Faster than Light

Eckard Blumschein

Pentcho,

My explanation does not involve the hypotheses you mentioned. It relies on the definition of any (constant) speed as the distance from the point of emission at the moment of emission to the point of arrival at the moment of arrival divided by the time elapsed between emission and arrival. Velocities of emitter or receiver are not directly involved and must therefore not be used as to measure the speed under consideration.

The mistake Michelson inherited from Maxwell was to consider space a medium like air to which the velocity of light was thought relating to as does the velocity of sound to air.

Speed is a calculated quantity, not a basic one. Velocity has a chosen point of reference and a chosen sign of direction.

Eckard

pjackson

Akinbo,

Only if Venus's atmosphere behaves differently to any other bound gas would it not slow light. The 'Venus Express' probe recently confirmed the thick atmosphere.

Plasma on the other hand (free electron/proton rich) does NOT change propagation speed because at n=1 it behaves exactly as the vacuum. However it strongly 'couples' with the light, which is very different to actually slowing it down, but does then mean that any MOTION of the plasma DOES affect (rotate) the optical axis (of it's re-emissions), and obviously does so at a rate subject to plasma density, which increases nearer the body. (It's not 'gravitationally enhanced' apart from simply having more 'gravitational' effect, so rotating the axis more, where thickest!).

Look at the angle of the tail of the recent comet leaving the sun. It's clearly streamed out by the solar wind plasma. The effect of that ambient medium radial motion on the light from Venus is what's called 'Kinetic Reverse Refraction' (well known but not previously coherently explained).

Now take a look at the light path through a triangular prism. It certainly does bend 'on exit' as well as on entry, but you'll see it bends further the SAME WAY, not back to a parallel path. This is also what is actually observed, as 'gravitational lensing'.

There are of course also more massive bound SMP's in the solar wind so also second order refractive effects. Earth's iono/plasmasphere behaves differently to it's bound gas atmosphere, producing stellar aberration as a kinetic effect, where the atmosphere also rotates with the planet, but also SLOWS the light on interaction so produced polarisation mode dispersion (PMD) giving normal atmospheric refraction.

You may need to read that again slowly, as most get it mostly wrong most of the time!

Best wishes.

Peter

PS. It seems the muons are effectively the hypercharged super-electrons from the solar wind Doppler shifted on penetrating the plasmasphere.

Pentcho Valev

Axioms of Newton's Emission Theory of Light IV

Today's Einsteinians "almost universally" teach that the Michelson-Morley experiment supported Einstein's 1905 constant-speed-of-light postulate (which implies that the experiment refuted the variable speed of light predicted by Newton's emission theory of light). John Norton and John Stachel rebuke brothers Einsteinians for teaching the lie and believe that Divine Albert, unlike "later writers", was absolutely honest and never cited the experiment as evidence for the principle of constancy of the speed of light. Any time John Norton and John Stachel think of Divine Albert's absolute honesty, they tumble to the floor, start tearing their clothes and go into convulsions:

John Norton: "In addition to his work as editor of the Einstein papers in finding source material, Stachel assembled the many small clues that reveal Einstein's serious consideration of an emission theory of light; and he gave us the crucial insight that Einstein regarded the Michelson-Morley experiment as evidence for the principle of relativity, whereas later writers almost universally use it as support for the light postulate of special relativity. Even today, this point needs emphasis. The Michelson-Morley experiment is fully compatible with an emission theory of light that CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT POSTULATE."

Einstein from 'B' to 'Z', John Stachel, p. 179: "Are there any common features to Einstein's mentions of the Michelson-Morley experiment? Yes: Without exception, it is cited as evidence for the relativity principle, and is never cited as evidence for the principle of the constancy of the velocity of light."

John Norton and John Stachel are right. Divine Albert never taught the lie. Never! He only taught it once, in 1921, but then repented and never taught it again:

The New York Times, April 19, 1921: "The special relativity arose from the question of whether light had an invariable velocity in free space, he [Einstein] said. The velocity of light could only be measured relative to a body or a co-ordinate system. He sketched a co-ordinate system K to which light had a velocity C. Whether the system was in motion or not was the fundamental principle. This has been developed through the researches of Maxwell and Lorentz, the principle of the constancy of the velocity of light having been based on many of their experiments. But did it hold for only one system? he asked. He gave the example of a street and a vehicle moving on that street. If the velocity of light was C for the street was it also C for the vehicle? If a second co-ordinate system K was introduced, moving with the velocity V, did light have the velocity of C here? When the light traveled the system moved with it, so it would appear that light moved slower and the principle apparently did not hold. Many famous experiments had been made on this point. Michelson showed that relative to the moving co-ordinate system K1, the light traveled with the same velocity as relative to K, which is contrary to the above observation. How could this be reconciled? Professor Einstein asked."

