The claims of the author after a mathematical demonstration are:
http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/ccX-5.html

Looking at the assumption in (Eq. 19)...(ve) was the term used in the beginning to represent the ether wind velocity... This means Einstein used fluid space as a basis for Special Relativity. His failing was in declaring the velocity of light an observable limit to the velocity of any mass when it should only have been the limit to any observable electromagnetic wave velocity in the ether. The velocity of light is only a limit velocity in the fluid of space where it is being observed. If the energy-density of space is greater or less in another part of space, then the relativistic velocity of light will pass up and down through the reference light wave velocity limit - if such exists.
Do not fall into the trap of assuming that this fluid space cannot have varying energy-density. Perhaps, the reader is this very moment saying, an incompressible fluid space does not allow concentrations of energy - but he is wrong - dead wrong!

http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/ccX-5.html

Comments?

What... What does that...all...mean...?

The claims of the author after a mathematical demonstration are:
http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/ccX-5.html


Comments?

From your link:

In a biography written just before his death, Professor Einstein is quoted as admitting he had a fundamental error in Relativity.

Ahh, a death-bed confession!

Death-bed confession, the most valuble of all pieces of evidence!

I had a quick look at the page, and the first impression is that his conclusions are based on misconceptions and wishful thinking (he seems to like the analogy between sound waves and electromagnetic waves, which can be misleading).

He seems to ignore the reasons why physiciists accept Relativity and its conclusions.

And the idea that an "Unified Theory" has been developed by physicists, but has not been disclosed to the public yet, is just ridiculous.

Because the public really gives a care when it comes to the UFT...

To its credit though the webpage does have math, something usually lacking from most people attacking Einstein. Hopefully a poster here can highlight if there are any errors in the equations.

I've run into many people who "claim" to have evidence demonstrating that relativity or quantum mechanics is false. It bugs me every time. Even if you could prove them to be wrong, it would be a worthless proof. Mainly, because both predict many things that have been verified countless times. If you were to prove that they were wrong, then at the same time, you would have to present your own theory, that is different, but comes to the EXACT same conclusions. The people making these claims never seem to realize this. It seems to me that most of the general public considers these "theories" (quantum especially) to be completely theoretical in nature, and don't realize that a lot of our modern technology and most of the information age wouldn't be possible if quantum mechanics weren't true.

Comments?

When Einstein wrote the SR theory in 1905, he still thought the universe was “fixed” and that the highest speeds of astronomical bodies were the speeds of the planets and comets in their orbits, and those speeds were very slow, when compared to the speed of light.

So he postulated the speed of light to be “c” relative to “empty space”, thinking that “empty space” was pretty much “stationary” with all the stationary and “fixed” stars.

When he assumed this about light speed, and considered the motion of the planets and observers on the planets, then he had to alter the rates of the observers’ clocks in order to keep the speed of light always at “c”, relative to all observers.

You can do one or the other, admit that the speed of light changes as it travels through different areas of space, or claim that all the clock rates change so that light speed will always remain “c”, relative to all observers.

But, the entire situation is a little more complicated than that. Turns out that light speed changes in space, AND clock rates change due to different environmental factors.

First, all the electrodynamics experiments of the 19th Century were conducted at the surface of the earth. That means that some of the results might have been influenced by the earth’s local “fields”, such as the electric, magnetic, and gravitational fields, and, thus, some of Maxwell’s equations and theories might have reflected that fact. In other words, all of the 19th Century electrical and mechanical experiments produced “geocentric” results. This is why several nations are having many specific scientific experiments conducted on the International Space Station, so they can be conducted outside the direct “pulling” influence of the earth’s gravitational field.

Normally, we don’t think of the earth’s fields putting up any “resistance” to our motion through them. In fact, the urban legend is that anything that moves through “space” in orbit above the earth, will feel no “resistance” to its motion through any of the fields, but that’s not always true, as revealed in the NASA tether experiment.

The long wire of the tether feels a “drag effect” on it, caused by the wire moving through the earth’s magnetic field. This drag effect is what caused the NASA tether to fall behind the space shuttle after it snapped (you can find this information on several science websites).

It was Lorentz who first predicted that such a “force” existed when atoms moved through fields. In fact, this was the basis of his “speed limit of c” hypothesis, which Einstein later made famous.

Lorentz thought there was a “universe stationary ether”, and in his theories he treated the ether as a kind of “field”. He hypothesized that “c” was the “speed limit” for objects (“ponderablen Körpern”, “ponderable bodies”) moving through that “field”, and he also hypothesized that atoms would “shrink” in the direction of motion through that “field”. This was the origin of the “length contraction” concept, and the “speed limit of c”, since at the speed of “c”, he thought all bodies would shrivel up to “plane figures”.

A modern interpretation of the results of the Michelson Morley experiment suggests that the MM apparatus was NOT moving through any “universal ether”, but it was stationary inside the earth’s own “local ether”, which some people think might be the earth’s own local gravity field.

In fact, after developing his 1911 gravitational redshift theory, Einstein began to think of local gravity fields as a kind of light-speed-regulating “ether”. As he said in one of his 1918 papers:

“There, empty space in the previous sense has physical qualities, mathematically characterized by the components of the potential of gravitation that determine the metrical behavior of that portion of space as well as its gravitational field. This situation can very well be interpreted by speaking of an ether whose state varies from point to point.”

And also in one of his 1920 papers:

“Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense.”

One of the top urban legends in science today is the belief that Einstein never admitted to the possible existence of an “ether”. This legend persists because so many people who believe it have never read his papers in which he discussed the “fields” of space acting as a kind of light propagating “ether”.

When Einstein wrote the SR theory in 1905, he still thought the universe was “fixed” and that the highest speeds of astronomical bodies were the speeds of the planets and comets in their orbits, and those speeds were very slow, when compared to the speed of light.

And he continued to assume the same while formulating GR as well. You implied in the Doppler shift thread that GR was a sort of apology for SR's postulate of c being a universal constant. Edwin Hubble didn't show the universe to be expanding until the late 1920's, more than 10 years after General Relativity.

So he postulated the speed of light to be “c” relative to “empty space”, thinking that “empty space” was pretty much “stationary” with all the stationary and “fixed” stars.

No. No no no no no. SR doesn't say anything about space. Einstein still considered space to be nothing but emptiness in 1905, i.e. the "fabric of space-time" hadn't even been thought of. So, what's the speed of anything relative to nothing? Einstein's postulate is, very simply, that the speed of light is a constant for all observers in an inertial (i.e. unaccelerating) frame.

When he assumed this about light speed, and considered the motion of the planets and observers on the planets, then he had to alter the rates of the observers’ clocks in order to keep the speed of light always at “c”, relative to all observers.

You can do one or the other, admit that the speed of light changes as it travels through different areas of space, or claim that all the clock rates change so that light speed will always remain “c”, relative to all observers.

And Einstein chose to advance both physics and philosophy by choosing the latter. Subsequent experiments have since validated his choice.

But, the entire situation is a little more complicated than that. Turns out that light speed changes in space, AND clock rates change due to different environmental factors.

Yes, the speed of light depends on the medium through which it passes. A body's clock speed depends on both the speed and acceleration (or an equivalent external gravitational field) of said body.

Normally, we don’t think of the earth’s fields putting up any “resistance” to our motion through them. In fact, the urban legend is that anything that moves through “space” in orbit above the earth, will feel no “resistance” to its motion through any of the fields, but that’s not always true, as revealed in the NASA tether experiment.

The long wire of the tether feels a “drag effect” on it, caused by the wire moving through the earth’s magnetic field. This drag effect is what caused the NASA tether to fall behind the space shuttle after it snapped (you can find this information on several science websites).

That's some urban legend. Usually, they involve people dying, disappearing, or something else spooky, not fully predictable phenomena. In fact, I performed a rather simple experiment in the lab this year dealing with electromagnetic induction and drag.

A modern interpretation of the results of the Michelson Morley experiment suggests that the MM apparatus was NOT moving through any “universal ether”, but it was stationary inside the earth’s own “local ether”, which some people think might be the earth’s own local gravity field.

Stellar aberration is widely considered to be the downfall of the "local aether" or "aetheral dragging" hypotheses. Basically, if there was a stationary aether surrounding the Earth which passed with it through a universal aether, starlight would be refracted in such a way as to cancel out stellar aberration.

And if you want to think of the gravitational field as some sort of medium for the passage of light waves, then you'd have to expect the speed of light to depend on gravitational field strength. The stronger the field, the more quickly one would expect light to propagate. As such, one would expect any light coming from a deep gravitational well to be blue shifted. I don't think that agrees with observations...

Err, ignore that bit. I really need to learn to not do any thinking before my morning tea.


From superstringtheory.com (http://superstringtheory.com/forum/relboard/messages13/166.html)'s forum:

Recapitulating, we may say that according to the eneral theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists ether.

Because of General Covariance, space(time) had different properties at one point than another; it was not a fixed backgound but a participant in the physics. So Einstein felt justified in calling it an ether. Today we call this property "background independence", and it may well survive relativity if the loop quantum gravity researchers succeed as they desire in incorporating it into their quantum version of spacetime.

So, as far as ol' Al goes, you seem to be getting hung up on a word which was used as an analogy to demonstrate his concept of space-time.

So he postulated the speed of light to be “c” relative to “empty space”, thinking that “empty space” was pretty much “stationary” with all the stationary and “fixed” stars.

No. No no no no no. SR doesn't say anything about space.


Here’s a direct quote of the original “constancy” postulate, from “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”, 1905:

”light is always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c which is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body.”

A body's clock speed depends on both the speed and acceleration (or an equivalent external gravitational field) of said body.

You should say “atomic clock rate”. The Lorentz-force atomic clock rule, as used by Einstein, applies to atomic clocks only, i.e. to atomic oscillation rates. It does not apply to pendulum clocks, mechanical clocks, balance wheel clocks, thermodynamic clocks, etc., etc.

Geepers, go read the original papers and books on this subject.

In fact, I performed a rather simple experiment in the lab this year dealing with electromagnetic induction and drag.

Well, tell us what you found out from your experiment.


And if you want to think of the gravitational field as some sort of medium for the passage of light waves, then you'd have to expect the speed of light to depend on gravitational field strength. The stronger the field, the more quickly one would expect light to propagate. As such, one would expect any light coming from a deep gravitational well to be blue shifted. I don't think that agrees with observations...



No, the stronger the field, the more slowly light propagates, and the stronger the field the more slowly the atoms oscillate, and they emit light at a lower frequency. The “redshift” occurs as the light is being emitted by a slowly oscillating atom. The slow speed of the light emerging from a gravity well does not contribute to the redshift. The light is emitted already redshifted. Read Einstein’s 1911 theory about this. He explains it.

So, as far as ol' Al goes, you seem to be getting hung up on a word which was used as an analogy to demonstrate his concept of space-time.

Do you know who called it the “aether” first, in relation to gravity fields? Do you know who first said that light beams will bend when they pass near astronomical bodies? Do you know who said that the “gravity fields” are responsible for such bending?

Newton.

Read his “Optics”, 1704 edition.

Geepers! Go to a big library and read some good books, instead of getting all your information off the internet. Turn your computer off and go to a library.

sam, you are so off base it isn't even funny.

Sure, einstien thought the universe was fixed, in a steady state situation. However SR had NOTHING to do with that!

As for his concept of how fast things went. Thats pure BS. SR's entire purpose was to create a system for which all physical laws hold for everyone. So people going at different speeds didn't have to use different laws. This is needed because various physical laws, especially electromagnetism, said a stationary observer would see an unbroken set of magnetic field lines, while a moving one would see discontinuities (and discontinuities don't even make sense!). I.e. the laws of physics should hold for everyone, regardless of their motion or situation. Therefore they need to be re-written in a format that allows that to work.

Einstein postulated that C was relative to EVERYTHING, not just empty space. Otherwise different people could get different values for C, which would violate the expression for the speed of light derived from Maxwell's equations. I.e. their expressions for the speed of light would have to be entirely different, just because they're moving.

Classical Electrodynamics were very well understood in the 19th century, notice I said classical, which refers to the general realm of macroscopic, slow, low gravity (notice low like earths, not zero-g). Most of the experiments held were either 1) Not sensitive to gravity or 2) took that into account. Same goes for ambient magnetic and electrical fields.

As such the "enviromental" factors you rest your case on are considered, and mitigated. I.e. they found ways to make their clocks robust and accurate in the conditions at hand. What standard enviromental effect can you think of thats going to disturb an atomic clock (which is found to be accurate to 1 nanosecond per 1000 years or somesuch figure).

The "speed limit of c" was founded by Maxwell, not Lorentz.

The michelson morely experiment said a) the light was moving in a local ether around earth or b) there was no ether. It turns out to be B because A would cause difflection of starlight (and thus a stars positon would shift) as the ligth entered the non-moving ether and intot he ether that follows earth. This is analogous to how an object appears "bent" when you put it in water.

The ether you quote einstien about is not the Ether of electromagnetics. It is instead that of space-time, which he describes as being everywhere, and is a maleable medium. This space-time ether, however, does not have many of the attributes of the electromagnetic ether. Such as light is its basis, not the otherway around. It is not variations in the space-time ether that cause light. Light uses it as a medium no more than sound does.


UT, in 1905 einstien didn't consider space empty, but he did not then understand how to treat gravity, so he started with a simpler, more restriction (therefore special) relativity theory.

?light is always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c which is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body.?

That empty space bit does not say relative to empty space. What he means, and it's taken to mean by every other person, and physicist (you know, people who learned this from him and his students?) was:

Empty space = VACUUM.

There is no magnetic or electrical resistance, so you use the permisivity and permeability of free space constants. This is as opposed to the values for those constant when measure in say, ohh, a dielectric (aka electrically insulating material). The change in these constants is the entire reason why light undergoes refraction through various materials.

Atomic clocks measure time, and so do all those other you mentioned. Atomic clocks are merely the most accurate clocks we've ever made.

So what is this gibberish about the lorentz atomic clock rule? I've never, ever heard of that.

Great, newton labeled a medium called Aether in 1704, and einstein said his space-time had some properties (in a very specific sense, did you catch that part of the quote: in this sense...) similar to that.


Just like someone can say: The earth is round, like an orange. It doesn't mean the earth is an orange, just that it shares some qualities.

Oh yea, and Of all the newtonian and classical mechanics I've studied over the years, not once has "gravity bending light" been attributed to any of Newtons work.

No, the stronger the field, the more slowly light propagates, and the stronger the field the more slowly the atoms oscillate, and they emit light at a lower frequency. The ?redshift? occurs as the light is being emitted by a slowly oscillating atom. The slow speed of the light emerging from a gravity well does not contribute to the redshift. The light is emitted already redshifted. Read Einstein?s 1911 theory about this. He explains it.

Okay, how can you understand and accept that, but get so much of his other stuff wrong?

BTW, the speed of light is constant, even in a gravity well. Its the fact that time is so distorted that the osscillation rate is percieved as all screwed up.

Einstein was a little surprised in 1911 when he discovered that the gravity fields in space could control the local speed of light through them. It was after this that he started talking about the “ether” qualities of gravity fields.

Although he called space “empty” in his 1905 theory, in the 1952 appendix to his 1916 book he said:

”There is no such thing as an empty space, i.e. a space without field.”

By then he knew that the gravity fields of space have some influence on the local speed of light.

There is quite a big difference between his “empty space” opinion of his 1905 theory and his “no empty space” opinion of 1952. He had learned a lot during those 47 years.

BTW, the speed of light is constant, even in a gravity well. Its the fact that time is so distorted that the osscillation rate is percieved as all screwed up.

Oh, don’t feed me that. I saw Shapiro in a TV interview last night and he said that light speed slows down when the light passes through a gravity field. He proved it in the 1960s with his radar signals.

What Einstein said happened, in his 1911 theory, is that atomic oscillations slow down in a gravity field AND light speed slows down in a gravity field.

This is a normal function of atoms, which emit light, and it's a normal function of the light they emit.

Nothing is “screwed up” in a gravity well. Light speed slows down in a gravity well and atomic oscillations slow down in a gravity well. So, the local slowly-oscillating atoms (atomic clocks) in that same gravity field measure the slow-moving light speed to be “c”. There is nothing “screwed up” about that. That’s just the way things are. It is not all of “time itself” that is distorted in a gravity well, it is the oscillation rates of the atoms, and the frequency of light they emit, that slows down, along with the speed of light too.

Shapiro’s clocks were on earth, and that’s what allowed him to notice the slow down in the speed of the returning radar EM waves as they passed near the sun. They don’t slow down if they don’t pass near the sun. They do slow down when they pass through the strong gravity field near the sun.

A body's clock speed depends on both the speed and acceleration (or an equivalent external gravitational field) of said body.

You should say “atomic clock rate”. The Lorentz-force atomic clock rule, as used by Einstein, applies to atomic clocks only, i.e. to atomic oscillation rates.

Let's see Sam5, for the fifth or sixth time. The Lorentz force deals with charged particles moving in a magnetic field and has nothing to do with the motion of uncharged particles or the rate at which time moves. Perhaps we can clear this up for you. Why do you keep confusing the Lorentz force with Lorentz's ideas about the motion of other bodies? What don't you understand about this?

It does not apply to pendulum clocks, mechanical clocks, balance wheel clocks, thermodynamic clocks, etc., etc.

It most certainly does. Atomic clocks, pendulum clocks, mechanical clocks balance wheel clocks thermodynamic clocks all are affected by relative motion or acceleration. This is because all of them measure time and time itself is what is affected by motion and acceleration. Other effects of the acceleration (motion of the pendulum for example) could add an additional effect.

Geepers, go read the original papers and books on this subject.

Geepers, go to school and take the math and relativity classes so you have a better understanding of the theories. Instead of taking quotes out of context from Einstein's papers and books.

It does not apply to pendulum clocks, mechanical clocks, balance wheel clocks, thermodynamic clocks, etc., etc.

It most certainly does. Atomic clocks, pendulum clocks, mechanical clocks balance wheel clocks thermodynamic clocks all are affected by relative motion or acceleration. This is because all of them measure time and time itself is what is affected by motion and acceleration. Other effects of the acceleration (motion of the pendulum for example) could add an additional effect.


LOL, that is just a rumor. I doubt if you know what “time itself” is. Would you care to give us a definition of “time itself”?

LOL, that is just a rumor. I doubt if you know what “time itself” is. Would you care to give us a definition of “time itself”?
Since you are so well-versed in the scientific literature of the 18th and 19th centuries, maybe you should give us your definition of "time itself"? Might even save some of us a bit of "time itself". :)

It does not apply to pendulum clocks, mechanical clocks, balance wheel clocks, thermodynamic clocks, etc., etc.

It most certainly does. Atomic clocks, pendulum clocks, mechanical clocks balance wheel clocks thermodynamic clocks all are affected by relative motion or acceleration. This is because all of them measure time and time itself is what is affected by motion and acceleration. Other effects of the acceleration (motion of the pendulum for example) could add an additional effect.


LOL, that is just a rumor. I doubt if you know what “time itself” is. Would you care to give us a definition of “time itself”?

Well, let's see. In another thread, you were asked the same question, and never did give an answer. Unlike you however, I will answer (as I did in the other thread). It is the interval on the time axis, between two events. In SR, that interval can be different for different observers, depending on the observer's velocity. In GR, that interval can be different for different observers depending on their relative velocity, relative acceleration, or a difference in gravitational potential.

Now Sam5, what is YOUR definition?

And I guess you now finally understand the difference between the Lorentz force and Lorentz's idea on moving bodies, since you didn't ask about it. So we can look forward to you not using the Lorentz Force as an idea in regards to the relative motion of uncharged bodies, right?

So he postulated the speed of light to be “c” relative to “empty space”, thinking that “empty space” was pretty much “stationary” with all the stationary and “fixed” stars.

No. No no no no no. SR doesn't say anything about space.


Here’s a direct quote of the original “constancy” postulate, from “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”, 1905:

”light is always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c which is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body.”

Yes, yes. So what does that say about space? Nothing. Rather, it says that the speed of light is a definite, constant value c in the absence of any medium.

You should say “atomic clock rate”. The Lorentz-force atomic clock rule, as used by Einstein, applies to atomic clocks only, i.e. to atomic oscillation rates. It does not apply to pendulum clocks, mechanical clocks, balance wheel clocks, thermodynamic clocks, etc., etc.

I'd love to know where you got the idea that clocks could be fundamentally different from each other. They are measurers of time. That's what makes them a clock.

Well, tell us what you found out from your experiment.

That -- surprise, surprise -- a wire moving through a magnetic field has a current induced inside it, which induces a magnetic field around it, which opposes the motion of the wire through the field. This "urban legend" is taking place in high school and undergraduate physics labs the world over.

No, the stronger the field, the more slowly light propagates, and the stronger the field the more slowly the atoms oscillate, and they emit light at a lower frequency. The “redshift” occurs as the light is being emitted by a slowly oscillating atom. The slow speed of the light emerging from a gravity well does not contribute to the redshift. The light is emitted already redshifted. Read Einstein’s 1911 theory about this. He explains it.

Because you're obviously an observant and well read individual, I'll assume that you simply misinterpreted the idea behind changing the colour of the text there, and saying 'forget that bit, I was wrong'.

Do you know who called it the “aether” first, in relation to gravity fields? Do you know who first said that light beams will bend when they pass near astronomical bodies? Do you know who said that the “gravity fields” are responsible for such bending?

Newton.

Read his “Optics”, 1704 edition.

Geepers! Go to a big library and read some good books, instead of getting all your information off the internet. Turn your computer off and go to a library.

Strangely, I did know that Newton called it the aether. I also know that people respectfully spell it "aether" because there's a group of chemicals known as "ethers". See that? Applied knowledge!

Newton's theory was that light particles had mass, with red being the most massive. Thus, any beam of light passing through a gravitational field should be spread out into its spectrum. From what I understand of GR, though, this prism effect shouldn't be observed since the geodesic should be the same at all wavelengths. At least, that's the preconception I'll be taking into my GR class next semester.

Oh, and geepers! Learn how to interpret theories, instead of just pulling quotes from papers and books.


Einstein was a little surprised in 1911 when he discovered that the gravity fields in space could control the local speed of light through them. It was after this that he started talking about the “ether” qualities of gravity fields.

No, Einstein was surprised that gravitational fields could ACCELERATE light. The speed of light, however, remains constant in these fields. It merely changes directions. Ricimer explains what Einie meant by "ether qualities".

Although he called space “empty” in his 1905 theory, in the 1952 appendix to his 1916 book he said:

”There is no such thing as an empty space, i.e. a space without field.”

That's right. There is no such thing as empty space. There's not even such thing as a vacuum. Quantum Mechanics tells us that we cannot guarantee a vacuum. But the presence of fields in space do not alter the speed of light, and the spacing of atoms in "empty" space is such that no optical effects are found.

By then he knew that the gravity fields of space have some influence on the local speed of light.

I'd love to see you explain this line.

There is quite a big difference between his “empty space” opinion of his 1905 theory and his “no empty space” opinion of 1952. He had learned a lot during those 47 years.

No there's not. The electric field was known of years before 1905. Faraday discovered it in the 1820s. He even assumed that it was infinite in span. So Al couldn't have meant that space had no fields in 1905. His revision is probably just a note, enforcing the idea that fields exist everywhere, even in a vacuum.


Here's a question for you: You stated earlier that redshifts occur due to slowly oscillating atoms. Why are they oscillating slowly?

Oh, and for the love of my sanity, can't you just respond to things in a single thread? It's really, really easy to just type [/quote] after the first thing you wish to comment on, and then use the 'Quote' button to quote other blocks of text independently.

By then he knew that the gravity fields of space have some influence on the local speed of light.

I thought you said you agreed with GR? After all, in GR, gravity is nothing more that a curvature of space. There is no gravity field in GR.

The claims of the author after a mathematical demonstration are:
http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/ccX-5.html

Looking at the assumption in (Eq. 19)...(ve) was the term used in the beginning to represent the ether wind velocity... This means Einstein used

snip

, an incompressible fluid space does not allow concentrations of energy - but he is wrong - dead wrong!

http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/ccX-5.html

Comments?

It's basically worthless. The posted website is exerpts from the book "The Cosmic Conspiracy" by Stan Deyo. He also maintains the website "The Millenium Ark". From the "Ark" Website: "everything from dreams and prophecy to science and spiritual matters to LOTS of emergency preparedness information. "
He is evidently either trying or has produced movie with with Stanton Friedman, Dr. Alan Hynek, Jacques Vallee, Ken Arnold, Betty Hill and Ray Palmer The above, in addition to his apparent status as an "authority" on UFOs and Atlantis, is not exactly something that would inspire confidence in his conclusions about Einstein. Especially as he either misrepresents or misunderatands several experiments that he claims "refute" Einstein.
I will end here as any other comments I would make about the above sites and conclusions may get me banned.
I spent some time there tonight, trying to understand exactly his objective is and my brain is fried. I'm looking at the math and will try to get back to you tomorrow.

[quote=Ut]
[quote]Although he called space ?empty? in his 1905 theory, in the 1952 appendix to his 1916 book he said:

?There is no such thing as an empty space, i.e. a space without field.?

That's right. There is no such thing as empty space. There's not even such thing as a vacuum. Quantum Mechanics tells us that we cannot guarantee a vacuum.


I want to know if a field was detected inside a high vacuum chamber?

From Martin Selbrede's article
http://www.geocentricity.com/rebuttal.htm

"In short, "empty" space is not a vacuum; it is not a "nothing," it is a "something." Correspondingly, it has properties and attributes that "nothingness" cannot possess. Dr. Robert J. Moon, Professor Emeritus in Physics at the University of Chicago, published an article in 21st Century, May-June, 1988, pg. 26ff, entitled "Space Must Be Quantized," addressing precisely this issue. He points out that "according to accepted theory, free space is a vacuum. If this is so, how can it exhibit impedance? But it does. The answer, of course, is that there is no such thing as a vacuum, and what we call free space has a structure. ...This impedance equals 376+ ohms." This reactive, energy-storing impedance is a natural corollary of geocentric theory and its ultradense firmament; it has not been accounted for by conventional science, and is not contained within either Newton's dynamics or Einstein's gravitational field equations."

Getting back to the original website, it's junk. The author of that site insists that Einstein based special relativity on the concept of fluidic space. However, in "Zur Elektrodynamische bewegeter Korper," Einstein explicitly states that the idea of the ether is totally unnecessary and that all attempts to find an ether have failed completely. Moreover, he provides a theory - subsequently proved by experiment - that explains how things move *without* having to postulate an ether. Naturally, he applied Ockham's Razor and scrapped the whole idea of the ether.

It is the interval on the time axis, between two events. In SR, that interval can be different for different observers, depending on the observer's velocity. In GR, that interval can be different for different observers depending on their relative velocity, relative acceleration, or a difference in gravitational potential.

This is not a definition of “time itself” since different kinds of clocks tick at different rates and they slow down and speed up at different rates for different reasons, and some will speed up and slow down in different directions while located in the same place. Why are intervals between events different for different kinds of clocks and why do they vary at different rates and in different directions? All you are saying here is that a clock tick interval can appear to be different when clocks are viewed by moving observers. Doppler explained that back in the 1840s. We don’t need SR theory to tell us that. This was already known long before SR was written.

You said, “Other effects of the acceleration (motion of the pendulum for example) could add an additional effect.” So explain how this happens. The more rapid motion of a pendulum in strong gravity causes the pendulum to swing more rapidly and a pendulum clock speeds up in places where atomic clock oscillation rates slow down and atomic clocks slow down. If the pendulum clock ticks more quickly in a strong gravity field, and an atomic clock oscillates more slowly, then which clock represents “time itself”? You and others try to give the impression that ALL clocks and all of “time itself” slows down where ever an atomic clock slows down, but this is just not true. So why do you think atomic oscillation rates represent “time itself” whereas pendulum swing rates and molecular vibration rates do not?

My opinion about time, which I’ve already expressed several times on this board, is that the “durations” between the “events” are determined by various laws of physics, depending on what type of clock is being considered, depending on what kind of repetitive motion, oscillation, or vibration is involved. So “time itself” can not be determined or represented by any one kind of clock, such as an atomic clock. An atomic clock is just one kind of clock that operates according to electrodynamics and quantum mechanics laws. A pendulum clock operates by different macro-mechanical laws. Thermodynamic time is determined by heat energy and thermodynamic laws. A thermodynamic clock speeds up when heat energy is added to it. The different kinds of clocks speed up and slow down depending on the individual laws of physics that govern the rate of their own particular repetitive “events”. So why do you think that when an atomic clock slows down, where other kinds of clocks (which are operating by different other laws of physics) speed up, represents “time itself”, while the other clocks do not?

