Faster than Light

pjackson

Eckard,

I pointed out the common error that Michelsons result was 'null'. It was simply lower than expected using simple assumptions, and Miller showed it increased with altitude.

But nothing can be certain in science and if it suites your purposes to call it null then see where it leads. It looks to me as if you've fallen into the trap of accepting a purely mathematical rather than logical physical solution. I don't agree with such non physical worlds, without a physical logic.

I suppose I'm pleased you couldn't falsify my own proposition so simply disagreed and reverted to explaining your own. I feel I have more logic in not agreeing with that as the solution. i.e.

Theoretical anomalies such as apparent Superluminal Jets can't be logically resolved using SR, GR or, as I understand it, your proposition.

Best of luck with it. And please don't try to disprove my thesis if you see any trucks coming!

Peter

PS. 'Dark' simply means it has no discernible spectroscopic profile (except from it's motion). The pure electron/positron proton plasma then fits the bill perfectly. Putting inconvenient findings to one side or sweeping them under the carpet is a fatal trait of mainstream science. I hope you can avoid it.

pjackson

Akinbo,

It's Sir George (Airy), and more is attributed to his finding than should be. Once light interacts with the telescope it will of course simply propagate wrt that. Did you not notice that the vertical telescope you drew did not derive the aberration angle?

If you keep ignoring waves you can maintain the simple view we teach 10yr olds and Galilean Relativity is fine. You clearly didn't absorb the point of my diagrams showing the dis association of optical axis from wavefront normal, proved in 'invisibility optics' related experiments. Yet you assume it's not worth looking again, so say; "no need inventing a new dynamical principle."

To me that's like watching a powerful computer I've built for a tribesman being used to pound grain. I'm a bit at a loss. There is no "new principle". Just the only underlying mechanism that can produce what we observe.

So the basic Galilean concept is on the right path but a long way from complete, or consistent, not accommodating either waves OR the Lorentz factor limiting c. SR was an attempt to remedy the latter, but went off the rails after the postulates. The DFM explains both and recovers consistent logic to COMPLETE both.

Draw an upper glass roof to the ship to represent the ionosphere, and 3 parallel lines approaching, at say 60 degrees, perpendicular to an approaching wavefront (draw that too, so at 30 degrees). You may consider the 3 points on the wavefront as 'photons' if you wish. That is now the REAL not over simplified case. Now try to apply the simple answer you show but retaining c for each vector and also the integrity of the causal wavefront.- with the apparent position forward of the true position.

You'll find the DFM's 'JM rotation' at each particle interaction point on the glass is the only way to reproduce observation. Within the cabin the causal wavefront itself does not propagate perpendicularly to the 'observed position' optical axis (as found from large arrays). The simply reason is the 'charge asymmetry' at each laterally moving particle, which is itself of course unavoidable!

So I'm not 'inventing' anything unnecessary, just exposing what IS necessary.

Best wishes,

Peter

[deleted]

Akinbo,

Does glass carry light as it carries acoustic waves? From I Michelson 1881/87 and many more accurate measurements I infer, light doesn't need a carrier, while Michelson 1925 indicates that light nonetheless refers to distances.

As an EE, I used to accept that electric and magnetic fields do also not need a carrier.

Peter,

Miller's minute deviations from zero can certainly not confirm the presumably wrong expectation. Wikipedia offers a lot of measurements that were performed with higher reliability, accuracy, or quite different methods.

Emission theories are anyway at variance with several well investigated facts.

Eckard

pjackson

Eckard,

Are you seriously suggesting that in a dielectric medium EM waves? do not 'propagate' at c wrt the medium. Have you not heard of optical science? What do you think Relativity, from Galilean onwards, is all about? And if you think discrete fields are really just 'emission theory' then you really haven't understood them at all! For any emitter in motion in the local background the propagation speed reverts at Maxwell's near far field transition some to c wrt the background rest frame.

Inertial frames need 'matter' to exist. A block of glass, like a planets atmosphere, is an inertial system with a rest frame. Emissions from Earth are at c wrt Earth only as far as the ionosphere. Probe telemetry confirms this.

If something has nothing else to act as a datum its CERTAINLY emission theory! unless it believes in time travel. I invoke "REAL" matter as the basis of inertial systems. Of course there was a similar theory not requiring anything 'real' to be involved, invoked by the mathematician Charles Dodgson. I'll quote from his very popular paper;

"'But I don't want to go among mad people,' said Alice.

'Oh, you can't help that,' said the cat. 'We're all mad here.'

(Alice's Adventures in Wonderland).

If you do go that route I hope you'll remember where the wardrobe door was. Most seem to have long forgotten.

Happy Christmas.

Peter

[deleted]

yes, faster than light makes sense,

but in space only where time is a duration of motion.Attachment #1: Special_theory_of_relativity_postulated_on_homogeneity_of_space_and_time_and_on_relativity_principle.pdf

[deleted]

Amrit,

Had a look at your paper. I am happy that a paper trying to go against mainstream thinking managed to scale the Referees' hurdle and get published. I share many of the thinking in the paper, apart from a few areas as you may guess from my postings on this blog.

Leaving the exact mechanism aside, one way or the other you say extremely massive bodies are able to change physical proprieties of quantum vacuum by a meaningful amount, allowing measurement of the diminished velocity of light. Is the earth, as a massive body excluded from this? If not 299792458m/s being the measured diminished velocity of light cannot be universal value.

I am not swearing, since Peter J describes superluminal jets, 6 times c! But if my interpretation of General relativity is correct, the universal invariant speed is 299792458.2087m/s. I will be posting on the Testing reality in Space blog shortly, so I reserve my comments on the question of time to that blog.

Akinbo

Eckard Blumschein

Peter, Akinbo,

While the energy transfer in mechanical traveling waves is carried by moving back and forth elementary masses, electromagnetic waves do not require such carrier. Therefore they can propagate in an empty of mass space even with their maximal possible speed c. Within a dielectric e.g. within glass, the transmission line model contains enlarged lumped capacities, being responsible for a lower speed.

Peter's article http://wikibin.org/articles/discrete-field-model.html reminds me of a place in London, wasn't it the Hyde park? I don't like being the first and lonely one who comments the article.

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Eckard, Peter

Compliments of the season.

Eckard,

Your idea on light speed appears simple and consistent, but deeper there appear to be difficulties. So, a box of Christmas thoughts for you as a gift and hope you like them...

Since you say light speed should only recognize the position at emission and at absorption and divide that distance by travel time -

After emission, if the light is not absorbed, (e.g. by removing the absorber), does it still travel? Or does it cease to exist if not absorbed?

If it does travel and is not yet absorbed, does it have a speed before it is absorbed?

If it has a speed before it is absorbed, does that speed have a value?

If the speed has a value, and you don't accept emission theory (like me) and you don't accept a medium, what is the speed value relative to, if the light is not yet absorbed?

Regards,

Akinbo

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

Your question blames me for poor teaching. Let me humbly reiterate what I wrote: Arrival, not absorption and also not observer. I say light speed only results from distance Y-X between the position Y at the moment y of arrival and the position X at the moment x of emission divided the time y-x of propagation.

Of course, a wave or photon must not be absorbed during propagation from X to Y.

The position X of emission belongs to space only in the sense that it has a distance from any related future position Y with c=(Y-X)/(y-x).

You are asking: "If it does travel and is not yet absorbed, does it have a speed before it is absorbed?"

I can only patiently and humbly reiterate: Absorber and observer do only distract from the essence. The current position Y of arrival belongs to the current moment y of arrival. The speed is always c in a space that is empty of light-relevant matter. It is perhaps clear that only the (relative to Y) position X of the emitter matters, not its movement relative to an anyway arbitrarily chosen frame of reference. My reasoning contradicts SR in that I am arguing the velocity v with which an object at Y moves toward X or moves with v smaller than c away from it does also not matter at all.