Pentcho Valev

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

When I read your "Speculations ..." paper, I already got aware that you don't understand in what the double round trip by Michelson 1881 and 1887 are quite different from his 1921 configuration that managed measuring the Sagnac effect. I am not aware of an earlier experiment by Michelson before what he first tried in Berlin, then performed in nearby Potsdam, presented in Paris, and published in 1881 in the U.S.A.

Of course I agree with you and Peter on that light propagates even if nobody observes it. Let's translate Einstein's observer as the receiver. Length contraction goes back to FitzGerald and to Lorentz who - to my knowledge - did not yet introduce the rather inappropriate notion observer. My last essay mentions Wheeler's even more bewildering anthropic view of observers outside our universe.

Don't take it amiss if I consider these sidesteps less important if compared with what I consider a decisive flaw that I shared with almost the whole community: The null result by Michelson does not compel us to accept either an emission theory or a Lorentz/Einstein theory. Please feel challenged to refute my reasoning in this question.

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Eckard,

Draw a line on earth's equator with you at the centre. Place a source of sound at each end, equidistant from you. Knowing the direction of earth motion and rotation, will the sound coming from the direction against earth rotation get to you earlier than the sound in the direction of earth rotation, or do they both arrive at the same time as if the earth were motionless?

[The earth rotates and orbits counter-clockwise as seen from the North].

Akinbo

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

If there is no wind then I expect the two sound signals at the same time because the air moves together with the rotating earth.

If we consider light signals instead, then - according to my definition of the speed of light - I expect the imbalance that corresponds to the Sagnac effect.

Cf. also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagnac_effect:"rotation is not required for the Sagnac effect to be manifest".

Foucault's pendulum does also show the rotation of earth relative to space.

There is an impressive demonstration of this experiment to be seen permanently in Magdeburg.

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Eckard,

You said, "If we consider light signals instead, then - according to my definition of the speed of light - I expect the imbalance that corresponds to the Sagnac effect".

You know what? The imbalance you expected based on your choice of defining light speed surprisingly did not happen, despite highly accurate testing. That is the Null result of Michelson and Morley type experiments. That being the case will you now accept a different definition of light speed? Like Peter J's, Tom's, John's, Pentcho's or make a new definition?

Take the Wiki reference with a pinch of salt. The Sagnac finding is not well liked in Einsteiniana. SR cant explain it, GR is now being used to do so under the guise that rotation is acceleration and acceleration is gravitation.

Foucault's pendulum intrigues me and I would love to know more about it. I am sure physics has much to still learn from it.

Akinbo

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

My definition of the speed of light explains Michelson's null result: The distances AB and AC between the mirrors do not change. The propagation of light needs from A to B and from A to C in the same time as return from B to A and from C to A because there is no influence of a medium. Any motion of earth and the mirrors placed on it relative to something during this round trips does not matter at all. It was simply not justified to guess that there is some aether wind in which light does propagate as does sound in air.

When Einstein in 1905 calculated with c+v and c-v he reiterated the guess by Maxwell, Michelson, Lorentz and many others although it was disproved by the null result. While Lorentz still understood that he intended to rescue the aether wind, Einstein managed cheating himself while baffling the world. Who can tell me how Einstein defined the velocity of light?

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Peter,

"Plasma on the other hand (free electron/proton rich) does NOT change propagation speed because at n=1 it behaves exactly as the vacuum. ...plasma DOES affect (rotate) the optical axis ..., and obviously does so at a rate subject to plasma density, which increases nearer the body".

Well, change in plasma density is then guaranteed to affect light behaviour. That's okay for now. Vacuum cannot behave like plasma since its density cannot change and neither can it be gravitationally bound since it is not matter.

"Now take a look at the light path through a triangular prism. It certainly does bend 'on exit' as well as on entry, but you'll see it bends further the SAME WAY, not back to a parallel path. This is also what is actually observed, as 'gravitational lensing'".