Do you actually think the mechanical balance wheel clocks in the SR theory will slow down due only to relative motion, without any kind of force or pressure being placed on the clocks? And if there are just two relatively moving clocks, why would just one of them slow down and the other not, since both clocks are equal in the SR theory, and both relatively moving “systems” are completely equal? What is it about relative motion, i.e. straight line motion with no acceleration, that can slow down one of two relatively moving balance wheel clocks? And how do we decide which of the two identical relatively moving clocks physically slows down its tick rate? How do you make that determination?

And if the SR theory is correct as-is, why did Einstein have to correct it in his 1918 paper by adding atomic clocks to it, along with acceleration and gravity effects? Why did he do away with the “relative motion” in 1918, as a means of slowing down the clocks in the SR theory?

It is the interval on the time axis, between two events. In SR, that interval can be different for different observers, depending on the observer's velocity. In GR, that interval can be different for different observers depending on their relative velocity, relative acceleration, or a difference in gravitational potential.

This is not a definition of “time itself” since different kinds of clocks tick at different rates and they slow down and speed up at different rates for different reasons, and some will speed up and slow down in different directions while located in the same place.

And yet that you insist that all moving clocks slow down at the same rate when moving, and there's an interaction with "fields" that does this. Why do all clocks slow by the same predictable rate when they move? Why does this happen whether they are moving through the earth's gravitational field or not?

My opinion about time, which I’ve already expressed several times on this board, is that the “durations” between the “events” are determined by various laws of physics, depending on what type of clock is being considered, depending on what kind of repetitive motion, oscillation, or vibration is involved. So “time itself” can not be determined or represented by any one kind of clock, such as an atomic clock. An atomic clock is just one kind of clock that operates according to electrodynamics and quantum mechanics laws. A pendulum clock operates by different macro-mechanical laws. Thermodynamic time is determined by heat energy and thermodynamic laws. A thermodynamic clock speeds up when heat energy is added to it. The different kinds of clocks speed up and slow down depending on the individual laws of physics that govern the rate of their own particular repetitive “events”. So why do you think that when an atomic clock slows down, where other kinds of clocks (which are operating by different other laws of physics) speed up, represents “time itself”, while the other clocks do not?

Yes, Sam, I think everyone here is aware of your opinion. But it's just that - an opinion. Until you address the glaring problems that have been pointed out by numerous people, you don't come close to having a theory. And in science, nobody cares much about opinions. Give us facts, and theories to explain those facts and predict things so we can test them

Do you actually think the mechanical balance wheel clocks in the SR theory will slow down due only to relative motion, without any kind of force or pressure being placed on the clocks? And if there are just two relatively moving clocks, why would just one of them slow down and the other not, since both clocks are equal in the SR theory, and both relatively moving “systems” are completely equal? What is it about relative motion, i.e. straight line motion with no acceleration, that can slow down one of two relatively moving balance wheel clocks? And how do we decide which of the two identical relatively moving clocks physically slows down its tick rate? How do you make that determination?


To any observer, the other one always slows down. But only relative to that observer. It's not a physical slowdown of a clock in your own frame - it's the measurement of the clock in the other frame.

You moving doesn't change the tick rate of my clock that I measure. But what you measure won't agree with what I measure, because there is relative motion. Our clocks won't agree, and yet we agree that there is nothing happening to the clocks!

And yet that you insist that all moving clocks slow down at the same rate when moving,

No I don’t. I’ve never said that. I’ve never “insisted” any such thing.


To any observer, the other one always slows down. But only relative to that observer. It's not a physical slowdown of a clock in your own frame - it's the measurement of the clock in the other frame.


That’s the basic Doppler Effect, described and explained by Doppler in 1843.

In SR theory, Einstein claimed that one of the clocks really did slow down and “lagged behind” the other when they both united. And he said they were “balance wheel” mechanical clocks, and they had no force at all placed on them.

It is the interval on the time axis, between two events. In SR, that interval can be different for different observers, depending on the observer's velocity. In GR, that interval can be different for different observers depending on their relative velocity, relative acceleration, or a difference in gravitational potential.

This is not a definition of “time itself” since different kinds of clocks tick at different rates and they slow down and speed up at different rates for different reasons, and some will speed up and slow down in different directions while located in the same place.

No, that's a perfectly good definition of time - and as far as I'm concerned its the best physical definition of time out there.

Why are intervals between events different for different kinds of clocks and why do they vary at different rates and in different directions?

The intervals are *not* different for different kinds of clocks. A clock is just a device to measure that interval. How well it measures that interval is limited by the accuracy clock, just like distance measurements are limited by the accuracy of your ruler. Time can pass at different rates due to observers moving at different relative velocities or being in different gravitational fields or experiencing different accelerations.

All you are saying here is that a clock tick interval can appear to be different when clocks are viewed by moving observers. Doppler explained that back in the 1840s. We don’t need SR theory to tell us that. This was already known long before SR was written.

No, he's saying that those clock ticks have physical meaning. Special relativity EXPLICITLY states that time passes at different rates. As far as I know, this has been REPEATEDLY verified through experiment.

You said, “Other effects of the acceleration (motion of the pendulum for example) could add an additional effect.” So explain how this happens.

Because a pendulum's motion is determined partly by the acceleration due to gravity. If another acceleration acceleration gets involved, it can speed up or slow down the pendulum arm. This, however, has nothing to do with time.

The more rapid motion of a pendulum in strong gravity causes the pendulum to swing more rapidly and a pendulum clock speeds up in places where atomic clock oscillation rates slow down and atomic clocks slow down. If the pendulum clock ticks more quickly in a strong gravity field, and an atomic clock oscillates more slowly, then which clock represents “time itself”?

Both measure time itself. The atomic clock will be more accurate since the atoms don't care about gravity when they vibrate. The pendulum clock will be less accurate because it depends on more variables (gravity and the length of the pendulum arm). It will not, however, necessarily run faster in a high gravitational field than it will in microgravity - there are other factors at work including time dilation.

You and others try to give the impression that ALL clocks and all of “time itself” slows down where ever an atomic clock slows down, but this is just not true.

Sam5, PROVE IT. I don't care what Einstein may or may not have written in his papers here - if you disagree with him, I want evidence. Show me an experiment that explicitly proves time moves at a constant rate for all observers. Show me the flaws in the experiments that have been done that force us to junk their results. After you've done that, show me a theory that explains all of this AND makes all the predictions of special and general relativity with equal or greater success.

So why do you think atomic oscillation rates represent “time itself” whereas pendulum swing rates and molecular vibration rates do not?

The atomic oscillation rates depend on two things: the type of atoms involved and the energy level of those atoms. Two easily controlled variables that do not change with relative motion or gravity. Since atomic clocks DO run slow in a gravitational field AND with relative motion, this implies that either quantum mechanics is wrong (which it isn't) OR that time passes differently for different observers.

Pendulum swing rates depend on things: the length of the pendulum arm and the acceleration due to gravity. Those do change with relative motion and gravity. Therefore, if you want to see how relative motion and gravity affects time this is a terrible choice.

As for molecular vibration rates, you'll have to explain that type of clock more. I'm not familiar with it.

My opinion about time, which I’ve already expressed several times on this board, is that the “durations” between the “events” are determined by various laws of physics, depending on what type of clock is being considered, depending on what kind of repetitive motion, oscillation, or vibration is involved. So “time itself” can not be determined or represented by any one kind of clock, such as an atomic clock. An atomic clock is just one kind of clock that operates according to electrodynamics and quantum mechanics laws.

No. Those are just different means of measuring time. What you're saying is that equivilent of space being different depending on whether or not you measure it with a yard stick or a laser. Time exists independently of our ability to measure it.

A pendulum clock operates by different macro-mechanical laws.

But time is still present in the equations that govern its motion.

Thermodynamic time is determined by heat energy and thermodynamic laws. A thermodynamic clock speeds up when heat energy is added to it.

No. Thermodynamic time is the inevitable increase in the entropy of the universe, better known as the second law of thermodynamics. As time progresses, entropy increases. Thermodynamic time, however, is NOT a clock. It is a consequence of time. Furthermore, you can change the rate at which entropy increases by altering the rate at which time passes.

The different kinds of clocks speed up and slow down depending on the individual laws of physics that govern the rate of their own particular repetitive “events”. So why do you think that when an atomic clock slows down, where other kinds of clocks (which are operating by different other laws of physics) speed up, represents “time itself”, while the other clocks do not?

Like I said, you haven't established that those other clocks speed up. There are other variables with other kinds of clocks that you have to measure.

Do you actually think the mechanical balance wheel clocks in the SR theory will slow down due only to relative motion, without any kind of force or pressure being placed on the clocks?

Yes. That's exactly what happens.

And if there are just two relatively moving clocks, why would just one of them slow down and the other not, since both clocks are equal in the SR theory, and both relatively moving “systems” are completely equal?

They're not identical systems. They're only equal in the sense that any measurements taken in either reference frame are valid. Those measurements can be different.

What is it about relative motion, i.e. straight line motion with no acceleration, that can slow down one of two relatively moving balance wheel clocks?

We don't know. It's just some weird property of time and space.

And how do we decide which of the two identical relatively moving clocks physically slows down its tick rate? How do you make that determination?

By deciding which is at rest and which is moving. Assuming no accelerations and no gravity, you will always measure the clock in your reference frame to be at rest and the other clock to be moving. Someone in the other clock's reference frame will decide that he is at rest and you're moving.

And if the SR theory is correct as-is, why did Einstein have to correct it in his 1918 paper by adding atomic clocks to it, along with acceleration and gravity effects? Why did he do away with the “relative motion” in 1918, as a means of slowing down the clocks in the SR theory?

He did no such thing. Special relativity only dealt with situations where neither gravity nor accelerations were present. Einstein developed general relativity to extend the theory to all possible cases. He most emphatically did NOT get rid of relative motion as a cause of time dilation. What he said was that gravity can cause ALSO cause time dilation.

In his "The Cosmic Conspiracy", Stan Deyo (I know nothing about him) writes in Appendix 5:

http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/ccX-5.html
The apparent absurdity of infinitely-increasing-mass and infinitely-decresing-length as a mass approaches the light-wave velocity is rationalized by realizing that space has inertia and as such offers inertial resistance to the moving mass.
Does he mean that space itself have inertia? If so, this could account for why the Pioneer spacecrafts leaving the solar system are experiencing measurable slowdown in velocity. This could be accounted for if the inertia of space (away from a hot star like our sun) is greater than near us, so that the mass out there is taking on this greater inertia, thus slowing velocity for the given momentum it has.

Has anyone theorized, either within or outside Relativity, that gravity may not be a universal constant? One way to think of this is that if gravity is greater in the deep cold of space, far from a hot star's electromagnetic energy source, the space vacuum may revert back to some primordial form which is more gravity rich (per volume of matter) than here on Earth. It would then imply that the more gravity, the greater the inertia for any matter in that greater gravity. It might also imply why we had been theorizing a "dark matter" in deep space. Hypothetically, could this space vacuum inertia be the "ether" through which light propagates? Of course, that would mean that gravity is not the Newton's Classical, and Einstein's General Relativity, universal constant but a "variable-constant" instead. Why did we assume gravity to be a universal constant? Should this variable gravity prove true instead, it may explain why the Pioneers are slowing. It might also help explain why cosmic light traveling great distances will redshift, since it must pass through a greater gravity in deep space? My reference here is to Sam5's April 10, 2004, post:
No, the stronger the field, the more slowly light propagates, and the stronger the field the more slowly atoms oscillate, and they emit light at a lower frequency.
I'm just connecting the dots here, but it would seem that if gravity is not a universal constant, then several phenomena such as Pioneers slowing, cosmic light redshift, dark matter, all become better explainable (Ockham's razor).

Has anyone seen anything elsewhere on this line of reasoning, that gravity is not a universal constant? I am not "physics smart", so pardon my obtuseness for asking such elementary questions. Any books or internet references I should look into?

And yet that you insist that all moving clocks slow down at the same rate when moving,

No I don’t. I’ve never said that. I’ve never “insisted” any such thing.

Then why do atomic clocks we send at high speed slow down according to the same predictable factor that a "light pulse" clock will?




To any observer, the other one always slows down. But only relative to that observer. It's not a physical slowdown of a clock in your own frame - it's the measurement of the clock in the other frame.


That’s the basic Doppler Effect, described and explained by Doppler in 1843.

In SR theory, Einstein claimed that one of the clocks really did slow down and “lagged behind” the other when they both united. And he said they were “balance wheel” mechanical clocks, and they had no force at all placed on them.

What, exactly is Doppler-shifting? If it's time itself that is changing, then the type of clock is immaterial, as long as mechanical effects are compensated for.

So, you've never really explained why Relativity theory fails, Sammy. You've just been insisting that Einstein came up with GR to apologize for SR, when he did no such thing. Find the book or paper -- since that seems to be your thing to do -- which says "I'm sorry for screwing up back in 1905. Here's a retraction of all my statements, and a new theory to boot!" Oh, and his use of the words "ether" or "aether" do not constitute this. Failing that, show us the experiments which refute Relativity theory, or that show SR not to be a special case of GR. You started talking about experimental observations or evidence in the thread on the centre of the universe. Now it's your turn to pony up.

Then why do atomic clocks we send at high speed slow down according to the same predictable factor that a "light pulse" clock will?


An atomic clock IS a “light pulse” clock. It is the fundamental oscillation rate of the atom that regulates the frequency of the emitted light.

The claims of the author after a mathematical demonstration are:
http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/ccX-5.html

Looking at the assumption in (Eq. 19)...(ve) was the term used in the beginning to represent the ether wind velocity... This means Einstein used

snip

, an incompressible fluid space does not allow concentrations of energy - but he is wrong - dead wrong!

http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/ccX-5.html

Comments?

It's basically worthless. The posted website is exerpts from the book "The Cosmic Conspiracy" by Stan Deyo. (snip) I'm looking at the math and will try to get back to you tomorrow.
Hey! Tensor have you finished your analysis upon the Math include in the book.My opinion is that the guy use a deliberatery woo woo style to sell his books but than the Maths include in it are serious. Just a guess.
http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/index.html

What, exactly is Doppler-shifting? If it's time itself that is changing, then the type of clock is immaterial, as long as mechanical effects are compensated for.


A classical Doppler shift regarding space and spacecraft is when a moving radio on a spacecraft that is moving away from the earth transmits, let’s say, a 1,000 Hz per second tone signal, and on earth the signal come into a radio receiver at 999 Hz per second. This is an “illusional” time dilation. It is known as a “redshifted” signal. It’s not real at the clock or at the transmitter on the spacecraft. It is just an illusion that is perceived by the radio receiver on earth.

What causes this type of Doppler shift is because the transmitter on the spacecraft is sending out 1,000 Hz, but the distance between the earth and the spacecraft increases constantly, so the signal has further and further to travel. This stretches out the wavelength of the signal in space, so that the frequency that is received on earth is only 999 Hz per second. If the spacecraft could stop in space, so that the distance between it and the earth does not increase, then the earth would receive the full 1,000 Hz per second.

If the spacecraft is moving toward the earth and is sending out a 1,000 Hz signal, then the radio wavelengths are compressed, because the distance between the radio and the earth is decreasing, and so the radio on earth receives something like a 1,001 Hz per second signal. This is called a “blueshifted” signal.

Based on classical Doppler shift alone, at no time does the transmitted signal change rates. But the receiver on earth perceived an illusion of the rates changing, because of the Doppler effect.

As proof of this theory, we could also use a reflective mirror on a moving spacecraft, and we can have a light pulse signal sent from earth and reflected back from the moving mirror. This way we know that the 1,000 Hz signal never changes at the source, because the source is at the earth and is not moving.

But when the mirror moves away from the earth, and the signal is reflected back, the signal is redshifted and only a 999 Hz per second signal comes back to the earth. When the mirror starts back toward the earth, the reflected light signal becomes blueshifted and the earth receives 1,001 Hz per second.

There are several Doppler equations involved in this whole process, to calculate the exact results. Also, note that the earth will receive the redshifted signals for a longer time than it will receive the blueshifted signals. That’s because the earth is still receiving the redshifted signals when the mirror turns around and heads back. The earth will continue to receive the previously emitted redshifted signals for a while, even when the mirror is moving back. Finally the blueshifted signals start being received on earth.

When all the total number of Hz signals that were sent out, and all the total number of Hz signals that were reflected back, are counted, the same number that were sent out are the same as the number that were received on earth. There are no missing or “lost” Hz. If 10 billion were transmitted, then 10 billion will be received back on earth.

The “relativistic” Doppler shift is slightly different, and it includes both the illusion of the classical Doppler shift and a real shift in the rate of an atomic clock. I can explain that to you if you wish. Lorentz first described the relativistic Doppler shift in the frequencies of moving atoms in his book in 1895 and he published the first relativistic Doppler shift equations in that book. The relativistic shift actually does take place at an atomic clock, and it is not an illusion. So the “relativistic Doppler shift” is an observed combination of the classical Doppler shift (which is an illusion) and the real shift in the oscillation rate of an atomic clock signal (which is real and actually does take place at the clock).

Then why do atomic clocks we send at high speed slow down according to the same predictable factor that a "light pulse" clock will?


An atomic clock IS a “light pulse” clock. It is the fundamental oscillation rate of the atom that regulates the frequency of the emitted light.

No Sam, they are not. This (http://users.powernet.co.uk/bearsoft/LtClk.html) is what I mean by a light pulse clock. A moving observer will measure it to run slow.

An atomic clock has, as you say, atoms oscillating between two states.

What, exactly is Doppler-shifting? If it's time itself that is changing, then the type of clock is immaterial, as long as mechanical effects are compensated for.

A classical Doppler shift regarding space and spacecraft is when a moving radio on a spacecraft that is moving away from the earth transmits, let’s say, a 1,000 Hz per second tone signal,

First, a nitpick. A 'Hz/s' is a meaningless unit. Frequency is measured in Hz. You also don't want to use tones - sound can't propagate througha vacuum - you want to use light.

and on earth the signal come into a radio receiver at 999 Hz per second. This is an “illusional” time dilation. It is known as a “redshifted” signal. It’s not real at the clock or at the transmitter on the spacecraft. It is just an illusion that is perceived by the radio receiver on earth.

Big problem here - you've mixed up your refrence frames and as aresult what you're saying is meaningless. You can't have a Doppler shift relative to yourself. If I'm in my car, barrelling down the highway at 80 miles/hour, my radio is going to sound normal to me because I'm moving with my speakers - they're comoving so there is no Doppler shift between the two. However, someone who hears my radio as I drive by will hear a frequency change and what he hears is not an illusion. There are no preferred reference frames so his observation that the relative motion of my car relative to himself causes a frequency change (a Doppler shift) is a physically valid, real observation.

What causes this type of Doppler shift is because the transmitter on the spacecraft is sending out 1,000 Hz, but the distance between the earth and the spacecraft increases constantly, so the signal has further and further to travel. This stretches out the wavelength of the signal in space, so that the frequency that is received on earth is only 999 Hz per second. If the spacecraft could stop in space, so that the distance between it and the earth does not increase, then the earth would receive the full 1,000 Hz per second.

Right, because there is no Doppler shift if there is no motion.

If the spacecraft is moving toward the earth and is sending out a 1,000 Hz signal, then the radio wavelengths are compressed, because the distance between the radio and the earth is decreasing, and so the radio on earth receives something like a 1,001 Hz per second signal. This is called a “blueshifted” signal.

Right.

Based on classical Doppler shift alone, at no time does the transmitted signal change rates. But the receiver on earth perceived an illusion of the rates changing, because of the Doppler effect.

Dead wrong. The speed of the signal - which I assume is what you mean by rate - is not changing. The light sent by the spacecraft will still be travelling at 2.998 x 10^8 m/s. The sound coming out of my radio will still be travelling at 331.5 m/s. Both observers will agree on that. The wavelength and the frequency change.

As proof of this theory, we could also use a reflective mirror on a moving spacecraft, and we can have a light pulse signal sent from earth and reflected back from the moving mirror. This way we know that the 1,000 Hz signal never changes at the source, because the source is at the earth and is not moving.

But when the mirror moves away from the earth, and the signal is reflected back, the signal is redshifted and only a 999 Hz per second signal comes back to the earth. When the mirror starts back toward the earth, the reflected light signal becomes blueshifted and the earth receives 1,001 Hz per second.

Right answer, wrong reason. We will measure the signal's frequency to be 1 kHz when it's emitted because we're not moving relative to the transmitter. However, that doesn't change the fact that the signal we receive has changed its frequency. Assume the spacecraft is moving away from Earth at a constant speed. As a result, the signal it receives is redshifted - the signal has a lower frequency than it did when it left Earth. The signal is then reflected off the mirror towards Earth. Because, from the spacecraft's point of view, the Earth is moving away from it, the Earth will receive a signal that's been redshifted again.

There are several Doppler equations involved in this whole process, to calculate the exact results. Also, note that the earth will receive the redshifted signals for a longer time than it will receive the blueshifted signals. That’s because the earth is still receiving the redshifted signals when the mirror turns around and heads back. The earth will continue to receive the previously emitted redshifted signals for a while, even when the mirror is moving back. Finally the blueshifted signals start being received on earth.

When all the total number of Hz signals that were sent out, and all the total number of Hz signals that were reflected back, are counted, the same number that were sent out are the same as the number that were received on earth. There are no missing or “lost” Hz. If 10 billion were transmitted, then 10 billion will be received back on earth.

The “relativistic” Doppler shift is slightly different, and it includes both the illusion of the classical Doppler shift and a real shift in the rate of an atomic clock. I can explain that to you if you wish. Lorentz first described the relativistic Doppler shift in the frequencies of moving atoms in his book in 1895 and he published the first relativistic Doppler shift equations in that book. The relativistic shift actually does take place at an atomic clock, and it is not an illusion. So the “relativistic Doppler shift” is an observed combination of the classical Doppler shift (which is an illusion) and the real shift in the oscillation rate of an atomic clock signal (which is real and actually does take place at the clock).

Wrong. As far as the actual atomic clock is conerened it's at rest. We only receive a Doppler shifted signal if we're moving relative to it. This is partly due to the fact that, if the two reference frames are moving relative to each other, time is passing at different rates in those two frames.

What, exactly is Doppler-shifting? If it's time itself that is changing, then the type of clock is immaterial, as long as mechanical effects are compensated for.


A classical Doppler shift regarding space and spacecraft is when a moving radio on a spacecraft that is moving away from the earth transmits, let’s say, a 1,000 Hz per second tone signal, and on earth the signal come into a radio receiver at 999 Hz per second.
...


But that only works if you try to tell time by measuring a frequency of emitted pulses. What if we have a moving clock, and it sends out a coded signal saying what time its clock read, when it passes a marker? It passes, say, the moon, and sends out a signal that says "123456 seconds have elapsed since synchronization" The Doppler shift can't change that signal.

In his "The Cosmic Conspiracy", Stan Deyo (I know nothing about him) writes in Appendix 5:

http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/ccX-5.html
The apparent absurdity of infinitely-increasing-mass and infinitely-decresing-length as a mass approaches the light-wave velocity is rationalized by realizing that space has inertia and as such offers inertial resistance to the moving mass.
Does he mean that space itself have inertia? If so, this could account for why the Pioneer spacecrafts leaving the solar system are experiencing measurable slowdown in velocity. This could be accounted for if the inertia of space (away from a hot star like our sun) is greater than near us, so that the mass out there is taking on this greater inertia, thus slowing velocity for the given momentum it has.

If he is, there's no evidence for space having inertia. Besides, the deceleration of the Pioneer spacecraft is explicable due to collisions with dust particles in the outer solar system. You don't need to assign any special properties to spacetime to explain that.

Has anyone theorized, either within or outside Relativity, that gravity may not be a universal constant? One way to think of this is that if gravity is greater in the deep cold of space, far from a hot star's electromagnetic energy source, the space vacuum may revert back to some primordial form which is more gravity rich (per volume of matter) than here on Earth. It would then imply that the more gravity, the greater the inertia for any matter in that greater gravity. It might also imply why we had been theorizing a "dark matter" in deep space. Hypothetically, could this space vacuum inertia be the "ether" through which light propagates? Of course, that would mean that gravity is not the Newton's Classical, and Einstein's General Relativity, universal constant but a "variable-constant" instead. Why did we assume gravity to be a universal constant? Should this variable gravity prove true instead, it may explain why the Pioneers are slowing. It might also help explain why cosmic light traveling great distances will redshift, since it must pass through a greater gravity in deep space? My reference here is to Sam5's April 10, 2004, post:
No, the stronger the field, the more slowly light propagates, and the stronger the field the more slowly atoms oscillate, and they emit light at a lower frequency.
I'm just connecting the dots here, but it would seem that if gravity is not a universal constant, then several phenomena such as Pioneers slowing, cosmic light redshift, dark matter, all become better explainable (Ockham's razor).

Has anyone seen anything elsewhere on this line of reasoning, that gravity is not a universal constant? I am not "physics smart", so pardon my obtuseness for asking such elementary questions. Any books or internet references I should look into?

Is cool. The problem with the theory is that there's no evidence for it. Every theory of gravity to date predicts that gravity gets weaker as you move away from its source. That's consistent with, well, just about everything we've observed so far. For instance, if this were the case, you'd have expected the Apollo astronauts to have reported an increase in gravity somewhere between the Earth and Moon, but none was observed. Dark matter is still mysterious, but there doesn't seem to be any reason to change gravity to account for it when there's plenty of evidence for non-luminous matter out there.

Dear God, are we doing this again?

There is an interesting demonstration about:
TIME AND SPACE
and
THE 'GRAVITATIONAL' EFFECT
Text begin near the middle of the page.
http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/ccS1-3.html

............
Also
The author gives the reasons why Aether was rejected and made the claims than Aether was observed from another experiment made by Sagnac.
text and experiments near the bottom of this page
http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/ccX-5.html
See
ETHER EXISTENCE VERIFIED

In 1913, the rotational version of the linear M-M experiment was successfully performed by G. Sagnac (see p. 65 - 67 of The Physical Foundations of General Relativity by D.W. Sciama, Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 48 Charles St., London W1X8AH.) In 1925, Michelson and Gale used the spinning Earth as their rotational analog to the linear M-M experiment. It also showed successfully that the velocity of light sent in the direction of spin around the perimeter of a spinning disc (or of the surface of earth) varied from the velocity of the light sent against the spin. (refer diag. 3).

That’s the basic Doppler Effect, described and explained by Doppler in 1843.
No it's not. They're mathematically distinct.

In SR theory, Einstein claimed that one of the clocks really did slow down and “lagged behind” the other when they both united. And he said they were “balance wheel” mechanical clocks, and they had no force at all placed on them.
And that was born out in general relativity. I thought you said you believed in general relativity?

This is what I mean by a light pulse clock. A moving observer will measure it to run slow.

An atomic clock has, as you say, atoms oscillating between two states.

I thought you were talking about a type of laser pulse clock.

If you are talking about an imaginary clock, you will get imaginary results.

So now do you understand the Doppler Effect?

There are other parts of it if you want me to tell you about them. I can also tell you about the "relativisitic" Doppler effect, which Lorentz first published in his book in 1895.

First, a nitpick. A 'Hz/s' is a meaningless unit. Frequency is measured in Hz. You also don't want to use tones - sound can't propagate througha vacuum - you want to use light.

Evidently you’ve never heard any thousand Hz Morse Code tone pulses on shortwave radio. Go educate yourself and we can discuss this some more.

