Re: the notion of counter-intuitiveness in relativistic physics

On Wed, 7 Aug 2024 21:28:27 +0000, Richard Hachel wrote:

>
The big problem with relativity is the almost complete absence
of clear concepts.
There is no need to talk about transverse mass, longitudinal
mass, and other such joys.  You do like Hachel, you keep it
simple, and, like Hercule Poirot, you turn on your neurons.
"Mass is a relativistic invariant".
Mass is what it is, like a postage stamp is a postage stamp.
All the bullshit of the relativists only obscures human knowledge,
deflects it, and does not take it further.

Physicists maintain that mass is invariant, so you're preaching
to the choir.  This was maintained in physics textbooks 60 years
ago.

I will never understand all this madness.

Knowledge doesn't spring on the scene fully fleshed out.  It comes
little by little, here a little, there a little.

It is not mass that is relative, but speed, THEREFORE the quantity
of movement, therefore energy.
The notion of rest mass is useless at all, except to make physicists
look like Laurel and Hardy type comedians.

You're looking back on an earlier era that hadn't learned what we
know today.  Have some humility, because people a century from now
will look back at us and laugh.