Silly Einstein

[Aardwolf]

Rethink the MM experiment...

Do you actually believe that the MM experiment is reliable in atmosphere?

[Goldminer]

Rethink the MM experiment. It did not reveal that the speed of the expanding sphere from one source is received by observers moving relative to that source at the same said speed. It did not. What it revealed is that the speed of the medium is not detectable!

MM was nowhere near testing whether the speed of light depended on the medium or not. What they tried to detect was the aether. If it existed, the speed of light should not be the same in all directions because of the earths motion through this aether.

Why do you doubt that I don't understand this point? "If it existed" as if the aether cared what the experimenters thought as to how it is supposed to act!

They actually did get a result, but MM accepted that this result was within reasonable error margins and therefore accepted they had not been able to prove the existence of the aether.
But they didn't disprove it either! And a lot of later experiments seems to indicate an aether. My view on this is that it is a bit like searching for dark matter. There is a lot of things that will affect the medium light travels through. Let's find out what these things are, rather than declare the aether to be found every time.

I am aware of these experiments. My point is that everyone assumes that the motion of the aether can be detected. My research of a number of aether related experiments lead me to believe that motion is not a detectable property of the aether, even though the aether obviously exists.

Radar systems, modern communication, GPS, etc. all works because the speed of waves depends on the medium they travel through.

Actually, they depend upon the finite speed of light. Do you really think I am ignorant on this subject? GPS still has its anomalies. Remote adjustments are required to the clock rates, and orbits of the satellites. A new almanac is downloaded to users at the startup of each session and at various times. The system takes into consideration the Doppler shift as the various satellites approach and recede the many users of the system.

These last years we've been able to slow light down to a practically standstill in laboratories. We are also able to accelerate light to speeds above the famous "lightspeed", c. It is all done by manipulating the medium. You will have a hard time arguing that light takes it speed from elsewhere.

Ah yes, the nonparticipating "We." Sorry, I have used it, too. Intragalactic and extragalactic space is pretty much void of any medium (i.e, matter) close enough together to propagate the various frequencies of EMR. If the aether had a detectable motion, relative the Earth, it would have been noted, already. Light has a specific speed in a near perfect vacuum, relative the source and an at-rest detector. I know of no directly measured, one-way speed test of Light from a relativistically moving source. Light from moving sources are Doppler shifted, or in the transverse case; aberrated. However, not all spectrum shifted light is a result of Doppler shifting.

True that different transparent mediums propagate light at different speeds, and at the interface of these mediums one encounters refraction. In transparent matter, frequency affects the speed.

Ardwolf is right that a single observer cannot see the expanding sphere, I pointed the same thing out in earlier posts, myself. This is the reason I am specifying a "fleet of observers" in each frame to do the job. If one studies up on antenna research, one will find that the same, or similar principles are used in determining the radiation pattern of various antenna designs.

There doesn't need to be an expanding sphere. A laser is a good example of that.
But two lasers at X and B in Aardwolf's example will still be seen at the same time at C!

Lasers violate the inverse square law. Their radiation is still a part of the expanding sphere (centered on where the source was at the time the pulse was emitted*). Actually four lasers; two at X, pointed at A and C; two at B, pointed at W and Y (assuming they are all in line so that each laser's beam reaches the in-frame observer and the moving frame observer.)

* If this is not true, then astronomy is in a real fix. Nothing would be seen where it was when the light we see was emitted. We, at least I, understand that transverse light from stars is aberrated by the fact of observers on earth moving perpendicularly to said light.

[Goldminer]

But still no explanation why the flash of light from two adjacent emitters travels across the same medium at different speeds.

You don't fathom that each pulse of light has a duration? They are only "adjacent" for the tiniest instant. During the rest of the pulse the sources are ever further apart. The pulse, as seen by the opposite frame, is Doppler shifted either to the red receding, or to the blue approaching. I am assuming the "medium" to be the aether; which has the properties of permittivity and permeability. In addition, I attribute the aether the property of providing inertia to matter, in addition to, or as a result of these two measured quantities.

