Measurement is theory-laden part 2

August 13, 2013 10 Comments

In my previous post in this series I discussed the idea that all measurement is theory laden and gave an example of a bad explanation of a measurement. In this post, I will give a good example, from the special theory of relativity. The point is to illustrate  that a good explanation consists of taking an idea seriously and working out its consequences, not of sweeping apparently strange implications under the rug. Doing that is an error since either those new implications are false and your idea is a dud or they are true and you have discovered something new and important. You can’t find out which of those two possibilities is true without working out the consequences of the idea.

First, two definitions that will be relevant. An frame of reference is a set of physical systems used to measure the motion of other systems. An inertial reference frame (IRF) is a frame of reference in which objects that do not suffer some external force move in straight lines. Empty space far away from any masses is a good approximation to an inertial frame. If you measure everything relative to your car while it is accelerating that won’t be a good approximation to an inertial frame because you will see things accelerating when no forces act on them.

Special relativity uses two assumptions.

(1) All IRFs are the same with respect to the laws of physics. For example, if two people use different IRFs, they will both see that objects obey conservation of momentum.

(2) The speed of light in empty space has the same value in all IRFs, denoted by c.

The second assumption looks a bit strange. If you were to get in your car and drive down the road, the cars coming in the opposite direction would be moving at a different velocity relative to you if you speed up or slow down. If you’re driving at 30mph with respect to the pavement and the chap driving in the opposite direction is also travelling at 30mph then you will see him coming at you at 60mph. But you can consistently work out the consequences of these assumptions and that’s part of what matters when it comes to doing experimental tests. (It is not the only thing that matters since some consistent and well worked out ideas don’t have empirically testable consequences.)

I will illustrate two consequences of these assumptions to illustrate what I’m talking about. The consequences in question are that if an object is moving at constant velocity (moving at a constant speed and in a constant direction) with respect to an IRF will act as if it is shorter along the direction in which you are moving than in an IRF in which it isn’t moving and any clocks attached to that object will run slower. This happens in such a way as to make measurements of the speed of light come out the same in both IRFs.

Suppose that you have a clock X that is at rest in an IRF S. This clock consists of two mirrors A and B, a distance L apart with a pulse of light bouncing between them. Each time the light pulse bounces off one of the mirrors it causes a clock attached to mirror A to tick. In the frame S the time T between ticks is 2L/c.

Now suppose there is another IRF S‘ that is moving at a speed v with respect to S at a right angle to the pulse of light bouncing between the mirrors:clocks

The distance between the mirrors in S‘ isn’t going to change because that distance is at right angles to the direction in which the clock is moving. The time it takes the clock to tick in S‘ is T‘. The light takes T‘/2 to hit the mirror B in S‘ and during that time the mirror has moved vT‘/2. The light then takes another T‘/2 to hit the first mirror again at position C. So using Pythagoras theorem the total distance the light travels in S‘ is

AB + BC = 2\sqrt{L^2+(vT'/2)^2}.

The total distance travelled by the light pulse must be cT‘ because the speed of light doesn’t change between the two frames, so

cT' = 2\sqrt{L^2+(vT'/2)^2}

and a bit of rearrangement gives:

T' = \frac{2L}{\sqrt{c^2-v^2}}.

Since L = cT/2 we can write

T' = \frac{T}{\sqrt{1-v^2/c^2}}

Now,

1 > \sqrt{1-v^2/c^2}

because v < c so the amount of time it takes for the clock to tick increases.

Now suppose that we consider another frame S” moving  at speed v parallel to the direction in which the light travels in the clock:

clocks1

Since the far end of the clock is moving away from the light pulse it has to travel farther than the length of the clock in S” to get to the mirror at the far end of the clock:

L'' + vt'' = ct''.

When the light pulse is travelling back from the far end of the clock to where it started, it travels a shorter distance:

L'' - vu'' = cu''.

The total time is

T'' = u'' + v'' = \frac{2L''c}{c^2-v^2}=\frac{2L''/c}{1-v^2/c^2}.

