I'm gonna go against the grain here...

[Max™]

... I agree with Einstein.

Special Relativity has to be one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted physical theories I've ever seen.

At least with Quantum theories, there is no real interpretation to mess up, just calculations.

Everywhere you look, you see theories proving SR to be wrong, that light speed has to vary, that time doesn't exist.

Special Relativity is a statement about how objects interact with time, essentially.

"The speed of light will always appear to be constant to any observer, including one in motion."

How can that be though, if I'm hauling along at 299,999 kilometers per second behind a beam of light?

Wouldn't that mean it was going at 599,999 kilometers per second, since I saw it moving away from me at...well... the speed of light?

No, it means you are interacting with time in a less accurate manner than you would be if you were sitting still, relative to that beam of light.

So when you observe one second of time, the beam actually traveled for 1.99999~ however much the exact amount is, so it covered 599,999 kilometers.

When you measured it's speed to be 300,000 kps relative to you, your second was actually longer than normal.

Why is this such a commonly misunderstood idea?

[dleviwing]

Max;
To understand Relativity you need only know the difference between what is measured and what is concept. The “measurement” of the speed of light in a vacuum renders the same value in all frames of reference. (this is what allows comparisons of different frames of reference) The “measurement” of time (clocks) dilates relative to the position of an observer. Relativity is a subjective mathematical geometry of observation; unfortunately it is being used to explain objective Lorenz contraction. Accelerated clocks run slow and the accelerated twin ages slower due to Lorenz contraction, not Relativity.

[Max™]

The Lorentz contraction doesn't offer a phenomenonological explanation, but relativity does allow one to be deduced.

I believe that there should always be some sort of understandable connection to reality, which is why quantum mechanics bothers me.

[Farsight]

The speed of light is always measured locally to be the same because we are made of light. Pair production and annihilation is the evidence. The second is defined using light, so we use the speed of light to calibrate our clocks. Then we use our clocks to measure the speed of light. It's trivially simple. See The Other Meaning of Special Relativity by Dr Robert A Close at:

http://home.att.net/~SolidUniverse/R...elativity.html.

And note that Einstein said the speed of light varies when he came out with General Relativity:

“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. Now we might think that as a consequence of this, the special theory of relativity and with it the whole theory of relativity would be laid in the dust. But in reality this is not the case. We can only conclude that the special theory of relativity cannot claim an unlimited domain of validity; its results hold only so long as we are able to disregard the influences of gravitational fields on the phenomena (eg of light)”.

Special relativity isn't wrong. But the interpretation is. And it's based on the loss of a single word.

The measured speed of light is always constant has been corrupted to
The speed of light is always constant.

Once you understand it, it's really simple.

[Max™]

That's uh, exactly what I said in the first post?

[Farsight]

What you said was nothing like it.

[Max™]

The measured speed of light is always constant has been corrupted to
The speed of light is always constant.

Once you understand it, it's really simple.

"The speed of light will always appear to be constant to any observer, including one in motion."

How can that be though, if I'm hauling along at 299,999 kilometers per second behind a beam of light?

Wouldn't that mean it was going at 599,999 kilometers per second, since I saw it moving away from me at...well... the speed of light?

No, it means you are interacting with time in a less accurate manner than you would be if you were sitting still, relative to that beam of light.

So when you observe one second of time, the beam actually traveled for 1.99999~ however much the exact amount is, so it covered 599,999 kilometers.

Yeah, I said that SR interpretations are missing the aspect about measurement, and again we find our way to the same truth from different initial assumptions, very weird.