You asked: "If the speed has a value, and you don't accept emission theory (like me) and you don't accept a medium, what is the speed value relative to, if the light is not yet absorbed?"

In brief: Light propagates with reference to a distance in space that can be subject to any change with a velocity v smaller than c.

Wasn't it arrogant to still demand different frames of reference (Lorentzian inertial systems) after Michelson demonstrated in 1881/87 that there is no wind of a hypothetical frame and after photons were considered as having no mass and accordingly no belonging inertia?

With the compliments of the season,

Eckard

Eckard Blumschein

Given I am correct and light refers to distance between subsequent positions in empty space, why did Poincaré continue using the ether-concept?

As was his cousin Raymond in politics, Henri was immediately very successful. However, in the end Raymond was perhaps responsible to some extent for "Poincaré's war", WW2 and even the holocaust. Maybe, Henri did likewise seriously influence the history?

Henri is known for his perhaps justified criticism of Georg Cantor's set theory of transfinite numbers. However, he failed to consequently fight against it. On the contrary, he even contributed to a set-theory based topology.

When I read a paper by Henry Poincaré I wondered how respectfully he referred to Lorentz. In 1900 he mentioned Lorentz's "wonderful invention" of local time.

He did allegedly not care about being rigorous and he disliked logic.

His work habits have been compared to a bee flying from flower to flower.

He was always in a rush and disliked going back for changes or corrections.

He never spent a long time on a problem. Spacetime was his invention.

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Eckard,

Thanks for your link to Poincaire. He was also a seeker after truth even if I think he was too mathematical in his approach unlike Galileo, Newton and Einstein.

On "Spacetime was his invention"... Mass is measured in kilogram, space in metres, square metres or cubic metres and time in seconds. What is the S.I. unit of spacetime?

On your definition of light speed as "distance Y-X between the position Y at the moment y of arrival and the position X at the moment x of emission divided the time y-x of propagation" and your answer that "The speed is always c in a space that is empty of light-relevant matter", then this means if the position Y changes during the time the light is incoming, the time the light will arrive is affected by the change of position Y! That is Galilean relativity.

Michelson and Morley in their experiment however found that this is not so. Light always arrive at the same time, whether Y is stationary, moves towards the incoming light or moves away from the light. But Sagnac found that change in position by Y affects the time of arrival.

As for whether, the Michelson-Morley result was Null or Non-Null as Peter J said, the truth is that the result was not null. But when compared to the 30km/s effect of change in position Y, their finding of less than one-sixth of what they expected is interpreted as a Null finding as it may be due to experimental error. Michelson and Morley were concerned with the Earth's 30km/s speed through space. When as it is now known, that the Earth's motion through space is far higher, 225km/s given the Sun's motion and 380km/s given the motion observed against the microwave background, Michelson and Morley's result of less than 5km/s even further approaches a nullity.

To quote M-M: "The relative velocity of the earth and the ether is probably less than one sixth the earth's orbital velocity, and certainly less than one fourth".

Michelson, Morley and Einstein were unaware of the possible participation of a then unknown and abundant form of matter, 'luminiferous' and capable of forming a gravitationally earth-bound medium, accompanying us in our earthly Galilean ship in any chosen frame of motion, whether 30km/s, 225km/s or 380km/s. This unrecognized actor in The Drama of 1887 preserves Galilean relativity.

"Akinbo, shut yourself up with Eckard, in the main cabin below decks on some large ship, ...and have the ship proceed with any speed you like, so long as the motion is uniform and not fluctuating this way and that. You will discover not the least change in all the effects named, nor could you tell from any of them whether the ship was moving at 30km/s, 225km/s or 380km/s or standing still..." - Galileo Galilei

Akinbo

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

Would you say R. Poincaré was too political and therefore one of those responsible for the loss of tens of millions of lives?

I don't consider H. Poincaré too mathematical and therefore one of those ...

No, I blame the both Poincarés for certainly being more intelligent than careful.

Let's be careful concerning Michelson. To my knowledge, Morley was Michelson's coworker but did not essentially contribute to the already in 1881 published concept and result of Michelson's experiment. We should not be distracted by small inaccuracies. The result has aptly been called a null result. Requiring to abandon the hypothesis of a stationary in space aether, it challenged the theoreticians to explain a null result. Nobody except for possibly some unheard outsiders lived up to this challenge although the solution was pretty easy.

One has to refer the speed of light not to absolute coordinates of space but to a current distance between them

because there is no a priori preferred point/frame at rest in space.

Eckard

John Cox

Pete 12/27

to Echard saying; 'How can a 'speed' be wrt a 'distance'. That defies anything resembling logic.'

To an Englisher, maybe. But back some while Eckard explained Einstein's epistemology in his choice of a Germanic term which does not connote any distinction between a scalar value or a vector value. If you treat it as a scalar it is simply a proportionate constant. Axiomatically, if 'c' is in any way differentiated between a scalar and a vector then you have not limited the strict definition, but broadened it.

So intuitively follow this brief sojourn. I can walk down a half flight of steps and several to my car door, and 'OOPS' fergot my keys! So I have to retrace my steps, and uphill too! But really it's only a distance of a dozen paces. I'm going to my car to embark on a 200km and one I'm long familiar with. The duration I'm driving is an ingrained memory, but not consciously comparable to the duration of going to the car, then back and to the car again. It's not that much loss of time in the total journey. I could if I thought of it, compare the lost time retracing duration to some duration down the road in passing through much greater distance than 3 times 12 paces. Over that immediate experience is overlayed years of making that journey, along the same roads, but also through times of my life, the people then, the zigs and zags in the course of my life. Yet I get in my car and I can point my hand in a half imagined idea of geographical orientation, towards what I assume is the general heading of my destination, and have an anticipation of continuity in completion of my journey, in my mind I am also aware of pointing in the direction of a distant time. During that interim my course in life has been altered in and by events and poignant memory lies in a different temporal direction. I can see in my reminiscence that dynamic of change in direction both as an episode sensibly oriented in direction different than the general direction and as an expanse of the general direction my life time has taken. THAT intuitively. Yes, speed is a distance, too.

In near terms we experience human time as a duration. In the total journey, retracing 12 steps twice is no great loss of time, but in the near term journey to the car, it takes three times longer. We speak without thinking, of the 'distant' past. Human experience has equipped our perception to see speed more as a duration in near terms, and as distance in extended terms, Counter-intuitive as it seems, there is physically (even if emergent) a real directional length in the dimension of time. It is rather difficult to conceive of time and space being glued together otherwise. Happy Holidays, jrc

Eckard Blumschein

John C,

Some explanations: Poincaré's war was WW1. Poincaré did not invent the word spacetime but "only" the belonging mathematics. Speed and velocity are dx/dt with x a distance between A and B or a vector from A to B, respectively. A radius r is a quantity that cannot be negative but has nonetheless a direction.

When Peter wrote:

"How can a 'speed' be wrt a 'distance'? That defies anything resembling logic"

then he failed to clarify what he meant. After I responded, I would like everybody to deal with his remaining doubts and with my arguments.

An aside: Because my command of English is still poor, I would appreciate you writing as concise as possible.

Eckard

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

When I wrote t = x/(c+v) I meant with delta x or simply x the (original) distance between the positions of the point of emission and the point of arrival at the moment of emission. Of course, the time of arrival "ALWAYS EQUALS t=x/c" if x is understood according to my definition c=x/t as the distance between the point of emission at the moment of emission and the point of arrival at the moment of arrival. I am sorry for distracting you from the essence by not mentioning the two meanings of x.

After you already understood my "proposal that em waves don't at all need a medium in which they propagate but their speed in empty space relates to distance and common time", I will try again and distinguish between a medium space with absolute coordinates to refer to and empty space as a multitude of distances without a preferred point of reference.

