The Einstein Gap

I'm currently writing a short ebook which explores the possibility that there might be something missing in some people's brains which makes them incapable of understanding relativity. Alternatively though, it may be that it's more an issue of brainwashing fixing people in their beliefs, all depending on which story they're taught first (Lorentz's theory or Einstein's), but that's also something the book is designed to explore. By the end of the book, the reader has to decide which of the characters actually suffers from the Einstein gap - they have to decide which side they're on. I decided to build everything into a story to make it as accessible as possible, but I'd like to run the first chapter past people here to get some feedback on it. I want to know if it's a reasonable start, and I also need to know if readers can make reasonable sense of the parts written in Scots (which I can change to English if necessary - it just came out in Scots for one of the characters by accident).

Chapter 1: A missing module?

The idea occurred to Larry on the night of the pub quiz, just after the triumph of the Mathematicians.
"Gee! I never thought we'd get our hands on this!" he said as Fiona passed the trophy to him. "How do you know all that stuff?"
"I grew up in a house with no TV," she replied. "We spent our time reading books instead. But it wasn't all me: you pulled your weight."
"No, I was a passenger, and you know it. Here you go Bill!"
"We were both passengers," said Bill as he examined the cup. "This belongs on your mantelpiece."
"Makes sense anyway," agreed Larry, "seeing as you're the only real mathematician here." He became aware that Fiona was looking past him and turned to see what had caught her attention.
"Could be trouble," she said. The tallest member of the Orthinologists team was approaching, his eyes fixed on Larry, perhaps still sore about the crucial point his team had lost and which the Mathematicians had gained from their successful appeal to a question relating to Minkowski Spacetime.
"Well done!" the man began, surprising them all. "That wis a close contest, but you guys wis the better team on the night."
"It could easily have gone the other way," said Bill. "I'm a bit puzzled though. What's an orthinologist?"
"We're word botchers."
"Ah! That's clever!"
"Well, that wisnae oor invention: we stole it fae Humphry Lyttelton. Onywye, I jist wanted tae congratulate ye aa, and I hope we'll git a chance tae compete against ye again some day."
"Yes, I think we ought to come back and try to defend the title." Bill looked at the others and they nodded.
"I'm annoyed within masel that I got the Minkowski question wrong."
"Well; being a physicist, I had an advantage there," said Larry. "I could write the book on Relativity."
"Aye, well, I could write that book Relativity tae," said the birdwatcher, "but I'd mak it aboot Lorentz Ether Theory insteed o Einstein's broken model."
"Broken? Hardly! It's Lorentz's theory that was broken. It was disproved over a hundred years ago!"
"Na it wisnae. It's still very much in play, and it accoonts for aa the results o the same experiments. You should read up on it."
"I don't think I'll bother with that. It was soundly disproved by Michelson-Morley's null result."
"Foo could it be disproved by that?"
"Foo?"
"He means, how," Bill explained. "They speak like that in Aberdeen."
"Aye: how could it be disproved by that fan the theory only cam into being aifter yon experiment wis dane? It accoonts for the null result through length contraction."
"Fan?"
"He means, when."
"Right. But you do realise there's no actual length contraction, don't you? Things are merely measured as short from other frames. Length contraction is ad hoc."
"There's nithin ad hoc aboot it: it's a direct consequence o relativistic velocity addition. Think aboot a system within een body goin aroon anither een in a circular orbit, then move the system alang at relativistic speed. Fit happens tae the shape o that orbit?"
"Fit?"
"He means, what."
"Aye, at's fit I said. If you simulate it on a computer, that orbit automatically contracts intae an ellipse, and it dis it exactly in agreement within the maths o length contraction. The same thing affects the wye electrons move aboot in atoms, leadin tae the atoms sittin closer the gither, sae yon Michelson-Morley apparatus really is shortened in the direction o travel."
"You'd have a hard time proving that for atoms. But in any case, GPS wouldn't work without General Relativity, so you're stuck if you don't use Einstein's theories anyway."
"Na; that can aa be handled within Lorentz's theory."
"How does it handle time dilation in a gravity well then?"
"The speed o licht's slower in a gravity well. That's aa it taks tae mak it work. There's nae sic a thing as time dilation either: aa that happens is that moving clocks fail tae record aa the time that's actually passing for em, and it's the same within clocks sittin in a gravity well within the lower speed o licht slowin em doon."
"Nonsense. You're just stuck in a Newtonian mindset. We know that there's no absolute time and no absolute frame. That's why everyone with more than half a brain switched to Special and General Relativity..
"Thoo kens nithin o the kind. Thoo hisnae goat a single experiment that proves there's nae absolute frame, and worse that that, logic tells us that there has tae be sic a frame. I can prove it tae thee within the twins paradox."
"Maybe another time," said Larry. "This is already boring everyone else."