What properties do you attribute to the aether?

[Aardwolf]

But still no explanation why the flash of light from two adjacent emitters travels across the same medium at different speeds.

You don't fathom that each pulse of light has a duration? They are only "adjacent" for the tiniest instant. During the rest of the pulse the sources are ever further apart. The pulse, as seen by the opposite frame, is Doppler shifted either to the red receding, or to the blue approaching. I am assuming the "medium" to be the aether; which has the properties of permittivity and permeability. In addition, I attribute the aether the property of providing inertia to matter, in addition to, or as a result of these two measured quantities.

But it still remains that whatever your measurement of the shift, your theory needs the light from one source to arrive at the destination years later than the other. You have still not provided any reason why 2 identical emitters of light, flashing light adjacent to each other do not travel accross the same medium at the same speed. If the flash were for say 10 nanoseconds in duration, the maximum that the light from the ship could be trailing is ten foot. Why would it take years longer to reach the destination?

[Aardwolf]

Of course an additional problem for your theory is that it makes it possible to "overtake" the light flash at subluminal speeds. 1 day after the flashes, X turns around and accelerates toward Y at 0.9c. It takes only 2.78 years (5ly divided by 1.8 (0.9+0.9)) for X to reach Y. According to your theory it will take another 2.22 years for the light flash from X to reach Y.

<moderator edit - offensive remark removed>

[Goldminer]

Of course an additional problem for your theory is that it makes it possible to "overtake" the light flash at subluminal speeds. 1 day after the flashes, X turns around and accelerates toward Y at 0.9c. It takes only 2.78 years (5ly divided by 1.8 (0.9+0.9)) for X to reach Y. According to your theory it will take another 2.22 years for the light flash from X to reach Y. <moderator edit - offensive remark removed>

???? I was under the impression that W,X and Y were all in the same "frame of reference!" If that is the case, W and Y would also turn around, and X would not only never reach Y; but even in your scenario, since, I assume, it would still be traveling at 5c, could never catch up to the light pulse which left it traveling at c. Look back at your posts. Initially, you postulated two pulses, one from X and one from B.

What I think you do not appreciate is that observers in the same frame will always observe an on coming wave front; in other words they will both be facing the source. In the "moving frame," the receding observer will have to turn around from the direction of travel in order to see the red shifted light approaching from behind. Should that observer be traveling as fast or faster than the speed of light, he will see nothing since the red shift will have shifted all the energy from the wave front. As to whether, should said observer turn around and face the direction of travel, he would see the wave front back to front, I leave to your imagination. Relativists claim that he would see time running backwards; and furthermore, to them, time would actually be running backwards. I doubt all of that conjecture.

If you took the time to understand my insight, you would understand that neither X nor B can ever overtake their own or the other's pulse with the two separating at .5c, no matter where observes are placed in either frame of reference. No observer ever gets more than one time to see the pulse from either source. Oops, I see you changed not only the direction, but the speed of the WXY fame! Never the less the above paragraph still applies.

You are making up your own rules. You do not want to understand the logical implications of everything that belongs to a particular "frame of reference" necessarily being at rest with any one point or object in said "frame of reference."

<moderator edit - response to edited remark removed>

As to a couple of references that I have "colligated" to arrive at my insight, you might study these two sites:

The Farce of Physics

Resolving the Wave-Particle Paradox

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[Aardwolf]

???? I was under the impression that W,X and Y were all in the same "frame of reference!" If that is the case, W and Y would also turn around, and X would not only never reach Y; but even in your scenario, since, I assume, it would still be traveling at 5c, could never catch up to the light pulse which left it traveling at c. Look back at your posts. Initially, you postulated two pulses, one from X and one from B.

And exactly what is going to stop ship X exiting the frame and making its way toward ship W? Nothing.

And no it wont catch up in my scenario but I never said it did in my scenario. It's your scenario that has the problem.