Einstein's defined c as a two-way speed by adopting Poincarè synchronization. With

2t = x/(c+v) + x/(c-v) for a path from A to B and return

he accordingly managed to arrive at Lorentz contraction. We have still to check many implications.

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Eckard,

"if x is understood according to my definition c=x/t as the distance between the point of emission at the moment of emission and the point of arrival at the moment of arrival"

""proposal that em waves don't at all need a medium in which they propagate but their speed in empty space relates to distance and common time", I will try again and distinguish between a medium space with absolute coordinates to refer to and empty space as a multitude of distances without a preferred point of reference."

In case the potential target is moving with velocity v away from x=0 then the time of arrival equals to t = x/(c+v).

The velocity v doesn't change the constant speed which equals/[refers] to...

- the electromagnetic constant c within empty space [wrt distance]

Hoping this was concise and understandable enough, I will devote more attention to my due answer concerning Galilean relativity".

My reply: Yes, it is concise and understandable enough. No need devoting more attention because what you describe is already Galilean relativity. Something caught my attention in your attempt to distinguish medium space from empty space. You referred to empty space as a multitude of distances. That is not one distance. Multitude means many distances separatable from each other (leaving for now what separates them). If something is made of many things (distances) separatable from each other, is it empty? Can changes in the multitude (reduction or increase) not result in changes in the empty space? If such changes can occur, can empty space not vibrate? If empty space can vibrate can it not be said to be a kind of medium?

Regards,

Akinbo

[deleted]

Akinbo,

Doesn't using the expression Galilean relativity suggest that Einstein's SR is more general? That's why I would like everybody to check whether or not already Maxwell's expectation of a light-carrying medium in empty space was reasonable. If it wasn't justified then length contraction was certainly an unnecessary guess.

Guericke's locally empty space has been understood as something that is empty of fermions but not of electric, magnetic, and other fields equivalent to bosons.

Let's simplify the object of your questions by restricting to one dimension, i.e. to a line L extending from minus infinity to plus infinity without a preferred point to refer to.

Let's further restrict to only three bodies A, B, C on L moving with constant velocities relative to each other on L.

Pre-Einsteinian physics assumes common to all bodies time. At each moment the distances from A to B, B to C, C to A constitute a not yet localized pattern of distances.

The conjectured by Maxwell motion of L relative to the pattern ABC altogether cannot be detected.

There is also no known reason for L to be subject to change or even oscillation.

The point of reference must be arbitrarily chosen. Considering for instance A=0 determines B=A-AB=-AB and C=CA+A=CA, and v_A=0 (A at rest) determines also the velocities and the belonging kinetic energies mvv/2.

Because there is no absolute position in space, Galileo and also Poincaré were correct when they stated that it is impossible to ascribe an absolute velocity to a body. Einstein was undoubtedly still correct when he attribute this to the mutual equivalence of only two systems KA and KB of coordinates with common positive direction and A to B= -B to A.

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Eckard, I looked for one of my favourite references but couldn't find it but let me share with you a few words from that great man of science, John Clerk Maxwell, take a listen: "There appears to be, in the minds of these eminent men, some prejudice, or a priori objection, against the hypothesis of a medium in which the phenomena of radiation of light and heat, and the electric actions at a distance take place. It is true that at one time those who speculated as to the causes of physical phenomena, were in the habit of accounting for each kind of action at a distance by means of a special ethereal fluid, whose function and property it was to produce these actions. They filled all space three and four times over with others of different kinds, the properties of which were invented merely to save appearances, so that more rational enquirers were willing rather to accept not only Newton's definite law of attraction at a distance, but even the dogma of Cotes that action at a distance is one of the primary properties of matter, and that no explanation can be more intelligible than this fact. Hence the undulatory theory of light has met with much opposition, directed not against its failure to explain the phenomena, but against its assumption of the existence of a medium in which light is propagated.

But in all of these theories the question naturally occurs: If something is transmitted from one particle to another at a distance, what is its condition after it has left the one particle and before it has reached the other? If this something is the potential energy of the two particles, as in Neumann's theory, how are we to conceive this energy as existing in a point of space, coinciding neither with the one particle nor with the other? In fact, whenever energy is transmitted from one body to another in time, there must be a medium or substance in which the energy exists after it leaves one body and before it reaches the other, for energy, as Torricelli remarked is a quintessence of so subtle a nature that it cannot be contained in any vessel except the inmost substance of material things. Hence all these theories lead to the conception of a medium in which the propagation takes place, and if we admit this medium as an hypothesis, I think it ought to occupy a prominent place in our investigations, and that we ought to endeavour to construct a mental representation of all the details of its action, and this has been my constant aim in this treatise".

QUESTIONS: 1. If LIGHT is transmitted from one object to another at a distance, what is its condition after it has left the one object and before it has reached the other? Since light is energy can it be contained in a borderless vessel during transit? 2. What is the innermost substance of material things?

Regards,

Akinbo

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

Shouldn't we distinguish between symmetric (bosonic) vs. antisymmetric wave-functions of light vs. matter, respectively, instead of reiterating old guesswork from Roger Cotes to Maxwell?

Being just an old EE, I naively imagine matter a bit similar to the sinc function. Light seems to be rather similar to sin squared. According to Newton's third law (actio = reactio) photons exhibits mirror symmetry. Compared with the frequency of the sin function, the frequency of sin squared is twice as large which seems to resemble the integer spin of bosons vs. half-integer spin of matter.

Anyway, it might be the simplest possibility for checking the covariances with Galileo-transformation and Lorentz-transformation to consider a propagation with c of A to the left and with c of C to the right while B in between is moving with v.

Regards,

Eckard

Eckard Blumschein

All,

I agree with Leibniz who "was of the opinion that space made no sense except as the relative location of bodies". Did Newton or Russell use the term Galilean relativity of was it possibly just coined in contrast to Einstein's relativity?

While I know that Lorentz used the notion inertial, I nonetheless tend to question what Wiki states: "Newton himself recognized the role of inertial frames.[9] The motions of bodies included in a given space are the same among themselves, whether that space is at rest or moves uniformly forward in a straight line."

Elsewhere I found: "The identifying property of inertial frames is the absence of fictitious forces."

My problem is: I don't see a reason for immediately attributing reality to what an observer seems to see and ascribes to his fictitious coordinates. Didn't this mean taking mutually excluding positions at a time while the Doppler effect correctly explains the observations.

In the world of Leibniz there were different levels of (relative) infinity but as I know only one time and only one space.

Eckard

Plato Hagel

Poincare being the Geometer that he was was able to distinguish the significance of what the ether word should portray in the Three body problem? Maybe he would roll over in grave, if it would have been to believe that the substance of knowing was just merely the substance of relation between those bodies and not the ether?Attachment #1: 2_image.jpg

Eckard Blumschein

Dark Buzz :"Even Poincaré, who in 1889 had predicted that "the day will doubtless come when the ether will be rejected as useless", at the Paris Congress of Physics of 1901 argued thus for believing in it:

We know where our belief in ether comes from. If we receive light from a distant star, for several years that light is no longer at the star and is not yet on the Earth. It must therefore be somewhere, sustained, so to speak, by some material support. The same idea can be expressed in a more mathematical and more abstract way. What we record are the changes suffered by material molecules; we see, for example, that our photographic film displays the consequences of phenomena staged many years earlier in the incandescent mass of the star. Now, in ordinary mechanics, the state of the system under study depends only on its state in an immediately preceding state; the system therefore satisfies differential equations. But if we did not believe in the ether, the state of the material universe would depend not only on the immediately preceding state, but on much older states; the system would satisfy finite difference equations. To avoid this derogation of the general laws of mechanics we have invented the ether.

