“relativity of simultaneity”
Irrelevant since all parties already know that the flashes happened at the same moment.
Relativity of simultaneity only applies when the parties cannot know if events are simultaneous. The man on the embankment in Einstein’s scenario hears two thunder claps and can calculate the distance of each lightening strike via their thunder timing. The man on the train hears only one. So in reality they can both know that the events were simultaneous.
In this scenario, the flashers are triggered by actually touching fixed trigger arms and also by identically reading timers. So both parties already know that the events were simultaneous.
Back to the original question;
An updated view of the scenario…
Irrelevant since all parties already know that the flashes happened at the same moment.
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This is merely the claim of your fantasy physics.
If you would ever try to work through the numbers (as you have on other sites) you would see (as you have) that this paradox fails (as it did).
Why do you try to lie like that? I can think of no reason why you would write the above except in a desperate attempt to lie. You know very well that it is not the speed of sound that is used to determine simultaneity, but the speed of light, because the speed of light has a very special property that can be relied upon by everyone who wishes to calculate with space and time.
We also know that what a specific clock reads is not necessarily what we associate with the time in a reference frame, since any clock will have the same face in all reference frames at a given spacetime event.
Back to the original question;
So do the sync. Work through the scenario and show us that, taking the trains to be unmoving, we also find that there is simultaneity between the strikes, given the constant speed of light.
So, the stationmaster knows that the flashes are arranged to be simultaneous in the train frame of reference…but he does not see them as simultaneous. Therefore he has just done an experiment which demonstrates the relativity of simultaneity.
I wonder what you could hear on the train…probably nothing. You could not even construct a train which moves that fast through air without burning up. Even the equations dealing with hypersonic flow don’t apply at these speeds.
Clocks don’t ‘know’ anything. Clocks only run and detect the photons hitting them.
He has just proven that the perception of simultaneity is not the reality of simultaneity.
Actually, I see that I stated the “clap of thunder” issue backwards. It is the man on the embankment that would hear only one clap. He is talking about the difference between a man (on the embankment) and centered vs a man (on the train) not centered. He then proposes that because they each cannot know the truth of it, “simultaneity can only be taken to mean the appearance of simultaneous”. Except “real men” actually could know.
And if deaf, could merely go measure the distances between the strike points against their location when they saw the flashes, and thus deduce with simple geometry whether the flashes were simultaneous or not.
Yet we have just proven that one can certainly “say with absolute certainty”.
Note that he redefined “simultaneous” to mean what appeared to be simultaneous and then declared it as a FACT - “ARE NOT simultaneous”.
He just conflated appearance with fact even though he stated that the appearance is merely due to the time of light travel.
Yes, and that is why they must display the real truth, not what someone theorized that they have to believe. They don’t know the word “simultaneous” so they can’t get it conflated with appearances versus reality.
The whole point of the scenario is that the clocks display the appearance of simultaneity by stopping. But according to Einstein’s own words, they must not stop if they are moving and stop if the are not moving.
It has never “failed” anywhere.
And if that was the case, why aren’t you giving us those “numbers”?
Gyahd…
The speed of the sound was to determine the distance, not the simultaneity. 
And we also don’t care what you pedantically want to call it.
I don’t even know what that is supposed to mean.
Perception of simultaneity is what will be experienced. You cannot design a device for ‘reality of simultaneity’ (R of S) because it won’t work. You cannot predict based on R of S, because you will predict the wrong thing. You can’t even deduce what happened based on R of S, because you don’t know the reality of simultaneity unless you had prearranged it as in all these scenarios that you propose. The stationmaster only knows (at the time) that the flashes were simultaneous because he knows the machinery was set up to behave that way ahead of time. Or he is told later about the setup and gains some knowledge after the fact.
Exactly. However, as far as physics is concerned the question is whether or not there is a definition of simultaneity that has more to offer than that given by SR. So far, the answer is only by going to GR, which expands upon SR.
On the contrary. All you have done is avoid the question; in part because you have avoided committing yourself to an exact description of your own scenario. You certainly have dodged every question about the evidence in favor of SR and what evidence you have for making claims that there is observational evidence against SR.
Again, through malice or incompetence, you are saying false things about a passage you have cut and pasted. Perception and appearance are not involved here, what matters is, “would reach him simultaneously, i.e. they would meet just where he is situated.” This criterion does not depend on any conscious observer, but it is something that could possibly be observed.
Again, you have said false things about SR and attacked it on that basis.
Because 1) I don’t yet have the time, and 2) I suspect that you would weasel your way out of any numbers I gave, just in the same way you are telling us falsehoods now that you did not fail on that link I posted.
No, you have yet again tried to mislead your readers, in this case, through deliberate deception rather than mere incompetence.