Thanks for your reply. I presume you're referring to the inverse square law of gravity (or electromagnetic) energy in yours:
The problem with the theory is that there's no evidence for it. Every theory of gravity to date predicts that gravity gets weaker as you move away from its source. That's consistent with, well, just about everything we've observed so far.
So I understand thus far we have no reason to doubt gravity's universality. My interest in trying to find text or observational evidence of gravity as not a constant stems from a possibility that our estimations of distant mass, of planets and stars and galaxies, is derived from orbital spin using Newton's orbital equation with G as a constant. However, should this G not be constant, but somehow inversely proportional to the spacevacuum energy level where it is being measured, then our calculations of distant astronomical bodies may be wrong. It might mean that Pluto's mass, for example, is lower than estimated but behaves as if it were more because the gravity per volume is greater. The same would be true for Sedna, which is again as far as Pluto, where its mass may be comparatively smaller than estimated, though it acts in its orbit as if it were greater. Finally, it would call into question comets with extremely elliptical orbits, where they travel from close vicinity to the sun and far out towards the Kuiper belt or beyond. Could they have a variable gravity per mass as they go about their orbits, which means they "compact" far out on the edge of the solar system, and "de-compact" as they get closer into the sun? If they did, they there should be some evidence of their precessing in their perihelion portion of their orbits, given a constant momentum, but de-precessing in their perihelion orbital paths. Anyone ever study this possibility? I suppose we could attach a radio signal to a passing comet and wait 80 years to find out. But if gravity were not a universal constant, as we currently believe, I would think it would impact Einstein's geometric description of gravity per his General Relativity, since it is built (as I understand it) on a constant G.

I heard elsewhere that in Hawkin's "A Brief History of Time", 'he suggested that when we have a viable theory of quantum gravity, we'll be well on our way to understanding all of the forces'... but have not yet read the book.

But that only works if you try to tell time by measuring a frequency of emitted pulses. What if we have a moving clock, and it sends out a coded signal saying what time its clock read, when it passes a marker? It passes, say, the moon, and sends out a signal that says "123456 seconds have elapsed since synchronization" The Doppler shift can't change that signal.


First, you need to learn the classical Doppler effect, and then you can learn the “relativistic” Doppler effect. You need to be sure not to confuse the two. Too many people I’ve met on the internet confuse the two all the time, and they have no real idea what the classical Doppler effect is. I’m surprised that universities seem to be turning out physics majors who don’t know how to describe the mechanics of the classical Doppler effect.

I can tell you what a “relativistic” Doppler effect is if you want to know. It is when an atomic clock on board a spacecraft, that regulates the frequency of the radio signal tone or an electronic device that regulates the radio frequency, has its atomic oscillation rates altered, either by moving through a field (Lorentz theory) or as a result of more or less acceleration or stronger or weaker gravity field (GR theory). Lorentz published the first relativistic Doppler equations in his 1895 book. While calculating a relativistic Doppler effect, one must calculate the classical Doppler effect (which is an illusion that does not actually take place at the clock), and combine it with the real clock slowdown or speed up of the clock due to the so-called “relativistic” effect caused by the forces experienced by the atoms inside the clock (this is a real effect that does occur at the clock).

It's basically worthless. The posted website is exerpts from the book "The Cosmic Conspiracy" by Stan Deyo. (snip) I'm looking at the math and will try to get back to you tomorrow.
Hey! Tensor have you finished your analysis upon the Math include in the book.My opinion is that the guy use a deliberatery woo woo style to sell his books but than the Maths include in it are serious. Just a guess.
http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/index.html

Unfortunately, I did not have the time today to do it (I had a matinee show and I had some work to get done around the house before and after the show). I will look at it tomorrow (I'm off work) and will post on it tomorrow late afternoon or evening.

Dear God, are we doing this again?

Well, he's still here, getting Relativity wrong. So, yes, were doing this again. :roll:

The author gives the reasons why Aether was rejected and made the claims than Aether was observed from another experiment made by Sagnac.
text and experiments near the bottom of this page
http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/ccX-5.html
See
ETHER EXISTENCE VERIFIED

In 1913, the rotational version of the linear M-M experiment was successfully performed by G. Sagnac (see p. 65 - 67 of The Physical Foundations of General Relativity by D.W. Sciama, Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 48 Charles St., London W1X8AH.) In 1925, Michelson and Gale used the spinning Earth as their rotational analog to the linear M-M experiment. It also showed successfully that the velocity of light sent in the direction of spin around the perimeter of a spinning disc (or of the surface of earth) varied from the velocity of the light sent against the spin. (refer diag. 3).



This is a typical misunderstanding of how the Sagnac experiment relates to relativity. See here (http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s2-07/2-07.htm) for an excellent explanation (it does get a bit technical)

Dear God, are we doing this again? I abstain (courteously :lol: ) .

First, a nitpick. A 'Hz/s' is a meaningless unit. Frequency is measured in Hz. You also don't want to use tones - sound can't propagate througha vacuum - you want to use light.

Evidently you’ve never heard any thousand Hz Morse Code tone pulses on shortwave radio.

Are you saying the sound itself moves through the air? If so could you please explain why that thousand hz tone takes less than a second to travel from say New York to L.A. instead of the four hours that the sound(which travels at approximately 740 miles per second) should take? Or just perhaps the tone is just a modulated carrier wave moving at c.

What you obviously ignored is the correction. Hz per second is meaningless as the definition for Hz is cycles/second not cycles per second per second, as you stated.

Go educate yourself and we can discuss this some more.

I find it highly ironic and amusing that someone who says they don't understand the math and gets basic physics facts (not to mention more not so basic physics facts) wrong, continually tells people to go get educated.

spelling edit

So I understand thus far we have no reason to doubt gravity's universality. My interest in trying to find text or observational evidence of gravity as not a constant stems from a possibility that our estimations of distant mass, of planets and stars and galaxies, is derived from orbital spin using Newton's orbital equation with G as a constant.
However, should this G not be constant, but somehow inversely proportional to the spacevacuum energy level where it is being measured, then our calculations of distant astronomical bodies may be wrong.

You may find claims that g is not a constant, but I don't think you'll find any undisputed observational evidence of it.

But if gravity were not a universal constant, as we currently believe, I would think it would impact Einstein's geometric description of gravity per his General Relativity, since it is built (as I understand it) on a constant G.

Taylor and Hulse's (http://astrosun2.astro.cornell.edu/academics/courses//astro201/psr1913.htm) observations refute your idea that G may be different in different "spacevacuum energy level" (I'm really not sure what you mean by this, but I am taking it as the amout of energy in a volume of spacetime). Only because the energy levels near the pulsar and the companion it is orbiting would be so much different than near the earth-sun system. And yet, the decay of the orbit matches the predictions of General Relativity. If your idea of a variable G were true, then the predictions shouldn't match.

Dear God, are we doing this again? I abstain (courteously :lol: ) .

Can't say that I blame you Russ. :lol:

Are you saying the sound itself moves through the air

NO!

Geepers!

Do you know what an audible “tone” is? Do you know how radio stations can send out audio “tones”? Music is made up of audio tones, audio frequencies. Have you ever heard any music over a radio?

Maybe you call them something different today, but when I hear a 1,000 cycle tone over a radio (ie coming from the radio speaker), I call it a “tone”. It’s coded into the radio waves of the radio signal.

Why would you think that I would think that a spacecraft radio would send out “sound waves”??

Geez!

It can be any frequency of any kind of tone or signal. It can be the frequency of the radio transmitter itself.

You can use a light signal too. You can count the frequencies of the light signal, or you can have the light intermittent, such as 1,000 pulses a second. I used the number 1,000 because it was easy to type.

You might have to excuse me, but I read a lot of 19th Century and early 20th Century books, so if it’s no longer called a 1,000 Hz “tone” that is sent over a radio, then tell me what it is called today. If music is not called "music" anymore, then tell me what it is called.

First, a nitpick. A 'Hz/s' is a meaningless unit. Frequency is measured in Hz. You also don't want to use tones - sound can't propagate througha vacuum - you want to use light.

What you obviously ignored is the correction. Hz per second is meaningless as the definition for Hz is cycles/second not cycles per second per second, as you stated.

For beginners, I wanted to be sure that they understood the term to mean “cycles per second”. I almost said "cycles per second", but I figured you'd nitpick about that.

Do you nitpick when someone writes “$1 million dollars”? Do you complain because they write “dollars” twice?

Can't say that I blame you Russ. :lol:

Tensor, since you gave us the brilliant definition of “time” by saying it was the “duration” between “events”, now you can tell us the physical Doppler mechanics of why a moving observer on the rear of a moving train hears a normal pitch of the moving whistle.

And maybe Russ can give us the history of the “atomic clock” concept, starting with Maxwell’s statement about it, going through the Lorentz concept, the Einstein use of “atomic clocks” and the 1938 Ives paper about “atomic clocks”. He told me earlier they were only invented in the 1950s.

Well, Russ, tell us the history of “atomic clocks”. What did Maxwell say about them in 1873? Lorentz in 1895? Einstein in 1907 and 1911? Steinmetz in 1923? Ives in 1938?

You are an expert on this topic, so tell us about the history of the “atomic clock” concept.

Are you saying the sound itself moves through the air

NO!

Geepers!

Do you know what an audible “tone” is? Do you know how radio stations can send out audio “tones”? Music is made up of audio tones, audio frequencies. Have you ever heard any music over a radio?

Maybe you call them something different today, but when I hear a 1,000 cycle tone over a radio (ie coming from the radio speaker), I call it a “tone”. It’s coded into the radio waves of the radio signal.

Why would you think that I would think that a spacecraft radio would send out “sound waves”??

Geez!

It can be any frequency of any kind of tone or signal. It can be the frequency of the radio transmitter itself.

You can use a light signal too. You can count the frequencies of the light signal, or you can have the light intermittent, such as 1,000 pulses a second. I used the number 1,000 because it was easy to type.

You might have to excuse me, but I read a lot of 19th Century and early 20th Century books, so if it’s no longer called a 1,000 Hz “tone” that is sent over a radio, then tell me what it is called today. If music is not called "music" anymore, then tell me what it is called.

'Tone' refers to sound. However, radio signals are not sent as sound waves. They're sent as radio waves which carry the information that your radio uses to tell the speakers how to reproduce the sound. Radio transmitters send electromagnetic waves - not tones.

For beginners, I wanted to be sure that they understood the term to mean “cycles per second”. I almost said "cycles per second", but I figured you'd nitpick about that.

Actually, 'cycles per second' would have been correct. No nitpicks would have been needed.

Do you nitpick when someone writes “$1 million dollars”? Do you complain because they write “dollars” twice?

Usually, yes. If one of my students wrote that on an assignment you're darned right I'd point it out - it's incorrect grammar and sloppy composition.

Tensor, since you gave us the brilliant definition of “time” by saying it was the “duration” between “events”, now you can tell us the physical Doppler mechanics of why a moving observer on the rear of a moving train hears a normal pitch of the moving whistle.

Because the observer in the caboose is in the same reference frame as the whistle on the engine and are at rest relative to each other - or if you prefer they're both moving in the same direction at the same speed. The Doppler effect ONLY occurs when you have observers in two different references frames, one of which is in motion relative to the other. In other words, the listener in the caboose won't hear the whistle's pitch change, but the trainspotter sitting near the enbankment will.

'Tone' refers to sound. However, radio signals are not sent as sound waves. They're sent as radio waves which carry the information that your radio uses to tell the speakers how to reproduce the sound. Radio transmitters send electromagnetic waves - not tones.
They send “tones” coded into the radio waves. I thought everybody knew that already. The radio waves carry the “tone” as a coded signal in the EM waves. The “tone” comes out your speaker on your radio. How difficult is this to understand?

In the radio and television business, a broadcast “tone” is what a test signal is called. It’s like the old CD test tone. Today the weather emergency tone is a kind of squeal. Maybe none of you have ever worked in radio or TV and don’t know the jargon. Maybe the jargon is changed, but what difference does that make. Your are just trying to distract from my description of how the classical Doppler effect works.

Call it “pulses” if you want. A 1,000 Hz pulse sent by radio.

Is the nitpicking night on the board?

And trust me. If I had said "cycles", someone would have complained because I did not say Hz.

Because the observer in the caboose is in the same reference frame as the whistle on the engine and are at rest relative to each other - or if you prefer they're both moving in the same direction at the same speed.


Oh Geez! I don’t believe this!

Tell me the PHYSICAL MECHANICAL DOPPLER MECHANISM. What happes in the air, with the waves and the observer. Forget about that “reference frame” Eisnteinian baloney.

You can’t do it, can you? Because you just don’t know how the classical Doppler effect works.


The Doppler effect ONLY occurs when you have observers in two different references frames, one of which is in motion relative to the other


No! There are TWO DIFFERENT TYPES OF DOPPLER EFFECTS AT WORK in the train example. One cancels each other out. What are they? Describe them.

Didn't you learn this in your university physics classes?

I can tell you what a “relativistic” Doppler effect is if you want to know. It is when an atomic clock on board a spacecraft, that regulates the frequency of the radio signal tone or an electronic device that regulates the radio frequency, has its atomic oscillation rates altered, either by moving through a field (Lorentz theory) or as a result of more or less acceleration or stronger or weaker gravity field (GR theory).

What is the interaction then? The gravitational perturbation on the elctrons?

Is the field in question fixed with respect to the earth, or changing with respect to the earth?

For beginners, I wanted to be sure that they understood the term to mean “cycles per second”. I almost said "cycles per second", but I figured you'd nitpick about that.
You made a deliberate mistake, so that beginners would be sure to understand?

That's not the same thing as oversimplifying something so that beginners can understand difficult concepts.

This is what I mean by a light pulse clock. A moving observer will measure it to run slow.

An atomic clock has, as you say, atoms oscillating between two states.

I thought you were talking about a type of laser pulse clock.

If you are talking about an imaginary clock, you will get imaginary results.



Really? Aren't the "atomic clocks" of Maxwell and Lorentz et al imaginary? I mean, they didn't actually build the atomic clocks mentioned in their papers, did they?

Is there anything about the light pulse clock that violates any physical laws? It could, in principle be built, right? People usually do things this way - plan something using the laws of physics, etc. and then build it.

Tell me the PHYSICAL MECHANICAL DOPPLER MECHANISM. What happes in the air, with the waves and the observer. Forget about that “reference frame” Eisnteinian baloney.


The classical Doppler is purely kinematic in origin. Why are you talking about a "physical mechanism"?

This is what I mean by a light pulse clock. A moving observer will measure it to run slow.

An atomic clock has, as you say, atoms oscillating between two states.

I thought you were talking about a type of laser pulse clock.

If you are talking about an imaginary clock, you will get imaginary results.



Really? Aren't the "atomic clocks" of Maxwell and Lorentz et al imaginary? I mean, they didn't actually build the atomic clocks mentioned in their papers, did they?



They didn’t have to build them. They already existed in nature. They were talking about naturally oscillating and glowing atoms. They measured their wavelengths of light by means of a spectroscope and from the known frequency of the light they calculated the oscillation rates of the atoms. They were natural atomic clocks. Haven’t you read the Ives paper, or Maxwell’s treatises on electricity and magnetism?

In Einstein’s 1907 paper, “On the Relativity Principle and the Conclusions Drawn From It,” (“Collected Papers”, paperback Volume 2, page 307), he states,:

“There exist ‘clocks’ that are present at locations of different gravitational potentials and whose rates can be controlled with great precision; these are the producers of spectral lines. It can be concluded from the aforesaid that the wave length of light coming from the sun’s surface, which originates from such a producer, is larger by about one part in two millionth than that of light produced by the same substance on earth.”

Is there anything about the light pulse clock that violates any physical laws? It could, in principle be built, right? People usually do things this way - plan something using the laws of physics, etc. and then build it.

In the “light pulse” clock, if the clock is stationary on earth, and a guy drives by it, he is going to see the light pulse go up and down and hit the mirror and the receiver just as the guy on the ground does.

If the observer is stationary with the ground and a guy drives by with a “light pulse” clock, left to right, and if his laser is aimed straight “up”, the pulse will miss the mirror, so he will have to tilt the laser a little to the right so the pulse will hit the mirror. And both guys will see the light pulse travel the same distance, which will be a slightly longer distance than if the guy with the laser were stationary with the ground.

Tell me the PHYSICAL MECHANICAL DOPPLER MECHANISM. What happes in the air, with the waves and the observer. Forget about that “reference frame” Eisnteinian baloney.


The classical Doppler is purely kinematic in origin. Why are you talking about a "physical mechanism"?

It helps to visualize the classical Doppler effects if you work the mechanics out on graph paper. When the whistle moves through the air, it emits a stretched out sound wave to the rear of the whistle. The wavelength is physically longer as it travels through the air, yet it still travels at the speed of sound in air, about 1,100 fps. So why does the guy riding on the rear of the moving train hear a normal pitch of the longer wave, rather than a redshifted lower pitch?

I can tell you what a “relativistic” Doppler effect is if you want to know. It is when an atomic clock on board a spacecraft, that regulates the frequency of the radio signal tone or an electronic device that regulates the radio frequency, has its atomic oscillation rates altered, either by moving through a field (Lorentz theory) or as a result of more or less acceleration or stronger or weaker gravity field (GR theory).

What is the interaction then? The gravitational perturbation on the elctrons?

Is the field in question fixed with respect to the earth, or changing with respect to the earth?


The rate of the atomic clock is affected by its motion through the earth’s gravity field (Lorentz theory), and it is also affected by its altitude (its distance from the center of the earth) (GR theory).

The classical Doppler effect is as I described it earlier. The “relativistic” Doppler effect is the classical effect plus any real effect on the rate of an atomic clock due to its motion through gravity fields and due to the gravitational potential where it is located.

Of course there are other environmental conditions that can make the rate of an atomic clock unstable, but these are generally not called “relativistic” effects.

I’ve read some papers that say the earth’s gravity field does not rotate with the earth but travels through space with the earth. When the spacecraft reaches a certain distance away from the earth, the sun’s gravity field has more influence on the Lorentz effect than the earth’s field.

Sam, with all this radio talk you're spouting, do you actually know how a radio works? I mean, the whole mechanism of the LRC circuit, resonance frequency, and the like?

Tell me the PHYSICAL MECHANICAL DOPPLER MECHANISM. What happes in the air, with the waves and the observer. Forget about that “reference frame” Eisnteinian baloney.


The classical Doppler is purely kinematic in origin. Why are you talking about a "physical mechanism"?

It helps to visualize the classical Doppler effects if you work the mechanics out on graph paper. When the whistle moves through the air, it emits a stretched out sound wave to the rear of the whistle. The wavelength is physically longer as it travels through the air, yet it still travels at the speed of sound in air, about 1,100 fps. So why does the guy riding on the rear of the moving train hear a normal pitch of the longer wave, rather than a redshifted lower pitch?

If the emitter and the receiver have the same velocity, there is no Doppler effect (the guy on the train is at rest with respect to the whistle, therefore he does not observe a "stretched out" wave).
By the way, one must be careful with Doppler effect: one has to take into account the relative velocity of emitter and receiver and their velocity with respect to the medium. You might get different results for an open train and a closed one.

If the emitter and the receiver have the same velocity, there is no Doppler effect


There are two Doppler effects at work in my example. I am assuming an open car at the end of the train or an open window. The guy hears the whistle through the outside air. One Doppler effect cancels out the other Doppler effect. Describe the mechanics of both of them.

Is there anything about the light pulse clock that violates any physical laws? It could, in principle be built, right? People usually do things this way - plan something using the laws of physics, etc. and then build it.

In the “light pulse” clock, if the clock is stationary on earth, and a guy drives by it, he is going to see the light pulse go up and down and hit the mirror and the receiver just as the guy on the ground does.

If the observer is stationary with the ground and a guy drives by with a “light pulse” clock, left to right, and if his laser is aimed straight “up”, the pulse will miss the mirror, so he will have to tilt the laser a little to the right so the pulse will hit the mirror. And both guys will see the light pulse travel the same distance, which will be a slightly longer distance than if the guy with the laser were stationary with the ground.

How do you know which one is moving? Two people, A and B, each with a light pulse clock, are moving relative to each other. No tilting of lasers or anything. No other interactions.


A sees the light pulse hit the mirror in his clock. B sees the light pulse hit the mirror in his clock. What happens when they look at the other's clock? According to your explanation above, it sounds like the light misses. How can one person see the pulse hit, and the other sees it miss?

A classical Doppler shift regarding space and spacecraft is when a moving radio on a spacecraft that is moving away from the earth transmits, let’s say, a 1,000 Hz per second tone signal,

First, a nitpick. A 'Hz/s' is a meaningless unit. Frequency is measured in Hz. You also don't want to use tones - sound can't propagate througha vacuum - you want to use light.


Hz/s isn’t meaningless—it would measure a rate of change in frequency. That makes this particular misuse a bit worse, as a reader quickly skimming the thread (ie, me) might get confused for a while. It is a bit of a nitpick though. :)


Dead wrong. The speed of the signal - which I assume is what you mean by rate - is not changing. The light sent by the spacecraft will still be travelling at 2.998 x 10^8 m/s. The sound coming out of my radio will still be travelling at 331.5 m/s. Both observers will agree on that. The wavelength and the frequency change.

So, am I right in thinking that classical Doppler does not work out with electromagnetic waves because the propagation speed is constant, c? In a physical system, the wave medium is actually in motion altering the relative propagation speed of the wave, whereas light has no physical medium to move.


Are you saying the sound itself moves through the air? If so could you please explain why that thousand hz tone takes less than a second to travel from say New York to L.A. instead of the four hours that the sound(which travels at approximately 740 miles per second) should take? Or just perhaps the tone is just a modulated carrier wave moving at c.

The 1kHz tone is carried on a higher frequency carrier wave. If the frequency of the carrier wave changes due to redshifting, the 1kHz tone will be redshifted by the same ratio. So, it is reasonable to say you are transmitting a 1kHz tone, though it does needlessly distract (obviously) from the main argument.

So, am I right in thinking that classical Doppler does not work out with electromagnetic waves because the propagation speed is constant, c? In a physical system, the wave medium is actually in motion altering the relative propagation speed of the wave, whereas light has no physical medium to move.

Not entirely. The speed of any wave, including sound, is a property of the medium through which it travels and is independent of the motion of the source and receiver. In classical terms, one way of measuring motion through a medium is to compare the observed speed of a wave to the known propagation speed of that wave in the medium. An observer who is stationary with respect to the medium (again in classical terms) will see the same propagation speed regardless of the source's motion. An observer in front of a car going 60 mph will not measure the speed of sound from the car's horn as 850 mph (if the speed of sound is 790 mph) in front of the car and 730 mph behind it.

Now light doesn't require a physical medium. Rather its speed is determined by the electromagnetic properties of the vacuum, or of any physical medium it travels through. It differs from sound in that all observers observe it's speed as the same regardless of their motion. Thus you can't determine your motion in relation to some medium (call it aether if you want) by measuring the speed of light. This, in effect is what the null result of the MM experiment showed. This, together with the relativistic effects of time dilation and space contraction, complicate the relativitstic doppler effect although the basic idea is the same. Wavefronts are compressed in front of a moving source (blue shift) and lengthened behind it (red shift). You need relativity to determine the precise value correctly.

One of the things that causes confusion about the constancy of c is that light exhibits particle behavior as well as wave behavior. The parallel with sound waves, and the constancy of the speed of sound in air regadless of the motion of the source, works fine when you think of light as strictly a wave phenomenon (and ignore the issue of the observer's speed w/r/t the "ether").

However, the parallel doesn't work at all when you think of light as a stream of photons - or "little bullets". Our intuition, based on everyday experience, tells us those photons should go faster "in front of" a moving source, and slower "behind" it.

The parallel with sound waves, and the constancy of the speed of sound in air regadless of the motion of the source, works fine when you think of light as strictly a wave phenomenon (and ignore the issue of the observer's speed w/r/t the "ether").
That's not a parallel, is it? After all, for light, each observer would measure the same speed. That's not true for sound.

However, the parallel doesn't work at all when you think of light as a stream of photons - or "little bullets". Our intuition, based on everyday experience, tells us those photons should go faster "in front of" a moving source, and slower "behind" it.
Maybe it doesn't work at all, period.

The parallel with sound waves, and the constancy of the speed of sound in air regadless of the motion of the source, works fine when you think of light as strictly a wave phenomenon (and ignore the issue of the observer's speed w/r/t the "ether").
That's not a parallel, is it? After all, for light, each observer would measure the same speed. That's not true for sound.
It is if you read EtaC's original scenario carefully. He's talking about an observer who is stationary with the medium (air), and comparing the speed of sound he measures from a source that's moving (i.e. approaching vs. receding). In that case, the observer would measure the same speed of sound in both cases, but a shift in frequency between the two cases.

However, the restriction that the observer must be stationary w/r/t the medium makes it a limited analogy, since that is not a requirement in SR or GR. Lightspeed is always measured the same, regardless of any motion of observer or source.

Call it “pulses” if you want. A 1,000 Hz pulse sent by radio.

Is the nitpicking night on the board?
Are you kidding? Every night is nitpicking night, here at the BABB. 8)
And trust me. If I had said "cycles", someone would have complained because I did not say Hz.
Yes and no. I'd complain, and will complain even now, that you said "cycles" instead of "cycles per second", when the post to which you were responding was clearly and unambiguously speaking of "cycles per second". You're the only one who wants to bring raw, unadorned "cycles" into it, after bringing up "Herz per second" before.
What causes this type of Doppler shift is because the transmitter on the spacecraft is sending out 1,000 Hz, but the distance between the earth and the spacecraft increases constantly, so the signal has further and further to travel. This stretches out the wavelength of the signal in space, so that the frequency that is received on earth is only 999 Hz per second. If the spacecraft could stop in space, so that the distance between it and the earth does not increase, then the earth would receive the full 1,000 Hz per second.

If the spacecraft is moving toward the earth and is sending out a 1,000 Hz signal, then the radio wavelengths are compressed, because the distance between the radio and the earth is decreasing, and so the radio on earth receives something like a 1,001 Hz per second signal. This is called a “blueshifted” signal.
As proof of this theory, we could also use a reflective mirror on a moving spacecraft, and we can have a light pulse signal sent from earth and reflected back from the moving mirror. This way we know that the 1,000 Hz signal never changes at the source, because the source is at the earth and is not moving.

But when the mirror moves away from the earth, and the signal is reflected back, the signal is redshifted and only a 999 Hz per second signal comes back to the earth. When the mirror starts back toward the earth, the reflected light signal becomes blueshifted and the earth receives 1,001 Hz per second.
You don't state that these mirror-bearing spacecraft are moving at the same rate as the transmitting spacecraft, but it would be a reasonable assumption for anyone attempting to learn anything here. So, for their benefit, I'd point out that if they were travelling at the same velocity, Earth would receive first approximately 998 Hz (not per second) as it travels away from Earth, then approximately 1002 Hz on the return trip.
Were it otherwise, you could try to argue your way out of your next speeding ticket by telling the judge that the radar gun manufacturers make radar guns that read twice your actual speed. :wink:

d 2022,
I'm working on it. He's got a couple of things within his equations that I have no idea why they are there. He has also referenced something near the end that I'm trying to track down. Bear with me.

The parallel with sound waves, and the constancy of the speed of sound in air regadless of the motion of the source, works fine when you think of light as strictly a wave phenomenon (and ignore the issue of the observer's speed w/r/t the "ether").
That's not a parallel, is it? After all, for light, each observer would measure the same speed. That's not true for sound.
It is if you read EtaC's original scenario carefully.
I was responding to the "The parallel with sound waves, and the constancy of the speed of sound in air regadless of the motion of the source, works fine" part. It seems to me that the parallel doesn't work fine at all, there.

d 2022,
I'm working on it. He's got a couple of things within his equations that I have no idea why they are there. He has also referenced something near the end that I'm trying to track down. Bear with me.
Are you talking about this?

They took the General Theory of Relativity which Einstein had devised and constructed a "bridge" or "creation tensor" to link the energy of nuclear fields with that of gravitational fields by co-variant matrices.see link
http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/ccX-3-a4.html
The basic relationship of General Relativity which they used as a basis for their system is:

Ruv - .5guvR = 8(Pi)kTuv
Ruv = Ricci's ten-component sub-Riemannian space, curvature tensor
guv = the metric tensor
R = the selected Ricci scalar components
k = a universal constant: proportional to Newton's gravitational constant
Pi = the usual constant: 3.14...
Tuv = the components (potentials) of the energy-stress tensor

Although Deser and Arnowitt's proposed equations were quite difficult to work with, it is assumed that subsequent linear variations - allowing major leaps in human science to develop.

When the Unified Field Theory is finally released to the public, it will be recognized quite easily; for it will have explained why the proton is exactly 1836 times the gravitational mass of an electron,... why there is no neutral mu-meson of mass 200,... why (h) is a constant... and why hc/e2 is always equal to (137)...