I cannot repress the feeling that Poincaré the mathematician must have known (i) that if a given physical state depends on another in accordance with a system of differential equations, none of the two states can immediately precede (or follow) the other one, and (ii) that time dependent vector fields can be defined on space without assuming a material support for them to sit on. I suppose (ii) is the reason why he talks of inventing the ether at the end of this tirade about believing in it.

Poincare did not argue for believing in the aether. He argued that it was a mathematical convenience. His philosophy is often called conventionalism because of opinions such as this.

This is a point that mathematicians grasp immediately, but physicists and philosophers have a lot of difficulty with. Poincare was a mathemetician. Mathematicians frequently define concepts for mathematical convenience, regardless of whether they are physically observable.

Anyone who says that Poincare believed in the aether fails to grasp that simple point." ?

Incidentally, doesn't Cerenkov radiation only refer to phase velocity?

Eckard

Eckard Blumschein

Plato,

How do you think about Pierre Duhem's instrumentalism?

Eckard

Plato Hagel

Hi Eckard,

"How do you think about Pierre Duhem's instrumentalism?"

As a opposed to induction, I suspect the question of yours depends on Pierre Duhem's determination as to whether a concept/theory,

Instrumentalism- "should be evaluated by how effectively it explains and predicts phenomena, as opposed to how accurately it describes objective reality."?

I suspect the next step in ascertaining what it is I believe should be examined in that light . That is interesting, that if correct in my assessment, no one has asked me that question before.

"Duhem also made major contributions to the science of his day, particularly in the fields of hydrodynamics, elasticity, and thermodynamics."

To me these are inclinations in what exposes the idea of what the ether might of acted like given the Three body problem as to the underpinnings of that Lagrangian space. In regards then, to celestial mechanics, how valid is this if given toward phenomena, versus, how elasticity or hydromechanics is objectively defined in any given space?

Speed of light is medium dependent.

If correct, please explain your position.

Best,

Plato Hagel

"According to modern understanding, even if all matter could be removed from a volume, it would still not be "empty" due to vacuum fluctuations, dark energy, transiting gamma- and cosmic rays, neutrinos, along with other phenomena in quantum physics. In modern particle physics, the vacuum state is considered as the ground state of matter."

While covering long distances(cosmic particles) what is examined that differences could have been determined in AMSII Calorimeter devices have been implored to be defined in configuration spaces. See Glast/Fermi. Use of calorimeter devices against the backdrop of LHC.

When cosmic particle meet earth,s boundary with space, forward faster then light effects are generated. Any corrections to these words, please help to orientate.

Eckard Blumschein

Plato,

My critical characterization of Poincaré was taken from Wikipedia. I asked for your opinion on Duhem because I consider his instrumentalist view quite different and close to you to some extent, while I rather partially agree with Quine on that mathematics must be revised too if necessary, also with Charles Saunders Peirce, and of course with Popper.

However, I don't share your preference for an instrumental aether. Dark Buzz is obviously outside the mainstream. Having quoted him without comment, I have to admit that his arguments on Poincarè's aether seem nonetheless to be serious. I abstained from urging you to comment on Dark Buzz.

Eckard

Eckard Blumschein

Tom, Plato, Akinbo,

I found Hawking's confession when I looked for Dark Buzz and identified him as R. Schlafly.

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Eckard,

From the quote on Dark Buzz, "If we receive light from a distant star, for several years that light is no longer at the star and is not yet on the Earth. It must therefore be somewhere, sustained, so to speak, by some material support...", if light is not a wave as I believe it is but is instead a particle and a bundle of energy, what keeps the energy constrained in the tiny bundles instead of being dispersed and spreading out, especially over a distance and time of several of light years?

Akinbo

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

At Poincaré's time, light was considered an electromagnetic wave because Maxwell's theory was confirmed and used in practice.

Therefore I see it remarkable that Planck inspired Einstein to suggest the elder corpuscular theory, i.e. photons.

The Nobel committee prudently acknowledged the latter while they didn't trust in Einstein's relativity, although it was evident that the speed of light wrt space does not depend on the velocity of its emitter, and light exhibits interference.

EEs like me were not just trained to train their students treating light as a wave but also to imagine phonons to represent mechanical oscillations of matter.

I see it a wild guess to attribute to photons/waves properties that belong to either material particles or a material carrier.

Poincaré was a conventionalist. For the sake of a mathematically elegant convention he abandoned his correct 1898 guess concerning the aether as careless as he didn't prove Georg Cantor wrong although he felt and uttered that Cantor's transfinite numbers aleph_2 etc. are nonsense. Didn't his Non-Euclidean geometry also indicate vanity?

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Eckard,

See this website that John Duffield referred to. It contains Einstein's views on space. It is a treasure.

Hawking is regretting now because neither he nor others paid attention to Einstein that his theory is one of 'clocks' and 'rods'! In the current discussion about black holes having firewalls, etc do you see any mention of rods and clocks behavior? No. Same happened in the past when Hawking came up with black hole evaporation. But Einstein's theory tells us that clocks tick so slowly with time coming to a stand-still so to speak. In such infinite proper-time what activity can take place? None.

Akinbo

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

It was Poincaré, not Einstein, who is to blame for spacetime mathematics. The link you provided to me was not helpful at all. Although I could only repetitiously see the first page and this only for about one second each time, what I read is well known.

Hawking's attributes "apparent" and "gray" to event horizon and black hole avoid the unphysical fictitious infinitum absolutum.

EEs like me are familiar with the fact that B(r) around a conductor is proportional to 1/r and therefore it "equals" to infinity for r=0. Of course, this law is valid only outside the conductor.

Schlafly wrote a book "How Einstein spoiled science". Having dealt with Weierstrass, Dedekind, and others, I disagree with this emphasis on Einstein.

Eckard

pjackson

Eckard,

How can a 'speed' be wrt a 'distance'? That defies anything resembling logic. 'Distances' are infinite in number and have no vector, so you are educed to emission theory unless you can see into the future.

Do you claim emissions can see into the future to where a receiver may be and what speed he may be doing at the arrival time, so travel at an appropriate speed for him to find c?

I have to say greater minds than ours did think of that previously, such as H.G Wells. If there is another way light could know when leaving (the emitter) what speeds 3 different observers a light year away may decide to be doing when it arrives, or where each may be please do explain.

Perhaps it changes speed to c wrt each of them on arrival?

Peter

Eckard Blumschein

Peter,

Why do you (and why did Akinbo) imagine that my definition of the speed of light requires to see into the future? Elsewhere I introduced the moments x in the past and y the actual moment, the now, as well as the past position X of emitter and the actual position Y under consideration in space. Notice, X and Y are no absolute coordinates. Only their mutual distance matters. If the distance Y-X changes during propagation then you seem to believe that this motion must be known in advance as to determine the speed. This is obviously not the case if the speed is constant. Maybe you are misled because the the differential quotient at (ordinary time) t is traditionally written as dx/dt with positive dx and positive dt (to the right of t) which implies an infinitesimal element of future. You may instead consider -dx/-dt or follow me and think in terms of positive elapsed time.

Why do you suspect me to be educed to emission theory? Emission theories from Newton's up to Pentcho's and your's ascribe to photons like bullets a speed that relates to the velocity of an emitter. My explanation of Michelson's null result postulates a constant speed of em wave energy propagation in empty space that refers to a Newtonian space without a preferred point to refer to.

The three observers you considered may have different speeds wrt something. This does not influence the common speed c with which an em wave arrives at them, provided they share the same location at that moment.

Incidentally, read what Wikipedia tells us about Poincaré whom followed Einstein, Minkowski, and those who still dominate main tenets of physics.

Even Shtyrkov tried a perhaps unnecessary explanation of Michelson's experiment. I feel ashamed since I myself suspected that Michelson's prediction was wrong. It was indeed not quite correct but now I am claiming to understand for what simple reason a null result was to be expected. I will check what H. G. Wells might have to say.

