Suppose I said, “I have this clock that I really like. It’s a very nice clock. So, I am going to measure everything I can in terms of the times registered on this clock.”

“OK,” you might say, while wondering what the big deal is.

“In fact, I am going to measure all speeds as the time it takes to travel a standard unit of distance.”

“Uh, hold on.”

“And this means that, contrary to what you learned in Big University, zero is not a speed! Because the right way to think of speed is the time it takes to travel 1 standard distance unit, and an object that never moves never travels.”

Now, you might try to argue with me. You could try to point out all the things that my screwy definition would break. (For starters, I am throwing out everything science has learned about inertia.) You could try showing examples where scientists I have praised, like Feynman or whoever, speak of “a speed equal to zero”. When all that goes nowhere and I dig in further with every reply, you might justifiably conclude that I am high on my own supply, in love with my own status as an iconoclast. Because that is my real motivation, neither equations nor expertise will sway me.
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