On Wednesday, February 5, 2025 at 2:31:11 PM UTC-7 Quentin Anciaux wrote:
AG, after all your backpedaling, dodging, and attempts to rewrite history, you’re now pretending to ask a sincere question? Fine, I’ll humor you—though we both know you’ll just find another way to twist this. The so-called paradox arises when someone incorrectly assumes that both frames should agree on whether the car fits inside the garage at a single universal moment. In other words, people mistakenly expect an absolute answer to a question that is frame-dependent. The "Problem" That Simultaneity Resolves: Garage frame: The car is contracted due to length contraction, so at some moment in this frame, it fits entirely inside the garage. Car frame: The garage is contracted instead, and simultaneity shifts, meaning that by the time the back of the car enters, the front has already exited. The car is never entirely inside at any moment in this frame. Why This Is Not a Contradiction: The naïve view (where people think in classical, absolute simultaneity terms) sees this as a paradox: "How can the car fit and not fit at the same time?" Relativity of simultaneity resolves this because the frames do not share a single definition of ‘at the same time’. What is "simultaneous" in one frame is not simultaneous in another. That was my conclusion, and I stated it in my question to you; in SR each frame has its own clocks, so the concept of "at the same time" makes no sense. But I still wondered whether fitting and not fillting could remain paradoxical if those events occurred at DIFFERENT times. This is called "thinking out of the box." AG Your whole "question" is just an attempt to make it seem like simultaneity doesn’t actually resolve anything—when, in reality, the misunderstanding of simultaneity is the only reason people see a paradox in the first place. That's what I wrote was the problem. Not backpeddling. I realized that myself and stated it in my question to you. It wasn't that Clark was wrong. He correctly stated the cause of the paradox, but didn't expressly state why this assumption was wrong. So, can fitting and not fitting although at different times be a paradox? AG If you truly don’t see this after months of discussion, it’s not because the answer isn’t clear—it’s because you refuse to let go of your preconceptions. Quentin Le mer. 5 févr. 2025, 21:22, Alan Grayson <[email protected]> a écrit : FWIW, I've established to my satisfaction that the "paradox" is unrelated to the fact that the car fits and doesn't fit in the garage. As Clark pointed out, this result is "odd". And it is not related to Clark claim the alleged paradox has anything to do with the idea that fitting and not filling occurs "at the same time", since each frame in SR has its own set of clocks, so the hypothesis in quotes makes no sense. The one thing there's general agreement on, is that the paradox is resolved by applying the disagreement about simultaneity. You've made this claim repeatedly and mocked me for not seeing the light. But if your alleged solution, which I referred to as a slogan, is the solution to the paradox, the question is, "What is the problem it is a solution to?" So, now I'd appreciate an answer to this basic question, if you have one. What exactly, in your opinion, is the paradox you claim is solved by disagreement about simultaneity? AG -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/336a2019-58b4-4520-ac34-762930581d90n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/336a2019-58b4-4520-ac34-762930581d90n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/753954b0-eb23-4ac7-829c-4a887dee1db5n%40googlegroups.com.