Eckard

[deleted]

Magueijo and Albrecht argued that the speed limit for light in the early universe was raised, opening up the horizons and allowing everything to communicate much faster and have the same temperature. "The idea is so simple I can't believe no one proposed it before," says Magueijo. "Well in fact the idea had been around, but what matters is what you do with it."

Why is the speed of light unalterable if the early universe had the right conditions for superluminal speeds. How can we say that a Type II or III civilization cannot alter the quantum world as the BB did. After all, the goal of the LHC is to duplicate BB conditions. Also, our understanding of quantum entanglement may incomplete. An advanced civilization might be able to control the position of particles that are entangled, thus breaking the light speed limit.

Joe Fisher

Light does not move. It is the only stationary substance in the real Universe. The real Universe is unique, once. In order for the real Universe to be unique, once, it must presently be in its most absolute state of simplicity. There was never a Big Bang creation. It would be physically impossible for simplicity to evolve into complexity in a fixed systematic chrono0logical fashion.

Joe Fisher

Akinbo Ojo

Eckard,

I saw your post on the reported unsuccessful attempt to detect dark matter and browsed some of the reports here, here and here. Sorry, I am replying here as I can't locate the thread...

If you are told that something is abundant based on many reasonable evidence, it is luminiferous, i.e. transparent and interacts almost exclusively, if not only gravitationally, will you spend millions of dollars to dig a hole in your bedroom based on these three characteristics or would you spend less and at least look at your garden to establish the claims and better still look at your neighbours garden and up in the sky for evidence?

Based on these three evidence I would carry out light experiments to check whether such matter interacts gravitationally with earth to form an earth-bound medium based on its abundance, if possible visit other celestial bodies to see if it does same. Then, since its density MUST be gravitationally enhanced the nearer the gravitational body than at an altitude and it transmits light, find out whether this affects light behaviour and signal transmission. I would further determine the value of light velocity on earth surface and compare this with the value at an altitude to see if the value is the same.

Some of these checks have been done but for other reasons. Michelson and Morley's experiment suggests an earth-bound medium, if present is a rival to Special relativity, if not superior. I have earlier posted on the contradiction surrounding the definition that light velocity is a universal constant at 299792458m/s see here and "Q&A with Rideout: Testing Reality in Space blog". But what clinches it for me, is that when a two-way signal is sent to high altitude and outer space, the signals keep returning earlier than scheduled because of the higher than terrestrial speed of light in parts of the journey to and fro. I have also calculated that light speed will approach 299792458.2087m/s in such terrain. This evidence is reported in the Pioneer anomaly, but is now explained as due to engine design. I therefore predict that despite advances in spacecraft design to eliminate thermal recoil as a possible cause, this will recur in future expeditions to space. If all what I say is found untrue and dark matter does not exist I will whole-heartedly embrace other theories, including yours.

Regards,

Akinbo

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

Did Michelson's 1881/1887 experiment really "suggest an earth-bound medium" or did it merely disprove the idea of a medium in motion wrt earth?

If light propagation from double stars towards earth depends just on an earth-bound medium then I wonder if this refutes de Sitter's plausible reasoning.

Sur la dynamique de l'électron is now available free in English translation:

http://wikisource.org/?curid=664793

Concerning LUX I am a bloody layman, and I forgot the details. Perhaps I heard this in my radio:

http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/dunkle-materie-experimente-liefern-widerspruechliche.676.de.html?dram:article_id=273823

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Eckard,

Thanks for your link. I used Google translator to change the German to English. "Did Michelson's 1881/1887 experiment really "suggest an earth-bound medium" or did it merely disprove the idea of a medium in motion wrt earth?"

The purpose of the 1881/1887 experiment was to find a medium in motion wrt earth. When the result did not reveal this, several explanations were suggested. One of the suggestions was that may be the medium was stationary to earth, i.e. moving along with earth as earth moves. But how can the whole ether in the universe be moving with the earth? Was the earth so special among the planets? The explanation was discarded and Special relativity was born.

Akinbo

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

Michelson's 1881/1887 experiment did it merely disprove the idea of a medium in motion wrt earth. Yes, at least the following alternatives were considered:

- a totally or just partially dragged medium fully or nearly, respectively, stationary to earth was and is not convincing for various reasons

- length contraction was suggested by FitzGerald and Lorentz as to rescue the light-carrying medium and adopted by Poincaré as well as Einstein

- a Newtonian ballistic, so called emitter theory was preferred by Ritz and later on defended by means of reemission arguments.

I ask myself why virtually nobody dealt with the simplest possibility that electromagnetic waves don't at all need a medium in which they propagate but their speed in empty space relates to distances and a common time.

Well, a wave in empty space contradicts to usual imagination, in particular of those who are not familiar with electric and magnetic fields in empty space.

Einstein was fiercely attacked when he claimed that his theory does not need an aether. He and his SR got widely accepted after his GR reinstalled the aether on a level of mathematical sophistication that average physicists were not easily in position to check. Einstein and G. Cantor got and remained idolized up to now because they were often not honestly understood.

You seem to believe that light propagates in dark matter. I see this a shot in the dark. Even if there is dark matter that relates to gravity, why should it be a medium in which light propagates? Didn't Michelson's null result refute any medium that moves relative to the earth?

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Eckard,

Interesting...

RE: "Michelson's 1881/1887 experiment... and at least the following alternatives were considered":

1- a totally or just partially dragged medium fully or nearly, respectively, stationary to earth was and is not convincing for various reasons.

2- length contraction was suggested by FitzGerald and Lorentz as to rescue the light-carrying medium and adopted by Poincaré as well as Einstein.

3- a Newtonian ballistic, so called emitter theory was preferred by Ritz and later on defended by means of reemission arguments.

4-And your proposal that electromagnetic waves don't at all need a medium in which they propagate but their speed in empty space relates to distances and a common time.

Alternatives 3 has been somehow discredited. Your proposal 4 suggests that electromagnetic waves have to know the distance they will travel in advance in order that they will arrive at a common time, not too early and not too late. Just on time! This is much unlike other waves. Alternative 2 is the currently accepted explanation and has come with so much theoretical headache and philosophical paradoxes. Those suffering from the headache are currently looking for analgesic because it refuses to go. And to make things worse the foundation is becoming shaky as Einstein's writings have become accesible to all on the internet with the expiry of their copyright under the 100 years limit and many inconsistencies covered up are coming to light. I have on this site pointed out the falsity of the absolute value of light speed being "exactly" 299792458m/s. Now for alternative 1 that would have saved us all the headache and preserved headache-free Galilean relativity, no one can really be blamed. There was no identifiable and consistent candidate for an earth-bound medium in 1887 and 1905. But now there is one that its abundance is bewildering, even our Sun bows down to it in its galactic motion. It does not need to be dragged like ether since it interacts gravitationally and so can be earth-bound. This has now become respectable with some published papers on this theme. Just Google "earth bound dark matter" to see a few.

To your question, whether light propagates in dark matter, this is common knowledge (if dark matter exists), if not given its abundance most stars will be invisible to us in the Milky way. So light can pass through dark matter and if it does so as other type of waves, then dark matter is like any other light carrying matter medium. What Michelson's null result refutes is that on earth surface light does not move relative to earth, the why is the Alternatives 1-4. The deciding point is what of light not on the surface of the earth, does it move relative to earth? The answer is a resounding Yes, it does. So Alternative 2 is in trouble. Examples are seen in the anisotropy of the cosmic background radiation showing that optical phenomena can be used to determine the earth's motion at 380m/s, contrary to Einstein's postulate (read the 1905 paper). Nearer home, earth motion is also observable in laser ranging type of experiments not exclusive to earth surface, but this motion which Alternative 2 had hitherto said is unobservable is edited out of recordings by referring the ranging results to what is technically called the solar system barycentre. Why use a barycentric dynamic time (TDB) when you are an earth-based observer, with a clock of your own?

