Actually a straight line is not defined as such at all. It is a shortest distance that has been defined as the straight line, not the other way around. But ISRT redefines length and distance so such semantical games are pointless and circular.
A straight line == the center line of an equal sided cylinder.

Glad someone else noticed that besides me.

I can not only define it, but prove aether. But that is no short story.

Minkowski space is the result of assumptions from ISRT wherein portions of reality must disappear entirely

I’ll be taking care of that shortly

I was being polite. You stated that the speed of light was slower in glass because of gravity. You were wrong.

No you are not bending. I said it was difficult to understand, and you evidently don’t understand.

A straight line is the shortest line light takes from A to B. That is a definition - not an opinion. I’m sorry you don’t accept it as a simple truth. You are over rationalising something that is very simple. Einstein showed how simple it was - even in extreme circumstances which Newton could not envisage. That is why insight is sometimes called ‘genius’.

As was I.
I well understand what you are thinking on this matter and why you are thinking it, but as you have stated yourself,
You are wrong.

I am slowly proving it on a different thread.

…your turn

Which different thread? No need to be cryptic. And I’m not wrong. You just think I am - which is OK, because I think you are wrong too.

Do you still assert glass bends light because of gravity? Do you still assert that a straight line is not the shortest path light takes to go from A to B?

Obfuscation is not a debate.

On the Paradox of the Stopped Clock, so as to avoid a lot of unnecessary reading, you probably should start here.

That was my point. We were not debating, merely expressing counter opinions. As I said earlier, there are 2 versions of SRT, the RSRT and the ISRT.

If you want to debate, take up the paradox issue.

Btw, you might want to note that according to your ISRT, there is no objective truth, everything is a matter of frame of reference. Thus;

From your frame of reference, your perspective, you are right
From my frame of reference, my perspective, I am right

So your ISRT is satisfied and you cannot tell me that I am wrong without violating your own ISRT.

But since I accept RSRT with its objective frame, I CAN tell you that you are wrong without violating my RSRT.

Logical consistency determines truth.

The discovery of the electron spin
/ S.A. Goudsmit /

And that was it: the spin; thus is was discovered, in that manner.
Of course we told Ehrenfest about it and then summer was over
and I went again to Amsterdam and various episodes followed.
Naturally, I found it wonderful, because in the formalism which
I knew it fitted perfectly. And the rigorous physics behind it
I did not fathom. But Uhlenbeck, being a good physicist, started
to think about it. … “A charge that rotates”…? He claims that he
then went to Lorentz and that Lorentz replied: “Yes, that is very
difficult because it causes the self energy of the electron to be wrong”.

And Uhlenbeck also tells you that …
We had just written a short article in German and given to
Ehrenfest, who wanted to send it to “Naturwissenschaften”.
Now it is being told that Uhlenbeck got frightened, went to
Ehrenfest and said:
“Don’t send it off, because it probably is wrong;
it is impossible,
one cannot have an electron that rotates at such high speed and
has the right moment”. And Ehrenfest replied:
“It is too late, I have sent it off already”.
But I do not remember the event, I never had the idea that is was
wrong because I did not know enough. The one thing I remember
is that Ehrenfest said to me:
“Well, that is a nice idea, though it may be wrong.
But you don’t yet have a reputation, so you have nothing to lose”.
That is the only thing I remember.
lorentz.leidenuniv.nl/histor … dsmit.html
======================…
“ . . . . . it is impossible,
one cannot have an electron that rotates at such high speed
and has the right moment".
/ S.A. Goudsmit /
==.
1.
Do we have another way to explain the high speed of rotation
( frequency) of elementary particles?
2.
And if it is possible (!) . . . . . then . . . the constant speed c=1
of quantum of light will be minimal.
And we have theory . . . theory of ‘ Tachyon.’
===.
S.