The time measured in S‘ and S” will be the same so:

T'' = \frac{T}{\sqrt{1-v^2/c^2}}

L'' = L\sqrt{1-v^2/c^2}

and so moving objects will act as if they are shorter.

On the scales of speed and distance we use in everyday life these effects are very small, but they can be measured for particles travelling near the speed of light and they have been found.

For more information, see Special Relativity by A. P. French.

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Measurement is theory-laden

August 10, 2013 Leave a comment

Followers of Karl Popper say that measurement is theory-laden. This means that every time you do a measurement you are making assumptions about how the measurement works. This implies that the idea of our knowledge being derived from measurement makes no sense since knowledge is required for measurement.

However, this is often left a bit abstract, so I thought I would provide an example in which you can be led astray by bad ideas about measurement.

Isaac Newton, despite making great contributions to our understanding of how the world worked, also came up with some confused ideas about absolute space and time. I will illustrate these ideas with quotes from an English translation of Newton’s scholium on absolute space and time.

First, Newton states that he thinks motion can’t just be relative motion:

Only I must observe, that the common people conceive those quantities under no other notions but from the relation they bear to sensible objects. And thence arise certain prejudices, for the removing of which it will be convenient to distinguish them into absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematical and common.

Newton clarifies:

Absolute space, in its own nature, without relation to anything external, remains always similar and immovable. Relative space is some movable dimension or measure of the absolute spaces; which our senses determine by its position to bodies; and which is commonly taken for immovable space; such is the dimension of a subterraneous, an aerial, or celestial space, determined by its position in respect of the earth. Absolute and relative space are the same in figure and magnitude; but they do not remain always numerically the same. For if the earth, for instance, moves, a space of our air, which relatively and in respect of the earth remains always the same, will at one time be one part of the absolute space into which the air passes; at another time it will be another part of the same, and so, absolutely understood, it will be continually changed…

Absolute motion is the translation of a body from one absolute place into another; and relative motion, the translation from one relative place into another. Thus in a ship under sail, the relative place of a body is that part of the ship which the body possesses; or that part of the cavity which the body fills, and which therefore moves together with the ship: and relative rest is the continuance of the body in the same part of the ship, or of its cavity. But real, absolute rest, is the continuance of the body in the same part of that immovable space, in which the ship itself, its cavity, and all that it contains, is moved. Wherefore, if the earth is really at rest, the body, which relatively rests in the ship, will really and absolutely move with the same velocity which the ship has on the earth. But if the earth also moves, the true and absolute motion of the body will arise, partly from the true motion of the earth, in immovable space, partly from the relative motion of the ship on the earth; and if the body moves also relatively in the ship, its true motion will arise, partly from the true motion of the earth, in immovable space, and partly from the relative motions as well of the ship on the earth, as of the body in the ship; and from these relative motions will arise the relative motion of the body on the earth. As if that part of the earth, where the ship is, was truly moved towards the east, with a velocity of 10010 parts; while the ship itself, with a fresh gale, and full sails, is carried towards the west, with a velocity expressed by 10 of those parts; but a sailor walks in the ship towards the east, with 1 part of the said velocity; then the sailor will be moved truly in immovable space towards the east, with a velocity of 10001 parts, and relatively on the earth towards the west, with a velocity of 9 of those parts.

Newton also thought that it was possible to measure this absolute motion:

It is indeed a matter of great difficulty to discover, and effectually to distinguish, the true motions of particular bodies from the apparent; because the parts of that immovable space, in which those motions are performed, do by no means come under the obser- vation of our senses. Yet the thing is not altogether desperate; for we have some arguments to guide us, partly from the apparent motions, which are the differences of the true motions; partly from the forces, which are the causes and effects of the true motions. For instance, if two globes, kept at a given distance one from the other by means of a cord that connects them, were revolved about their common center of gravity, we might, from the tension of the cord, discover the endeavor of the globes to recede from the axis of their motion, and from thence we might compute the quantity of their circular motions. And then if any equal forces should be impressed at once on the alternate faces of the globes to augment or diminish their circular motions, from the increase or decrease of the tension of the cord, we might infer the increment or decrement of their motions; and thence would be found on what faces those forces ought to be impressed, that the motions of the globes might be most augmented; that is, we might discover their hindmost faces, or those which, in the circular motion, do follow. But the faces which follow being known, and consequently the opposite ones that precede, we should likewise know the determination of their motions. And thus we might find both the quantity and the determination of this circular motion, even in an immense vacuum, where there was nothing external or sensible with which the globes could be compared. But now, if in that space some remote bodies were placed that kept always a given position one to another, as the fixed stars do in our regions, we could not indeed determine from the relative translation of the globes among those bodies, whether the motion did belong to the globes or to the bodies. But if we observed the cord, and found that its tension was that very tension which the motions of the globes required, we might conclude the motion to be in the globes, and the bodies to be at rest; and then, lastly, from the translation of the globes among the bodies, we should find the determination of their motions. But how we are to obtain the true motions from their causes, effects, and apparent differences, and the converse, shall be explained more at large in the following treatise. For to this end it was that I composed it.

So Newton imagines an experiment involving two globes in empty space connected by a cord undergoing circular motion with respect to absolute space. The tension in the cord between the spheres increases if the globes move faster with respect to absolute space. So by measuring the tension in the cord you can tell how fast the globes are moving with respect to absolute space.

There a few problems with this proposal. First, the real universe isn’t like that, it actually has other stuff in it. Second, if there was such a universe, nobody would be able to measure the tension in the cord because there would be nobody around to measure it. Third, the globes are accelerating so at most this experiment would refute the idea that accelerated motion is motion relative to other bodies.

Newton also describes another experiment that he actually did and sounds a lot more plausible:

The effects which distinguish absolute from relative motion are, the forces of receding from the axis of circular motion. For there are no such forces in a circular motion purely relative, but in a true and absolute circular motion, they are greater or less, according to the quantity of the motion. If a vessel, hung by a long cord, is so often turned about that the cord is strongly twisted, then filled with water, and held at rest together with the water; thereupon, by the sudden action of another force, it is whirled about the contrary way, and while the cord is untwisting itself, the vessel continues for some time in this motion; the surface of the water will at first be plain, as before the vessel began to move; but after that, the vessel, by gradually communicating its motion to the water, will make it begin sensibly to revolve, and recede by little and little from the middle, and ascend to the sides of the vessel, forming itself into a concave figure (as I have experienced), and the swifter the motion becomes, the higher will the water rise, till at last, performing its revolutions in the same times with the vessel, it becomes relatively at rest in it. This ascent of the water shows its endeavor to recede from the axis of its motion; and the true and absolute circular motion of the water, which is here directly contrary to the relative, becomes known, and may be measured by this endeavor. At first, when the relative motion of the water in the vessel was greatest, it produced no endeavor to recede from the axis; the water showed no tendency to the circumference, nor any ascent towards the sides of the vessel, but remained of a plain surface, and therefore its true circular motion had not yet begun. But afterwards, when the relative motion of the water had decreased, the ascent thereof to-wards the sides of the vessel proved its endeavor to recede from the axis; and this endeavor showed the real circular motion of the water continually increasing, till it had acquired its greatest quantity, when the water rested relatively in the vessel. And therefore this endeavor does not depend upon any translation of the water in respect of the ambient bodies, nor can true circular motion be defined by such translation.

But this experiment only refutes the idea that the force on the water is determined by its motion relative to the objects that immediately surround it.

The fact that the water rises up the side of the bucket has nothing to do with absolute space and time. Rather, the water rises up the bucket because it is accelerating with respect to the gravitational field. Newton didn’t find that explanation, Einstein did that. Newton wasn’t looking for a good explanation because he thought he had already found it and proved it by doing measurements.

One moral of this story is that you should be critical of the explanations behind measurements.

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