Response getting long so let me stop here meanwhile..

Regards,

Akinbo

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

Why do you assume "that electromagnetic waves have to know the distance they will travel in advance in order that they will arrive at a common time, not to early and not to late. Just on time!"? Isn't my definition of speed the same as for other waves and bullets too? I merely don't measure the length of travel relative to a hypothetical medium (stationary in space aether or dark matter) but as a distance in Newtonian space. Of course, this distance may increase or decrease if after emission there is a motion of the receiver away from or toward the emitter. Ascribing knowledge to the wave is anyway teleological nonsense.

One could at best interpret a missile's kinetic energy as some kind of memory.

Light waves do (if there is no force that may act on them) propagate in empty space with a speed c. The value of c is independent from any motion of the emitter but determined by the electric and magnetic properties of empty space.

The speed c cannot relate to a preferred point in space because there is no such point; therefore it relates to the current increment of distance.

Maxwell, Michelson, Lorentz, and many others were obviously wrong when they expected to find a space-bound medium in analogy to mechanical media of acoustic waves for em waves too.

Einstein's father was an EE who made Albert aware of the relativity of motions. The motion of a conductor across a stationary electric field causes the same induction as does the motion of the field across a stationary conductor. Einstein correctly accepted the constancy of c, and he did also correctly abandon the idea of a light-conducting aether and the emission theory. His Poincaré synchronization, Lorentz contraction, etc. goes on misleading us.

Eckard

[deleted]

Eckard,

RE: "Light waves ...propagate in empty space with a speed c. The value of c is ...determined by the electric and magnetic properties of empty space".

So a completely empty space, which in your assumption is nothing but just a relational concept can have electric and magnetic properties?

RE: "Einstein correctly accepted the constancy of c"

It is a common for many to use the word constant in Special relativity without understanding the meaning. What it means in Special relativity is that given a set up between an emitter and a receiver, the arrival time of light cannot be affected by the subsequent motion of the receiver. That is, the resultant velocity of light is a constant in SR. Or to state it another way, there is no difference between the absolute value of light in a stationary measurement situation and the RESULTANT value due to receiver's motion. That is the meaning of 'constant'.

In your theory, are you claiming same? That is, is the value of light velocity when emitter and receiver are stationary to each other the same with when the receiver moves towards or away from already incoming light?

So when you say, "Isn't my definition of speed the same as for other waves and bullets too?", for bullets the speed in a stationary situation and the speed when the receiver moves ARE DIFFERENT. So the century long problem is why is light's case be different in the M-M experiment? Can Galilean relativity provide an explanation? Or do we jettison it based on the M-M experiment? That is the question.

Akinbo

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

Yes, I consider c not directly depending on any other velocity but only depending on the difference between the positions of emitter and receiver. Light propagates during the timespan t a distance ct between the position of emitter at the moment of emission and the position of receiver at the moment of arrival.

I agree with Einstein on that c does not depend on the velocity of the emitter which did correspond to the ballistic theory.

You asked: How can the value of c be determined by the electric and magnetic properties of a completely empty space which is just a relational concept?

Well, this is about as hard to imagine as it was to imagine how thunder works. Do we still need Donar? Do we still need a medium that carries electric and magnetic fields? "Experimenta nova ut vocantur Magdeburgica de vacuo spatio"

paved the way for steam engine and electricity.

What about the speed of bullets, I consider my definition in principle valid too. However, in this case it might be reasonable to refer the motion to additional velocities. Ballistic objects are moving relative to empty space as does the front of an em wave: with an unchanging speed. The value of that speed relative to something is given by the velocity of the emitter relative to the same.

Eckard

Eckard Blumschein

Let me try and directly answer sentence by sentence what Akinbo called "the question":

1) "So when you say, "Isn't my definition of speed the same as for other waves and bullets too?", for bullets the speed in a stationary situation and the speed when the receiver moves ARE DIFFERENT."

Consider a bullet shot from a gun at ground toward a target that is moving in either the same or opposite direction. You will certainly agree on that the speed of the bullet wrt ground does not depend on the motion of the target wrt ground.

2) "So the century long problem is why is light's case be different in the M-M experiment?"

As an aside: To my knowledge, Morley was not yet involved in Michelson's 1881 null result. That's why I am avoiding to call it M-M experiment.

Wasn't the problem the expectation that space will carry electromagnetic waves as matter carries mechanical waves? While in a solid, fluid, or gas, kinetic energy of a mass element is changed to the potential energy of a subsequent mass and so on, there is no energy exchanging mass in empty space. Electromagnetic waves/photons are not conveyed from the mass of fermions to the mass of subsequent ones; they are bosons. I see this a compelling reason to not expect a non-null result.

3) Can Galilean relativity provide an explanation? Or do we jettison it based on the M-M experiment?

I will answer this question separately.

Regards,

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Eckard,

This is a short reply because of a computer problem. Will reply more later.

You said, "Yes, I consider c not directly depending on any other velocity but only depending on the difference between the positions of emitter and receiver. Light propagates during the timespan t a distance ct between the position of emitter at the moment of emission and the position of receiver at the moment of arrival".

And I ask: Does an emitted light have any speed before its moment of arrival? If you flash a torch into space, you know light is emitted but you don't know its moment of arrival at any target. There may even be no target in sight. After emission, does the light travel? If it does, at what speed do you think it will travel?

Akinbo

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

Speed is dx/dt. Constant speed is delta x / delta t or simply x/t where x and t are increments with arbitrarily chosen references x=0 and t=0 for distance and timespan at emission. It does not matter whether or not the wavefront or the bullet has arrived a particular target.

This should answer your question: "Does an emitted light have any speed before its moment of arrival?"

Of course it has. Having the speed c, at each moment t it arrives at the belonging x.

You added: "If you flash a torch into space, you know light is emitted but you don't know its moment of arrival at any target."

If a target does not move relative to the position where the wave or bullet was emitted (not necessarily relative to a later position of the emitter) then it is easy to calculate its moment of arrival at any target at x: t = x/c.

In case the potential target is moving with velocity v away from x=0 then the time of arrival equals to t = x/(c+v).

The velocity v doesn't change the constant speed which equals/[refers] to

- velocity of the emitter during emission plus a component due to acceleration of the bullet's mass [if referred to something the emitter refers to]

- the material-specific speed within an oscillating material [wrt the medium]

- the electromagnetic constant c within empty space [wrt distance]

Hoping this was concise and understandable enough, I will devote more attention to my due answer concerning Galilean relativity.

Regards,

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Yes Eckard,

Your reply concise enough. We are now I think on the same page.

"If a target does not move relative to the position where the wave or bullet was emitted (not necessarily relative to a later position of the emitter) then it is easy to calculate its moment of arrival at any target at x: t = x/c. In case the potential target is moving with velocity v away from x=0 then the time of arrival equals to t = x/(c+v).

The velocity v doesn't change the constant speed which equals/[refers] to

...- the electromagnetic constant c within empty space [wrt distance]". This is Galilean relativity.

Now, if you carry out an experiment and find that "In case the potential target is moving with velocity v away from x=0 and the time of arrival still ALWAYS EQUALS t = x/c instead of equals to t = x/(c+v)". What next? You either look at other things that you must be missing in the experimental set-up or make a new theory of Relativity so that the time of arrival cannot be changed by the target moving after the time of emission. That is Special relativity, unless you have a theory to explain why moment of arrival remains unchanged.

So what is your own explanation if you don't accept Special relativity? I have suggested mine.

Akinbo

[deleted]

Akinbo,

In the meantime, I was busy within the contest.

You wrote ""In case the potential target is moving with velocity v away from x=0 and the time of arrival still ALWAYS EQUALS t = x/c instead of equals to t = x/(c+v)"."