[Goldminer]

???? I was under the impression that W,X and Y were all in the same "frame of reference!" If that is the case, W and Y would also turn around, and X would not only never reach Y; but even in your scenario, since, I assume, it would still be traveling at 5c, could never catch up to the light pulse which left it traveling at c. Look back at your posts. Initially, you postulated two pulses, one from X and one from B.

And exactly what is going to stop ship X exiting the frame and making its way toward ship W? Nothing.

And no it wont catch up in my scenario but I never said it did in my scenario. It's your scenario that has the problem.

Yes, There is nothing except the physics of instantaneous acceleration. Keep imagining! I'll allow it. You are being just as silly as Einstein hisself! Soon you will be famous too!

It won't catch up in what I described. So apparently you don't understand. I have no idea how you came up with this! It's your idea to complicate things with two sources before you even comprehend what I proposes with one source, and then parade around as if you are the world's authority on the subject!

According to You, W,X and Y are in line, in that order, .5 light years apart, all in one frame; X gives off a short pulse, then instantly rushes off at .9c after it. How the hell do you expect it to catch the pulse if it is going less than c? (It matters not how fast the group of them are going, W,X and Y are all at rest with each other before X gets the strange urge to go see Y.)

I forget which way B was going, but if it is opposite to the direction you have decided X should go, X and B are now separating at a speed beyond c. They will now never see each other since the light between them has no energy. Oops, I forgot: X and B flashed right when X got this idea to defect. They would still both see each other's flash at the same time, only the blue to red shifting of each other's light will be over a greater range.

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[Aardwolf]

Where did you get 0.5 ly from? My example has always stated the distances as 5 ly.

A to B is 5 light years and B to C is also 5 light years so A to C is 10 light years.

Let's say X was not alone, ahead of X is ship W and behind X is ship Y. Now they are 5ly aheadof and behind X respectively, and they are travelling at the same speed so are included in X's reference frame.

And you also referred to them many times as being 5 ly apart. Here's one example

Y and W will see X's pulse at the same absolute time that A and C will see B's pulse, 5 years after each pulse was emitted, since distances within each frame do not change, and both pulses happened at the same time/place.

Maybe a diagram can help.

After 5 ly the positions in the original scenario positions will be thus with the your light sphere centered on B & X respectively;

==========A-----------B-----------C=============
=================W-----------X-----------Y======

Now in my final scenario wherby X decided to turn around 1 day after the flash (I never said instantly, a day my suffice) after 2.78 year the positions will be rougnly thus (highlighted X is where it would have been if it stayed in the frame);

==========A-----------B-----------C=============
==============WX-----------X-----------Y=======

Hence X has managed to overtake the light sphere as it should still be centered where X was when still in frame and as only 2.78 ly has passed the surface of the sphere is still to reach W.

EDIT - For the record, absolute space which I adhere to has both B & X spheres centered at B so no overtaking of light is possible.

[Goldminer]

[1.] Where did you get 0.5 ly from? My example has always stated the distances as 5 ly.

[2.] A to B is 5 light years and B to C is also 5 light years so A to C is 10 light years.

[3.]Let's say X was not alone, ahead of X is ship W and behind X is ship Y. Now they are 5ly ahead of and behind X respectively, and they are traveling at the same speed so are included in X's reference frame.

And you also referred to them many times as being 5 ly apart. Here's one example

Y and W will see X's pulse at the same absolute time that A and C will see B's pulse, 5 years after each pulse was emitted, since distances within each frame do not change, and both pulses happened at the same time/place.

[4.] Maybe a diagram can help.

After 5 ly the positions in the original scenario positions will be thus with the your light sphere centered on B & X respectively;

==========A-----------B-----------C=============
=================W-----------X-----------Y======

[5.] Now in my final scenario whereby X decided to turn around 1 day after the flash (I never said instantly, a day my [sic may?] suffice) after 2.78 year the positions will be roughly thus (highlighted X is where it would have been if it stayed in the frame);

==========A-----------B-----------C=============
==============WX-----------X-----------Y=======

Hence X has managed to overtake the light sphere as it should still be centered where X was when still in frame and as only 2.78 ly has passed the surface of the sphere is still to reach W.