The true "Unified Field Theory" will no longer be called a "theory"; it will be known as the "Law of Unity". (snip)

The claims of the author after a mathematical demonstration are:
http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/ccX-5.html

Looking at the assumption in (Eq. 19)...(ve) was the term used in the beginning to represent the ether wind velocity... This means Einstein used fluid space as a basis for Special Relativity. His failing was in declaring the velocity of light an observable limit to the velocity of any mass when it should only have been the limit to any observable electromagnetic wave velocity in the ether. The velocity of light is only a limit velocity in the fluid of space where it is being observed. If the energy-density of space is greater or less in another part of space, then the relativistic velocity of light will pass up and down through the reference light wave velocity limit - if such exists.
Do not fall into the trap of assuming that this fluid space cannot have varying energy-density. Perhaps, the reader is this very moment saying, an incompressible fluid space does not allow concentrations of energy - but he is wrong - dead wrong!

http://au.geocities.com/psyberplasmic/ccX-5.html

Comments?
edited
In the same link the author gives the reason why no ether was detected.
Because than "the test results cannot prove or disprove the existence of an ether... only whether or not the Earth is moving relative to such an ether."
quote:
In essence, what Michelson, Morley, Einstein, and many other scientists have said is that the M-M test showed the velocity of light was not affected by the Earth's orbital motion. "Therefore" they have said, "we have one of two conclusions to draw":

1) The Earth is orbiting the Sun and there is no ether, or,

2) The Earth is not orbiting the Sun and there is an ether but since the earth is not moving through the ether, the ether "wind" cannot be detected. Obviously, this conclusion is negated by Earth's observed helio-centric orbit.

However, their reasoning should also have incorporated a third option:

3) The Earth is orbiting Ihe Sun and so is the ether; therefore, no ether wind could be detected in the orbital vector immediately in the vicinity of Earth.

In other words, the test results cannot prove or disprove the existence of an ether... only whether or not the Earth is moving relative to such an ether.

RELATIVISTS DISCARD EVIDENCE

By the time the ether wind was proven to exist, Einstein's theories were already winning strong support on the merits of celestial observations which closely agreed with Einstein's predicted values. As a result, the scientific community decided to explain the ether wind phenomenon as a result of Earth's spinning in its own ether blanket which Earth was apparently dragging through space. No explanation was ever agreed upon as to the origin or extent of this ether blanket. It was simply a way to sweep a discrepancy under the carpet.

EINSTEIN ADMITS ERROR...
[quote]
In a biography written just before his death, Professor Einstein is quoted as admitting he had a fundamental error in Relativity. It was, he said, one which-when corrected-will explain how light - an obvious wave form - can be propagated across an apparently non-inertial space. Einstein also stated that the discovery of the solution to this error would probably be the result of some serendipitous discovery in the sixties. However, before he died, Einstein did manage to partially correct his error. With the help of the well-known Dr. Erwin Schrödinger, Dr. Einstein was able to construct a 'total theory' for existence. It was called the "Unified Field Theory". Although Dr. Einstein was able to lay the basic framework before his death, it is reasonably certain that a more readily-usable version of the "Unified Field Theory" was only completed by other physicists after Einstein had died.

One of the more promising contributions toward a usable unified field theory was offered by Dr. Stanley Deser and Dr. Richard Arnowitt (see Appendix 4 of The Gravities Situation in Appendix (3) of this book). They took the General Theory of Relativity which Einstein had devised and constructed a "bridge" or "creation tensor" to link the energy of nuclear fields with that of gravitational fields by co-variant matrices. The basic relationship of General Relativity which they used as a basis for their system is:

discuted in your last post above.

1) The Earth is orbiting the Sun and there is no ether, or,

2) The Earth is not orbiting the Sun and there is an ether but since the earth is not moving through the ether, the ether "wind" cannot be detected. Obviously, this conclusion is negated by Earth's observed helio-centric orbit.

However, their reasoning should also have incorporated a third option:

3) The Earth is orbiting Ihe Sun and so is the ether; therefore, no ether wind could be detected in the orbital vector immediately in the vicinity of Earth.

In other words, the test results cannot prove or disprove the existence of an ether... only whether or not the Earth is moving relative to such an ether. Problem: If the ether can't be detected by any experiment we do (we've done thousands, both on and off the surface of the earth), how is it ok to assume it exists? All I keep seeing is that as the various ether theories are proven wrong by new evidence, the theories get more and more convoluted to account for the new evidence. Never is there any positive evidence of an ether, just evidence that doesn't quite rule it out. Its epicycles all over again.
RELATIVISTS DISCARD EVIDENCE

By the time the ether wind was proven to exist... What exactly is the evidence that there is an ether?

Remember again: evidence must be positive, ie, if it can be explained without resorting to an ether, it is not evidence for an ether. That's the way science works.

3) The Earth is orbiting Ihe Sun and so is the ether; therefore, no ether wind could be detected in the orbital vector immediately in the vicinity of Earth.

Presumably this ether is also spinning with the earth (so that all spots on the earth surface, whether on the day side or the night side) are motionless with respect to the ether--this is fairly peculiar, as this means that the ether near the earth's surface is moving at much less than earth orbital velocity.

This ether is peculiar stuff. It is apparently orbiting the sun in the plane of the ecliptic in the direction of motion of the planets, so, presumably, as long as the planet had a zero inclination zero eccentricity orbit it would be motionless with respect to the ether (well, provided it was rotating in the same direction as the rest of the planets). It's not too clear what happens outside the ecliptic--is there no ether there? Regardless, planets with measurable eccentricities (such as Mercury) should never be motionless with regard to the ether wind, so MM experiments there should show a positive result. Similarly, interplanetary probes on elliptical orbits (and especially those with highly inclined orbits) should show unexpected shifts in frequency due to their having a non-zero velocity with respect to the ether wind. I haven't worked through the numbers here, but it might be that some of these results would be measurable.

1) The Earth is orbiting the Sun and there is no ether, or,

2) The Earth is not orbiting the Sun and there is an ether but since the earth is not moving through the ether, the ether "wind" cannot be detected. Obviously, this conclusion is negated by Earth's observed helio-centric orbit.

However, their reasoning should also have incorporated a third option:

3) The Earth is orbiting Ihe Sun and so is the ether; therefore, no ether wind could be detected in the orbital vector immediately in the vicinity of Earth.

In other words, the test results cannot prove or disprove the existence of an ether... only whether or not the Earth is moving relative to such an ether. Problem: If the ether can't be detected by any experiment we do (we've done thousands, both on and off the surface of the earth)snip

But the ultimate test must be done far away of the vinicity of the Earth based on option 3
3) The Earth is orbiting Ihe Sun and so is the ether; therefore, no ether wind could be detected in the orbital vector immediately in the vicinity of Earth.

3) The Earth is orbiting Ihe Sun and so is the ether; therefore, no ether wind could be detected in the orbital vector immediately in the vicinity of Earth.

Presumably this ether is also spinning with the earth (so that all spots on the earth surface, whether on the day side or the night side) are motionless with respect to the ether--this is fairly peculiar, as this means that the ether near the earth's surface is moving at much less than earth orbital velocity.

This ether is peculiar stuff. It is apparently orbiting the sun in the plane of the ecliptic in the direction of motion of the planets, so, presumably, as long as the planet had a zero inclination zero eccentricity orbit it would be motionless with respect to the ether (well, provided it was rotating in the same direction as the rest of the planets). It's not too clear what happens outside the ecliptic--is there no ether there? Regardless, planets with measurable eccentricities (such as Mercury) should never be motionless with regard to the ether wind, so MM experiments there should show a positive result. Similarly, interplanetary probes on elliptical orbits (and especially those with highly inclined orbits) should show unexpected shifts in frequency due to their having a non-zero velocity with respect to the ether wind.
Could it be the explanation for the shifting in frequency of the Vikings probes and other probes detected?

Aldrin:

On point 3 there is one observation (or lack thereof) that makes this also a problem.

I do agree that a local chunk of aether, following the earth in its orbit (like our atmosphere) would satisfy the M-M experiment, it would also cause an abberation in the path of starlight.

This abberation is caused as the light shifts from the non-moving aether to the co-moving aether.

This abberation has never been observed (though some minor abberation caused and predicted by the index of refraction of air has been).

Aldrin:

On point 3 there is one observation (or lack thereof) that makes this also a problem.

I do agree that a local chunk of aether, following the earth in its orbit (like our atmosphere) would satisfy the M-M experiment, it would also cause an abberation in the path of starlight.

This abberation is caused as the light shifts from the non-moving aether to the co-moving aether.

This abberation has never been observed (though some minor abberation caused and predicted by the index of refraction of air has been).
Point 3 imply than all the ether contained in the Solar system is orbiting the Sun so probably reaching the heliopause.It is strange than the shifting in frequency of the Vikings probe signal as changed near or past the heliopause.
I think your demonstration only prove than there is no local chunk of aether, following the earth in its orbit (like our atmosphere)not than there is or not the presence of an aether.
In other words, the test results cannot prove or disprove the existence of an ether... only whether or not the Earth is moving relative to such an ether.
But the shifting in frequency of the signal coming from the Viking probes is a good test and to this day is still mysterious about the cause....hmm!

I think you're refering to the Pioneer craft right? And that odd extra redshifting in light:

1) has been noticed for quite some time, before the craft got to the heliopause.

2) A change in light speed does not change the energy (i.e. redshift it), nor does a change in direction (which is what a transition from moving to "non" moving aether would do).

I think you're refering to the Pioneer craft right? And that odd extra redshifting in light:

1) has been noticed for quite some time, before the craft got to the heliopause.

But do we really know the exact distance to the heliopause?What is the limit of the Sun`s attraction?

2) A change in light speed does not change the energy (i.e. redshift it), nor does a change in direction (which is what a transition from moving to "non" moving aether would do).

But apparently the signal is blue shifted see Jerry Jensen explanation.
Are you defining a non moving ether as an ether not orbiting the Sun ie outside the gravity field of the Sun?

Problem: If the ether can't be detected by any experiment we do (we've done thousands, both on and off the surface of the earth),

There is plenty of evidence of an “ether”, a “light propagating medium” in space.

First, there is the evidence of the light from the revolving binaries. Since the “fast” light from the binary that is approaching us never overtakes and passes “slow” light emitted earlier by a receding binary, that indicates that that the speed of the light from both binaries is regulated to the same speed in deep space.

Second, since light reaches us from superluminal galaxies, this indicates that the photons emitted by superluminal galaxies speed up as they move closer and closer to the earth.

Third, light slows down in a gravity field and speeds up in a weak one; light slows down in glass, water, etc, but speeds up again when it leaves that dense medium. This indicates that light is not a “projectile” like machine gun bullets.

Fourth, a reasonably steady speed of light at the surface of the earth indicates that the “medium” tends to be concentrated around astronomical bodies and moves through space with the bodies, near the surfaces of the bodies

First, to address aldrin:

The heliopause is not where the sun loses the battle of gravitational tugs of war. It is where the solar wind is no longer able to beat back the interstellar medium.

I stand corrected. While the signal is still redshifted, it is less redshifted than predicted (thus the light is bluer than predicted). Actually I made a slip, I pointed that out elsewhere already.

By non-moving I meant co-moving, it moves with the sun, for whatever reasons the aether crowd wants to whip up.

Problem: If the ether can't be detected by any experiment we do (we've done thousands, both on and off the surface of the earth),

There is plenty of evidence of an “ether”, a “light propagating medium” in space.

First, there is the evidence of the light from the revolving binaries. Since the “fast” light from the binary that is approaching us never overtakes and passes “slow” light emitted earlier by a receding binary, that indicates that that the speed of the light from both binaries is regulated to the same speed in deep space.

Second, since light reaches us from superluminal galaxies, this indicates that the photons emitted by superluminal galaxies speed up as they move closer and closer to the earth.

Third, light slows down in a gravity field and speeds up in a weak one; light slows down in glass, water, etc, but speeds up again when it leaves that dense medium. This indicates that light is not a “projectile” like machine gun bullets.

Fourth, a reasonably steady speed of light at the surface of the earth indicates that the “medium” tends to be concentrated around astronomical bodies and moves through space with the bodies, near the surfaces of the bodies

1) Okay, I can agree with that, but that doesn't require an Aether, only that light, in a vacuum, travels at C, regardless of the velocity of the emitters or obsevers. You know, SR and GR say that.

2) Supraluminal galaxies eh? Where do you see that? Ohhh...you probably are refering to the redshift (z) >1 galaxies eh? Well, don't forget that after a certain speed a relativistic equation is used to calculate the redshifts. So after about z = .5 you don't use the typical delta W/ W (where W is wavelength).

3) Right, its a wave, or behaves like one under those circumstances. No problem there. But, ah, whats that got to do with the Aether?

4) You mean an absolutely steady speed of light near the surface of the earth (and everywhere else, when on an gravitational equipotential line). And the lack of abberation basically keeps that from being the case.

The speed of light in any reference frame is the same speed of light in any other unaccelerated reference frame. The speed of light in a vacuum is a constant, and all other velocities for matter are not. The speed of light is therefore special, that's one of the reasons why the theory is called "Special Relativity."

If there was an "ether," then light observed from distant supernovae would behave differently from what is actually observed. Here's why:

A supernova event occurs as observed from earth, the light emitted from exploding stellar matter moves out in shock waves over a wide range of velocities. Some very fast, some slower. These many velocities, emitting light as they move, would produce a large range of spectral lines, seen in a Doppler shift.

If light needed an ether through which to travel to earthly instruments (from all the wide range of exploding velocities of light emitting matter,)the lightwaves would arrive at earth over a wide range of time, in fact over hundreds of years in some cases. But this doesn't happen. Red and blue shifted light arrives at the same time. (The visual images created by the light may be younger or older, but the light arrives at the same time.)

Astronomer Ned Wright offers this example:

"For the Crab supernova, with D/c = 6000 years, dv = 10,000 km/sec would give a range of arrival times of 200 years. But the Crab was only bright for 1 year. For very distant supernovae with D/c = 5 billion years,
modern observations with spectrographs show that the redshifted and blueshifted light arrives at the same time: within 10 days. This limit on the spread is 5 billion times smaller than the prediction of the "bullet" model of light." Source: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/relatvty.htm

When the star that made the Crab Nebula blew up, the distance it takes to travel in time was 6000 light years. Material was flying away at 10,000 kilometers per second. Light from that material, moving through space and arriving on earth at various speeds would be observed over a period of 200 years if there was an ether effecting it. But the "guest star" seen by the Chinese was bright for one year.

Red and blue shifted light arrives at the same time.


The “bullet” or “projectile” model of light does not work and it was disproved many decades ago through analysis of light from rapidly revolving binaries. In fact, the disproof of the “projectile” model, proves the “local ether” model.

When the crab nebula blew up, all the light rays from it traveled through deep space at the same speed, being regulated in deep space by a light-speed regulating medium. So-called “fast” light never overtakes “slow” light in deep space, because the medium in deep space regulates all light that travels through it to the same speed.

It is the medium that causes emitter-related blueshifts and redshifts. In the medium, the blueshifted light wavelengths are compressed (shorter), and the redshifted light wavelengths are stretched out (longer).

You can't "desgin" the medium to have certaiin qualities you want so that it will fit observation, it just doesn't work that way. If it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong.

Red and blue shifted light arrives at the same time.

Chip is right. The doppler shifts are not caused by differences in speed. Although different frequencies can have different speeds when traveling through a material, the interstellar medium is so diffuse that it may as well be a vacuum. In any case the compression and spreading out of doppler shifted waves, of any kind (light, sound, slinkies) is due to relative motion of the source and receiver not, as I said above, because of differing speed of blue and red light. Any high school physics text will explain that for you.


The “bullet” or “projectile” model of light does not work and it was disproved many decades ago through analysis of light from rapidly revolving binaries. In fact, the disproof of the “projectile” model, proves the “local ether” model.

Then I ask you to explain the photoelectric effect, explain why atoms only absorb and emit particular frequencies of light, and a host of other phenomena that can only be explained by the quanitzation of light. Sam, you need to get over this view that wave and particle are mutually exclusive terms. This is a false dilemma. In modern physics (since the 1920's anyway) all objects are considered to have particle and wave properties. The question "Is light a particle or a wave" is meaningless. The only answer is "yes" or better "both, and neither." (Gad, I love being cryptic :) )

It is the medium that causes emitter-related blueshifts and redshifts. In the medium, the blueshifted light wavelengths are compressed (shorter), and the redshifted light wavelengths are stretched out (longer).
As mentioned above, not even wrong.

It is the medium that causes emitter-related blueshifts and redshifts. In the medium, the blueshifted light wavelengths are compressed (shorter), and the redshifted light wavelengths are stretched out (longer).
As mentioned above, not even wrong.

I can't even think of a way that the proposed Aether would selectively know which wavelengths to lengthen or shorten.

It is the medium that causes emitter-related blueshifts and redshifts. In the medium, the blueshifted light wavelengths are compressed (shorter), and the redshifted light wavelengths are stretched out (longer).

Except that doesn't happen. If such a medium exists, it would take some time for it to act on the light. That should mean that we see a wider range of wavelengths for any given spectral line from nearer objects (like the Sun) than we do for distant objects (like, say, Andromeda). We don't.

I also agree with Captain Swoop and Normandy. It seems like this medium is extremely selective. I can't think of any good reason for it to regulate speeds. I mean, if it slows down this supposedly fast light and speeds up this supposedly slow light, how does it know the difference? Shouldn't it either cause both to speed up or both to slow down?

Time to get out Ockham's Razor here. There is no such medium.

Chip is right. The doppler shifts are not caused by differences in speed.

That’s what I said: “When the crab nebula blew up, all the light rays from it traveled through deep space at the same speed, “

What Ned Wright’s comments are about is the old “projectile” theory. I said that theory is wrong and was proven wrong many decades ago.

The redshifts and blueshifts in light from emitters is caused by lengthened and compressed wavelengths in the medium. “Relative motion” does not cause the physical lengthening and compression of the waves. Motion of the emitter through the medium causes them. Motion of the observer through the medium does not cause them.



Then I ask you to explain the photoelectric effect, explain why atoms only absorb and emit particular frequencies of light, and a host of other phenomena that can only be explained by the quanitzation of light.

The “bullet” or “projectile” model does not refer to the particle nature of light, it refers to a mode of propagation. A bullet receives its propagating impulse only at the start of its motion, and when it slows down while traveling through a dense medium, such as water, it can not speed up again after leaving the water. But light photons can and do speed up again. This indicates propagation by means of a medium, not because of an initial impulse.

I can't even think of a way that the proposed Aether would selectively know which wavelengths to lengthen or shorten.

It apparently works similar to the way sound works. The medium regulates the speed. Once deposited into a medium, the light takes off, following the speed-regulation laws of the medium. If an emitter is moving through the medium, a single wave is not all emitted all at once or all at the same place or all at the same time, but over different places at slightly different times since the wave has length and duration. This causes the compression or the lengthening of the wave in the medium. Generally with sound, the “interface” between the emitter and the medium is very sharply delineated, but with light this is not quite true.

I can't even think of a way that the proposed Aether would selectively know which wavelengths to lengthen or shorten.

It apparently works similar to the way sound works. The medium regulates the speed. Once deposited into a medium, the light takes off, following the speed-regulation laws of the medium. If an emitter is moving through the medium, a single wave is not all emitted all at once or all at the same place or all at the same time, but over different places at slightly different times since the wave has length and duration. This causes the compression or the lengthening of the wave in the medium. Generally with sound, the “interface” between the emitter and the medium is very sharply delineated, but with light this is not quite true.

Sorry, but are you making this up as you go along?

I mean, if it slows down this supposedly fast light and speeds up this supposedly slow light, how does it know the difference? Shouldn't it either cause both to speed up or both to slow down?




Let’s say that we have sound moving through a sealed railroad car that is moving rapidly away from us. We attach a sound emitter to the inside of the far end of the car, so the sound has to go completely through the air that is sealed inside the car before it leaves the rear end of the car and goes out into the open air.

Now let’s have sound moving through another sealed railroad car that is backing up and is moving rapidly toward us.

So here we have temporarily “slow” sound and temporarily “fast” sound moving toward us, while the sound waves are still moving through the air that is sealed inside the two cars.

But when the sound emerges from the rear of the two cars, its speed is no longer being regulated by the air inside the cars but by the air outside the cars. The outside air speeds up the “slow” sound waves and it slows down the “fast” sound waves, so that they all travel at the same speed through the outside air.

The waves that are coming from the car that is moving away from us have their wavelengths stretched out in the outside air, and the waves that are coming from the car that is moving toward us have their wavelengths compressed in the outside air, but all the waves travel at the same speed in the outside air.

This ether is peculiar stuff. It is apparently orbiting the sun in the plane of the ecliptic in the direction of motion of the planets, so, presumably, as long as the planet had a zero inclination zero eccentricity orbit it would be motionless with respect to the ether
I was thinking about this some more in the shower this morning. Say you have a probe out by Mars, beaming a signal to us. If this probe were ahead of us in its orbit, the signal would be heading "upstream", against the ether wind that inexplicably is orbiting the sun in the plane of the ecliptic. If the probe were behind us in its orbit, the signal would be heading "downstream"--with the ether wind. So, the ether wind would cause perceptible differences in travel times; we'd see wierd oscillations in computed distances as we passed the various objects. This shouldn't be hard to check for; indeed, it should be so easy to check for that the only way it would not have been noticed by now is by a massive government conspiracy.

Hey, Sam-

Any resolution on the "light pulse" clock dilemma? Can one observer see the pulse miss the clock, while the other one sees it hit?

Hey, Sam-
Can one observer see the pulse miss the clock, while the other one sees it hit?

Nope.

Can one baseball fan see a player hit a home run, while another baseball fan walking in the same bleachers at the same time NOT see him hit a home run?

Note in the drawing that you linked me to, the laser is aimed up but the beam moves to the right. That indicates an ether wind. I’ve never seen a laser beam come out of a laser an immediately turn right. There is no strong ether wind here at the surface of the earth, so your drawing is erroneous.

Have you actually seen one of these “light pulse” clocks work? Do you have one at the place where you work? Have you played around with it?

I can't even think of a way that the proposed Aether would selectively know which wavelengths to lengthen or shorten.

It apparently works similar to the way sound works. The medium regulates the speed. Once deposited into a medium, the light takes off, following the speed-regulation laws of the medium. If an emitter is moving through the medium, a single wave is not all emitted all at once or all at the same place or all at the same time, but over different places at slightly different times since the wave has length and duration. This causes the compression or the lengthening of the wave in the medium. Generally with sound, the “interface” between the emitter and the medium is very sharply delineated, but with light this is not quite true.

No dice. For starters, light and sound are different types of waves. Sound is a disturbance in the medium, light is oscilating electromagnetic fields - fields which need no medium. You need to explain how the medium interacts with electromagnetic fields for this theory to be taken seriously.

Another problem is that light can act like a particle and you still need to address Eta C's objections there. How would photons be affected by these interfaces?

Lastly, the interface between an emitter and any medium light travels too has to be as clearly delineated as it would be with sound. Light is emitted by, say, the filament in a light bulb and passes through the vacuum inside the bulb, through the glass, and into the air. All of those are, on a macroscopic scale, sharply-defined. On an atomic scale, you're talking about getting waves past individual atoms, which sound waves manage to do. Admittedly, sound waves do it by causing the atoms to vibrate where light waves won't, but it's still a wave moving cleanly through an interface.

Hey, Sam-
Can one observer see the pulse miss the clock, while the other one sees it hit?

Nope.
Can one baseball fan see a player hit a home run, while another baseball fan walking in the same bleachers at the same time NOT see him hit a home run?

Though sometimes prone to sudden exciting runs, baseball doesn't move at the speed of light. However, basketball sometimes appears to, which accounts for the often observed phenomenon of one fan insisting that a player was fouled, while the opposing fan swears seeing the opposite. :D

Though sometimes prone to sudden exciting runs, baseball doesn't move at the speed of light. However, basketball sometimes appears to, which accounts for the often observed phenomenon of one fan insisting that a player was fouled, while the opposing fan swears seeing the opposite. :D

Lol, I’ve always wondered what caused that! It never occurred to me that bad refereeing is caused by a “relativistic” effect! I thought some of the referees were either blind or cheating!

Hey, Sam-
Can one observer see the pulse miss the clock, while the other one sees it hit?

Nope.

Can one baseball fan see a player hit a home run, while another baseball fan walking in the same bleachers at the same time NOT see him hit a home run?

Note in the drawing that you linked me to, the laser is aimed up but the beam moves to the right. That indicates an ether wind. I’ve never seen a laser beam come out of a laser an immediately turn right. There is no strong ether wind here at the surface of the earth, so your drawing is erroneous.


It doesn't indicate an ether, all it indicates is that there is relative motion. Isn't that what it would look like to a moving observer? How do you think it would look? The laser is at one position at time t0, the mirror has moved by the time the light pulse hits it at t1, and the detector is at another position when it receives the pulse at t2. All due to motion alone. No ether.

You won't see the laser "turn right" if you are stationary with respect to the laser. But - and you seem to agree - if the laser is moving with respect to the observer, it still has to hit the mirror.

It's just like the guy in the enclosed train (in a vacuum, if it matters to you), tossing the ball straight up. To him, it goes up and down. To the guy on the train platform, the ball follows a parabola. It's all a matter of reference frames - no ether.

So, just due to relative motion, doesn't the light have to take a longer path for one observer than the other? And for constant c, thus a longer time?

Taibak said:
>>>>>>No dice. For starters, light and sound are different types of waves.

I know that.

>>>>>>Sound is a disturbance in the medium, light is oscillating electromagnetic fields - fields which need no medium.

I’ll go along with the Maxwell tiny little oscillating-fields theory. I don’t disagree with that. It’s just that there is a lot of observational and experimental evidence that those little oscillating fields are influenced by something in space. The original “theory” that they always move through “empty space” at “c”, and that space between the astronomical bodies is completely “empty”, and that all the stars are “fixed”, and that the universe is “fixed” and “not expanding”, just doesn’t match observation anymore.

>>>>>>>>You need to explain how the medium interacts with electromagnetic fields for this theory to be taken seriously.

If I knew, I’d put it all in a paper and submit it to a science journal, but I don’t know how it works in detail. I’m just taking basic observational and experimental evidence of the past hundred years and pointing out what the observations and experiments indicate.

>>>>>>>Another problem is that light can act like a particle and you still need to address Eta C's objections there. How would photons be affected by these interfaces?

Field waves can act like “particles”. Even sound waves can act like particles. There is a “resonation” effect, the effect caused by the “bump, bump, bump” of the field waves. A to-and-fro motion caused in the atoms, molecules, and the material light strikes by “bumps” of just the right frequencies that causes the material, the atoms, and/or the molecules to “resonate”. That’s why some “indoor” plastics deteriorate severely and quickly if you leave them outdoors where they can be hit by ultra-violet light. The frequency of the light disintegrates certain kinds of plastics and other material.

Have you ever had a plastic tooth filling? Have you ever seen the dentist use a little ultra-violet light to “cure” the epoxy? That’s a “resonation” effect. He’s not hitting the epoxy with “particles”. He’s hitting them with a certain frequency of waves that causes just the right resonation effect.

Read Tendall’s 19th Century treatise on sound and you will learn some amazing things about resonation. There are many resonation related sound effects that can be applied directly to light and other kinds of waves. Ask a radio guy why a radio antenna needs to be the same length (or a certain fraction) as the wavelength of a radio wave. That’s “resonation”, and you can do it without particles.

For example, you can glue some small magnets to a rotating disk, and have them pass near to another magnet that is glued to the center of a plate of glass or a disk of metal or wood, and you can get the glass, metal, or wood to resonate and vibrate when you rotate the disk, without the magnets ever touching one another. That is resonation by means of oscillating or changing “fields”. As a matter of fact, that’s how a basic sound speaker works, with an oscillating electro-magnetic field that drives the speaker diaphragm.

So, you don’t need light photons to be little hard round “point particles” in order to get them to act like “particles”.

>>>>>>>Lastly, the interface between an emitter and any medium light travels too has to be as clearly delineated as it would be with sound. Light is emitted by, say, the filament in a light bulb and passes through the vacuum inside the bulb, through the glass, and into the air.

No it doesn’t “have to be” clearly delineated. It can be blended or stretched over many thousands of miles or more. It doesn’t have to be a sharp delineation like in the bulb: vacuum/glass, glass/air. And sound media doesn’t have to be “clearly delineated” either. Different air pockets, wind, air gusts, aren’t clearly delineated, and in many cases they are blended. Sound can go from thick and humid air into a blend, and then into thin dry air, with no clear delineation, no dividing line.