I had just written: "In case the potential target is moving with velocity v away from x=0 then the time of arrival equals to t = x/(c+v)." You added "ALWAYS EQUALS" and "instead of".

Then you asked me "What next?"

I did already give my answer:"The velocity v doesn't change the constant speed which equals/[refers] to ... - the electromagnetic constant c within empty space [wrt distance]".

Your subsequent suggestion shows me that you didn't understand that in this case x is not the same in x/(c+v) and x/c: "You either look at other things that you must be missing in the experimental set-up or make a new theory of Relativity so that the time of arrival cannot be changed by the target moving after the time of emission."

By the way, you might read my current essay.

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Hi Eckard,

Nice to see you back after trying to tell humanity how to steer the future. I will read your essay later but we have a serious electricity problem at the moment so I may not be able to spend much time online. Most of the essays this year were as expected mostly on politics, ethics, environmental correctness and economics. These are not areas that Galileo, Newton and even Einstein are much interested in but the administrators of FQXi may have their reasons...

Coming back to what we are discussing, I have to go through the thread again and my laptop battery running low, so I will respond more later.

I agree with you that, "The velocity v doesn't change the constant speed which equals/[refers] to ... - the electromagnetic constant c within empty space [wrt distance]". What that means is that, if you move towards the incoming light, it will arrive to observer earlier. And if you move away, the arrival is delayed.

Special relativity says NO! Whether, you move towards the emitted light or away from it or even stay stationary, the light cannot be delayed or hastened. It will still arrive at the observer at the same time, no matter how the observer moves while the light is already in flight and on its way!

That is what humanity has been arguing over the past 100 years. Some experiments show that the observer did not affect arrival time, and some experiments show that arrival time can be changed by observer's motion.

Regards,

Akinbo

*By the way, what do you mean by, "the electromagnetic constant c within empty space [wrt distance]"? What do you mean by constant? What is the value of such constant? Einstein says, not only the emptiness of vacuum determine the value of c, but the gravitational potential also.

From the proposition which has just been proved, that the velocity of light in the gravitational field is a function of the location, p.903.

Then, I saw your reference to Peter. Peter is trying to play politics. His theory does not support SR, but so that he can get votes, he at times say in the open that it supports SR, then in secret he debunks SR :). Maybe that is the best way to steer the future since those in authority in Einsteiniana refuse to consider alternative and more coherent views.

Eckard Blumschein

Akinbo,

My essay has this time only two illustrations. Fig. 1 shows unbiased, i.e. non-Poincaré/Einsteinian synchronization. It invites to a comparison with Fig.: Apparent length contraction. I did already create better illustrations. However, I am perhaps the first one who tried to make the essence of Einstein's paradox philosophy visually obvious. I guess, most readers did not bother to see what I intend to show. Others may have understood me and got silent because I am correct.

It's a pity that in the rich country Nigeria there is not even enough electricity for your computer.

Regards,

Eckard

[deleted]

Akinbo,

Fig.: should read Fig. 2:

Please notice also that I quoted the science fiction writer Aaron Bernstein who inspired Einstein.

Incidentally I am not at all "trying to tell humanity how to steer the future". I rather see mankind already steering itself by the progress of science and technology, in particular discoveries and inventions with growing risks that are demanding/enforcing growing responsibility. My conclusions are unwelcome to many. Among the few essays I much agree with is Alan Kadin's essay: Just too many people. I understand the related ethical questions foundational ones while most essays were adequately described by Nobel: "The savants will write excellent volumes. There will be laureates. But..."

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Eckard,

I just revisited this thread. I can see we really did a lot of dialectic in January and thrashed a number of important points. I also read your essay. It was nice and I posted only brief comments because I had nothing to criticize.

I want to post here the last part in a series of my exchanges with a German physics professor and relativity expert (name withheld), and our final agreement today.

Akinbo: Thanks for your message. I think I am now satisfied with most of the answers given. ... Your replies should I think also resolve most of the issues. That is, if I get you correctly, the combined meaning of your statements is that the result of light speed measurement really depends on who is carrying out the measurement, i.e. where the observer is located relative to the gravitational field. In other words:

A professor with a light source, receiver, time and distance measuring instruments inside his laboratory on Earth, will locally measure in the vacuum a speed of light, c that will be different from the speed of light the same professor will measure, if he takes his laboratory near to the vacuum of a very strong gravitational field, with bigger M or smaller r. And if the professor, takes the same laboratory very far away from gravity ('origin of coordinates' as Einstein calls it in the paper referenced), with r very high and so -GM/r becomes infinitely small, the value of c measured in the vacuum in that location, will approximate to co, according to Einstein's formula, (Eq.3), c = co (1 - GM/rc2). Thus as you said, and this agrees also with Einstein, when he says, "If we call the velocity of light at the origin of co-ordinates co, then the velocity of light c at a location with the gravitation potential, ф will be given by the relation". This scenario applies to that in which a professor and his laboratory move from place to place, with differing gravitational potential. Thanks for clearing this up.

Now, this is where some experts in relativity add to the confusion plaguing physics because they may not agree with this interpretation, preferring to say that in ALL circumstances and at ALL locations, the value of light speed the professor will measure is the same and it is independent of 'where' the measurement is taken place, any other statements to these experts is like blasphemy. If you don't believe, you can interview some and you will confirm this. I, and I am sure many other non-experts interested in physics therefore hope you experts come up with a single position on this scenario. It is important.

The other scenario is one is that in which a laser beam is fired into outer space from the Earth to a mirror at a known distance in metres. In one of your earlier replies you said, 'the gravitational potential changes in a continuously differentiable manner'. The laser beam I presume will likewise therefore travel also at light speeds changing in a continuously differentiable manner, i.e. increasing according to differential in gravitational potential on the outward journey (accelerating), and reducing according to gravitational potential on the inward journey back to Earth (decelerating). This appears to resolve observed anomalies when the light journey to and fro to spacecraft like Pioneer 10 and 11 is calculated using the fixed light speed value obtained in the Earth-based laboratory's gravitational potential. Again, an area for experts to clear up, but they refuse to look in this direction...

Many thanks for your time and the surprising interest to correspond.

Best regards,

Akinbo

His response today, makes me happy.

Prof: Dear Akinbo,

I fully agree with your summary - including the point about the perceived

blasphemy. I'm happy we converged to this point!

Best wishes,

Prof...

*By the way, I learnt from an expert that if you take Nigerians to Germany, and Germans to Nigeria, Germans will start to behave like Nigerians and Nigerians will start behaving like Germans :).

[deleted]

Akinbo,

Einstein's SR didn't at all take into consideration that gravitation may influence the speed of light in vacuum. Such influence is pretty small according to the calculation by Newton and only different by a factor of two in GR, if I recall correctly what Pentcho wrote. I didn't and do not feel in position to either confirm or question the corresponding deflection of light observed by astronomy and the experiment by Pound and Rebka. That's your pet.

My primary concern is to question the putatively a priori included within spacetime entity of all past and future processes; I tried to reveal that the related putative length contraction is based on unjustified speculation, which intended to explain the result of Michelson's 1881/87 experiments. See my two Figs. and the endnotes of my previous essay.

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Who within and outside Einsteiniana (copyright to Pentcho) wants to dispute that Gravitational masses slow light thereby causing it to bend (leaving the mechanism aside for now)?

Who will like to dispute that the Earth is a gravitational mass, about 6x1024kg?

Who will disagree with Andrew Gould's suggestion in his paper published in the Astronomical journal that like the Sun, the Earth can also deflect light, i.e. the Earth has a gravitational field?

Who will now dispute that from the foregoing, the Earth slows light?

Who will dispute that the value of light speed originating on Earth and measured in our laboratories is 299,792,458m/s?

