chrismb wrote:You're thinking too much on 'paradigms' and not thinking enough on the actual issue.
This may be because your "unconventional education" makes you an ineffective technical communicator. It's very hard to tell what the actual issue is supposed to be.
Relativity is a reality because space is expanding. That means that no two points in the universe actually strictly share the same inertial frame, as a point that is at a distance of [lightspeed x <age of universe>] will be in an inertial frame a full c different to yours, and linearly variant in between. (Close in, you don't notice that so obviously, but it is still responsible for why, for example, magnetism is manifest, so works on the minute scale as well.) So there 'isn't' a null frame in which to 'push' against and 'make colder', thermodynamically speaking. It's the frame-variancy due to relativity which means thermodynamics doesn't 'work' as you're suggesting it might.
Yes, the picture distorts quite a bit over large distances. But that should all come out in the wash; it won't outright
prevent any interaction remotely resembling what I've described. By your argument, an ion engine can't work because space is expanding between the electrodes and the propellant, thus preventing momentum exchange.
Also, I'm pretty sure magnetism has nothing to do with the expansion of the universe. Special relativity yes. Hubble's Law no.
I still think you're hung up on something, and I can't think what. Perhaps I should try to grind through the math and try to figure out precisely how this is actually supposed to work - but I REALLY don't have time right now...
Relativity is a reality because space is expanding.
...wait... could it be that you don't understand relativity? An expanding universe is just one particular class of solutions to Einstein's field equations. If our universe ever stops expanding and begins to contract, relativity will continue to be a good description (and in fact the solution that describes the universe, being a spacetime and not just an instantaneous universe, will actually not change). Time dilation and length contraction and the lightspeed limit will not go away.
An inertial frame is a velocity, not a position. Two objects a considerable distance apart can be in almost the same inertial frame, while two objects quite close together (like a proton and an LHC magnet) can be in vastly different inertial frames. This has nothing to do with relativity, and relativity modifies the details considerably but leaves the basic idea intact.
(This thread isn't even amusing me, which is the only reason I might normally chip in with these daft ones every now and again, so "I'm out"!...)
Oh, come on, is that all you got? Weak sauce.
On the other hand, maybe I should get some work done...