>>>>>>>Admittedly, sound waves do it by causing the atoms to vibrate where light waves won't,

Oh, when I go out in the sunlight, the atoms of my skin vibrate like heck. What do you think microwave ovens are for? Do you think little microwave “particles” are hitting your coffee and bouncing off and that heats up your coffee? Nope. It’s resonation. The oscillating microwave fields resonate the fields in the water molecules in your coffee and in any food that contains water that you put in a microwave oven.

It's just like the guy in the enclosed train (in a vacuum, if it matters to you), tossing the ball straight up. To him, it goes up and down. To the guy on the train platform, the ball follows a parabola. It's all a matter of reference frames - no ether.

Not so. The “ether” concept applies to the guy on the train too.

If he tosses a ball up on an open flat car, the ball will not go straight up and straight down. It will fall to his side, toward the rear of the train. If you pour a cup of coffee inside a sealed car, you can pour it straight down over the cup, but if you do it on an open flat car, the coffee will miss the cup and hit the table behind the cup, toward the rear of the train.

What’s the difference? “Ether”, i.e. moving fields as compared to non-moving fields; fields stationary with the ground as compared to fields stationary with the train.

If you move the laser on a flat car fast enough, let’s say at a couple of thousand miles an hour, the beam will miss a small mirror that is directly above the laser and that is moving with the laser. That is because you are moving the laser through the propagating medium here at the earth. On the other hand, if you put the laser on the ground and put the mirror directly above the laser, the beam will hit the mirror, even though the laser (and the whole earth) is moving through space at tremendous speeds relative to other galaxies. So what’s the difference? The earth carries its own local “medium” with it as it travels through space. This was revealed by the Michelson-Morley experiment. But if you move a laser rapidly at the surface of the earth, you are moving it through the earth’s medium, so the light will miss the mirror.

So, just due to relative motion, doesn't the light have to take a longer path for one observer than the other? And for constant c, thus a longer time?

No, and there is no "constant c". Read Einstein's 1911 paper. Read Shapiro's reports.

If he tosses a ball up on an open flat car, the ball will not go straight up and straight down. It will fall to his side, toward the rear of the train. If you pour a cup of coffee inside a sealed car, you can pour it straight down over the cup, but if you do it on an open flat car, the coffee will miss the cup and hit the table behind the cup, toward the rear of the train.

umm... yes, a guy in a train who throws a ball straight up in the air will find that the ball will fall straight down. it will not move towards the back of the train. it is an inertial refrence frame (assuming the train is travelling with the same velocity the entire time the ball is in the air) thus it will act as though in any intertial refrence frame. if i take a ball in my room and throw it up straight into the air, it will come back down to my hand. same would happen on the train if i did the same thing.
as for your other example of the pouring of the cup... you want to know why the tea would miss the cup in your second example? it's called wind. if you're going by on a train with no protection from the wind, of course the tea will be pushed by the wind so it will miss the cup. have you ever held a hose on a windy day? it has nothing to do with ether. unless you propose on getting an open train car in a vacuum tunnel and then pouring tea, in which case, the tea will go right into the cup, because there is no air to push it around.

If you move the laser on a flat car fast enough, let’s say at a couple of thousand miles an hour, the beam will miss a small mirror that is directly above the laser and that is moving with the laser. That is because you are moving the laser through the propagating medium here at the earth. On the other hand, if you put the laser on the ground and put the mirror directly above the laser, the beam will hit the mirror, even though the laser (and the whole earth) is moving through space at tremendous speeds relative to other galaxies. So what’s the difference? The earth carries its own local “medium” with it as it travels through space. This was revealed by the Michelson-Morley experiment. But if you move a laser rapidly at the surface of the earth, you are moving it through the earth’s medium, so the light will miss the mirror.

no, the light woudl hit the mirror. light travels with a constant speed in all refrence frames. so if you set off a flash of light at the origin of a refrence frame, pointed at the mirror that is above it, it will hit the mirror and bounce off. we went over this in modern physics class last semester. the direction of travel is perpendicular to the direction of the laser beam, so it will not be affected by the motion. unless you're talking about an accelerating refrence frame here, but that's another matter entirely.
i dont' know why you guys keep mentioning the michelson and morley experiment... that's the one that disproved the existence of ether unless i've forgotten that much in a semester...

I can't even think of a way that the proposed Aether would selectively know which wavelengths to lengthen or shorten.

It apparently works similar to the way sound works. The medium regulates the speed. Once deposited into a medium, the light takes off, following the speed-regulation laws of the medium. If an emitter is moving through the medium, a single wave is not all emitted all at once or all at the same place or all at the same time, but over different places at slightly different times since the wave has length and duration. This causes the compression or the lengthening of the wave in the medium. Generally with sound, the “interface” between the emitter and the medium is very sharply delineated, but with light this is not quite true.

Sorry, but are you making this up as you go along?

Probably, as he has yet to show an understanding (even though it has been explained several times) of the difference between mechanical and EM waves.

umm... yes, a guy in a train who throws a ball straight up in the air will find that the ball will fall straight down.

Not if he does it on an open flatcar while the train is moving. It's still an "inertial reference frame", isn't it?


you want to know why the tea would miss the cup in your second example? it's called wind.

Right. That's why Michelson-Morley were searching for an 18.6 mps "ether wind". They found none beause the local "ether" was traveling through space with the earth. That's why the light beam will miss the mirror if the laser is moving at high speed at the surface of the earth. The local "ether" is traveling with the earth, not with the laser.

he has yet to show an understanding (even though it has been explained several times) of the difference between mechanical and EM waves.

I think you mean ”between longitudinal and transverse” waves.

Both kinds of waves are both “mechanical” and “electrodynamic”. One kind involves quantum mechanics (very small scale) and the other involves both quantum and maco mechanics (slightly larger scale).

no, the light woudl hit the mirror. light travels with a constant speed in all refrence frames. so if you set off a flash of light at the origin of a refrence frame, pointed at the mirror that is above it, it will hit the mirror and bounce off. we went over this in modern physics class last semester. the direction of travel is perpendicular to the direction of the laser beam, so it will not be affected by the motion

So you mean the laser beam will move sideways through the air, as well as up and down?

Not if he does it on an open flatcar while the train is moving. It's still an "inertial reference frame", isn't it?

put the open flatcar in a vacuum chamber and it will. the wind will deflect it in the open, just like with the liquid.
the wind would be moving with a velocity towards the back of the train car and will thus push on the ball further back during its trip.


Right. That's why Michelson-Morley were searching for an 18.6 mps "ether wind". They found none beause the local "ether" was traveling through space with the earth. That's why the light beam will miss the mirror if the laser is moving at high speed at the surface of the earth. The local "ether" is traveling with the earth, not with the laser.

there is no ether, as the michelson morly experiements demonstrated. they set up their experiments to prove that there was an ether... only there is none, as their experiments showed. so now the ether must be moving with the earth. that's it... we dont' know why it chooses to move with the earth, it just does... perhaps to screw up experiments...
i don't get why it is that you cling to this ether theory, the people who were huge supporters of the ether theory at the time of the experiments admitted that there was none. while talking about the historical theory of ether, my physics prof last year spoke of a professor who was a fan of the theory telling students about his "beloved ether" and how it didn't exist, just mentioning it for historical note.
this is rather silly, the experiments originally thought to prove the existence of an ether did not show the desired effects... in fact showed effects as though there was no ether... and yet you cling to the theory that has been disproven.
also, the laser beam would not be deflected by the air as a ball or the tea would be. light does not interact with air in the way that solid or liquid objects act.

there is no ether, as the michelson morly experiements demonstrated. they set up their experiments to prove that there was an ether... only there is none, as their experiments showed.

Their experiment showed that there was no “universe stationary” ether through which the earth traveled at 18.6 mps.



so now the ether must be moving with the earth. that's it... we dont' know why it chooses to move with the earth, it just does...

It is a “local effect”. It moves locally with every astronomical body, near the body, indicating that it might be one of the “fields” that moves through space with the body. Has that not occurred to you?



the people who were huge supporters of the ether theory at the time of the experiments admitted that there was none


No they didn’t. Einstein wrote in 1918:

“There, empty space in the previous sense has physical qualities, mathematically characterized by the components of the potential of gravitation that determine the metrical behavior of that portion of space as well as its gravitational field. This situation can very well be interpreted by speaking of an ether whose state varies from point to point.”

He wrote in 1920:

“Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense.”

Lorentz wrote in 1920:

“It is not necessary to give up entirely even the ether. Many natural philosophers find satisfaction in the idea of a material intermediate substance in which the vibrations of light take place, and the will very probably be all the more inclined to imagine such a medium when they learn that, according to the Einstein theory, gravitation itself does not spread instantaneously, but with a velocity that at the first estimate may be compared with that of light. Especially in former years were such interpretations current and repeated attempts were made by speculations about the nature of the ether and about the mutations and movements that might take place in it to arrive at a clear presentation of electro-magnetic phenomena, and also of the functioning of gravitation. In my opinion it is not impossible that in the future this road, indeed abandoned at present, will once more be followed with good results, if only because it can lead to the thinking out of new experimental tests.”


Didn’t your physics professor tell you about these papers? Call him up and ask him if he is familiar with these papers.

there is no ether,

Read some of Dr. Su’s papers, such as this one:

LINK (http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:O-BFyPNC6dIJ:arxiv.org/abs/physics/0208082+local+ether+su&hl=en&ie=UTF-8)

“arXiv:physics/0208082 v1 23 Aug 2002

Local-Ether Wave Equation of Electric Field and Interferometry Experiments with Moving Medium and Path

Ching-Chuan Su

Department of Electrical Engineering
National Tsinghua University
Hsinchu, Taiwan

Abstract: Recently, we have presented the local-ether model, whereby the propagation
of earthbound waves is supposed to be referred uniquely to a geostationary inertial frame.
Further, in order to comply with this propagation model, the modifed Lorentz force law is
developed. Thereby, the corresponding wave equations of potentials and fields are derived
in this investigation. It is shown that the local-ether wave equation of electric field can
account for various precision interferometry experiments in a consistent way, including the
one-way-link experiment with a geostationary fiber, the Sagnac rotating-loop experiment
with a comoving or a geostationary dielectric medium, and Fizeau's experiment with a
moving dielectric medium in a geostationary interferometer. These experiments together
then provide a support for the local-ether wave equation. Meanwhile, some other phenomena
are predicted, which provide a means to test its validity.”


Did your professor mention Dr. Su?

was our class about dismissed theories? no.
ether was briefly mentioned, the michelson morely experiment specifically as evidence that there was no ether. the rest of the course was focused on special relativity (a smidge of general too) and quantum mechanics. it was a modern physics class, not an antiquated physics class...

Did your professor mention Dr. Su?

Is this the same Dr. Su you keep offering as proof (say about 5 or 6 times now), even though he has admitted his theory doesn't work (and you have been made aware of the fact that it doesn't work) because it doesn't match actual experimental observations. Anyone continuing to claim, as proof, something they know to be untrue, is simply being intellectually dishonest.

Sam5 if you want to claim that there is an actual aether could you please provide us with the properties, (and the experiments that determined those properties) of that aether? Things like it's density, permeability, permittivity, index of refraction would be a good start. Without providing proof those properties, your claim, of an aether, simply has no merit.

Anyone continuing to claim, as proof, something they know to be untrue, is simply being intellectually dishonest.

No, you are the one who is being dishonest. Dr. Su is a mainstream physicists who has had his theory published in the mainstream science media, including at Harvard and NASA websites. One of his papers lists the vast number of experiments that conform to his theory.

What you are trying to do is hold on to an antiquated idea that never was correct in the first place, written by a guy, so long ago, that he thought all stars were “fixed”, that the universe was not expanding, that light did not slow down when it entered a gravity field, that mechanical clocks would slow down their rates due only to relative motion, and that light speed was constant every where relative to all observers, which is impossible. You need to bring yourself into the 21st Century and reject ancient superstitions.

the rest of the course was focused on special relativity

Then your professor must have told you about how Einstein changed his idea about light speed “constancy” in his 1911 paper, and about how he added atomic clocks, acceleration, and gravity effects on atomic clocks, in his 1918 paper, since that was the only way he could resolve his own 1905 “clock paradox”, since he finally realized that relative motion alone could not slow down the rates of any mechanical clocks?

intellectually dishonest.
.
See Dr. Su’s paper, “Quantum Electromagnetics – A Local-Ether Wave Equation
Unifying Quantum Mechanics, Electromagnetics, and Gravitation”:

“In spite of such a restriction on reference frame, the consequences of this new classical
theory account for a wide variety of experiments with the propagation or
interference of electromagnetic wave, and are in accord with another variety of experiments
commonly ascribed to the special relativity, the general relativity, the Lorentz
mass-variation law, or to the de Broglie matter wave. These experiments include
the Sagnac effect in GPS, the intercontinental microwave link, and in the rotating loop
interferometry; the round-trip Sagnac effect in the interplanetary radar; the
apparently null effect in the Michelson-Morley experiment; the constancy of speed of
light radiated from a moving source; the spatial isotropy with phase stability in the
Kennedy-Thorndike experiment and the one-way fiber-link experiment; the Doppler
shift in Roemer’s observations and CMBR; the effects of a moving medium in Fizeau’s
experiment and the Sagnac loop interferometry; the light deflection by the Sun; the
gravitational effect on the interplanetary radar echo time; the gravitational redshift
in the Pound-Rebka experiment; the speed- and gravitation-dependent atomic clock
rate in GPS, the Hafele-Keating experiment, and in spacecraft microwave links; the
spatial isotropy with frequency stability in the Hughes-Drever experiment; the resonant
absorption in the Ives-Stilwell experiment, in the output frequency from ammonia
masers, and in the Mossbauer rotor experiment; the matter wavelength in the
Davisson-Germer experiment and the double-slit diffraction; the matter-wave Sagnac
effect; and the effects of earth’s rotation and gravity in the neutron interferometry.
Meanwhile, this theory leads to some predictions, particularly the effects of earth’s
motions, which then provide different approaches to test the validity of the local-ether
wave equation.”

It's just like the guy in the enclosed train (in a vacuum, if it matters to you), tossing the ball straight up. To him, it goes up and down. To the guy on the train platform, the ball follows a parabola. It's all a matter of reference frames - no ether.

Not so. The “ether” concept applies to the guy on the train too.

If he tosses a ball up on an open flat car, the ball will not go straight up and straight down. It will fall to his side, toward the rear of the train. If you pour a cup of coffee inside a sealed car, you can pour it straight down over the cup, but if you do it on an open flat car, the coffee will miss the cup and hit the table behind the cup, toward the rear of the train.


What part of "enclosed train" didn't you understand?

The point of this exercise its to investigate special relativity. For the moment, nothing else. Just this. So the laser systems are out in space, away from the earth, so there are no complicating effects. The analogy with the train is that there is no air rushing past, because the train is enclosed.


What’s the difference? “Ether”, i.e. moving fields as compared to non-moving fields; fields stationary with the ground as compared to fields stationary with the train.

If you move the laser on a flat car fast enough, let’s say at a couple of thousand miles an hour, the beam will miss a small mirror that is directly above the laser and that is moving with the laser. That is because you are moving the laser through the propagating medium here at the earth. On the other hand, if you put the laser on the ground and put the mirror directly above the laser, the beam will hit the mirror, even though the laser (and the whole earth) is moving through space at tremendous speeds relative to other galaxies. So what’s the difference? The earth carries its own local “medium” with it as it travels through space. This was revealed by the Michelson-Morley experiment. But if you move a laser rapidly at the surface of the earth, you are moving it through the earth’s medium, so the light will miss the mirror.

Away from the earth, would this happen?

As an aside, since the earth is rotating at a pretty good clip, it sounds like a vertical (or horizontal, perpendicular to the earth's rotation) laser beam that is well aligned with a small aperture should become misaligned if it is then rotated to go horizontal, aligned with or against the earth's rotation, due to ether deflection. Do you agree with that? That's an actual, testable prediction of your ether hypothesis.

so now the ether must be moving with the earth. that's it... we dont' know why it chooses to move with the earth, it just does...

It is a “local effect”. It moves locally with every astronomical body, near the body, indicating that it might be one of the “fields” that moves through space with the body. Has that not occurred to you?


It's occurred to a lot of people. But now you have to describe the transition to deep space, where the ether is stationary. How far out does this ether rotation extend? Where does the rotation begin to slow down?

he has yet to show an understanding (even though it has been explained several times) of the difference between mechanical and EM waves.

I think you mean ”between longitudinal and transverse” waves.

Both kinds of waves are both “mechanical” and “electrodynamic”. One kind involves quantum mechanics (very small scale) and the other involves both quantum and maco mechanics (slightly larger scale).

No, he means mechanical and electromagnetic. An electromagnetic wave is an oscillating EM field (light). A mechanical wave is a wave that causes massive particles to oscillate (sound waves, seismic waves, ocean waves, etc.). You missed this point as well when we were talking about light and sound passing through interfaces.

No they didn’t. Einstein wrote in 1918:

“There, empty space in the previous sense has physical qualities, mathematically characterized by the components of the potential of gravitation that determine the metrical behavior of that portion of space as well as its gravitational field. This situation can very well be interpreted by speaking of an ether whose state varies from point to point.”

You might want to take that whole quote in context there. Einstein is explicitly referring to 'the metrical behavior of that portion of space as well as its gravitational field.' That's jargon for spacetime being curved. Einstein is saying that spacetime itself has particular properties that we experience as gravitation. This curvature is a property of time and space itself and so completely permeates the universe that the ether was invoked as an analogy.

Lorentz wrote in 1920:

“It is not necessary to give up entirely even the ether. Many natural philosophers find satisfaction in the idea of a material intermediate substance in which the vibrations of light take place, and the will very probably be all the more inclined to imagine such a medium when they learn that, according to the Einstein theory, gravitation itself does not spread instantaneously, but with a velocity that at the first estimate may be compared with that of light. Especially in former years were such interpretations current and repeated attempts were made by speculations about the nature of the ether and about the mutations and movements that might take place in it to arrive at a clear presentation of electro-magnetic phenomena, and also of the functioning of gravitation. In my opinion it is not impossible that in the future this road, indeed abandoned at present, will once more be followed with good results, if only because it can lead to the thinking out of new experimental tests.”

Again, you need to use the whole quote not just cherry pick the phrase you want. You're right that Lorentz is saying that the concept of the ether might one day be brought back - although he qualifies that by saying that it might only be brought back in an attempt to test relativity by searching for the ether. If one is found, SR would need revision. He's also saying that the ether has been 'abandoned at present,' thereby admitting that there was no experimental evidence for the ether existing. There still isn't.

As for the other papers, we never discussed Dr. Su because his work is beyond the scope of an undergraduate physics course and, more importantly, is still unproven and not universally accepted by other physicists. Just because Dr. Su is a mainstream physicist doesn't mean he's right.

We did discuss the papers Einstein wrote on relativity, accelerated reference frames, and gravitation, including the 1911 paper which you seem so fond of. We also understood that the final 1916 paper explicitly superceded the 1911 paper, corrected its flaws, and replaced its theories. The 1911 paper - like several other papers Einstein published between 1905 and 1916 - were self-admitted works in progress.

Anyway, I agree with swonsont and Tensor here. Dr. Su's 'local ether' theory has been discredited both by mainstream physicists and by the author, so there's no reason to take it seriously. I also agree that you need to tell us the properties this ether has - including what causes it, its density, etc. So far, all the examples you've given have either been proven wrong, are explicable without an ether, or both. That's not exactly much to go on here....

The point of this exercise its to investigate special relativity. For the moment, nothing else. Just this. So the laser systems are out in space, away from the earth, so there are no complicating effects. The analogy with the train is that there is no air rushing past, because the train is enclosed.
.

I’m trying to explain something very simple, by analogy. The only way that a local-air sound propagating medium can travel with the train is by sealing it inside a train car. But the local light propagating medium at the earth doesn’t need to be “sealed” relative to the earth, because the earth generates it as it moves through space, so the medium at the earth travels through space with the earth.

If the rail car generated its own blanket of air, out to several yards, then we would not have to seal any air inside the train car, and the tossing ball experiment would work on an open flat car just as it works inside a sealed rail car. The laser light example has nothing at all to do with “inertial frames”. It has to do with propagating media and whether or not they travel through deep or local space with an emitter.

You are assuming that there is no light propagating medium in deep space, but this is not true. If the light clock is moving at high speed relative to another galaxy, but is stationary in-between several stars that are fixed relative to one another, then the beam will hit the mirror. But if the light clock is stationary relative to a distant galaxy but is moving relative to several stars that it is situated in-between, then the beam will miss the mirror. So this is not a matter of “relative motion” or “inertial frames”.

How far out does this ether rotation extend? Where does the rotation begin to slow down?

According to Dr. Su, the earth-based gravity-related “ether” does not rotate with the earth. Something like the way the magnetosphere does not rotate with the earth. I don’t know what causes this. It might always aim toward the sun, which I suppose would cause one rotation of it per year, but I’m not sure.

Einstein came very close to discovering this concept in his 1918 and 1920 papers, which I quoted earlier. In the 1920 paper he said that his General Relativity theory required an “ether” in space in order for light to propagate, and his “ether” tended to be the gravity fields of space.

At the end of his 1920 paper, he said:

“Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense.”

But in his last two sentences he said:

“But this ether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable media, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it.”

Ok, so he says its there in space, but it doesn’t move. However, he already knew that the full-strength gravity field at the surface of earth moves through space with the earth. But there is a big mystery as to what happens to the gravity field in deep space. We normally think of the earth’s gravity field in deep space as being “weak”, but we don’t think of it as “traveling through space” with the earth. But it seems to me that if the strong areas of it at the earth travel through space with the earth, then the weak areas of it in deep space also travel through space with the earth. But as far as I can tell, no one knows exactly how this works.

I think it is logical to assume that all the gravity fields that are generated by local bodies that are contained inside a galaxy travel through space with that galaxy, and of course this would cause light speed inside our own galaxy to be an average of about “c”, relative to all the stars in our galaxy, but our own local light speed would not be “c” relative to a distant galaxy that is moving rapidly relative to our galaxy. The local light speed inside that other galaxy would be an average of about “c” while the light travels inside that galaxy, but it would not be “c” relative to our own galaxy, since both galaxies have separate local “media” or “ethers”.

So, not only would a local astronomical body carry its own “light speed regulating medium” through space with it, near its surface, but the galaxy it is in would do the same with all the variously moving media and astronomical bodies that travel through space with that galaxy.

This idea is the basis of the Davis-Lineweaver paper about how light gets to the earth from superluminal galaxies, but their term for a “local ether” is local “comoving space”. But their local “comoving space” acts exactly like a local “ether”, in that it regulates the speed of light to about “c” locally, at and within any galaxy, but not relative to all galaxies, since so many are moving at high speeds relative to one another.

To make this a little simpler, let me try to express it this way: Let’s say our sun sends out light beams toward the outside edge of our galaxy, aimed directly away from the center of our galaxy. Since our galaxy is rotating and our sun is revolving around the center of our galaxy, and since the light propagating media inside our galaxy is also revolving around the center of our galaxy, then the light beams from the sun would also revolve around the center of our galaxy. This would involve the light beam “moving sideways”, because it is moving through a medium that is also “moving sideways” and is revolving around the center of our galaxy. This would be something like you, on an airplane, talking to a guy who is in the seat across the isle from you. Your sound waves are moving perpendicular to the direction of travel of the airplane, and they can do this because the air in which they are moving is sealed inside the airplane and is moving through space with the airplane. So your sound waves are “moving sideways” at 600 mph, relative to the surface of the earth.

But this can only happen if you are in a sealed compartment that carries the local propagating medium with it through space. Since the local “ether” fields of our galaxy are generated by the astronomical bodies in our galaxy, and since those bodies are moving around the center of our galaxy, the “ethers” themselves are moving around the center of our galaxy, similar to the way the air, the sound propagating medium, is sealed inside a moving airplane.

No, he means mechanical and electromagnetic. An electromagnetic wave is an oscillating EM field (light). A mechanical wave is a wave that causes massive particles to oscillate (sound waves, seismic waves, ocean waves, etc.). .

Sound waves have a macro-mechanical component (moving air molecules), and an electrodynamical component (an interaction between the electric fields of the air molecules). Since the air molecules never touch each other, the “wave” is caused by the negative charges of the electrons in the outer shells of the molecules repelling one another and causing the electric fields of the molecules to compress. This places a force on the molecules and this is what causes them to move a little in space. So a sound wave is partly a macro-mechanical phenomenon and partly a quantum mechanics electrodynamical phenomenon.

If one is found, SR would need revision. ..

The SR theory that you always think about was revised by its author in 1907, 1911, 1918, and 1920. The “length contraction” due to “relative motion” no longer existed after 1907. The 1905 “constancy” postulate no longer existed after 1911. The original SR “time dilation due to relative motion” concept no longer existed after 1918. He restored "the ether" in his 1920 paper. You need to study those “update” papers to learn what I’ve been talking about.

You should not just read the original 1905 paper and think that it still applied after 1907, 1911, and 1918, because it did not.

Have you read copies of the 1907, the 1911, and the 1918 papers?

In a couple of days they will be launching Gravity Probe B (http://www.gravityprobeb.com/), so there should be more answers to Einstein's GR frame dragging, and possibly whether or not aether exists.

You might want to take that whole quote in context there



The basic information about light slow-down caused by light traveling through a gravity field, as published in the 1911 paper, was incorporated into the 1916 paper and his 1916 book. He revised the amount of deflection calculation, but he kept the basic concept.

I’ve give you all the quotes from all the resources that back up my claims. I’ve told you where to find the 1907 SR revision paper (Vol. 2 of the “Collected Papers”), where to find his 1911 and 1916 papers, where to find his 1918 paper (Vol. 7 of the “Collected Papers”), where to find the original Lorentz theory and 1895 book, where to find all the Dr. Su papers, etc., etc.

What you are doing is denying all of this stuff, because you apparently want to think that the original 1905 paper was never revised, changed, or updated or that the reasons for its errors in the first place was because Einstein modified Lorentz’s original 1895 “relativity” concepts too much.

I think it is very peculiar that so many people like you want to still hang on to the erroneous 1905 paper, and disregard all the “update” papers and changes in the 1905 theory that the author himself made. You also ignore his own “clock paradox” resolution of his 1918 paper. The internet and books are filled with various different conflicting “clock paradox resolutions”, none of which agree with one another, yet none of them refer to Einstein’s own resolution which he published in his own 1918 paper.

I find this phenomenon to be very peculiar. This reminds me of the “flat earth” guys who refuse to realized that the earth has been proven to be a spheroid.

Maybe you can tell me exactly why you prefer to believe in his original 1905 SR paper, that contained many errors, while you completely ignore or dismiss his 1907, 1911, 1916, 1918, and 1920 corrections he made to that original paper and that original theory?

you know, i really get the feeling that you're making stuff up, perhaps someone found those papers as a gag and gave them to you, just to screw with your head.
i'm quite certain that if einstein had retracted anything that he'd said in the original document (well anything as important as what you claim) that that would have changed what we'd been taught in class, or earned some mention.

edit: wow, way to read the whole thread before posting... as talibak pointed out, the changes were taken back in a paper written in 1916. so umm... yeah, perhaps it wasn't made up, perhaps you just need to read all the papers on the subject instead of the few that say what you're hoping for.

Something like the way the magnetosphere does not rotate with the earth.
You mean, because of the solar wind (http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/wms1.html)? The magnetic field of the Earth generally rotates with the Earth--in relation to the north and south magnetic poles, for instance.
The original SR “time dilation due to relative motion” concept no longer existed after 1918.
General relativity replaced special relativity, but it subsumed it too. In an inertial reference frame, where special relativity was assumed to hold, its results are coincident with the results of general relativity. So, in that sense, the original SR still holds, in the current theory.

The point of this exercise its to investigate special relativity. For the moment, nothing else. Just this. So the laser systems are out in space, away from the earth, so there are no complicating effects. The analogy with the train is that there is no air rushing past, because the train is enclosed.
.

I’m trying to explain something very simple, by analogy.

Argument by analogy has a very limited usefulness, and then only if the analogy is appropriate. Since the earth is not an inertial frame, nor is it free from gravity, any discussions have to assume we are far from the earth. So there is no analogy of air, since there is no hypothetical local ether to worry about.

