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From: Mikko <mikko.levanto@iki.fi>
Newsgroups: sci.physics.relativity
Subject: Re: The first postulate is a truism.
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2025 12:36:30 +0300
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On 2025-06-23 21:25:18 +0000, LaurenceClarkCrossen said:

> On Sun, 22 Jun 2025 9:43:49 +0000, Mikko wrote:
> 
>> On 2025-06-21 21:14:11 +0000, LaurenceClarkCrossen said:
>> 
>>> On Sat, 21 Jun 2025 10:19:43 +0000, Mikko wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On 2025-06-20 18:55:34 +0000, LaurenceClarkCrossen said:
>>>> 
>>>>> On Fri, 20 Jun 2025 9:06:49 +0000, Mikko wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On 2025-06-19 17:37:29 +0000, LaurenceClarkCrossen said:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Perplexity:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> "The First Postulate of Special Relativity
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Statement of the First Postulate
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The first postulate of special relativity, also known as the principle
>>>>>>> of relativity, states:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames of
>>>>>>> reference."
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> "truism
>>>>>>> /ˈtrˌizƏm/  n. a statement that is obviously true and says nothing new
>>>>>>> or interesting. —truistic/trˈistik/ adj." -Oxford American.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The first postulate is not a truism. It is possible to imagine a world
>>>>>> where it is not true and to believe that we actually live in a such
>>>>>> world.
>>>> 
>>>>> Your reply does not explain how it is not obviously true and nothing new
>>>>> that wasn't already known long before Einstein.
>>>> 
>>>> I did explain. And what I said was indeed known long before Einstein.
>>>> 
>>>> If the first postulate were a truism nobody would ever have believed
>>>> otherwise. But ancinet literature shows that the opposite belief was
>>>> common.
>> 
>>> So, Einstein added nothing new. How does that provide a basis for his
>>> new theory? That he accepted the consensus view since Newton?
>> 
>> No earlier theory had both the first and the second postulate as
>> postulates.

> I was obviously talking about the first postulate. It only accepts the
> consensus view since Newton. It adds nothing new.

In 1905 the consensus view was not that it applies to all phenomena.
In particular the question was open about electromagnetism, which
was not known at Newton's time.

Newton himself did not believe that the first postulate is fundamentally
true. Instead he believed that there is one and only one absolutely
stationary frame. But at the time there were no known law that was known
to be true in that frame only and consequently there was no way to
identify that frame.

-- 
Mikko