Reference: Essays on Substance
Motion and Relativity
When you look at motion on a large scale you see what is missing from the Special Theory of Relativity of Einstein. You can say that light move at the speed of 3 x 108 relative to the Earth; but you cannot say that Earth moves at the same speed relative to light.
Einstein’s theory is tied to the inertial frame of reference of matter. But even then it doesn’t differentiate between the nature of the speed of the train from the nature of the speed of the platform in the opposite direction. The platform having much higher inertia has a much smaller absolute motion than the train. But the theory of relativity treats both motions the same way.
Newton’s relativity worked as simple addition of speeds when the two bodies involved had comparable masses. But that mathematical relationship failed when the two bodies involved had a large difference in their masses, as is the case between the masses of Mercury and the Sun. Einstein solved that problem by figuring out a way to take into account the effect of the difference in inertia of Mercury and Sun on the relative speed.
Einstein did it by indirectly “extrapolating” between the inertia/consistency of matter and light, and applying that gradient to the differential of inertia between Mercury and the Sun. This was a genius move. The value of ‘c’ is that gradient.
But ‘c’ is an approximation that works for heavenly bodies. It does not work at the atomic level because there are no “material particles” within the atom. Now that we know this, a more accurate value for ‘c’ can be determined for atoms.
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