The only way that a local-air sound propagating medium can travel with the train is by sealing it inside a train car. But the local light propagating medium at the earth doesn’t need to be “sealed” relative to the earth, because the earth generates it as it moves through space, so the medium at the earth travels through space with the earth.

If the rail car generated its own blanket of air, out to several yards, then we would not have to seal any air inside the train car, and the tossing ball experiment would work on an open flat car just as it works inside a sealed rail car. The laser light example has nothing at all to do with “inertial frames”. It has to do with propagating media and whether or not they travel through deep or local space with an emitter.

You are assuming that there is no light propagating medium in deep space, but this is not true. If the light clock is moving at high speed relative to another galaxy, but is stationary in-between several stars that are fixed relative to one another, then the beam will hit the mirror. But if the light clock is stationary relative to a distant galaxy but is moving relative to several stars that it is situated in-between, then the beam will miss the mirror. So this is not a matter of “relative motion” or “inertial frames”.

Before you were saying that gravity was the ether, and it was a local effect. This would seem to be a different hypothesis.

What about a testable prediction of this: a laser beam that is well aligned with a small aperture, but travelling perpendicular to the earth's rotation should become misaligned if it is then rotated to go with or against the earth's rotation, due to ether deflection. Do you agree with that?

You might want to take that whole quote in context there

He won't, because if he does, it just contradicts what he keeps saying.

Maybe you can tell me exactly why you prefer to believe in his original 1905 SR paper, that contained many errors, while you completely ignore or dismiss his 1907, 1911, 1916, 1918, and 1920 corrections he made to that original paper and that original theory?

Well, for one, the 1905 paper matches experimental observations. What I really find humorus is you have been saying that SR is wrong, even though it matches observations designed to test it. But, you keep pushing Dr. Su's theory, a theory, that the author admits, doesn't match observations.

Now, how about detailing the properties of the aether, like I've asked you to do?

How far out does this ether rotation extend? Where does the rotation begin to slow down?

According to Dr. Su, the earth-based gravity-related “ether” does not rotate with the earth.

So it doesn't rotate, but is fixed relative to the earth. So it's rotating about the sun. So the rotation question still has to hold, but relative to the sun.

And if the moon has an ether fixed with it, that has to be rotating with the moon about the earth. And Mars has an ether that rotates with it, about the sun, but at a different rate than ours. And all the planets, moons and any body, it would seem.

intellectually dishonest.
.
See Dr. Su’s paper, “Quantum Electromagnetics – A Local-Ether Wave Equation
Unifying Quantum Mechanics, Electromagnetics, and Gravitation”:

Meanwhile, this theory leads to some predictions, particularly the effects of earth’s motions, which then provide different approaches to test the validity of the local-ether wave equation.”

The above paper was dated April of 2002.

From his paper "Reinterpretation of Matter-Wave Interference Experments Based on the Local-Ether Wave Equation" in August of 2002. (the squares are greek thetas)

The measured results of the crystal rotation angle for minimum transmission are 1 = 19.14 degrees and 2 = 159.63 degrees[15], where the orientation corresponding to the starting value of the crystal rotation angle is not specifed explicitly. It is understood to correspond to the orientation at which the normal of the reflecting crystal
surface is directed due west. Thus 1 and 3 (= 2-180 = -24.37 degrees)It is seen that the two Bragg reflections are asymmetric, as predicted by the local-ether model. However, the agreement is not good quantitatively. (159.63-180 = -20.27 experiment vs 24.37 predicted)

Now Sam5, this is not myself, swansont, dakini, Taibak, SeanF or anyone else here. It is a latter paper of Dr. Su and it shows that he admits that the experimental results do not match the results predicted by his theory. In other words, his theory is wrong. Now, he may latter revise his theory (and in fact he comes up with a couple of possibilities), but until he does, it is still wrong. And for you to keep on pushing a theory that you know is wrong (as admitted by the author) you are being intellectually dishonest.

you know, i really get the feeling that you're making stuff up, perhaps someone found those papers as a gag and gave them to you, just to screw with your head.

Actually, it’s quite simple. I worked with certain kinds of mechanical clocks back in the ‘60s and ’70. I already knew that acceleration of the clocks would slow down the clocks under certain circumstances and speed them up under other circumstances. I also knew that other guys who were moving around with the same kinds of clocks had the same kinds of problems with them. We also learned that my motion relative to them and their motion relative to me had absolutely nothing at all to do with the slow-downs and speed-ups of our own clocks, no matter how fast our relative speed. So, when I first read the 1905 theory in the early ‘90s, and I saw that Einstein had only relative motion slowing down clocks, I couldn’t believe the guy was so inexperienced and wrong about what can slow down clocks. I read the paper several times, thinking that maybe it was some kind of joke, some kind of physics put-on, containing some sort of early 19th Century Mark Twain type of subtle humor.

When I finally realized that Einstein thought he was telling the whole truth in the theory, I decided to try to find other papers of his, and of other physicists, that acknowledged the 1905 errors, and that’s exactly what I found. If you don’t want to read his 1918 paper or accept the changes he made in the SR theory and the reason for the changes, that’s your choice. The 1918 paper, using atomic clocks, acceleration, and gravity fields, is basically correct. The 1905 paper, using any kind of clocks and specifically “balance-wheel” clocks and his own “wristwatch”, but with just relative motion, is not correct. But please, don’t blame me for this. I’m just the researcher who persisted until I found that rare 1918 paper, which was never translated into English until 2002.

Instead of thinking that I might be making something up, just get yourself a copy of the paperback edition of Volume 7 of the “The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein” and read his 1918 paper. It’s not like this is my opinion against his. It’s his 1918 opinion against his 1905 opinion, and in the 1918 paper, he has real physical forces applied to the clocks, and that’s why they change rates.

Well, for one, the 1905 paper matches experimental observations

I wondered about that for many years. What I finally found out is that the experimental observations match the 1895 Lorentz theory, not SR theory. The SR theory is a modification of the 1895 Lorentz theory, but Einstein left too many things out of it, and that’s why the 1905 SR theory doesn’t work and can not match experimental observations. This is why he had to change it in 1918 and add the atomic clocks, the acceleration effects, and the gravity. Basically, he changed it into the GR theory, which is an off-shoot of the original 1895 Lorentz electrodynamics relativity theory. So what is “proven” by experiment today is the Lorentz theory and the GR theory, but not the SR theory.

Actually, it’s quite simple. I worked with certain kinds of mechanical clocks back in the ‘60s and ’70. I already knew that acceleration of the clocks would slow down the clocks under certain circumstances and speed them up under other circumstances. I also knew that other guys who were moving around with the same kinds of clocks had the same kinds of problems with them. We also learned that my motion relative to them and their motion relative to me had absolutely nothing at all to do with the slow-downs and speed-ups of our own clocks, no matter how fast our relative speed. So, when I first read the 1905 theory in the early ‘90s, and I saw that Einstein had only relative motion slowing down clocks, I couldn’t believe the guy was so inexperienced and wrong about what can slow down clocks. I read the paper several times, thinking that maybe it was some kind of joke, some kind of physics put-on, containing some sort of early 19th Century Mark Twain type of subtle humor.
This is an amazingly revealing post, IMHO.

Sam5, is it possible you do not understand that there are no mechanical clocks that are accurate enough to measure relativistic effects at the kinds of relative speeds we can subject them to? Or (to put it another way) that other sources of error in such clocks are orders of magnitude larger than any relativistic contributions?

Sam5, is it possible you do not understand that there are no mechanical clocks that are accurate enough to measure relativistic effects at the kinds of relative speeds we can subject them to?

What Lorentz basically said in 1895 was that the oscillation rates of atoms (atomic “clocks”) would slow down when the atoms are moved through a field. This is because the field puts up a resistance to the atoms’ motion through it. This is a real force. The maximum speed of the atoms was assumed to be “c” through the field, which would result in a total stoppage in their oscillation rates.

Young Einstein, in trying to figure out several things between the time when he was 16 years old and 26 years old, misunderstood the Lorentz theory and he thought that it was just “relative motion” that slowed down the atomic “clocks”, AND he thought that ALL clocks would slow down the same amount due only to “relative motion”, because he thought it was “time itself” that slowed down, not just the “clocks”. So this he put in the 1905 theory, which was his own misinterpretation of the 1895 Lorentz theory.

We solve the problem of mechanical and “balance wheel” clocks not being as accurate as atomic clocks by imagining the mechanical clocks moving so fast, up to near the speed of “c”, that their 1905 SR-theory rate slows down so much, it becomes very obvious, and so their tick rates slow down enough in the thought experiments so that the small mechanical nano-second variabilities between atomic and mechanical clocks don’t matter. Anyway, he assumed his own “wristwatch” and all “balance-wheel” clocks to be “perfect” clocks that paralleled the slow-down rates of Lorentz atomic clocks. He didn’t mention atomic clocks in the 1905 paper because he thought it was “time itself” that slowed down, so, at that time he thought the perfect “delicate” mechanical clocks would slow down just as atomic clocks would slow down, and due only to “relative motion” (which was caused by his lack of understanding of the Lorentz theory).

By 1911 he had finally realized that in the Lorentz theory it is only specifically atomic clocks that slow down at the rates Lorentz suggested, and he understood that this was an electrodynamics effect experienced by the atoms inside the clocks. He realized then it wasn’t just a “Kinematical” effect. The European criticism against his 1905 SR theory was so great by 1918, he decided he needed to publish a paper using specifically atomic clocks, and subjecting them to accelerative and gravitational forces (as per his 1911 and 1916 theories), so that they would have a real physical reason to slow down their rates. By then he also acknowledged atomic clock speed-ups too. In the 1905 paper he had only normal rates and slow-downs, but in the 1918 paper he had slow-downs and speed-ups, based on how much accelerative force was experienced by the atomic clocks.

Have you studied his 1918 paper?

You can read the paper for yourself, and compare it to the 1905 SR theory, and see that his 1905 theory did not contain atomic clocks, accelerative effects, or gravity fields, but the 1918 paper did.



Or (to put it another way) that other sources of error in such clocks are orders of magnitude larger than any relativistic contributions?

There are many forces that can slow down and speed up all kinds of clocks. This was well known long before 1905, for hundreds of years. And nobody was ever naive enough to jump to the erroneous conclusion that a clock rate change represents a change in “time itself”.

[Snip!]Have you read copies of the 1907, the 1911, and the 1918 papers?
Have you read the 1915 and 1916 papers? Why not?

Well, for one, the 1905 paper matches experimental observations

I wondered about that for many years. What I finally found out is that the experimental observations match the 1895 Lorentz theory, not SR theory.

Then explain why magnetic field lines in motion are broken or cut in Lorentz's theory but not in SR or GR. SR and GR match observations in this, Lorentz doesn't. You are making a false claim here.

The SR theory is a modification of the 1895 Lorentz theory, but Einstein left too many things out of it, and that’s why the 1905 SR theory doesn’t work and can not match experimental observations.

Again, then explain why magnetic field lines in motion are broken or cut in Lorentz's theory but not in SR or GR. SR and GR match observations in this, Lorentz doesn't. You are making another false claim here.

So what is “proven” by experiment today is the Lorentz theory and the GR theory, but not the SR theory.

Again, then explain why magnetic field lines in motion are broken or cut in Lorentz's theory but not in SR or GR. And please explain why SR can be used within GR and match observations in this, Lorentz doesn't. You are making another false claim here.

Also, when are you going to provide us with the properties and experiments that measured thee properties of the Aether. Or is it simply you aren't providing the properites because you can't.

Actually, it’s quite simple. I worked with certain kinds of mechanical clocks back in the ‘60s and ’70. I already knew that acceleration of the clocks would slow down the clocks under certain circumstances and speed them up under other circumstances. I also knew that other guys who were moving around with the same kinds of clocks had the same kinds of problems with them. We also learned that my motion relative to them and their motion relative to me had absolutely nothing at all to do with the slow-downs and speed-ups of our own clocks, no matter how fast our relative speed. So, when I first read the 1905 theory in the early ‘90s, and I saw that Einstein had only relative motion slowing down clocks, I couldn’t believe the guy was so inexperienced and wrong about what can slow down clocks. I read the paper several times, thinking that maybe it was some kind of joke, some kind of physics put-on, containing some sort of early 19th Century Mark Twain type of subtle humor.

that's quite silly of you. are you and your friends with the mechanical clocks moving relative to each other at speeds nearning the speed of light? i somehow doubt it. of course your clocks will not appear to slow down relative to each other if you're moving at normal, everyday speeds.

Actually, it’s quite simple. I worked with certain kinds of mechanical clocks back in the ‘60s and ’70. I already knew that acceleration of the clocks would slow down the clocks under

snip

on, containing some sort of early 19th Century Mark Twain type of subtle humor.
This is an amazingly revealing post, IMHO.

Sam5, is it possible you do not understand that there are no mechanical clocks that are accurate enough to measure relativistic effects at the kinds of relative speeds we can subject them to? Or (to put it another way) that other sources of error in such clocks are orders of magnitude larger than any relativistic contributions?

It's possible, or it's possible that he is ignoring it because he know it falsifies his ideas.

wow, you really are dense

Careful here. While we may all criticize for lack of experimental evidence and complete misunderstanding of relativity, resorting to personal attacks is not advised and is what eventually let to the downfall of the original relativity threads. Let us keep this to science discussion of a civil nature.

Anyone continuing to claim, as proof, something they know to be untrue, is simply being intellectually dishonest.

No, you are the one who is being dishonest. Dr. Su is a mainstream physicists

Exactly how am I being dishonest? Did you actually read his biography? He's an electrical engineer, not a physicist. And with appologies to those here who are engineers, it's not the same thing.

who has had his theory published in the mainstream science media, including at Harvard and NASA websites.

Which means nothing. Many theories are published, but unless they match observations, they are wrong.

One of his papers lists the vast number of experiments that conform to his theory.

Fine, can you give us the paper and the experiments? I quoted from the paper where he himself admits his theory doesn't match observations. And that's all it takes to show his theory is wrong. Don't forget, he is the one who admits that his theory doesn't match observations, not anyone here.

What you are trying to do is hold on to an antiquated idea that never was correct in the first place, written by a guy, so long ago, that he thought all stars were “fixed”,

As was explained to you before. In the context of the length of any experiment less than several months, they are.

that the universe was not expanding.

There was no evidence for it at the time. After there was, he accepted the expansion.

You need to bring yourself into the 21st Century and reject ancient superstitions.

Oh..... you mean like Classical Mechanics and Aether? But, I've already rejected those.

intellectually dishonest.
.
See Dr. Su’s paper, “Quantum Electromagnetics – A Local-Ether Wave Equation
Unifying Quantum Mechanics, Electromagnetics, and Gravitation”:

Meanwhile, this theory leads to some predictions, particularly the effects of earth’s motions, which then provide different approaches to test the validity of the local-ether wave equation.”

The above paper was dated April of 2002.

From his paper "Reinterpretation of Matter-Wave Interference Experments Based on the Local-Ether Wave Equation" in August of 2002. (the squares are greek thetas)

The measured results of the crystal rotation angle for minimum transmission are 1 = 19.14 degrees and 2 = 159.63 degrees[15], where the orientation corresponding to the starting value of the crystal rotation angle is not specifed explicitly. It is understood to correspond to the orientation at which the normal of the reflecting crystal
surface is directed due west. Thus 1 and 3 (= 2-180 = -24.37 degrees)It is seen that the two Bragg reflections are asymmetric, as predicted by the local-ether model. However, the agreement is not good quantitatively. (159.63-180 = -20.27 experiment vs 24.37 predicted)


Sam, did you miss this bit, or are you ignoring it? Dr. Su admits that his theory disagrees with experiment, and while there may be explanations, so far none have been proven. As we have said time and again, if it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong, no matter what.

Careful here. While we may all criticize for lack of experimental evidence and complete misunderstanding of relativity, resorting to personal attacks is not advised and is what eventually let to the downfall of the original relativity threads. Let us keep this to science discussion of a civil nature.

i changed it... sorry about that.

Well, for one, the 1905 paper matches experimental observations

I wondered about that for many years. What I finally found out is that the experimental observations match the 1895 Lorentz theory, not SR theory.
There's also the relativized quantum mechanics of Dirac. That theory uses special relativity.

there are no mechanical clocks that are accurate enough to measure relativistic effects at the kinds of relative speeds we can subject them to? Or (to put it another way) that other sources of error in such clocks are orders of magnitude larger than any relativistic contributions?

A nit: it's precision, not accuracy, that prevents the measurements.

There are many forces that can slow down and speed up all kinds of clocks. This was well known long before 1905, for hundreds of years. And nobody was ever naive enough to jump to the erroneous conclusion that a clock rate change represents a change in “time itself”.

But that's not the conclusion being drawn.

In SR, under the assumption of constancy of c and with no ether, the clock rate changes with no forces present. Now, if that's true, and only forces can cause clock rates to change, then time must be different in the two reference frames.

The ether that you desperately cling to can be trivially shown to not affect things the way you claim. But you won't acknowledge any tests that would show this. That's not how science is done.

Sam, did you miss this bit, or are you ignoring it? .

I’m trying to respond to 5 people who are responding only to one person. Please give me time to respond.

Tensor purposely left out Dr. Su’s next statements:

“The discrepancies in the Bragg angles might be due to that the incident beam is not exactly directed due south or that the crystal rotation angle should be understood otherwise. Anyway, the predicted directional anisotropy in the Bragg angle due to earth's rotation provides a means to test the local-ether wave equation.”

“It is predicted that the Bragg angle and the fringe period in Young's slit diffraction depend on the orientation of the experimental setup with respect to the ground. For a given incident neutron beam, it is analyzed that the Bragg angle can deviate by an amount of about one degree between two symmetric orientations of the crystal. The predicted directional anisotropy in the Bragg angle and in the fringe period, the slow-rotation restriction on the famous formula of matterwave Sagnac effect, and the discrepancy between the effects of earth's rotational and orbital motions provide different approaches to test the local-ether wave equation.”

There's also the relativized quantum mechanics of Dirac. That theory uses special relativity.

But Einstein changed SR theory. In 1907 he removed geometric length contraction. In 1911 he removed the “constancy” postulate. In 1918 he removed the mechanical clocks and added atomic clocks, accelerative effects, and gravity fields. In 1918 and 1920 he added back the “ether” that he had removed from the 1905 paper.

So which version of SR did Dirac use?

In SR, under the assumption of constancy of c and with no ether, the clock rate changes with no forces present. .

You mean, like by magic? Or do angels change the rates of the clocks?

Don’t you realize this concept returns science to the middle ages of superstitions, ghosts, goblins, and phantoms?

Sam, did you miss this bit, or are you ignoring it? .

I’m trying to respond to 5 people who are responding only to one person. Please give me time to respond.

Tensor purposely left out Dr. Su’s next statements

While I did not quote him directly, I did say this


Now, he may latter revise his theory (and in fact he comes up with a couple of possibilities),

Which covers the two paragraphs you quoted. And exactly how does this alter the fact that he shows his theory doesn't match observations?

Also, care to comment on your flat out wrong statement that he is a physicist, when he's an electrical engineer?

And when exactly are you going to provide us with those experiments that show the properties and exsistance of the aether?

Sam, did you miss this bit, or are you ignoring it? .

I’m trying to respond to 5 people who are responding only to one person. Please give me time to respond.

Tensor purposely left out Dr. Su’s next statements:

“The discrepancies in the Bragg angles might be due to that the incident beam is not exactly directed due south or that the crystal rotation angle should be understood otherwise. Anyway, the predicted directional anisotropy in the Bragg angle due to earth's rotation provides a means to test the local-ether wave equation.”

“It is predicted that the Bragg angle and the fringe period in Young's slit diffraction depend on the orientation of the experimental setup with respect to the ground. For a given incident neutron beam, it is analyzed that the Bragg angle can deviate by an amount of about one degree between two symmetric orientations of the crystal. The predicted directional anisotropy in the Bragg angle and in the fringe period, the slow-rotation restriction on the famous formula of matterwave Sagnac effect, and the discrepancy between the effects of earth's rotational and orbital motions provide different approaches to test the local-ether wave equation.”

That accounts for an error of only one degree, approximately. The numbers Dr. Su provided disagree by over 40 degrees.

But Einstein changed SR theory. In 1907 he removed geometric length contraction. In 1911 he removed the “constancy” postulate. In 1918 he removed the mechanical clocks and added atomic clocks, accelerative effects, and gravity fields. In 1918 and 1920 he added back the “ether” that he had removed from the 1905 paper.

For the umpteenth time, the 1907 and 1911 papers were works in progress that led up to the 1916 paper. The 1916 paper explicitely refutes the 1907 and 1911 papers. The 1918 and 1920 papers are merely explicating the 1916 paper.

So which version of SR did Dirac use?

The 1905 paper. And the predictions Dirac's theory makes are extremely well supported by the experimental evidence.

You mean, like by magic? Or do angels change the rates of the clocks?

Don’t you realize this concept returns science to the middle ages of superstitions, ghosts, goblins, and phantoms?

Sorry, but that argument just isn't going to work. The theory of relativity states that both gravity *and* relative motion cause time to pass at different rates. Time dilation is a direct consequence of those phenomena. There doesn't need to be another mechanism, although it is conceivable that superstring theory or other more advanced theories will provide one.

You're going to have to do a lot better than resort to the supernatural here. That's a really poor argument. I mean, you could just as easily say that gravitation is caused by magic since it acts over a distance and that would be equally wrong.

Anyway, you still haven't answered all of our major objections to your theories here:

If Lorentz is right, the magnetic field lines of a moving object are finite. The Earth is moving relative to the Sun and there is no evidence of its magnetic field being broken as a result. According to Einstein's theories, magnetic field lines are always closed loops - and this has been observed (repeatedly) in nature. Explain.

If massive objects produce a 'local ether,' what causes it? Taken a step further, because the Earth is in motion, it should leave behind some sort of wake. It doesn't. Explain.

If the local ether exists, what are its properties? What is its permeability and permittivity? What is its density? How does it interact with other forces? Does it interact with other local ethers (that is, does the Earth's local ether field interact with the Moon's local ether field?)? If so, how? What is its index of refraction?

Both the special and general theories of relativity have been shown to agree with every experimental test to which they've yet been subjected. Why should we scrap theories that work so well? Similarly, Dirac's relativistic quantum mechanics are also in strong agreement with experiment and that's based on Einstein's 1905 paper.

If Dr. Su's theory is right, the error in the Bragg diffraction angles should be approximately one degree. By his own admission, the error is over 40 degrees. Explain this discrepency and explain why we should believe a theory that predicts a result 40 times smaller than what's observed, espescially when relativity, as outlined in the 1905 and 1916 papers, produces the correct results?

Taken the last point a step further, you make a big deal about Einstein making and correcting mistakes en route to developing the definitive version of his theories and see this as evidence that relativity as a whole is wrong. On the other hand, Dr. Su's theories contain a glaring, uncorrected error and you insist on the theory's validity. Both made mistakes and admitted them.- Why is this a problem for Einstein and not for Su? Are the rules of evidence different for them?

Your expertise with clocks - does that extend to clocks moving at greater than roughly half the speed of light relative to a stationary observer? If not, how can you claim to have first hand experience with observing time dilation when the effects can be mathematically shown to be negligible at low speeds?

Is it possible that the 'wristwatches' and 'balance-wheel clocks' Einstein refers to in the 1905 paper were idealisations and not actual clocks? If so, can those timepieces be assumed to function as perfect clocks that keep time with 100% precision regardless of whatever mechanical effects they may experience?

Edited to add a point.

In SR, under the assumption of constancy of c and with no ether, the clock rate changes with no forces present. .

You mean, like by magic? Or do angels change the rates of the clocks?

Don’t you realize this concept returns science to the middle ages of superstitions, ghosts, goblins, and phantoms?

Just because you cannot understand or accept a basic property of space-time, doesn't make it magic. You keep pushing aether, which has not been shown to exist. Isn't believing in something that isn't real superstitious? Oh, yeah, where's those properties of aether?

The ether that you desperately cling to

You can clearly see the ethereal background in this Doppler illustration.

LINK TO ETHER ILLUSTRATION (http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/doppler.htm)

The wavelength changes in the ether are due to the emitter moving through the propagating medium. If the emitter is not accelerating and is an “inertial frame”, according to your opinion, the light waves should go out from the emitter in all directions at “c”, and thus there would be no lengthened or shortened wavelengths, if there is no “ether”, and all the circles would be concentric.

But in this illustration you can clearly see the speed of the light wavefronts is fixed relative to the background ether, not relative to the emitter. The redshifted wavefronts are moving away from the emitter at a faster speed than the blueshifted wavefronts, so the speed of the emitted light is NOT “c”, relative to the emitter, in the front and back of the emitter. To the left of the emitter, the wavefronts are moving at c + v relative to the emitter, and to the right of the emitter they are moving at c – v relative to the emitter.

If the speed of the light wavefronts, relative to the emitter, were all “c”, in the front and back, then the circles of wavefronts would be concentric, not offset like they are in this illustration.

Notice also, for the light beams that are going up in the diagram, they are not straight, and thus they will miss hitting a mirror that is moving along through the ether with the emitter. If the circles were concentric, indicating no motion through the ether, then the beams going up would hit the mirror that is directly above the emitter.

You keep pushing aether, which has not been shown to exist

The light propagating medium, the so-called “ether”, is illustrated in this Doppler effect illustration.

LINK TO ETHER ILLUSTRATION (http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/doppler.htm)

The Doppler effect in light can not be illustrated without it. There can be no light wavelength stretching or compressing without it.

The ether

If you think there is no light propagating medium, then all light waves should leave all emitters (even if the emitters are moving through space) like this:

LINK (http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/Demos/doppler/doppler1.gif)

But, when you realize there is a propagating medium, then you will realize that light waves leave an emitter that is moving through the medium like this:

LINK (http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/Demos/doppler/doppler2.gif)

So, when I first read the 1905 theory in the early ‘90s, and I saw that Einstein had only relative motion slowing down clocks, I couldn’t believe the guy was so inexperienced and wrong about what can slow down clocks. I read the paper several times, thinking that maybe it was some kind of joke, some kind of physics put-on, containing some sort of early 19th Century Mark Twain type of subtle humor.

I think you are getting large scale effects, like acceleration screwing with the swing of a pendulum, confused with relativistic effects that cause time and space to measureably distort only at very high speeds (and with very sensitive equipment) that you and your friend could not possibly achieve. But forget about clocks, they have allowed you to concoct all manner of appalling straw man arguments.

See, I learned how to use the list tag just for you...

Could you please explain how the ether deals with all the energy it absorbs while slowing down light passing through it? Is it stored as Potential energy, that will cause the photon to zip off when it escapes a particularly slow ether?
Could you also explain where it gets the energy from to make sure blueshifted light is travelling fast enough?
You have already talked about earth's local ether, and other ethers travelling at different speeds, what happens at the interface of these ethers?
Does this ether have momentum or mass?
[list:375c6304b9]If not, how does it exert it's influence on light?
If so, why doesnt the sun's ether strip the earth's off, or affect it at all?
[list:375c6304b9]If it does effect the earths ether, what effect does it have (besides slowing down photons and making me spill my coffee)?[/list:u:375c6304b9]
Does every object have an ether, or only really big ones?
If only big objects have ethers, how big do you have to be? Does the strength of an ether depend on the 'owners' mass?
Otherwise, does my ether mix with the earth's ether, or is it like a sealed bubble? Is the boundary sharp or diffuse? Does it's influence drop of exponentially? Do photons have ethers?
At what speed does an ether's influence travel? ie, if an object is suddenly created with a 10 mile ether, how long after it's creation would an object at the ether's radius be affected by its ether?
[/list:u:375c6304b9]

Don't give any names of people, papers or theories, if you answer this. Just give your interpretation of the facts.

There's also the relativized quantum mechanics of Dirac. That theory uses special relativity.

But Einstein changed SR theory. In 1907 he removed geometric length contraction. In 1911 he removed the “constancy” postulate. In 1918 he removed the mechanical clocks and added atomic clocks, accelerative effects, and gravity fields. In 1918 and 1920 he added back the “ether” that he had removed from the 1905 paper.

So which version of SR did Dirac use?
I see Taibak has addressed this question, but for the most part, the conclusions are the same. Just as matrix mechanics and wave mechanics in quantum mechanics are two different mathematical approaches, which have been shown to be equivalent, and give the same answers.

In SR, under the assumption of constancy of c and with no ether, the clock rate changes with no forces present. .

