Distant Simultaneity and the Bilateral Symmetry of a Rotating Object: An Epistemic Alternative to Newton's Water Bucket Experiment as the Cornerstone in Philosophy of Space and Time, Part 1

Scientific Paper
Title	Distant Simultaneity and the Bilateral Symmetry of a Rotating Object: An Epistemic Alternative to Newton's Water Bucket Experiment as the Cornerstone in Philosophy of Space and Time, Part 1
Author(s)	Thomas Geoffrey Franzel
Keywords	atomism, realism, empiricism, logical positivism, conventionalism, relativism, physical, a priori, absolute, substantial, relative, relational, paradigm choice
Published	1988
Journal	Physics Essays
Volume	1
Number	3
Pages	184-207

Abstract

   Part 1 of this essay consists of a largely historical, introductory analysis. Several major issues are surveyed: whether simultaneity is conventional, how concepts of clocks and time can differ, and how use of the the terms "relativist" or "relationalist" can conflict. This enables attention to be focused sharply in Part 2 (to appear in the next issue of Physics Essays) upon rotational symmetry and its connection to distant simultaneity.  There, the essential differences between three distinct positions on distant simultaneity gradually emerge: conventionalism, nonconventional standard signal synchrony, and absolute.

   This holistic, enumerative method--a parallel processing approach to problem solving as opposed to a linear, sequential argument--ultimately converges in a logically necessary result. It illustrates a crucial, common trait possessed by all non absolute approaches: None can assign properties to things in a simple way.  All produce a confusion between kinematics and dynamics, arguably both unnecessary and undesirable.

    This, in turn, suggests a basis for believing that the element of conventionality in distant simultaneity essentially is trivial.

   As entirely methodological and epistemic, the rationale for absolute simultaqneity derived in Part 2 easily is distinguished from its Newtonian predecessor. Within Newtonian physics, absolute simultaneity was a by product of more basic, substantial concepts of space and time.  Now long-abandoned and disparaged as metaphysical, no revival of Newtonian space and time is suggested by this analysis.

   The derived rationale also contrasts sharply with Einstein's depiction of absolute simultaneity as an "axiom" of "arbitrary character" and its formal aspects resemble early arguments by Leibniz. Thus, overall, the position generated lends no support to any view of relativity as a type of Leibnizian relationalism.

    With the establishment of of such a pretheoretic, nonconventional framework, the extreme freedom of concept formation advocated by Einstein is constricted. Also, a platform is afforded from which to examine the affinity between relativity and logical positivism, and a fresh look at the question of just when empirical findings actually bear upon the nature of space and time becomes possible.

    Here, at least partially, Mach's lead is followed; but his ideas on inertia must be reinterpreted.  Hence, in reviewing Newton's arguments on the meaning of his water bucket experiment, one claims--like Mach--that he was lacking a more fundamental nonspatial, nontemporal theory of matter aind inertia, such as the one that Mach sought two hundred years later along with Lorentz and Larmor, and later still by Ives, in the research program that lost out to special relativity.

    But one also claims--like Leibniz--that Newton was lacking the results from a parallel, hypothetical, epistemological research program aimed at discovering and clarifying formal restrictions. Such a program similarly was displaced by a movement that assumed the ultimate failure of all such efforts, thereby holding in essence a view of linguistic freedom similar to Einstein's on physical concepts.

    Extension of this line of inquiry may shed light on the apparent incompatibility of general relativity with quantum mechanics, and on the seeemingly fruitless quest for a unified field theory.    (Physics Essays: 1, no. 3, pp. 184-208).