How to Understand that the Special Theory of Relativity is Unphysical

Two space traveling Lorentz invariant twins both one year older than the other: Deep but unphysical. 

Einstein's special theory of relativity is loaded with paradoxes, such as the twin paradox, ladder paradox, cooling paradox and Ehrenfest's paradox, expressing effects of time dilation and space contraction. In classical physics one paradox would be enough to kill a physics theory, but not so in modern physics with the special theory of relativity as corner stone, where the presence of paradoxes instead is taken as evidence that the theory is deep.

The paradoxes of special relativity express physical paradoxes such as traveling twins both ageing more slowly than the other. So even if special relativity is deep it cannot be a theory about true physics if it contains paradoxes, because true physics cannot be paradoxical that is contradictory.
Two twins cannot both physically age more slowly than the other.

The quickest way to understand that special relativity is unphysical, and as such can carry seemingly physical (but unphysical) paradoxes, is to recall Einstein's starting point as a description of so-called events recorded by space-time coordinates $(x,t)$ with $x$ a space coordinate and $t$ time coordinate. Einstein thus consider events to have no extension in space so that one single space coordinate $x$ is enough to describe its location in space.

Einstein's special theory concerns the description of events in two different (Euclidean) coordinate systems assumed to move with respect to each other with a certain constant velocity, so-called inertial systems.

In classical physics the connection between such systems is given by a Galilean coordinate transformation where space coordinates are transformed to match the difference in motion between the two coordinate systems while time coordinates remain the same.

In special relativity the connection is instead given by the Lorentz transformation where also time coordinates are transformed by mixing space into time. Special relativity thus boils down to the Lorentz transformation and all the paradoxes from physical point of view such as time dilation and space contraction, are consequences of the Lorentz transformation mixing space into time.

Einstein's catch is that Maxwell's equations for electromagnetics, like any wave equation, has the same analytical expression in all inertial systems under the Lorentz transformation (but not under the Galilean transformation).

Einstein then postulates that physical laws are laws which take the same form in all inertial systems connected by the Lorentz transformation, and thus declares that Maxwell's equations express a physical law.   In circular reasoning Einstein then argues that because a physical law expresses physics the Lorentz transformation expresses physics and therefore special relativity is a physical theory as a mathematical theory about physics.

Einstein's great contribution to modern physics is viewed to be his postulate that physical laws (must) have the same analytical expression in all inertial systems connected by Lorentz transformation, in other words must be Lorentz invariant.

Einstein's basic idea is thus that (true) physical laws (must) be Lorentz invariant. What we now first must understand is that this whole idea is absurd: Of course physical laws in their physical meaning must be independent of choice of coordinate system, but it is absurd to ask that they would literally have the same analytical expression. It is like claiming that a statement translated to different languages would not only have the same meaning but also the same notational expression letter by letter. This would mean that there was only one language, which is absurd. What is not absurd but rational is to expect that the same physical law will have different analytical expressions in different coordinate systems.

Next, we return to Einstein's starting point as a study of events without spatial extension, which we will see is the very reason Einstein can make the absurd claim that Maxwell's equations are Lorentz invariant. Now, solutions to Maxwell's equations represent physical waves and waves have extension in space. And now comes the catch: Maxwell's equations come along with initial conditions, which describe the initial configuration of a wave with extension in space at a certain initial time. And initial conditions are not Lorentz invariant because they mix space into time. Only Einsteinian events without extension in space can be claimed to be Lorentz invariant. A detailed account of the mathematics by  physics is given in Chapter 5 and 11 of Many-Minds Relativity.

Einstein's insistence on Lorentz invariance thus builds on the misconception that initial conditions with extension in space as physics, can be reduced to events without extension in space as unphysics. This is absurd and is the root to all the paradoxes of special relativity resulting from mixing space into time by Lorentz transformations without physics.

Einstein insisted on Lorentz invariance forgetting that wave equations have initial conditions with extension in space.  The result is a lot of modern physics formed to be Lorentz invariant which cannot be physics.

The basic trouble with modern physic preventing progress is generally viewed to be that quantum mechanics is incompatible with relativity theory in that Schrödinger's equations are not Lorentz invariant. The above analysis indicates that this is a ghost problem which should not be allowed to prevent progress. Asking for Lorentz invariance is unphysical. There is no incompatibility. There can be no incompatibility between physical theories because physics cannot be incompatible with itself. Twins cannot be incompatible.

Einstein confessed at several occasions that his knowledge of mathematics was superficial:

• I neglected mathematics...because my intuition was not strong enough to differentiate the fundamentally important from the dispensable erudition.

It is therefore not so strange that Einstein could be misled to give the Lorentz transformation a meaning which lacked physical reason. What is strange is that his delusion has come to represent the highest level of understanding of a modern physicist even that of Ed Witten as the smartest living physicist, by many viewed to be smarter than Einstein with an extraordinary deep understanding of mathematics...

PS The reason Einstein's unphysical events without extension in space and the associated Lorentz transformation have come to serve as a corners stone of modern physics, is that it fits with the modern physics core concept of elementary particle as an object without extension in space. But this concept is loaded with poison in the form of infinities and divergent integrals and more, and so modern physicists have been driven into a despair of string theory, in 11 space dimensions on a spatial scale 15 orders of magnitude smaller than estimated scale of a proton, all way beyond any scientific reason.

A better way out is to accept that there are no particles without extension in space, only waves with extension in 3d space, all according to Schrödinger, the inventor of quantum mechanics. Without particles the special theory of relativity has no physical meaning and scientific relevance. What has  Ed Witten to say about this revelation?