You mean, like by magic? Or do angels change the rates of the clocks?

Don’t you realize this concept returns science to the middle ages of superstitions, ghosts, goblins, and phantoms?

If there is no ether, the light-pulse clock takes longer when an observer sees it moving. Your only response to this has been that the beam misses the mirror because of the ether - this is only a supposition on your part, because you can't point to any valid test of the ether that demonstrates that it exists!

Where is the evidence that the ether exists, and what are its properties? Superstitions are what we call things that don't have evidence to back them up.

only at very high speeds


There are supposed to be slow-speed “relativistic” effects too, and I posted a UCLA physics website about that. In fact, I discussed it with several people. That alleged “effect” is briefly mentioned in the first paragraph of “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”, and it relates to the mysterious appearance and disappearance of an electric field at a magnet and coil, depending on how students move around a classroom. It’s pure bunk.

Do you really think that my friend moving is going to slow down my clock? I’m sorry, but this type of baloney just isn’t used in real industrial physics. It only turns up in theories. A real working industrial corporate physicist doesn’t pay any attention to this stuff.






Could you please explain how the ether deals with all the energy it absorbs while slowing down light passing through it? Is it stored as Potential energy, that will cause the photon to zip off when it escapes a particularly slow ether?
Could you also explain where it gets the energy from to make sure blueshifted light is travelling fast enough?
You have already talked about earth's local ether, and other ethers travelling at different speeds, what happens at the interface of these ethers?
Does this ether have momentum or mass?
[list]If not, how does it exert it's influence on light?
If so, why doesnt the sun's ether strip the earth's off, or affect it at all?
[list]If it does effect the earths ether, what effect does it have (besides slowing down photons and making me spill my coffee)?

Geepers! Who do you think I am, Mr. Knowledge? Go ask your professor those questions, and while you’re at it, get him to show you a copy of Einstein’s 1918 paper.

Where is the evidence that the ether exists,

Ned Wright uses it in his Doppler illustration, just as I showed you. If there were no ether, the circles of light leaving the emitter would be concentric, not offset. Go ask Ned about it.

If there is no ether, the light-pulse clock takes longer when an observer sees it moving

The way you’ve been describing your light clock thought experiment, you’ve been using no ether for the observer that travels with the laser, but you use an ether for the background medium as seen by another relatively moving observer. Plus, you have the laser beam go straight up for the observer who travels with the laser, but you have the same beam going out at an angle for the other observer. This is a bunch of mixed-up nonsense.

I asked you if you have one of these clocks there where you work, and if you’ve actually tried this experiment, or are you just making this stuff up as you go along?

The light propagating medium, the so-called “ether”, is illustrated in this Doppler effect illustration.

LINK TO ETHER ILLUSTRATION (http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/doppler.htm)

The Doppler effect in light can not be illustrated without it. There can be no light wavelength stretching or compressing without it.

Interesting admission, as the page you link does not even mention the ether.

There is, however, a link at the bottom of that page, Relativity (http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/relatvty.htm), which does give an explanation of relativity and shows evidence that the ether does not exist.


If you think there is no light propagating medium, then all light waves should leave all emitters (even if the emitters are moving through space) like this:

LINK (http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/Demos/doppler/doppler1.gif)

But, when you realize there is a propagating medium, then you will realize that light waves leave an emitter that is moving through the medium like this:

LINK (http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/Demos/doppler/doppler2.gif)

These animated gifs, while very nice, were not intended to demonstrate the ether. They demonstrate the Doppler effect on sound waves. (Check the source.)

However, they can be used to demonstrate the relativistic Doppler effect. The light emitted by a source moves at c. If the source and observer are approaching one another, the light frequency is blue-shifted; if they are moving apart, the frequency is red-shifted. In both cases, the light still moves at c. (Actually explained in the first link you gave.)

the page you link does not even mention the ether.

Study the illustration on the page I linked you to. The “ether” is not labeled, but it is the only thing that can compress and stretch out the light waves of a moving emitter, since the emitter is moving through it. If you have never studied the classical Doppler effect, you might not know this.

Sam, reading your posts is always a kick in the pants.

These animated gifs, while very nice, were not intended to demonstrate the ether.

The Doppler effect requires 1) and emitter, 2) an observer, and 3) a medium. And either the emitter or the observer (or both) have to be moving relative to the medium.

You will notice that Wright uses the same type of offset circles for his illustration of the Doppler effect regarding light emitted by a moving emitter. That is the Doppler effect, and it was Doppler in the 1840s who first predicted the Doppler effect would also apply to light.

You can see in the drawing and in the animation, when the emitter is moving through a medium, the light wavefronts in front of the emitter do not move away from the emitter at “c”, but at c – v.

Do you really think that my friend moving is going to slow down my clock? I’m sorry, but this type of baloney just isn’t used in real industrial physics. It only turns up in theories. A real working industrial corporate physicist doesn’t pay any attention to this stuff.
No. What we say, is that your friend moving relative to you will cause his clock to appear, to us, to be ticking slower. From his point of view, all our clocks will ticking slightly quicker. But both of us will believe that our clocks are correct, and that the other's is wrong.

Geepers! Who do you think I am, Mr. Knowledge? Go ask your professor those questions, and while you’re at it, get him to show you a copy of Einstein’s 1918 paper.
I'd think that as a proponent of the ether, you'd be able to answer at least one question on it's most basic attributes. Just answer the last question - how quickly does the influence of the ether travel?

the doppler effect is caused when two thigns are moving relative to each other. not relative to a medium.

also, why is it that you take two and sometimes three posts to address one? is it not simpler to add little [quote]'s when necessary and respond to amny points in one post?

Sam, reading your posts is always a kick in the pants.

Thank you very much.

Say, why do you think that Ned Wright’s drawing of the Doppler effect related to light shows the waves stretched out behind the moving emitter? How do they get stretched out? What are they stretched out relative to? Do you notice that his wavefronts in front of the moving emitter are compressed and don’t move away from the emitter as rapidly as the stretched out wavefronts do? How would you account for this? If the emitter is in its own “inertia frame”, why would the wavefronts to the left of it zip out and away from it faster than the wavefronts to the right of it?

The Doppler effect requires 1) and emitter, 2) an observer, and 3) a medium. And either the emitter or the observer (or both) have to be moving relative to the medium..

Ok, one more question. Imagine this situation...I am on a train, travelling through an absolute, ether-less vacuum, throwing tennis balls at you, once a second. You are standing behind the train, as it moves away. The balls will strike you slightly less than once a second, will they not?

Now imagine you are on the train too, now the balls will reach you once a second, yes?

Now imagine you are infront of the train, about to be struck, the balls will be reaching you faster than once a second, correct?

Now where in this or any other situation does the presence or absense of an either have any effect? And seeing as you didn't quite get it last time, don't mention any people or their papers to get you out of your hole.

How do they get stretched out?

well, it's quite simple. in the case of two objects moving away from each other, the light from the one object is coming in waves, you see. waves of crests and troughs and all that, correct? and while one crest is sent down the line the two objects are a certain distance (d) apart, corrct? but by the time the second crest is sent they are a distance d+vt apart (where v is velocity and t is the time between crests) the vt is where the difference comes in. it causes the wavelengths to appear longer, as the crests are an extra distance vt apart from each other. a similar process occurs when two objects are moving closer to each other except that the wavelength is compressed.

Do you notice that his wavefronts in front of the moving emitter are compressed and don’t move away from the emitter as rapidly as the stretched out wavefronts do? How would you account for this?

i can't see the animation as the site doesn't appear to work for me... but the waves in front would be compressed because the emitter is moving towards them, thus the crests are brought an additional distance vt closer to each other, and the wavelength shortened.

If the emitter is in its own “inertia frame”, why would the wavefronts to the left of it zip out and away from it faster than the wavefronts to the right of it?

can't help you there, i haven't seen the thing so i dont' know what on earth you're talking about.

No. What we say, is that your friend moving relative to you will cause his clock to appear, to us, to be ticking slower.


In SR theory, he will disagree and will say that it is our clock that is ticking slower than his.

So we argue about this in space, via radio, so when we finally get together, which of our clocks “lags behind” the other?


From his point of view, all our clocks will ticking slightly quicker.

Nope, that's GR theory. Einstein corrected his SR errors about this with his GR theory. In SR theory he said the other guy would see our clocks ticking slower.

(Try not to get this stuff mixed up.)

From his point of view, all our clocks will ticking slightly quicker.

Nope, that's GR theory. Einstein corrected his SR errors about this with his GR theory. In SR theory he said the other guy would see our clocks ticking slower.

(Try not to get this stuff mixed up.)

umm, nope, i'm sorry but he was right, it is special relativity... and general relativity had nothing to do with fixing mistakes of special relativity, general realtivity dealt with accelerating refrence frames where special relativity dealt with inertial refrence frames.

in special relativity, he would perceive our clocks as ticking faster. we would preceive him as going slower. hence the twins paradox.

Ok, one more question. Imagine this situation...I am on a train, travelling through an absolute, ether-less vacuum, throwing tennis balls at you, once a second. You are standing behind the train, as it moves away. The balls will strike you slightly less than once a second, will they not?

Now imagine you are on the train too, now the balls will reach you once a second, yes?

Now imagine you are infront of the train, about to be struck, the balls will be reaching you faster than once a second, correct?




A train moving in an “ether-less” vacuum?? Me “standing” behind the train?? Standing on what??

This is what happened to Einstein in his first version of the SR theory. His thought experiments were too bizarre and he left out too many laws of physics.

But I’ll play along with this and see what happens.

Ok, tell me, at what speed are the balls leaving the rear of the train, and at what speed are they leaving the front of the train?

If you take out the “ether” and the air, then your balls will leave the rear and the front of the train at the same speed, relative to the train, and the distance between them will not be stretched out or compressed either in front of or behind the train. Now compare that to the Ned Wright illustration that shows the light wavefronts compressed at the front of the emitter and stretched out at the rear of the emitter.

So what is the difference?

If he were throwing photons as if they were balls, why are the distances between them shown in his drawing as being stretched out behind his emitter and compressed in front of his emitter?

it causes the wavelengths to appear longer, as the crests are an extra distance vt apart from each other.

Of course the objects are moving apart, the emitter and the observer. If the wavefronts are not stretched out at all, but if the observer sees a redshift, then the observer is encountering the waves at less than “c”. This will produce a “redshift” effect but without the waves actually being stretched out. If they are stretched out near and behind the emitter, then that’s because the emitter is moving through the medium. If it were not moving through a medium, the emitter would emit concentric light circles (spheres), rather than offset ones.

Consider again the moving observer on the moving train. Why does he not hear a “redshifted” whistle tone, although the sound waves from the whistle are stretched out in the air that the train is moving through?

...(Try not to get this stuff mixed up.)
I didn't say anthing about GR or SR, simply what the commonly accepted and proven mechanics of speed vs time are. At CERN for example, muons where accelerated to 99.7% the speed of light. These particles decay within a known halflife, but travelling at these speeds, their average lifetime was extended twelve-fold.

So we argue about this in space, via radio, so when we finally get together, which of our clocks “lags behind” the other?
Very simple, whoever got there slowest :wink:

Edit: oops, I think it's whoever got their quickest #-o

....trains and tennis balls....

The train is moving at 10m/s. I throw the balls at 20/ms. You are standing still, travelling at 0m/s, behind the train.

At time 0, I dont throw a ball
At time 1, I throw a ball with you 10m away
At time 2, i throw a ball with you 20m away
At time 3, i throw a ball with you 30m away

Does that make sense?

Ok, the ball travels relative to the train at 20m/s. However, relative to you, it travels at (20m/s - 10m/s) = 10m/s. Correct?

Ok, the first ball has to travel 10m, at 20m/s. That takes 0.5s, so it gets to you at t = (1.0) + 0.5 = 1.5 seconds. yes?

The second has to travel 20m at 20m/s, so it takes 1.0s. Thus it gets to you at t = (2.0) + 1.0 = 3.0 seconds. yes?

The third ball has to travel 30m at 20m/s, it takes 1.5s. Thus it gets to you at t = (3.0) + 1.5 = 4.5 seconds. yes?

As you can see, the balls get to you every 1.5 seconds, without the space between being spaced out or stretched, and without any aether either!

If the wavefronts are not stretched out at all, but if the observer sees a redshift, then the observer is encountering the waves at less than “c”.

no, the observer is encountering light travelling at a speed c (we're assumign a vacuum, are we?) the wavefronts are stretched out because well, the process i just explained, each crest and trough comes from the source slightly further away than the last crest or trough.

This will produce a “redshift” effect but without the waves actually being stretched out.

ok, let's say this is through a medium, as we all know that the speed of light changes through a medium... it woudl be redshifted... but there would be an additional redshift due to the motion of the two bodies away from each other. since that's what we're discussing here.

If they are stretched out near and behind the emitter, then that’s because the emitter is moving through the medium. If it were not moving through a medium, the emitter would emit concentric light circles (spheres), rather than offset ones.

no, they would be offset. the emmitter has moved a distance vt closer to the crest that it emitted, so the crests appear to be closer together.

If the wavefronts are not stretched out at all, but if the observer sees a redshift, then the observer is encountering the waves at less than “c”.

no, the observer is encountering light travelling at a speed c (we're assumign a vacuum, are we?) the wavefronts are stretched out because well, the process i just explained, each crest and trough comes from the source slightly further away than the last crest or trough.

If you say that, then you must say that the crest is moving away from the emitter at a speed of more than c, relative to the emitter. It is moving at c + v relative to the emitter, if you say “each crest and trough comes from the source slightly further away than the last crest or trough”, and if you say the speed of light relative to the observer is "c". And remember, the waves are continuous, and movement through the medium is what stretches them out. If you say the speed of light is “c” relative to the observer, then the medium is stationary relative to the observer. You can not say that light speed is “c” relative to both the observer and the emitter, if you consider the emitter to be moving and the wavelengths stretched out.

If you take swansont’s approach, then you must say that there never is any wavelength change at all, relative to a moving emitter, because the emitter and the light are an “inertial frame” moving through space. He can’t have the wavelengths either stretched or compressed, in order for his “light clock” to work the way he wants it to work.

*sigh* just look at the tennis ball analogy. i'm tired of trying to explain things to people who don't want to listen.

i also have to do some studying... so yeah.

*sigh* just look at the tennis ball analogy

The tennis ball is not a wave. The tennis ball doesn’t act like a wave.

*sigh*


You’ve probably seen astronauts throwing balls back and forth inside the space shuttle. So, if they go outside the shuttle and throw a ball, the ball will move away from them at the speed at which they throw it. This will happen if they throw it forward or rearward. There is no “medium” that controls the speed of the balls.

If the astronaut throws one a second, they will be a certain distance apart. If the astronaut is moving away from another astronaut that is behind him, as long as the “moving” one is not accelerating, the balls will be the same distance apart, but the astronaut behind him will receive them at a lower rate than if the two astronauts are stationary relative to one another. The distance between the balls is not “stretched out”, the rear astronaut is receiving the balls at a slower speed than before, so to him the frequency is less, because the astronaut in front is moving relative to him. With tennis balls, the same rule will apply if we consider the rear astronaut to be the one that is “moving”.

But a light wave speed does not depend on its “ejection” speed. That’s the “projectile” model which was ruled out in the 19th Century.

A light wave will slow down in a dense medium, but it will speed up again when it exits the medium. A tennis ball will slow down in the medium but it will not speed up when it exits the medium.

You need to work this stuff out on graph paper so you can understand it.

the doppler effect is caused when two thigns are moving relative to each other. not relative to a medium.

No, that is not true. You need to work this out on graph paper so you can learn about the true nature of the Doppler effect. There are several Doppler effects and several causes. You need to learn what they are.


also, why is it that you take two and sometimes three posts to address one?

Because sometimes if I try to answer a long post, I type up a lot of stuff, then I correct it, then I move things around, then I punch the wrong button and everything I typed disappears.

From his point of view, all our clocks will ticking slightly quicker.

Nope, that's GR theory. Einstein corrected his SR errors about this with his GR theory. In SR theory he said the other guy would see our clocks ticking slower.

(Try not to get this stuff mixed up.)

umm, nope, i'm sorry but he was right, it is special relativity
.

Nope, what he described about the other observer thinking our clock is speeding up, if we see his clock as slowing down, that’s GR theory. SR theory has both observers seeing each other’s clock as slowing down. This is what led to the famous “clock” paradox. That is why so many European physicists thought Einstein was nuts when he first published the SR theory. Einstein straightened that error out in 1918 by adding atomic clocks, accelerative forces, and gravity fields to the 1905 thought experiments.

*sigh* just look at the tennis ball analogy

The tennis ball is not a wave. The tennis ball doesn’t act like a wave.

Lol. Well ok then, imagine I alternately throw tennis balls with 'peak' written on them, and tennis balls with 'trough' written on them, and extrapolate a little. Get it?

The point is, the frequency of any signal is affected by the relative velocity of the reciever and the signal, and the wavelength. Light cannot be red/blue-shifted by the former, because the relative velocity is always c. Light is red/blue-shifted because the wavelength changes, and the wavelength changes because, every moment that passes, the distance the light has to travel to get to you changes.

Now answer my first question...at what speed does the influence of an ether travel? ie if an object whos ether extends out 1000m or more begins to move, how many seconds elapse before it's ether 1000m distant begins to move? If you do not answer this question simply and directly, I will assume you do not know what you are talking about.

At CERN for example, muons where accelerated to 99.7% the speed of light. These particles decay within a known halflife, but travelling at these speeds, their average lifetime was extended twelve-fold.

That’s GR, since they were “accelerated”. Plus, there is the Lorentz effect, i.e. motion through fields. There is no “SR effect” due to “relative motion” only.

As you can see, the balls get to you every 1.5 seconds, without the space between being spaced out or stretched, and without any aether either!

Tennis balls don’t need “ether”. They are “projectiles”, like machine gun bullets. The projectile theory of light was ruled out in the 19th Century.

But the effect you are describing would also occur with light if an observer is moving through a light propagating medium, away from an emitter, because the moving observer receives the light at c – v. The wavelengths are not stretched out, but he is receiving them on a delayed basis, because he is moving through the medium. The total speed of the light relative to him is c – v, with c being the speed of the light through the medium, and v being his speed through he medium, in the direction away from the emitter.

This is actually one of the Doppler effects.

Think of my question, why does an observer riding on a moving train hear no shift in the tone of the whistle, even though the wavelengths of the sound are stretched out in the air?

There are two main ways to see a redshift/blueshift, two main causes. 1) stretched out or compressed waves in the medium as a result of the emitter moving through the medium, 2) receiving normal wavelengths at slower or faster than the normal speed of the waves through the medium.

The point is, the frequency of any signal is affected by the relative velocity of the reciever and the signal, and the wavelength.

That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you.

Where is the evidence that the ether exists,

Ned Wright uses it in his Doppler illustration, just as I showed you. If there were no ether, the circles of light leaving the emitter would be concentric, not offset. Go ask Ned about it.


Bwaaahaaahaaa! LOL! Stop - I can't breathe! You made my drink come out of my nose!


The ether is true because of a gif? Come up with another few pieces of material and you can do a spot on the Late Show!

Look Sam, you are doing exactly what in the old relativity thread, providing theoretical examples and misunderstandings as well as rogue theories that have been experimentally disproved. You have not given a single shred of evidence for any ether, only diagrams and arguments. Until you provide some actual experimental results, I can't see how you can support your points.

Light cannot be red/blue-shifted by the former, because the relative velocity is always c. Light is red/blue-shifted because the wavelength changes, and the wavelength changes because,

Not true. The relative speed of light is NOT always “c”.

Ok, so we’ve got a star that is fixed relative to the sun, so the wavelengths of its light are not shifted. They are not changed. They are normal. They are neither “stretched out” nor “compressed”.

However, as the earth circles around the sun, we see blueshifted light from the star when we are moving toward it, and redshifted light from the star when we are moving away from it.

Why?

Our motion certainly doesn’t change the “wavelength” of the light.

The sift must be due to the c + v and c – v Doppler effect.

While moving toward the star, our orbital speed must be added to the light speed (c + v). While moving away from the star, our orbital speed must be subtracted from the light speed (c – v).

Do you really think that my friend moving is going to slow down my clock? I’m sorry, but this type of baloney just isn’t used in real industrial physics. It only turns up in theories. A real working industrial corporate physicist doesn’t pay any attention to this stuff.


No? How many physicists that put clocks in orbit (or other situations where relativity would be a factor) have you talked to about this? Do you really want to go there? I think my hand's a tad better than yours, on this issue, and you're bluffing.

Do you really think that my friend moving is going to slow down my clock?

He will think it's slowed down. The way you keep repeating this it makes me wonder if you think that relativity says you are supposed to see your own clock slow down because somebody else is moving. The other guy sees it slow down, not you!

You have not given a single shred of evidence for any ether,

It would help if you read Einstein’s papers in which he said their was an ether. He wrote that stuff before I was born, so you can’t blame it on me.

Also, read the Davis-Linewever paper about superluminal galaxies and how light gets from them to us. That will explain that the speed of the light is regulated in every local area of space by something that is in the local areas of space.

Read the Dr. Su papers and he will explain it in terms of the gravity fields of space. Study his comments about the Hafele-Keating experiment, and he explains it in that paper.

Study the Ned Wright Doppler shift diagram, because it uses a background “ether” in the diagram. That’s why the waves of his moving emitter are shifted to the left and are not concentric and don't have their centers centered on the moving emitter.

The so-called “ether” is something in space that regulates the speed of light as the light travels through space.

Your problem is that you’ve read the statement “there is no ether” too many times, so that you mind thinks “there is no ether”, so that you can’t even see it when it turns up in the Ned Wright diagram.

No? How many physicists that put clocks in orbit (or other situations where relativity would be a factor) have you talked to about this? Do you really want to go there? I think my hand's a tad better than yours, on this issue, and you're bluffing.

Lorentz predicted this stuff back in 1895 and 1904. The clocks in orbit are moving through the earth’s gravity field and they are existing under more or less acceleration. These two effects places physical forces on the atoms of the clocks. Lorentz predicted this. But just “relative motion” does not. This is why Einstein felt he needed to add the accelerative effects and the gravity fields to the SR theory in 1918.

Tell me how many of your friends have read his 1918 paper? It was never translated into English until 2002. Have you read it?

Do you really think that my friend moving is going to slow down my clock?

He will think it's slowed down.


TheAtomium said earlier that he would see my clock “speed up”. So did dakini.

Now you say he would see my clock as “slowing down”.


So who do I believe, you or them?

I think you guys need to get together and get your stories straight, because you disagree with each other.

*sigh* just look at the tennis ball analogy

The tennis ball is not a wave. The tennis ball doesn’t act like a wave.

It has a wave function in Quantum Mechanics.

The other guy sees it slow down, not you!


That’s what SR says. Now you go explain that to TheAtomium and dakini, and give me a bit of a rest, ok?

No? How many physicists that put clocks in orbit (or other situations where relativity would be a factor) have you talked to about this? Do you really want to go there? I think my hand's a tad better than yours, on this issue, and you're bluffing.

Lorentz predicted this stuff back in 1895 and 1904. The clocks in orbit are moving through the earth’s gravity field and they are existing under more or less acceleration. These two effects places physical forces on the atoms of the clocks. Lorentz predicted this. But just “relative motion” does not. This is why Einstein felt he needed to add the accelerative effects and the gravity fields to the SR theory in 1918.

Tell me how many of your friends have read his 1918 paper? It was never translated into English until 2002. Have you read it?

I don't know if they've read the paper. But they understand relativity, and get paid to build things that require that they know it. And their systems work. GPS ring a bell? The proposed Galileo system? And other satellites have clocks on them - you know that too, right?

You should only speak for yourself, Sam. It's bad enough you pretend to speak for Einstein; now you're trying to speak for a bunch of others as well. You said that real physicists don't pay any attention to this stuff - that they "don't use this stuff" - and you were/are wrong.

If there is no ether, the light-pulse clock takes longer when an observer sees it moving

The way you’ve been describing your light clock thought experiment, you’ve been using no ether for the observer that travels with the laser, but you use an ether for the background medium as seen by another relatively moving observer. Plus, you have the laser beam go straight up for the observer who travels with the laser, but you have the same beam going out at an angle for the other observer. This is a bunch of mixed-up nonsense.

I asked you if you have one of these clocks there where you work, and if you’ve actually tried this experiment, or are you just making this stuff up as you go along?


Every time I explain why the beam doesn't have to be sent out at an angle, you change the conditions of the example by bringing in an ether, or the earth, or both. How does the observer use an ether? There is none in the example.

No, I don't have a clock like this where I work. I'm busy on a different clock at the moment, and this type of clock would be impractical to build. It's a thought experiment.

now you're trying to speak for a bunch of others as well. You said that real physicists don't pay any attention to this stuff - that they "don't use this stuff" - and you were/are wrong.

I was talking about SR. In SR theory, all moving clocks should slow down relative to an earth based clock. But Hafele-Keating showed that Westbound clocks speed up. This is not in SR theory. This is Lorentz theory.

And you know very well that as the decades have passed, the technicians have found many other reasons that cause atomic clocks to slow down and speed up, to “drift”, just like every other clock drifts. This has nothing at all to do with SR. Yet books, websites, and most professors try to pretend all clock drifts are due to either SR or GR or to “Einstein”. That is a myth and you know it.

Yet books, websites, and most professors try to pretend all clock drifts are due to either SR or GR or to “Einstein”. That is a myth and you know it.
I'm just posting to draw attention to this delicious juxtaposition.

this delicious juxtaposition.

Swansont says the other relatively moving guy will see my clock “slow down”, while TheAtomium and dakini said he would see it “speed up”. So which Einstein expert is right?

Do you really think that my friend moving is going to slow down my clock?

He will think it's slowed down.


TheAtomium said earlier that he would see my clock “speed up”. So did dakini.

Now you say he would see my clock as “slowing down”.


So who do I believe, you or them?

I think you guys need to get together and get your stories straight, because you disagree with each other.

Only because you keep changing the conditions. How about you give us ONE experiment and conditions and stick to it?

You have not given a single shred of evidence for any ether,

It would help if you read Einstein’s papers in which he said their was an ether. He wrote that stuff before I was born, so you can’t blame it on me.

We can because we can see where you simply misunderstand what Einstein was saying.

Also, read the Davis-Linewever paper about superluminal galaxies and how light gets from them to us. That will explain that the speed of the light is regulated in every local area of space by something that is in the local areas of space.

Going there right after this post.

Read the Dr. Su papers and he will explain it in terms of the gravity fields of space. Study his comments about the Hafele-Keating experiment, and he explains it in that paper.

Oh, you mean the Electrical engineer who claims his theory doesn't match experimental observations.

Study the Ned Wright Doppler shift diagram, because it uses a background “ether” in the diagram. That’s why the waves of his moving emitter are shifted to the left and are not concentric and don't have their centers centered on the moving emitter.

That is only your claim. There is no Aether mentioned.

The so-called “ether” is something in space that regulates the speed of light as the light travels through space.

Your problem is that you’ve read the statement “there is no ether” too many times, so that you mind thinks “there is no ether”, so that you can’t even see it when it turns up in the Ned Wright diagram.

You still haven't provided us with the properties, (and the experiments that determined those properties) of that aether. Things like it's density, permeability, permittivity, index of refraction. Why is that? Is it becasue you can't find any of those properties. If you can't provide properties, your claim that there is aether is silly.

Do you really think that my friend moving is going to slow down my clock?

He will think it's slowed down.


TheAtomium said earlier that he would see my clock “speed up”. So did dakini.

Now you say he would see my clock as “slowing down”.


So who do I believe, you or them?

I think you guys need to get together and get your stories straight, because you disagree with each other.

Only because you keep changing the conditions. How about you give us ONE experiment and conditions and stick to it?


The conditions are SR.

So which is it? In SR theory, does the other guy see my clock “slow down” or “speed up” due to our “relative motion”?

You guys might as well take a vote about it and then present the majority answer as the “official” one. You've got a 50-50 chance of being right.

You have not given a single shred of evidence for any ether,

It would help if you read Einstein’s papers in which he said their was an ether. He wrote that stuff before I was born, so you can’t blame it on me.

We can because we can see where you simply misunderstand or purposely misrepresent what Einstein was saying.

Also, read the Davis-Linewever paper about superluminal galaxies and how light gets from them to us. That will explain that the speed of the light is regulated in every local area of space by something that is in the local areas of space.

