All motion is relative, since there is no absolute reference frame.
“All motion is relative, since there is no absolute reference frame.”
But not all frames of reference are relative at once.
Once one frame is referenced, all others are measurable.
How come we can tell what motion we have with respect to the CMB? Doesn’t this mean there’s an absolute frame of reference?
The theory of special relativity is based on the principle that there are no preferred reference frames. In other words, the whole of Einstein’s theory rests on the assumption that physics works the same irrespective of what speed and direction you have. So the fact that there is a frame of reference in which there is no motion through the CMB would appear to violate special relativity!
However, the crucial assumption of Einstein’s theory is not that there are no special frames, but that there are no special frames where the laws of physics are different. There clearly is a frame where the CMB is at rest, and so this is, in some sense, the rest frame of the Universe.
But for doing any physics experiment, any other frame is as good as this one. So the only difference is that in the CMB rest frame you measure no velocity with respect to the CMB photons, but that does not imply any fundamental difference in the laws of physics.