Just wanted to comment that this seems to make perfect sense to me. If the fundamental equation can be used to yield special relativity, it can certainly be used to yield any logically equivalent take on the same matter.
If the fundamental equation does not have any fatal flaws, then I cannot fathom what is it in it that makes physicists look away... ...other than the annoyingly persistent tendency to confuse ontology with predictive models of reality. Why do people do that? It is kind of amazing to me. In fact, there has been fair amount of "groping among mere concepts" in this thread already, I would say...
The title refers to "unorthodox view", and let me just mention that the typical "orthodox view" (as commented by Brian Green), is an
arbitrary interpretation of the math.
Amazingly arbitrary.
Actually before I get to that, I need to comment that the OP actually seems to make some sloppy comments regarding the history of special relativity. These are irrelevant to the logic of the argument, but any sort of sloppiness may put off some people who would otherwise find the argument quite reasonable.
I'm sorry I will also be somewhat sloppy now as I have no time to look for references, but as far as I know;
Einstein has claimed he did not even know about M&M experiment when he put out the first paper about special relativity. There was other problems (e.g. where the electromagnetic field of an object "points" when that object is moving or when it is stationary) that ultimately led to the re-definition of simultaneity as relative to direction of motion, and rest followed; it is that definition that opened the door to this new model, and also constrained everything else in the model the way they are today.
I do not know what sort of ontological take Einstein had about all this at first (if any), but let it be said that it was his old math teacher, Minkowski, who only couple years later pushed the idea of conceiving special relativity in terms of 4-dimensional spacetime. Einstein has commented that at first he did not think much of that idea, but later he certainly did come to think of his model in exactly those terms.
And yes Rade, that view is static (depending on what you happen to mean by "static" and "dynamic" exactly). Like Doctordick mentioned, that view is dynamic the same way as a moving film reel is dynamic, and I have commented quite a few times that you tend to end up to (slightly incoherent) dualistic view if you really feel the need to lift that interpretation into "ontologically real" status... (some people actually do like to imagine their "consciousness" running through that static spacetime
)
But now, without bothering how we got there, take a good look at that end result; that 4-dimensional spacetime which marks all the events that ever were and ever will be, and that completely defines the causality of everything.
Notice now that any relativistic simultaneity planes - the original key components of the model - are completely immaterial/unobservable entities.
Likewise, the "scale transformation" (allow me to call it that because that is what it is) that is performed for the whole spacetime when you move from one inertial frame to another, will never have ANY effect on the events and their causality that has been defined into that spacetime; that transformation is also completely immaterial/unobservable thing.
I can't imagine anyone has got any problems with the assertions in the previous paragraph, so seems to me it is to be expected that there exists, if one could be bothered to look, a
wide variety of models that actually yield everything that "relative simultaneity" yields in that all-familiar geometrical analysis of space & time. There should be nothing unorthodox in me saying that. Claiming that we are a consciousness flying through a static spacetime - or pushing any ontological interpretation for that matter - should be unorthodox to scientific community since it is, did I already say it,
arbitrary interpretation of logic.
I'm sorry I cannot be completely crystal clear in this post, I need to go to sleep right now, I'll clarify unclear comments later
-Anssi