Why not a rectangular prism rather than a triangular one whose sides are already bent? For gravitational lensing, the light "grazes" the surface, i.e. angle of incidence is 90o, so I don't think it will bend further SAME WAY on exit.

Regards

Akinbo

Akinbo Ojo

Pentcho,

More headache for your emission theory, where light decides to vary its speed relative to the emitter's velocity, v and also for Special relativity, (which does same with the observer's velocity with recourse to contracting length and dilated time), both in an effort to make c+v = c' and explain the Michelson-Morley experiment without the need for an earth-bound medium.

What is v in the experiment to make the findings null? During the experiment, the emitter was simultaneously moving at 465m/s, earth rotational velocity, at 30,000m/s earth's orbital velocity and 380,000m/s earth motion relative to the background radiation. All at the same time. So when a light particle is about to be emitted to ensure a subsequently observed velocity, c which of these v's does it choose from to make this happen since it does not know in advance which one the experimenter intends to use for analysis?

Then Eckard,

"...the definition of any (constant) speed as the distance from the point of emission at the moment of emission to the point of arrival at the moment of arrival divided by the time elapsed between emission and arrival".

"Speed is a calculated quantity, not a basic one. Velocity has a chosen point of reference and a chosen sign of direction".

I agree the Velocities of emitter or receiver are not directly involved. The question is: if you know in advance the time of its emission, e.g. by synchronizing clocks can you delay light arrival time or hasten it? Emission theory and Special relativity are finding ways to say why this is sometimes observed and sometimes not.

Akinbo

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

Einstein's SR is based on what can friendly be called a conventional synchronization. I rather prefer the good old ubiquitous simultaneity because Einstein's Poincaré synchronization is plausible only if A does not move relative to B. Otherwise, one has to deny many paradoxes.

Eckard

pjackson

Eckard,

Your proposal appears to have an oxymoron which is unavoidable. It demands time travel or knowledge of the future so can only reduce to nonsense. c is a 'speed' which is a relative concept. If a light signal light emitted from a body does not travel at c wrt the emitter, and does not travel at c wrt the background medium how does it know at what speed to propagate? Your maths may work but you well know that maths CANNOT replace physical reality!

What if no observers are there? Does it not propagate at all? You have conveniently become blind to the simplest of physical requirements. That approach is precisely what Oxford Charles Dodgson parodied in his best seller. Your proposal also entirely ignores the irrefutable scientific fact that space is far from 'empty'. Not known then but well known now. I posted a number of links. Do you choose to place your head in the sand?. Ignoring such facts removes such theories from science to the realms of religion or fantasy.

A solution is clear. If the signal, either immediately or gradually (space is rather big) reverts to c wrt even the most diffuse of particle fields then complete logic returns. Any observer made of matter is also a particle filed, so will find all light at c once arrived, as he is SAMPLING from the passing signals (those that DO pass carry on at relative c+v). That meets all findings. And I do mean ALL. If you disagree then I challenge you to find one which is not explained.

You understand this is just an honest bid to rescue you from la-la land.

Best wishes

Peter

Eckard Blumschein

Peter, Akinbo,

The speed of light refers to a distance in space, not to coordinates of space that could belong to a medium. The electromagnetic field can rather be considered its own medium with its well-known wave impedance. This is not at all an oxymoron. The light wave front has not to know in advance where and when it will arrive at a target. Its current distance from point of emission does always equal to ct_elapsed.

Peter, I already often stressed that the existence of an observer and its motion in empty space has no influence on the propagating electromagnetic wave. What counts is only its actual distance from the given point of emission. Well, this is almost identical with the guess by Maxwell and Michelson. However, if space does not act as a fixed in space medium but instead it merely defines distances, then the pair consisting of a given emitter and a subsequent series of receivers cannot move relative to medium-related coordinates of space. Even Einstein was correct in that there is no preferred frame of reference in space - except for the straight line between the emitter and all possible receivers.

Yes Peter, in reality there is no absolutely empty space. However, it is reasonable to call something a "high" vacuum if it contains sufficiently few atoms and the like. Solids, liquids and high pressure plasmas are often opaque. Light propagates in gases almost as fast as in the idealized vacuum. Extinction and reemission is not required. If reemission occurs then there are telltale features.

