or the machine. I told them not to worry, we EMs can design rockets and if we can get it to burn for long time, we will easily reach the speed of light. Look here, I told my SM friend, back of the envelope calculations say that if I build a simple one "g" rocket engine that burns for 1 year, it will travel just faster than the speed of light.

Wait a minute, my friend said – you seem to forget Einstein’s special relativity that says things cannot reach the speed of lig...

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As an engineer, I view my universe like I view a machine. But, like a microbe sitting inside some ball bearing deep within, without good blueprints, I have to try and figure out how this grand scale thing works. I have to essentially reverse engineer it from the inside, using the scraps of documentation left by other engineer-microbes (EMs) and some astronomer-microbes (AMs). In this Blog I will try to trace the steps that I have so far taken along the timeline of this infinite project.

OK, so I'm an EM sitting on this ball. Around me I see more balls and it seems that the balls are arranged to form something like a ball bearing. AMs call this ball bearing-thing the Solar System. I reckon it is a basic component of some or other sub-assembly (that's what EMs call such things). Looking around further, I spot what looks like the sub-assembly; AMs tell me it is the Milky Way, or just The Galaxy. There are many other such sub-assemblies that seem to be integrated into an assembly, which AMs...

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