[6.] EDIT - For the record, absolute space which I adhere to has both B & X spheres centered at B so no overtaking of light is possible.

[1.] .5ly/5ly; Its only the scale, anyway. Few can capture the magnitude of one light year. Nanoseconds and feet accomplish the same thing.

[2.] Whoda ever thunk that?

[3.] OK, so I got the scale wrong, big deal!

[4.] Good on this too. I think you understand part of my insight!

[5.] Yes; this is how I picture your description. Yes, in your description, I suppose light could be overtaken as you relate. But this is not what I describe. What I describe is that light travels away from the source, within the source's frame, at c in all directions, no matter what frame the source is a part, for every source in every frame. Every observer no matter which frame the observer belongs will measure the speed of the the transverse light from any other frame to be c. There is no "zigzag" path for transverse light. It just rains directly down upon the observer; The only evidence for speed between frames is the aberration angle (and speed induced Doppler shift in the direct approach scenario.) The greater the relative speed, the greater the aberration angle. Consequently, after the pulse is emitted, there is no way for the observer at the source to see the pulse again; without exceeding c, and doubtful even then. What are the chances of detecting the light waves back to front?

[6.] I agree with you on absolute space, and go you one better: I am pretty firm on absolute time, too. The second part of your edit statement; "both B & X spheres centered at B so no overtaking of light is possible" does not follow as a necessity from your initial statement, and does not agree with observations from space. If light does not remain centered upon where the source was when the light was emitted (+ or - the aberration angle,) then we have no idea where the placement of stars and galaxies really are in relation to everything else.

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[Aardwolf]

[1.] Where did you get 0.5 ly from? My example has always stated the distances as 5 ly.

[2.] A to B is 5 light years and B to C is also 5 light years so A to C is 10 light years.

[3.]Let's say X was not alone, ahead of X is ship W and behind X is ship Y. Now they are 5ly ahead of and behind X respectively, and they are traveling at the same speed so are included in X's reference frame.

And you also referred to them many times as being 5 ly apart. Here's one example

Y and W will see X's pulse at the same absolute time that A and C will see B's pulse, 5 years after each pulse was emitted, since distances within each frame do not change, and both pulses happened at the same time/place.

[4.] Maybe a diagram can help.

After 5 ly the positions in the original scenario positions will be thus with the your light sphere centered on B & X respectively;

==========A-----------B-----------C=============
=================W-----------X-----------Y======

[5.] Now in my final scenario whereby X decided to turn around 1 day after the flash (I never said instantly, a day my [sic may?] suffice) after 2.78 year the positions will be roughly thus (highlighted X is where it would have been if it stayed in the frame);

==========A-----------B-----------C=============
==============WX-----------X-----------Y=======

Hence X has managed to overtake the light sphere as it should still be centered where X was when still in frame and as only 2.78 ly has passed the surface of the sphere is still to reach W.

[6.] EDIT - For the record, absolute space which I adhere to has both B & X spheres centered at B so no overtaking of light is possible.

[1.] .5ly/5ly; Its only the scale, anyway. Few can capture the magnitude of one light year. Nanoseconds and feet accomplish the same thing.

[2.] Whoda ever thunk that?

[3.] OK, so I got the scale wrong, big deal!

[4.] Good on this too. I think you understand part of my insight!

[5.] Yes; this is how I picture your description. Yes, in your description, I suppose light could be overtaken as you relate. But this is not what I describe. What I describe is that light travels away from the source, within the source's frame, at c in all directions, no matter what frame the source is a part, for every source in every frame. Every observer no matter which frame the observer belongs will measure the speed of the the transverse light from any other frame to be c. There is no "zigzag" path for transverse light. It just rains directly down upon the observer; The only evidence for speed between frames is the aberration angle (and speed induced Doppler shift in the direct approach scenario.) The greater the relative speed, the greater the aberration angle. Consequently, after the pulse is emitted, there is no way for the observer at the source to see the pulse again; without exceeding c, and doubtful even then. What are the chances of detecting the light waves back to front?