Eckard

[deleted]

Akinbo,

Only Borg use cubes. Bodies are spherical and EM fields toroidal. We must then take the tangent of the surface at the point of entry and exit. Look at the 'path' through a proper (triangular) prism as an approximation. Now draw it for a circle using the tangent lines. In fact the paths WITHIN the circle are curved (or rather the axis is progressively rotated) as in a GRIN lens. You'll see how gravitational lensing is reproduced.

"...change in plasma density is then guaranteed to affect light behaviour." Not always, No. But generally true in practice as 'things move'. The thing to remember about pure plasma is that in passing on fluctuations at precisely it exactly 'replicates' the (dark energy) 'condensate' from which it came only when it can be considered as 'AT REST' wrt the signal prior to arrival and interaction. As soon as it 'moves' it gives itself away by being consistent, i.e. ALWAYS re-emitting at "c wrt itself".

The RATE of the effect then DOES vary with density, though in deep space a 1 parsec thick dense plasma will have pretty well the same effect as a 2 parsec thick plasma half the density (IF both have the same relative motion, which of course they won't!).

The golden rule is to distinguish the bulk kinetic state from the density and consider them separately. Then of course they've all also evolved differently to bound molecular gas fractions! That's why we can never avoid scintillation.

Peter

pjackson

Eckard,

It's the very designation of some 'distance' without tangible matter to assign some 'speed' between that's an oxymoron. You assume putting the cart before the horse can solve the problem. That's a mathematicians trick, which only works in Alice's wonderland!

The propagation 'speed' cannot logically come before the 'distance' unless there is another datum. The can be no 'speed' for any emission to travel at without a datum to designate speed.

As we know that the free electrons of plasma have the highest EM coupling potential of all matter, that wherever we've been densities are high, and that even in sparse regions there's now both estimated and calculated to be some 150/cm^-3, (from the "telltale features" you correctly invoke). The other 'features' found include; Interstellar Farady Rotation, Scintillation, annihilation (of old signals), multi-refringence, gravitational lensing, the kSZ effect and related KRR as I've specified, and all related to a host of other 'anomalous (at present) effects'. All fall logically into place.

So why try to deny or ignore their REAL effect and visit wonderland instead? We also know electrons consistently re-emit at c in the local frame, but the effect of that is the bit present doctrine hasn't yet assimilated.

You still haven't managed to find any falsification of that simple physical solution.

Think of a signal emitted by Voyager 2, as the wavefront surface of an expanding Schrodinger sphere. You are positioned off it's track to Earth but a bit closer to Voyager as the sphere surface arrives. Now change your mind and place yourself elsewhere, have you changed propagation speed wrt the Barycentric rest frame? (Sun centred). I can tell you with confidence that you have NOT. The NASA telemetry guys would have you locked away in a straight jacket in no time if they heard your idea! Life may be fun in wonderland, but with more careful thought I think you'll discover you know better and can avoid the asylum!

Peter

[deleted]

Peter, Akinbo, Tom and perhaps many others have to live up to unbiasedness as to factually deal with my arguments:

- It is reasonable to consider space as a plurality of mutual distances between simultaneous locations of objects without a naturally preferred point to refer to.

Imagine a yardstick without numbers that could indicate the distance from zero. For instance, the distance between 50 and 60 equals to the distance between 150 and 160.

- Michelson couldn't measure motion of earth relative to a hypothetical medium because all really involved distances remained unchanged, and it was already incorrect to assume c+v and c-v for light. In contrast to sound, c of light does not refer to a medium, and in contrast to the speed of bullets it does not refer to the velocities of emitter or receiver.

- Michelson et al. did however measure the Sagnac effect because the distances between starting point and endpoint were different for both pathways.

I blame Lorentz' intention to rescue the aether hypothesis and also his desire to extend Galileo's linearly shifting relativity onto the non-linear case of electromagnetism by means of a covariant transformation between corresponding states for several mistakes up to now.

Eckard

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

The reason for me to remind of constant speed of deflected charges in a magnetic field has to do with my ignorance of a plausible theory of gravitation. I am a layman in this field, and I wonder if gravimagnetism is already the last word because to me it looks too much like an analogy to the electrostatic force. However, electric charges repel each other while mass attract each other.

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Peter,

I liked this... "What if no observers are there? Does it (light) not propagate at all?

Which means length contraction and time dilation that ensure an observed velocity, c are phenomena due to the presence of observers capable of measurement! Things are getting curiouser and curiouser. I vote now for 2030, if the Lord tarries as a faith-based saying goes.