Bill turned to Larry. "Actually, I'm always interested in a paradox. What's this one about?"
"Well, okay then. It's a thought experiment where you have one twin stay on the Earth while the other one takes a rocket trip out into space at high speed. Let's say he travels to Sirius, which is about eight light years away from here, and let's have him take sixteen years to get there. So, he goes there, then turns round and comes back at the same speed taking another sixteen years to get home. That means he's away for 32 years in all, but his clock doesn't record as much time as that going by. When he gets home he finds his twin's older than him. Not sure how much by..."
"Nought point eight six six..." said Fiona, working her phone's calculator. "He's aged 27.7 years and his twin's aged by 32."
"Wow! You're fast. Okay, I should have used a higher speed of travel to get a bigger difference, but you get the idea. The travelling twin ages less than the one who stays at home."
"And it isnae a paradox," said the birdwatcher . "The speed o movement through space simply maks his clock rin slow. And it maks him rin slow an aa: every cell and atom in his body works like a clock tae within things actin in cycles and within aa the cycle times bein slowed. But the mechanism that slows his clock doon depends on there bein an absolute frame o reference."
"No; you're looking at it all wrong," said Larry. "There's no such thing as stationary or moving in relativity. The real explanation is that the travelling twin's in a different frame of reference from the stay-at-home twin, and a different frame again for the return trip, so he ages less because he's been in two frames while the stay-at-home twin's only been in one. And the accelerations are the key to how that happens."
"Thoo's mixin frames there, and each frame's incompatible within aa the ithers."
"It produces all the right numbers, so where's the problem?"
"Just a minute," said Bill. "What are these frames?"
"Frames of reference," said Larry. It's complicated, so let's just give the twins names first: we can call them twin A and twin B. Twin A is stationary in frame A, and that's the twin who stays at home. Twin B is stationary in frame B during the first leg of his trip, but he changes frame half way, so we need a third frame as well, so let's say he's stationary in frame C during the second leg of his trip."
"And they're incompatible," insisted the birdwatcher. "If ye yase frame A, twin B's clock is rinnin slow on baith legs o his trip. If ye yase frame B insteed, it's twin A's clock that's rinnin slow during the first leg o the trip. You cannae hiv baith o that things happenin at the same time. Either twin A's clock is rinnin faster than twin B's clock or twin B's clock is rinnin faster than twin A's clock. It's impossible for em baith tae be rinnin faster than the ither een."
"It's not impossible at all."
"It's mathematically impossible."
"I'm afraid all the best minds on the planet say otherwise. None of the clocks are really running slow, and that's where you're making your mistake. They just look as if they are. Different observers see things differently."
"I'm completely lost," said Bill.
"I'm sure you'll get it if you read up on it and see diagrams, but its hard to explain it in the air here. Anyway, I've had enough of this idiocy." Larry looked back at the birdwatcher. "There's never any point in discussing it with people who aren't rational."
"Aye, but it's thee that isnae rational: thoo is the glaikit gype fa's tramplin aa ower the rules o mathematics." He looked at that others and added, "An that's gye amusin fan ye consider fit yir team's caad." He turned away and headed back towards his table.
"Oh well; that's him back where he belongs with his fellow bird-brains! The world's full of crackpots like that." Larry thought for a moment, then said, "You know, I've encountered so many people like him that I think there must be a module missing from their heads. It has all the hallmarks of a mental disability, rendering them completely incapable of understanding relativity, and possibly a whole lot of other things besides, but they always seem obsessed with the idea that Einstein's theories are wrong, even though they're some of the most confirmed theories we have in science. It might be something that doesn't show up in an IQ test because they don't probe deep, rigourous thinking, but I'd put money on there being the same genetic defect in every single one of them."
"That's quite a thought," said Fiona. "An Einstein gap!"
"Yes! That's a good name for it."
"Well, if you're right, we ought to study it to find out exactly what it is that's missing. We can't afford to have our AI suffer from the same fault in its reasoning."
"Yes, that could be crucial," said Bill. "We have to resolve this. Maybe our ornithologist friend could be useful for that research. We should get his contact details so we can study him."
"Waste of time," said Larry. "Crackpots like him are ten a penny online."
"That one seemed to know a fair bit more than most though," said Fiona. "I think we should collect him now just in case we can't find another test subject as good."
"I'd better go and talk to him now," said Bill. "They look as if they're about to leave."
Larry watched as Bill caught the target near the door. "Well, I sure don't want to talk to him again, but you two can if you like. There's no question though that that guy's suffering from the Einstein gap."