A Different Resolution of the Twin Paradox.

It is suggested that the persistence of the twin paradox within special relativity theory (SRT) results from a deficiency of physics in that theory, due to its granting priority to kinematics. The missing physics concerns all aspects of the problem bearing on how the relative motion of the twins is apportioned between them - that is to say, how it is caused. The foundational idea behind special relativistic kinematics, expressed in the symmetry of the Lorentz transformation (LT), is that only (symmetrical) relative motion matters. That is a bad idea, in that it misdirects attention away from the causal aspect of the physics (in the same way as does General Relativity Theory's exclusive focus on "geometry"). The mathematical symmetry of the LT and its inverse is spurious in the same sense that it would be spurious to assert a running rate symmetry of laboratory clocks and muon co-moving clocks in the 1977 CERN muon experiment. All time dilation experiments exhibit clock running rate asymmetry. SRT, which treats symmetrical relative velocity as the sole relevant parameter, is thus locked into wrong answers. It lacks both means and motivation to grasp the asymmetry of the physics. Supplying that missing information resolves the twin problem through explicit recognition of action asymmetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]