Exactly, despite your claims to be familiar with SR, you apparently cannot do the basics of trying to figure out whether or not the clocks on the train are in sync with one another or whether or not they are in sync with the clock on the station.
What you “experience” is the simultaneous contact upon you that resulted from distant events. You must then deduce what the reality of the distant events was. You have to do that with literally everything. Every notion concerning an event distant from you is merely a deduction of what seemingly must be there due to the nature of what contacted you because of it. Your eyes do not see objects. Your mind deduces that they are objects because of the placement of the light.
I am a bit famous for doing those things that can be done.
And it does work.
It cannot not work.
And yet I don’t.
The whole point to “relativity of simultaneity” is that you will predict the wrong thing if you don’t think about it, so don’t presume to know what is going on “out there”. I agree. One should not presume. One should very carefully logically deduce, not presume from perceptions. Verify them.
You can either prearrange it, or you can merely go back and investigate it. The same is true of all thoughts of reality. The man on the train or embankment could merely go check where the lightening struck and then they would both agree as to whether they were simultaneous.
Valid thought requires investigation or preparation. Since when did that become a sin?
“Let’s not investigate anything. Let’s just jump to conclusions.”
Yeah, that’s Science… Ehmm huh.
Sounds like Religion to me.
“So far” meaning that until THEY tell you what to think, “nobody knows” what might be true.
Consider me to be “Nobody”.
That is just pure bullshit.
If lying and ad hom attacking is all you “have time to do” to try to defend your church, PB, don’t bother.
Since apparently some of you aren’t familiar with how to synchronize clocks in relativity…
You precalculate the time required for light to get to a distant timer and set that timer to that time, but don’t start it. You then start a clock and let it send a light out to the distant timer which begins as the light strikes it.
The timers then stay in time with the clock. But that doesn’t mean that if gazed upon from a distance, they would be seen to read identically. The light from one takes longer to get to the observer and thus he always sees a reading that has already changed.
Relativity proposes that one must calculate what is “really happening” and disregard intuitive perception. Yet at the same time, it demands that one must use only what is perceived when declaring simultaneity.
Relativity forbids its own logic.
You claim to do, to know and to predict a lot of things.
Now, you claim to be able to handle high speed interactions without using SR.
Going purely by your posts, you have not predicted anything.
The video speaks for itself, and me.
I predicted that Relativity is going to demand a contradiction (else why make the video).
It DOES demand a contradiction.
It forbids its own principles.
The scenario (especially with 3 engines) makes it clear that if one consistently uses what relativity preaches, one runs across a paradox. None of you have validly pointed out anything that violates relativity theory, and yet none of you can deny the paradox other than pull a Eugene and claim that something wasn’t explained.
If you believe in relativity, then start from that point when the engines are at a standstill and explain how the scenario “really” works without breaking a relativity or accepted physics principle.
It is you who can’t make sense of things.
In my world, everything works out just fine, because I don’t depend on relativity.
Relativity isn’t my religion, but yours.
So far, all we have seen is your lies that you have found flaws in SR and that you can demonstrate disparities between SR and observations. You have made grand claims without any support whatsoever.
Kettle, thou art black.
Indeed. And one member of that “some” is James S Saint.
That is one way to synchronize clocks.
No. Clocks stay synchronized if, for all times in question, if one were to passes a beam of light from one to the other and then back, the time that has expanded as measured by the second clock minus the first for the first transit equals the time as measured by the first clock minus the second.
(See fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/ ).
If this condition fails, then the clocks are not synchronized.
As physicists have realized for centuries must be done.
Only what it is in principle possible to perceive. For what else are we to use to begin our calculations?
I take it that you cannot explain the scenario step by step (big surprise).
Your efforts to distract are pointless.
I’ll give one last clue to this puzzle.
After you have synchronized the timers thusly;
Imagine that instead of the engines traveling to the station, the Earth started moving beneath the engines. Relativity proclaims that one cannot declare an absolute inertial frame, thus either frame may be declared as the observer’s inertial frame. So if the engines are to be the inertial frame of reference, then the tracks beneath the engines move until the station passes by.
And when the station passes by, you have this;
So once again, which is it?
A) Only the station clock stops
B) Only the engine clock stops
C) Both clocks stop
D) Neither clock stops
There is only one logically valid answer.
The answer is B) Only the engine clock stops. It has been the answer since the OP.
Your trigger gets detected by train, which then produces a synchronized flash in the train frame of reference. The station detects two flashes which do not occur at the same time. Therefore, the station clock does not stop.
Note:
Three engines are irrelevant. It works the same with one car.
Clock synchronizing is irrelevant. The flash mechanism does not require it.
Use of multiple triggers won’t work precisely because of relativity of simultaneously. It can only work with one trigger setting off a flash mechanism.
From the station’s perspective, what is the trigger?