[6.] I agree with you on absolute space, and go you one better: I am pretty firm on absolute time, too. The second part of your edit statement; "both B & X spheres centered at B so no overtaking of light is possible" does not follow as a necessity from your initial statement, and does not agree with observations from space. If light does not remain centered upon where the source was when the light was emitted (+ or - the aberration angle,) then we have no idea where the placement of stars and galaxies really are in relation to everything else.

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I'm confused. If you agree about absolute space and time, then why do you insist on the relativity of light to the emitter? And what observations from space are you talking about?

And for the record, we dont know where the placement of stars and galaxies really are in relation to everything else. We potentially know where they were in relation to everything else, however, I dont understand what that has to do with this discussion. We cant genuinely determine anything we measure as observations from space as it's subject to many, many assumptions.

[GManIM]

1) I just had a mental picture of Einstein saying "Mein Gott! Den Äther verhält sich wie Silly Puttyl!"

2) So light's like a bubble getting bigger at the speed of light; but irrespective of the size of its radiosphere when you pop it you get the same size drop on the end of your finger? Or a cone or something...I'm getting confused here...

[Goldminer]

1) I just had a mental picture of Einstein saying "Mein Gott! Den Äther verhält sich wie Silly Puttyl!"


2) So light's like a bubble getting bigger at the speed of light; but irrespective of the size of its radiosphere when you pop it you get the same size drop on the end of your finger? Or a cone or something...I'm getting confused here...

Yes, getting confused is easy to do! Ardwuf and I are not immune! I am only discussing a short, powerful pulse of monochromatic light. I cannot speak for what Ardwuf is thinking.

A continuously emitted radiation from a source produces a field of radiation from the source out to where the initial start of the radiation is advancing. If you detect a ray of this light, the only information you have to work with is the direction from whence it came, the intensity of the ray, and the curvature of the surface of the portion you detect. Thus, it is impossible to know when the light you see was emitted. (Even in "thought experiments," which is why I stick to the short pulse in my part of this discussion.)

When you detect a portion of the "expanding sphere," only the portion of the wave front your eye absorbs is removed from the expanding sphere. This creates a shadow for someone further out from the source, observing the same ray. I have no clue how one would "pop" the expanding sphere of light!

All the "light cones" and whatnot are the creations of Einsteinian fantasizers, IMHO.

I hope this helps . . .

[GManIM]

When you detect a portion of the "expanding sphere," only the portion of the wave front your eye absorbs is removed from the expanding sphere. This creates a shadow for someone further out from the source, observing the same ray.

Phew! Thank God for that. I thought I was going to have to revise my tagline

I have no clue how one would "pop" the expanding sphere of light!

Me neither; although I thought we were being taken in some sort of "quantum entanglement in a single photon" direction back there

[sjw40364]

Let me ask all of you a question.
1) If distance from a gravity source affects the decay rate of a cesium atom, which we know it does, then how is time dilation an effect of spacetime and not due to an aspect of the clock? Clocks don't even tick at the same rate just by altitude alone, without any velocity component. A clock on the moon and earth would not tick at the same rate, so how can anyone say it is not an effect of the clock itself?

2) Assuming that velocity affects clocks then if A is moving at 1/2 of c and emits a beam of light, supposedly it sees the beam moving away from it at c, while stationary observer B sees it moving away from A at 1/2 of c. Now if clock A is slower than B's clock, what in your right minds thinks you can compare the two without first converting one measurement into the other? Do you think that the length of each second is the same because you call them seconds? If you convert A's time into B's time then A would see light moving away from it at 1/2 of c, not c. You can no more compare two different measuring systems without converting than you can compare feet and meters without first converting. The duration of clock A's seconds are shorter than clock b's seconds, the two are not the same and must be converted to one frame or the other.