Well, typical presumptions of that era. Lorentz was wrong.
Lorentz, no doubt, was thinking in terms of a mass rotating and having a momentum factor. Why wouldn’t he?
Well, he shouldn’t because the effect of mass is not within the particle, but emitted by the particle.
A similar argument could be, and was, made concerning the atom.
How could an electron be orbiting and not emitting radiant energy?
Science actually gave up and skipped over that one and just accepted the idea of quantumization as a fundamental principle without per se cause. Actually quantizing occurs for an exact and predictable reason and is not merely a fundamental force, but an aberrant effect.

The spin of particles is similar. It implies that there should be energy involved and even lost, but in reality, it doesn’t work like that. The mass is not what spins, but merely the particle. There is no momentum involved. The mass is the resultant effect of the particle’s spinning. But don’t try to correlate a spin to mass, because what is measured as “spin”, not spinning. It is the magnetic moment of a particle that is spinning that is measured. A particle can have no measurable “spin”, magnetic moment, yet have the same mass as any other, because the spinning that is within, isn’t polarized such as to yield an identifiable moment.

Actually, a better way to think of it is;
A particle is spinning and tumbling energy that produces mass.
It is not a spinning and tumbling mass that produces energy.
The precise manner it tumbles is what determines its “spin” type.

I can’t interpret that.

you guys are impressive…i wish you could teach us dummies…

Yeah, so do I.

:D/

that was really a good one…saint you do some things good…

Another impressive explanation by Mr. ‘john heath ‘
as good as explanation by Mr. ‘James S Saint.’

Nice bit of history .
It is always good to know how ideas evolved .
As to electron spin there is a addition variable that should be considered .
If a magnetic field is set up electrons can be separated into up and down spin .
If only up spin electron are separated then put through a addition magnet field
at 90 degrees to the first field the the up electrons will separate into a 50 / 50 mix
of up and down electrons . You see the problem . If only up electrons can separate
into up and down electron then the spin is not a property of the electron .
The spin property of a electron is imposed on it by the environment .
Some what like a tennis ball skimming off the side of a wall picking up a spin .
/ john heath /

Well, he shouldn’t because the effect of mass is not within
the particle, but emitted by the particle.
/ James S Saint /

Exactly, mass is not primary property of particle,
it is its influence to the surround.
Again very simple example:
two vacancies tend to be attracted and two interstitials tend to be repulsed

Or: two parallel whirls are attracted and two antiparallel whirls are repulsed

BTW the “spin” phenomenon has the same “motor” as inertial motion has –
it is universal motion of the “presence” to the “future” - m*c^2 ~ kinetic energy
of this motion… Spin is whirl by which is “particle”/defect replicated,
flows to the future.
/Cerveny /
=====================.

You also might be interested in the actual cause of mass attraction.

It is caused by a 45 degree swirl of affectance wave emitted by every particle. No energy is emitted, mere variations in affectance and can be detected by cosmic ray range detectors. The swirling of the EM inside the particle is at the same speed as the radiation leaving the particle, hence 45 degree waves.

The 45 degree affectance waves, when encountering a particle tumbling, cause the effect of the closer EM wave portion to slow and thus the entire particle rolls toward the epicenter of the approaching wave, its origin. Every particle is doing that exact same thing and thus all particles cause every other particle to slowly roll toward them.

In combination of trillions, the effect of the waves is amplified - gravity.

That’s wrong I’m afraid James. What you’re describing in your own sweet way is electromagnetism. Two charged particles such as the electron and proton have opposite “swirl” such that their chiral electromagnetic fields mask one another. There is however a trace or two. One is magnetism, which you see when all the electron spins are lined up in say a ferromagnet. Another trace is gravity. It’s essentially a refraction, hence gravitational lensing. See Inhomogeneous Vacuum: An Alternative Interpretation of Curved Spacetime for an interesting read. Here’s a fair-use excerpt:

