I'm going to email him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Hi
Professor Leonard Susskind: There is no reference given for this
"lecture" by you yet there are several yt channels posting this same
talk. I recommend suing those channels unless you can provide a
reference. I guess this AI talk has you saying that "Einstein lied."
thanks,
drew w. hempel
AI on lorentz transforms are asymmetric:
Lorentz transformations are
not inherently "asymmetric" in the fundamental sense of physics; they are fully symmetric between inertial observers. However, they can appear mathematically asymmetric depending on how you represent them as matrices or coordinate transformations.Here is the breakdown of why this confusion often arises.
1. The Physics is Symmetric
The core of Special Relativity is the Principle of Relativity: the laws of physics are identical in all inertial frames. If Observer A sees Observer B moving at velocity
, then Observer B sees Observer A moving at velocity
.
- The Lorentz transformation from frame tois defined by velocity.
- The inverse transformation from tois defined by velocity.
- Because the structure of Minkowski spacetime is the same for both, neither observer is "preferred" or "special." The relationship is perfectly reciprocal.
2. Why they look asymmetric (The "Matrix" view)
When you write Lorentz transformations as
matrices (
), they often appear asymmetric.
- Boosts are symmetric matrices: A "pure" boost (moving in a straight line without rotation) is represented by a symmetric matrix.
- General transformations are not: A general Lorentz transformation includes both boosts and spatial rotations. Because rotations are represented by orthogonal (non-symmetric) matrices, the product of a boost and a rotation generally results in an asymmetric matrix.
- Basis-dependent: Whether a matrix is symmetric is a property of the coordinate basis, not the underlying physical transformation. If you change your basis (for example, by rotating your axes), a transformation that looked symmetric might suddenly look asymmetric.
3. Asymmetry in "Perspective"
Sometimes, when people describe Lorentz transformations as "asymmetric," they are referring to the effects rather than the mathematical transformation itself.
- Time dilation and length contraction: It is common to focus on one frame "doing the measuring" of the other. While both frames agree that the other clock is running slow, an individual observer sees a specific, one-way result in their own measurements. This isn't an asymmetry in the laws of physics, but a consequence of the relative perspective.
Summary
If by "asymmetric" you mean that the physics treats two inertial frames differently, that is false. If you mean that the matrices used to perform the calculations are not always symmetric matrices, that is true—but it is a feature of linear algebra and coordinate choice, not a breakdown of the symmetry of spacetime.
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