Tim
i agree...but the illusion is still the core result that is promoted for time dilation.

ie: that the observed twin will physically age less than the observing twin.

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the original exercise was roughly handled...contemplating only the basic step of increasing the distance between the clocks or twins and therefore creating a delayed transmission.

ie: any x,y,z vector away from the observer can be collapsed into a single value pertaining to distance only....and light takes time to travel over distance.

if a travelling twin is 1 light year away...it will take a year for the message to reach the observer....but we are forced to forget that this information is a year out of date....and to take it as a fact that what the observer sees is the true age of the travelling twin.


at first this was extrapolated to allow the travelling twin to return to earth younger than the stationary twin.

later the "return leg of the journey" was contemplated and so a "time condensation" (fast aging) had to be included in the consideration.

this messed things up a bit with the previously held concept that simply travelling at relativistic speeds produced a slowing of time.

and drew attention back to the fact that this is only an observer based illusion....it is not a physical alteration of the travelling twin.


the effect is shown to be solely a frequency dilation of the transmission....due only to the alteration of distance between emitter and receiver.

this is also why we ended up with doppler spacetime diagrams.

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you mention "proper time of a frame"...and the ability of another frame to be at rest in regards to it..and therefore experience no time dilation effect from the first frame.

again i agree.

also i can agree that similar time speeds can be achieved by similar entities/bodies in similar energetic environments.....so that eg: 2 atomic clocks will tick at the same rate under the same conditions.

but any frame at rest with respect to another frame is still separated by distance....so whatever one frame can know about another frame still relies on the travel time of light between them.

the only difference between this scenario and the twins paradox is there is no extra motion occuring that alters that distance (therefore the reason for no dilation).

so the 2 frames at rest with respect to each other will still experience a transmission delay of light...but this would not alter it's form...and would be similar to the transmission delay between the sun and the earth.
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