Eckard,

The Michelson-Morley experiment is a rotational experiment, just like Sagnac's. The original M-M experiment was done with an L-setup but forms of the experiment with an east-west (-*-) directional setup have been done, with results showing that despite earth rotation, despite earth orbit about the sun, what is seen in Sagnac's experiment is not observed. Peter had earlier pointed out the assumptions that need to be borne in mind in the interpretation of both experiments when we earlier discussed here.

Akinbo

pjackson

Eckard, Akinbo.

The simplest application of logic falsifies the 'multiple ruler' scenario based on real observations. Sure it's ever curiouser and confusing ..if we cling on to assumptions, but there is one, and only one, way in which all the confusing jigsaw puzzle pieces fit beautifully together, consistent with all observation. If you can suspend assumptions temporarily to test it; Let's assume;

That spin particles simply gravitate the same as planets, but proportional to mass.

A non-ether 'dark energy continuum' that can't change but simply maintains c.

A Higgs process, so fermion pairs then DO couple and change speed to their own c.

That the more diffuse the medium the longer it takes to convert ALL waves to new c.

That ALL detectors are made of dense matter, so convert each new wave to local c.

Now M&M did NOT get a zero result remember, just very low. And Miller got ever higher ones at higher altitude, because he'd find BOTH speeds mixed up (consistent with 'scintillation' and 'atmospheric birefringence').

Now just move your view position back so you're at rest near Jupiter watching Earth etc. orbit the sun and rotate. Would you expect the light coming past you from the sun to be doing c wrt some arbitrary planet called Earth? Of course not. Light changes speed to do the local c of the particles it interacts with. So it IS similar to sound Eckard!! We've let prejudices blind us. It works perfectly so must be correct.

Do raise any past of this 'discrete field' model you don't think works. I genuinely wish to test it to destruction but it seems impregnable.

Best wishes

Peter

Akinbo Ojo

Peter,

I think I get your meaning but you share with Einstein the tendency to cause unnecessary confusion by your use of words. Einstein used 'origin of coordinates' and 'coordinate origin' to mean different things. Now you use, "simply maintains c", "own c", "new c", "local c", etc. As you know sleight of hand is common in Einsteiniana, so are all these your c's the same thing or different things? Do all these your c's have the same value and physical property?

I found this site valuable though I may disagree with a few points. But the isotropy of light speed, i.e. its independence of earth motion has been said to be tested up to 10-15 level. I can not therefore accept easily that some optical phenomena like 'scintillation' and 'atmospheric birefringence'. I still prefer to stick with a mechanism based on good, old and reliable Galilean relativity and this suggests an earth-bound medium, plasma, dark matter or whatever else. For sound, this is air and so we don't need length contraction, coupling, Higgs process, scintillation, absorption and re-emission at local c, etc to explain its own isotropy. Sound is lucky not to suffer these theoretical assaults. Light has been unfortunate, at least for now.

Akinbo

That spin particles simply gravitate the same as planets, but proportional to mass.

A non-ether 'dark energy continuum' that can't change but .

A Higgs process, so fermion pairs then DO couple and change speed to their .

That the more diffuse the medium the longer it takes to convert ALL waves to .

That ALL detectors are made of dense matter, so convert each new wave to .

Now M&M did NOT get a zero result remember, just very low. And Miller got ever higher ones at higher altitude, because he'd find BOTH speeds mixed up (consistent with ).

Do raise any past of this 'discrete field' model you don't think works. I genuinely wish to test it to destruction but it seems impregnable.

Eckard Blumschein

Peter,

It seems to be difficult or even impossible to follow your instructions. Since I have almost no problems to understand others, e.g. Akinbo, I should perhaps not only blame my poor command of English for that.

After offering a lot of assumptions that are not obviously related to each other and also not to the topic, you wrote:

"Now just move your view position back so you're at rest near Jupiter watching Earth etc. orbit the sun and rotate. Would you expect the light coming past you from the sun to be doing c wrt some arbitrary planet called Earth?"

Why "back"? OK I imagine watching earth from Jupiter. Perhaps you refer to light that, while originating from sun, is reflected from earth and now to be seen on Jupiter. Admittedly, I do bot understand your point. You know my definition of the speed of light in case of absent noticeable influences.

Eckard

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