“The refractive index of vacuum, as a special optical medium, may be changed under the influence of gravitational matter. In fact, there has been a long history of such an idea. In 1920, Eddington[26] suggested that the light deflection in solar gravitational field can be conceived as a refraction effect of the space (actually the vacuum) in a flat spacetime. The idea was further studied by Wilson,[27] Dicke,[28] Felice,[29] and Nandi et al.[30¡32] Recently, this thought of vacuum has been investigated further by Puthoff[13;14] and Vlokh.[33] In Puthoff’'s paper, the influence of gravitational field on the vacuum refractive index is analysed through the vacuum polarization…”

Emm… no, by your following rhetoric, I can see that you misuderstood it.

The theory of “spacetime curving” and “gravitational lensing” are merely mental models that disregard the concept of Euclidean geometry. They are the end result of mathematical graphing. They are not entities or properties of anything other than their aberrant end effects.

In a sense, you and most of physics these days, are confusing the map with the terrain. My explanation of the affectance field is certainly not incorrect and actually addresses the physical existence involved rather than a mathematical aberration presumed to be an entity.

No James, I understand this. Light curves in a gravitational field because there’s a gradient in vacuum impedance in the space it’s travelling through. Not because “the spacetime is curved”. Anybody who asserts the latter is confusing cause and effect.

This isn’t just something I’ve made up. Take a look at what Newton said in Opticks queries 20 and 21:

"Doth not this aethereal medium in passing out of water, glass, crystal, and other compact and dense bodies in empty spaces, grow denser and denser by degrees, and by that means refract the rays of light not in a point, but by bending them gradually in curve lines? …Is not this medium much rarer within the dense bodies of the Sun, stars, planets and comets, than in the empty celestial space between them? And in passing from them to great distances, doth it not grow denser and denser perpetually, and thereby cause the gravity of those great bodies towards one another, and of their parts towards the bodies; every body endeavouring to go from the denser parts of the medium towards the rarer?

Then there’s Einstein:

[i]“In the second place our result shows that, according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity and to which we have already frequently referred, cannot claim any unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of light can only take place when the velocity of propagation of light varies with position”.

“According to this theory the metrical qualities of the continuum of space-time differ in the environment of different points of space-time, and are partly conditioned by the matter existing outside of the territory under consideration. This space-time variability of the reciprocal relations of the standards of space and time, or, perhaps, the recognition of the fact that ‘empty space’ in its physical relation is neither homogeneous nor isotropic, compelling us to describe its state by ten functions (the gravitation potentials gμν), has, I think, finally disposed of the view that space is physically empty”.[/i]

Gravitational lensing is something real. It happens, we can see it. That’s no mental model. But the given explanation of “curved spacetime” is. Einstein didn’t describe it as such, see this paper for a bit of history on this.

Not me.

Shrug. Like I said, what you’re describing is electromagnetism, not gravity. Take a look at There is a space-time vortex around Earth. This is something that’s come out of Gravity Probe B. See where it says: Our planet spins, and the spin should twist the dimple, slightly, pulling it around into a 4-dimensional swirl. That swirl is the gravitomagnetic field, not the gravitational field.

farsight—i think i follow you but i dont get the gravitomagnetic term…what does vacuum impedance have to do with magnetic…

By “it” I was referring to what you read of my post.

But again and no pun intended but, the “impedance of space” is a vacuous term. Impedance is the result of something. I was talking about the cause of its impedance. If you are going to argue with me, get on the same page. Your quotes back me up more than contend with me.

I didn’t say it wasn’t real. But, what actually causes gravitational lensing? In fact what actually causes gravity itself? What causes that impedance and its variance? That is what was being addressed. Magnetism is a different related issue and you have been confusing two kinds of spins with your magnetism references.

wow this is good…
yeah how about gravity–what is going on…

And also Farsight,

You know that a change in electric potential causes a magnetic field (or you can think of it the other way around since you can’t have one without the other), but what causes that? Why is an electric field change always accompanied by a magnetic field?