Going there right after this post.

Read the Dr. Su papers and he will explain it in terms of the gravity fields of space. Study his comments about the Hafele-Keating experiment, and he explains it in that paper.

Oh, you mean the Electrical engineer who claims his theory doesn't match experimental observations.

Study the Ned Wright Doppler shift diagram, because it uses a background “ether” in the diagram. That’s why the waves of his moving emitter are shifted to the left and are not concentric and don't have their centers centered on the moving emitter.

That is only your claim. There is no Aether mentioned. The only reason the waves are not concentric is that the emitters are in motion. Here's a quote from his page (which I've bolded for emphasis:
Light from moving objects will appear to have different wavelengths depending on the relative motion of the source and the observer

The so-called “ether” is something in space that regulates the speed of light as the light travels through space.

Your problem is that you’ve read the statement “there is no ether” too many times, so that you mind thinks “there is no ether”, so that you can’t even see it when it turns up in the Ned Wright diagram.

No, we can't see it because we haven't seen any experiment that confirms the exsistance of an aether. You keep claiming its there, but still haven't provided us with the properties, (and the experiments that determined those properties) of that aether. Things like it's density, permeability, permittivity, index of refraction. Why is that? Is it becasue you can't find any of those properties. If you can't provide properties, your claim that there is aether looks rather silly.

You still haven't provided us with the properties,

People have been trying to figure out exactly what the “ether” is and how it works for hundreds of years. Einstein tried, and at first he just gave up on it and said their wasn’t any. But then later he said there was an ether, but he said he didn’t think it moved through space with astronomical bodies. Other guys, like Davis and Lineweaver, think its part of the “comoving space” of a galaxy, but then they say that galaxies don’t move through space. For 70 years astronomers said that the radially moving galaxies do move through space, and they used to publish their speeds relative to the earth. I’ve got a big thick university astronomy textbook that’s about 10 years old that says they do move through space, and it gives some of the speeds. Now, all of a sudden, they “don’t” move through space.

So, I don’t know all the properties of the elusive “ether” yet. I don’t even know quite what it is. Dr. Su thinks it is “gravity fields” and I like that idea, but so far, no one has come up with any detail about exactly how it works. I’ve read where some people suggest that maybe it is the “Higgs field”, whatever that is.

Consider this a “work in progress”.

The conditions are SR.

So which is it? In SR theory, does the other guy see my clock “slow down” or “speed up” due to our “relative motion”?

OK, here you go. Observer A and observer B move realtive to each other. Observer A see observer B's clock running slower. Observer B sees Observer A's clock running slower. Neither of the observers see their own clock running slow. You got it.

The only reason the waves are not concentric is that the emitters are in motion.

Do you see the situation I brought up about the concentric circles and the offset circles, in illustrations showing light radiating out from “moving” emitters?

If the emitter is moving in a straight line at a steady speed, it is an “inertial frame”, and light wavefronts should leave all sides of it at “c”. Well, they can’t do that if the circles are offset. They can if the circles are concentric.

So which is it, concentric or offset for moving emitters?

Maybe you guys should vote on that too and let me know what you have decided.

You still haven't provided us with the properties,

For 70 years astronomers said that the radially moving galaxies do move through space, and they used to publish their speeds relative to the earth. I’ve got a big thick university astronomy textbook that’s about 10 years old that says they do move through space, and it gives some of the speeds. Now, all of a sudden, they “don’t” move through space.

I've never seen anything that says they don't move through space. Even the high radial velocity galaxies move through space, but the expansion of space carries them along also and the expansion effect simply is much greater than the galaxies own motion. You can look at it either way, all that is required is a frame change in GR.

So, I don’t know all the properties of the elusive “ether” yet. I don’t even know quite what it is. Dr. Su thinks it is “gravity fields” and I like that idea, but so far, no one has come up with any detail about exactly how it works. I’ve read where some people suggest that maybe it is the “Higgs field”, whatever that is.

Consider this a “work in progress”.

Hey, I'm perfectly willing to consider it a work in progress (but I don't think anyone will find one). But, until someone can simply find an aether (and then a theory of it that will match observations) the simpilist explanation is that there isn't an aether and any claims that there is an aether isn't realistic.

OK, here you go. Observer A and observer B move realtive to each other. Observer A see observer B's clock running slower. Observer B sees Observer A's clock running slower. Neither of the observers see their own clock running slow. You got it.

LOL, I know that. That’s SR theory, and that’s what causes the “clock paradox” when the two clocks unite, since only ONE of them “lags behind” the other when they unite, according to the 1905 SR theory. But which one? Nobody knows and nobody can tell, under the terms of the SR theory.

Now you go explain this to TheAtomium and dakini, because they assured me that the other guy would see my clock “speed up”.

The only reason the waves are not concentric is that the emitters are in motion.

Do you see the situation I brought up about the concentric circles and the offset circles, in illustrations showing light radiating out from “moving” emitters?

If the emitter is moving in a straight line at a steady speed, it is an “inertial frame”, and light wavefronts should leave all sides of it at “c”. Well, they can’t do that if the circles are offset. They can if the circles are concentric.

Or are you simply not considering that the circles are leaving at c, and the concentric circles are nothing more than an illustration of the wavelengths being closer together (in the direction of motion because they were emitted closer together) or father apart (opposite of the direction of motion because they were emitted further apart).

So which is it, concentric or offset for moving emitters?


It's offset, if you're talking about java applet.

Maybe you guys should vote on that too and let me know what you have decided.

Why, whether a theory works or doesn't is only based on how well it matches observations, not a popularity contest, and not on whether someone understands the theory.

Hey, I'm perfectly willing to consider it a work in progress (but I don't think anyone will find one). But, until someone can simply find an aether (and then a theory of it that will match observations) the simpilist explanation is that there isn't an aether and any claims that there is an aether isn't realistic.

No, not really.

If there is not one, and if you believe in the Maxwell theory of the little wiggling oscillating electric and magnetic fields moving through space, then we’ve got do decide what speed these things move relative to an emitter, when they are first emitted. Like, if light is being emitted inside a galaxy that is moving fast relative to our own, which do the little wigging fields move at “c” relative to, our galaxy or the galaxy that emits them?

Einstein also noticed this problem in relation to gravity fields, since in 1911 he deduced that light speed would slow down inside a strong gravity field. So are local gravity fields an “ether” or not? He did say gravity fields had ether-like properties. This question of the “ether” confounded him and a lot of other people, but we can never just say there isn’t one.

If you consider Dr. Wright’s illustration, and ponder my question about whether the circles should be concentric or offset, as representing the light leaving a moving emitter in all directions, then you will find (or you should find) that this question is part of the ether enigma.

What is “simplest” to believe is what the masses believe. But if everyone always believed what the masses believed, there would be no scientific progress at all.

OK, here you go. Observer A and observer B move realtive to each other. Observer A see observer B's clock running slower. Observer B sees Observer A's clock running slower. Neither of the observers see their own clock running slow. You got it.

LOL, I know that. That’s SR theory, and that’s what causes the “clock paradox” when the two clocks unite, since only ONE of them “lags behind” the other when they unite, according to the 1905 SR theory. But which one? Nobody knows and nobody can tell, under the terms of the SR theory.

And no one will ever know. As this particular experiment is set up (moving relative with no acceleration), the clocks will not be brought together again. And you know what? If you use the exact same situation and use GR, you will get the same answer. Each of the observers will see the other clock moving slow, they won't see their clock moving slow, and they will never be brought together again.


Now you go explain this to TheAtomium and dakini, because they assured me that the other guy would see my clock “speed up”.

Don't have to, I'm quite sure they understand. As I've said, you keep changing the conditions and they are simply trying their best to answer you after you change the conditions.

Hey, I'm perfectly willing to consider it a work in progress (but I don't think anyone will find one). But, until someone can simply find an aether (and then a theory of it that will match observations) the simpilist explanation is that there isn't an aether and any claims that there is an aether isn't realistic.

No, not really.

If there is not one, and if you believe in the Maxwell theory of the little wiggling oscillating electric and magnetic fields moving through space, then we’ve got do decide what speed these things move relative to an emitter, when they are first emitted.

Simple, c.

Like, if light is being emitted inside a galaxy that is moving fast relative to our own, which do the little wigging fields move at “c” relative to, our galaxy or the galaxy that emits them?

They are emitted at c. The question should be what wavelength are they emitted at and what wavelength do we observe.

Einstein also noticed this problem in relation to gravity fields, since in 1911 he deduced that light speed would slow down inside a strong gravity field. So are local gravity fields an “ether” or not? He did say gravity fields had ether-like properties. This question of the “ether” confounded him and a lot of other people, but we can never just say there isn’t one.

Until we can find and measure it, we can say that there is currently no aether.

If you consider Dr. Wright’s illustration, and ponder my question about whether the circles should be concentric or offset, as representing the light leaving a moving emitter in all directions, then you will find (or you should find) that this question is part of the ether enigma.

Not at all, in Ned Wright's illustration, it is emitted at c, the wavelengths are different whether they are emitted in the same direction as the motion or in a different direction from the motion.

What is “simplest” to believe is what the masses believe. But if everyone always believed what the masses believed, there would be no scientific progress at all.

Simplist to believe is not what the masses believe. The simplist theory to believe is what theory matches observations. And most of the time, that theory is not what the masses believe.

Or are you simply not considering that the circles are leaving at c, and the concentric circles are nothing more than an illustration of the wavelengths being closer together (in the direction of motion because they were emitted closer together) or father apart (opposite of the direction of motion because they were emitted further apart).


To make the wavefronts (the circles) closer together in the front and farther apart in the rear, a “medium” is required for emitted waves. And when this happens, the front waves move away from an emitter at a slower speed than the rear waves.

If all the circles are concentric, the waves (the circles) move away from the emitter at the same speed in all directions.

This is not just my opinion, this is classical Doppler theory. This is how waves work in a medium. This knowledge is how Doppler was able to predict redshifts and blueshifts in the light from moving stars, way back in the 1840s, before it was ever observed.

If there is no medium, then the waves should leave the moving emitter as concentric circles.

Now, there is the other situation, the other part of Doppler theory. That is the part regarding the c + v and the c – v relative speed of the light, relative to a moving observer. This is caused by the observer moving relative a medium.

This is why the observer at the rear of a moving train hears no pitch change in the whistle tone, even though the wavelengths of the whistle tone are actually stretched out in the air. Since the rear observer is moving at the same speed as the train, he receives the stretched out sound waves at V + v, with V being the speed of sound in air, and v being his speed through the air. So, his receiving the longer stretched out wavelengths at a faster speed than normal sound speed, cancels out the stretched-out wavelength effect. That is, one kind of Doppler effect cancels out the other kind.

If we surmise that a star that is moving away from the sun is emitting lengthened waves in the direction of the sun, then we can certainly understand why we receive the waves as being “redshifted”. But, we must understand that the reason the waves are lengthened is because the star is moving relative to some sort of light speed regulating “stuff” that is located between the sun and the star.

Now, if the star is stationary relative to the sun, I think we would all agree that its light wavelengths are not lengthened. However, when the earth revolves around the sun and moves in the direction of the star, we see the starlight blueshifted exactly by an amount that calculates out to be the result of our 18.6 mps motion around the sun, and, thus, it is impossible not to conclude that the light waves (or photons) are coming toward us at the combined speed of c + v, with c being the speed of light relative to the medium and v being our speed relative to the medium. In other words, if light speed is 186,000 mps relative to the medium, and if we are moving toward the star at 18.6 mps, then that blueshift we see is cause by the combined speed of 186,000 + 18.6 mps, for a total of 186,018.6 mps, which is the relative speed between the earth and the oncoming light waves. This was predicted by Doppler more than 160 years ago.

Or are you simply not considering that the circles are leaving at c, and the concentric circles are nothing more than an illustration of the wavelengths being closer together (in the direction of motion because they were emitted closer together) or father apart (opposite of the direction of motion because they were emitted further apart).


To make the wavefronts (the circles) closer together in the front and farther apart in the rear, a “medium” is required for emitted waves. And when this happens, the front waves move away from an emitter at a slower speed than the rear waves.

No it's not. If the emitter is moving, the difference in position of the emitter will cause the waves to be closer together (in the direction of motion) and futher apart (opposite of the direction of motion). It's that simple. The wavelength changes, not the speed of the wave.

This is not just my opinion, this is classical Doppler theory. This is how waves work in a medium. This knowledge is how Doppler was able to predict redshifts and blueshifts in the light from moving stars, way back in the 1840s, before it was ever observed.


It's how mechanical waves work. But EM waves are not the same as mechanical waves. That is basic physics.


This is why the observer at the rear of a moving train hears no pitch change in the whistle tone, even though the wavelengths of the whistle tone are actually stretched out in the air. Since the rear observer is moving at the same speed as the train, he receives the stretched out sound waves at V + v, with V being the speed of sound in air, and v being his speed through the air. So, his receiving the longer stretched out wavelengths at a faster speed than normal sound speed, cancels out the stretched-out wavelength effect. That is, one kind of Doppler effect cancels out the other kind.


Yep, basic mechanical (not EM) wave physics.

If we surmise that a star that is moving away from the sun is emitting lengthened waves in the direction of the sun, then we can certainly

snip...

mps, which is the relative speed between the earth and the oncoming light waves. This was predicted by Doppler more than 160 years ago.

Sorry, when speaking of EM waves, the speed is the same, the wavelength shifts, not the speed. This is also basic physics and not even part of Relativity.

If there is not one, and if you believe in the Maxwell theory of the little wiggling oscillating electric and magnetic fields moving through space, then we’ve got do decide what speed these things move relative to an emitter, when they are first emitted.

Simple, c.


Then the circles will be concentric and not offset like they are shown offset in Dr. Wright’s illustration.

Like, if light is being emitted inside a galaxy that is moving fast relative to our own, which do the little wigging fields move at “c” relative to, our galaxy or the galaxy that emits them?

They are emitted at c. The question should be what wavelength are they emitted at and what wavelength do we observe.

If they are emitted at “c”, then they are emitted at a normal wavelength.

Wavelength differences at emission belong to Doppler theory, and you’ve got to follow the Doppler laws regarding Doppler related wavelength changes.

Einstein also noticed this problem in relation to gravity fields, since in 1911 he deduced that light speed would slow down inside a strong gravity field. So are local gravity fields an “ether” or not? He did say gravity fields had ether-like properties. This question of the “ether” confounded him and a lot of other people, but we can never just say there isn’t one.

Until we can find and measure it, we can say that there is currently no aether.


In other words, in 1491 AD there was “no” Western Hemisphere?

If the emitter is moving,

Moving relative to what?


the difference in position of the emitter

Relative to what?

Einstein also noticed this problem in relation to gravity fields, since in 1911 he deduced that light speed would slow down inside a strong gravity field. So are local gravity fields an “ether” or not? He did say gravity fields had ether-like properties. This question of the “ether” confounded him and a lot of other people, but we can never just say there isn’t one.

Until we can find and measure it, we can say that there is currently no aether.
In other words, in 1491 AD there was “no” Western Hemisphere?
If you define what you mean by ether, then it turns out it doesn't exist. You could define it to be "gravity field" and then it would exist. Or define it as a mist of warm spittle, and it would exist--but that's not very helpful.

Sorry, when speaking of EM waves, the speed is the same, the wavelength shifts, not the speed. This is also basic physics and not even part of Relativity.

Wavelength change is a Doppler effect, and the Doppler laws require the speed to shift. This is basic physics and can't be changed.

The wavelength of an EM wave moving out in front of a moving emitter can not be compressed and still have the wavefronts move away from the emitter at c. If they move away from the emitter at c, they won’t be compressed.

Sorry, when speaking of EM waves, the speed is the same, the wavelength shifts, not the speed. This is also basic physics and not even part of Relativity.

Wavelength change is a Doppler effect, and the Doppler laws require the speed to shift. This is basic physics and can't be changed.

Then how do you reconcile this with Maxwell's equations which explicitly state that electromagnetic waves (light) always travel at a constant speed, c? Again, electromagnetic waves are very different from other waves.

The wavelength of an EM wave moving out in front of a moving emitter can not be compressed and still have the wavefronts move away from the emitter at c. If they move away from the emitter at c, they won’t be compressed.

I don't see why they won't be. I mean, the emitter is in a different location when it emits each wavecrest. That alone is sufficient to do it.

In other words, in 1491 AD there was “no” Western Hemisphere?

As far as Asians, Africans, and most Europeans were concerned, no there wasn't. They had no evidence for its existence so they left it off their maps. If you think about it, that makes perfect sense from their perspective - they could not rationally believe in something they didn't know was there. Once they had the evidence from Columbus's first expedition, they realised there was a gap in their knowledge and began to fill it. Before that point, unless they were familiar with the Vinland Saga, they had no reason to suspect the existence of the Americas.

Besides, Columbus sailed in 1492 and didn't return to Spain until, I believe, the following year.

And no one will ever know. As this particular experiment is set up (moving relative with no acceleration), the clocks will not be brought together again. And you know what? If you use the exact same situation and use GR, you will get the same answer. Each of the observers will see the other clock moving slow, they won't see their clock moving slow, and they will never be brought together again.

Taking this a step further, the only way they could possibly compare clocks is for one of them to turn around and catch up to the other observer. That requires one of them to change his velocity, which makes it impossible for him to claim he is in an inertial frame. Both observers will agree that clock ran slow.

Granted, introducing an acceleration brings in general relativity. However, keep in mind that the acceleration can be brief. Say, a short thruster burn to start pushing one observer backwards at a high speed. Once it reaches the desired speed, he can stop accelerating, putting us back into the realm of special relativity. The time spent accelerating is so brief compared to the overall time involved, that its effects are insignificant compared to those caused by special relativity alone.


BTW, I'd still like answers to the questions I posed back on page 7.

Granted, introducing an acceleration brings in general relativity.
Only if you insist upon a reference frame that includes the acceleration, and you also insist that the laws of physics are consistent within that reference frame. Otherwise, special relativity is adequate.

The wavelength of an EM wave moving out in front of a moving emitter can not be compressed and still have the wavefronts move away from the emitter at c. If they move away from the emitter at c, they won’t be compressed.
I don't see why they won't be. I mean, the emitter is in a different location when it emits each wavecrest. That alone is sufficient to do it.
Yup. And we still haven't addressed the fact that the animated image showing the moving emitter should also have a slower 'flash' frequency than the one with the emitter at rest to provide a proper illustration of SR. It isn't sufficient to consider the varying location of the emitter, you also must have it 'flashing' at a slower rater to account for the observed frequency. This will be seen directly if you e.g. observe an emitter moving in straight line 'parallel' to the observer as it reaches its closest approach; the traditional Doppler effect predicts a redshift of zero and yet there is a residual redshift which cannot be accounted for except with relativity.

And no one will ever know. As this particular experiment is set up (moving relative with no acceleration), the clocks will not be brought together again. And you know what? If you use the exact same situation and use GR, you will get the same answer. Each of the observers will see the other clock moving slow, they won't see their clock moving slow, and they will never be brought together again.
Taking this a step further, the only way they could possibly compare clocks is for one of them to turn around and catch up to the other observer. That requires one of them to change his velocity, which makes it impossible for him to claim he is in an inertial frame. Both observers will agree that clock ran slow.
You can also explain this without having any acceleration at all.
Imagine two clocks A and B, moving away from each other at high speed, but who have at some point encountered each other (been in the same place at the same time), at which point they synchronised times. Now introduce another clock C, moving reciprocally to B so that it will encounter B ahead of A. When C encounters B, C synchronises itself with B. When C encounters A, the time as read by C will be less than that read by A.

If you do this the GR route, this yields the exact same result as having B undergo an acceleration for an infinitesimal amount of time; the cases are asymptotically the same.

Milli, Taibak, and AstroSmurf, while SR can handle accelerations, the point I was trying to make is Sam5 claims that SR is wrong (one specific thing he claims is relative motion by itself cannot cause dilation), but GR is correct. And if this is the case, why is the amount of dilation the same in SR and GR, when the same relative non accelerated motion is considered.





edited to remove random extra letters

now you're trying to speak for a bunch of others as well. You said that real physicists don't pay any attention to this stuff - that they "don't use this stuff" - and you were/are wrong.

I was talking about SR. In SR theory, all moving clocks should slow down relative to an earth based clock. But Hafele-Keating showed that Westbound clocks speed up. This is not in SR theory. This is Lorentz theory.

Now you purport to speak for Hefele and Keating. :evil: Their results are perfectly consistent with SR. The fact that you think otherwise just shows that your understanding of SR is lacking.

Is a clock on the earth's surface in an inertial frame? No.
Is a clock on the earth's surface moving with respect to an inertial frame? Yes.

So a clock speeding up with respect to an earthbound clock is not a contradiction of SR. This is absolutely no different than you claiming that clocks in a weak gravitational potential speed up. GR claims they slow down. But the statement is true if taken in comparison to a clock in a stronger gravitational potential. "Faster" and "slower" are always measured with respect to something!


And you know very well that as the decades have passed, the technicians have found many other reasons that cause atomic clocks to slow down and speed up, to “drift”, just like every other clock drifts. This has nothing at all to do with SR. Yet books, websites, and most professors try to pretend all clock drifts are due to either SR or GR or to “Einstein”. That is a myth and you know it.

Show me where clock drift is attributed to SR. "Drift" is a specific noise process in a clock. SR predicts a rate change. Not flicker or drift.

We agree that clocks slow down under certain conditions. You claim the cause is the ether. Independently demonstrate that the ether exists. I've shown that under the conditions of no ether, SR works. You only objection is that the ether bends the light; no ether means that time dilation works.

Thanks for replying for me Tensor, some people like to go to sleep here. 8)

Sam, you still have not defined your ether consistently, and every time you try to cite someone else, they don't agree with you upon closer inspection. You can say "Einstein said there is an ether," but Einstein also developed SR, which you don't like. I don't think you can pick and choose which Einstein quotes you like based on what supports (or you think supports) your argument. I still have seen no experiment that has shown there to be an ether, and until I do I must conclude it does not exist. This doe not mean it doesn't exist, it just has not been proven. This is the whole point of science. In fact, why don't you go perform one yourself, write a paper, and send it along with your "Why SR is wrong" paper that we're still waiting on.

Thanks for replying for me Tensor, some people like to go to sleep here. 8)


Hey, NP. I got through as many as I could last night. A few more at lunch, and I actually have off of the show tonight. So, I might be able to get some sleep. :)

Sorry, when speaking of EM waves, the speed is the same, the wavelength shifts, not the speed. This is also basic physics and not even part of Relativity.

Wavelength change is a Doppler effect, and the Doppler laws require the speed to shift. This is basic physics and can't be changed.

The wavelength of an EM wave moving out in front of a moving emitter can not be compressed and still have the wavefronts move away from the emitter at c. If they move away from the emitter at c, they won’t be compressed.

Boy Sam have you got this wrong. The doppler effect doesn't require the speed to shift. I've written about this earlier in this very thread (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=240184&highlight=#240184). (Page 4, fourth post down). To summarize it, the speed of any wave, classical or not, is a property of the medium in which it travels and is independent of the motion of its source. A stationary observer will not see a different speed of sound from a moving source. An observer moving with the source will measure a different speed, and from that will be able to determine his motion with respect to the medium.

Light requires no medium. Its speed in a vacuum is determined the the electromagnetic properties of free space. It differs from an acoustic wave in that all observers see the same speed for light regardless of their motion. Thus, an observer will see light propagating at speed c from a source moving relative to him. Now pay attention because here is the difference between light and acoustic waves. An observer moving with that source also observes light moving at the speed c. He does not see any change in the speed of light due to his motion. Therefore, he cannot determine his motion relative to any hypothetical medium by measuring the speed of light. . If you can't measure motion relative to a medium, you can't determine any of its properties such as index of refraction, elasticity, etc. So, you may as well drop it from your theory. This is one of the many reasons the lumineferous aether was tossed onto the scrap heap of science along with phlogiston and other ideas that once held sway.

So, to sum up. The constancy of the speed of light is one of the two basic postulates of SR. No matter how many times Einstein revised his papers, Sam, he never changed this postulate. If the speed of light is the same to all observers, there is no way to observe motion relative to a medium and therefore no reason to assume that such a medium exists. QED.

(Quantum electrodyanamics, aka QED, developed by Feynman, Schwinger, and Tomonaga, is another very successful theory that combines relativity and quantum mechanics. I could recommend Feynman's book on the topic.

I could recommend Feynman's book on any topic 8)

Oh, blimey, Sam. Doppler Effect disproves Special Relativity? Wow.

Doppler Effect requires that the outgoing velocity relative to the emitter be different than the incoming velocity relative to the receiver (I put "outgoing" and "incoming" in that statement because, technically, one would have a positive velocity and one negative, so it could be argued that they're always different. What's important in Doppler is that the magnitude of the velocities be different, distinct of the direction).

Now, according to Special Relativity, both observers, even if they are moving relative to each other, will measure the velocity of light as c relative to themselves. What this means is that if they are moving relative to each other, they will see the light as moving at either c+v or c-v relative to the other observer.

Therefore, under SR, it doesn't matter which observer is considered to be motionless (emitter or receiver). In both cases, the velocity of light relative to the emitter is different than relative to the receiver, and therefore the Doppler Effect is expected (and observed).

SR says that light always moves at c relative to the designated "motionless" reference frame, not that it always moves at c relative to everything. Thus, the existence of the Doppler Effect in light transmission neither proves the existence of an ether nor disproves the validity of Special Relativity.

No. What we say, is that your friend moving relative to you will cause his clock to appear, to us, to be ticking slower. From his point of view, all our clocks will ticking slightly quicker. But both of us will believe that our clocks are correct, and that the other's is wrong.



Tensor and I agree that under the terms of the SR theory, I will see the other guy’s clock as ticking slow and the other guy will see my clock as ticking slow. So, do you still want to disagree with this and say that the other guy will see my clock as ticking fast?

From his point of view, all our clocks will ticking slightly quicker.

Nope, that's GR theory. Einstein corrected his SR errors about this with his GR theory. In SR theory he said the other guy would see our clocks ticking slower.


umm, nope, i'm sorry but he was right, it is special relativity...
in special relativity, he would perceive our clocks as ticking faster. we would preceive him as going slower.


Tensor and I say that under the terms of the SR theory, I will see the other guy’s clock as ticking slow and the other guy will see my clock as ticking slow. So, do you still want to disagree with this and say that the other guy will see my clock as ticking fast?

To summarize it, the speed of any wave, classical or not, is a property of the medium in which it travels and is independent of the motion of its source. A stationary observer will not see a different speed of sound from a moving source. An observer moving with the source will measure a different speed, and from that will be able to determine his motion with respect to the medium.

That’s what I said. That’s the classical Doppler effect.

Now pay attention because here is the difference between light and acoustic waves. An observer moving with that source also observes light moving at the speed c. He does not see any change in the speed of light due to his motion. Therefore, he cannot determine his motion relative to any hypothetical medium by measuring the speed of light. .


This was shown during the classical Michelson-Morley experiment. Over the years there have been several attempts to explain the “null” result.

I’m sure you know that in the 19th Century, and for a couple of decades into the 20th Century, physicists thought the universe was “fixed” and not moving or expanding. This concept gave rise to the 19th Century idea that the “ether” was “universal” and fixed. So, Michelson and Morley figured they should be able to detect the earth’s motion through it at 18.6 mps. But they found no such “ether wind”.

An obvious conclusion drawn from the results of this experiment is that the “ether” could be a “local” phenomenon, with the earth’s local ether being earth-centered and moving through space with the earth, just as the earth’s electric, magnetic, and gravitational fields are earth-centered and move through space with the earth. Just as the earth’s atmosphere is earth-centered and moves through space with the earth. If this is the case, then at the surfaces of all astronomical bodies, the local speed of light will be determined by the locally-based “ether”.

Where the c + v and c – v come into play is in deep space, where the “ether” is made up of the “blended” fields (or whatever) of many stars in that area of space. This would also account for why light would travel inside a galaxy at about c or an average of c, while that galaxy is moving rapidly through space. As that light works its way into our galaxy, then its speed will become regulated by the fields that are inside and that travel through space with our galaxy.

In Shapiro’s experiments, he showed that light speed slowed down as it passed near the sun. So the speed of light did change, relative to the earth. This also demonstrated that the sun’s gravity field (or something else at the sun) had a “medium” type effect on the light beams, indicating that something centered at the sun regulates the speed of light that passes near the sun.