Who can now beat his/her chest that this Earth-determined and 'Earth-slowed' light speed value is a 'Universal Constant' that all other gravitational masses in the universe as well as free space, far from gravity must respect? If you believe you can beat your chest and that you are king over the whole universe, such that your laboratory value must be respected by other laboratories on other planets and exo-planets, of differing mass and radial size, please stand up to be identified.

But remember your ancestors boasted that the Earth was the centre of the universe, but Nature said No, then you said your Sun was the centre, again Nature said No, just an ordinary star occupying a peripheral, insignificant, 'servant's quarters', part of the galaxy, then you said your planet, but now Nature shows you other blue exo-planets, then you said the type of baryonic matter you were made of, and at each turn Nature quietly puts you in your insignificant place in the scheme of things. Well, there is nothing wrong in going on an ego trip...

Eckard, you are right that Einstein's SR didn't at all take into consideration that gravitation may influence the speed of light in vacuum, but he made up for this later, "We can only conclude that the special theory of relativity cannot claim an unlimited domain of validity; its results hold only so long as we are able to disregard the influences of gravitational fields on the phenomena {e.g. of light}", p.89. And as regards your comment, "Such influence is pretty small according to the calculation by Newton and only different by a factor of two in GR"... Yes, that is true, but if this pretty small value can be calculated, why not? Note that over astronomical distances and times, a pretty small investment can yield bountifully. Little drops of water makes the mighty ocean!

Akinbo

*I suspect that the density enhancement of dark matter around gravitational masses has something to do with this. Recall Einstein again here, though he did not live to know about the dark matter idea, "the rate of a clock is accordingly slower the greater is the mass of the ponderable matter in its neighbourhood", p.97. 'Ponderable' means what can be there but which you cannot readily visualize.

Eckard Blumschein

No Tom,

With interpreted I didn't mean interpreted in terms of SR. Instead I argue: Once

a frame of reference got the privilege to be chosen, this precludes a different one to be to simultaneously be chosen the object under consideration. Such doubled perspective belongs to G. Cantor and to Einstein.

Let me restrict the consideration to the most simple case: Two points A and B are simultaneously located at the line IR of real numbers which has an origin at its zero Z. The distance from A to B equals to A-Z minus B-Z. It is obviously invariant against the joint move of A and B relative to Z. Michelson's 1881/87 experiment demonstrated this.

Michelson's Sagnac experiment was different in so far, it's rotation flipped the sign and therefore the difference from A-B to B-A.

Did G.Cantor really discover his transfinite numbers? Already cardinal Franzelin rejected Cantor's naive fabrication of an infinitum creatum sive transfinitum. Up to now, Cantor's alephs didn't prove reasonable except for the property to be infinite (aleph_0) and the fictitious entity of all elements of an infinite series (aleph_1) which mutually exclude each other unless one accepts taking two contradictory points of view at a time, see above.

What about abstract mathematical notions like a singular point, an ideal line, an ideal area, the imaginary unit, the quality of being infinite and the limit of an infinite series, I enjoyed them through my life as mathematical tools, not as items that may be equated with physical reality.

Eckard

Thomas Ray

"With interpreted I didn't mean interpreted in terms of SR. Instead I argue: Once a frame of reference got the privilege to be chosen, this precludes a different one to be to simultaneously be chosen the object under consideration."

No it doesn't. Each observer's measurement results are both valid from their respective frames of reference. Their measurement results of simultaneous events may differ; the events are, however, demonstrably objective. No privileged frame, no difference in the fundamental physics.

Thomas Ray

" ... this is where some experts in relativity add to the confusion plaguing physics because they may not agree with this interpretation, preferring to say that in ALL circumstances and at ALL locations, the value of light speed the professor will measure is the same and it is independent of 'where' the measurement is taken place ..."

No one argues that, Akinbo. The only important theoretical aspect of light speed is that it is a constant. The standard for this constant is a measurement taken in a spatial vacuum far from a gravity source. Though there is no space completely empty of radiation and gravitational field influences, at near zero spacetime curvature, it doesn't matter.

Eckard Blumschein

Tom,

I agree with you on that there is no reason to doubt that the velocity of light is constant if any influence of matter can be neglected.

I also agree on that there is no privileged frame of reference in space.

However, I maintain: "Once a frame of reference got the privilege to be chosen, this precludes a different one to be to simultaneously be chosen the object under consideration."

You argued: "Each observer's measurement results are both valid from their respective frames of reference. Their measurement results of simultaneous events may differ; the events are, however, demonstrably objective."

I see possible mistakes in the words valid measurement, simultaneous, and demonstrably objective. Assumed simultaneity is the key. May we agree on how to clarify this question? I already suggested restricting consideration to A and B on IR.

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Thanks Tom, I now see your position clearly. "No one argues that, Akinbo" means no one in his right senses (sorry to use that) can argue that. I fully agree. What will you now do if you find out that this is what the argument has been for the last 100 years. When those in Einsteiniana say light speed is a constant, I am sure you sometimes see the qualification or adjective 'universal' with it, not just constant as you rightly posted, but constant to all observers at all locations. And talking about, "Though there is no space completely empty of radiation and gravitational field influences, at near zero spacetime curvature, it doesn't matter", yes it would matter over astronomical distances. Over shorter distances, yes, it doesn't matter. But over astronomical distances the tiny difference in light speed, can affect and cause measurable differences in arrival times.

Eckard,

"I agree with you on that there is no reason to doubt that the velocity of light is constant if any influence of matter can be neglected".

When the value of light speed was announced as 299792458m/s, please check whether the influence of Earth matter was neglected or included. And as you say, is it possible to measure this value on Earth, where influence of matter can be neglected?

Akinbo

Thomas Ray

"Assumed simultaneity is the key. May we agree on how to clarify this question?"

I don't know, Eckard. It's the question that special relativity already answers: All physics is local. That is, all results in all observers' reference frames are valid, and none are privileged.

"I already suggested restricting consideration to A and B on IR."

I don't understand what you mean.

Thomas Ray

" ... over astronomical distances the tiny difference in light speed, can affect and cause measurable differences in arrival times."

What you're missing, Akinbo, is that the time-distance relation is continuous. Just as no time passes for a particle of light -- a photon -- in its journey from one end of the universe to the other, no time passes for a beam of light. The measured constant speed of light in a vacuum is the value that it is born with.

Akinbo Ojo

Peter, I can't find the thread of our discussion yesterday, the one calling for a truce and about LT... But I woke up with this analogy, perhaps that's what you have been trying to say: If a runner runs alongside a moving bus at some speed, when he hops unto the bus, he staggers for a moment before acquiring the speed of the bus. That is, his speed changes to that of the bus. Taking the runner as light, perhaps the mechanisms you labour to describe is how light staggers for a moment before acquiring the speed of its new frame of reference. If my analogy is correct, that is a worthwhile endeavour. It is however not Lorentz transformation. Galileo explains he different frames of motion and that a transition takes place. Galileo however does not explain the 'staggering moment' before the new uniform motion is acquired. Correct me if my analogy is wrong.

Tom,

"Just as no time passes for a particle of light -- a photon -- in its journey from one end of the universe to the other, no time passes for a beam of light. The measured constant speed of light in a vacuum is the value that it is born with"

A member of this community, Armin Shirazi points out an 'existence paradox' associated with this position. If no time passes for a photon, then the question of a photon being emitted at a time 0 and absorbed at a time, t cannot happen. Photon's will not exist because doing so will make them have a duration. If Armin is reading this, he may explain further.

Akinbo

Thomas Ray

"If no time passes for a photon, then the question of a photon being emitted at a time 0 and absorbed at a time, t cannot happen."

Sure it can. And does, by the principle of least action:

The action principle for the Lagrangian (a function of the coordinates and velocities) L = L(q_i, q-dot_i) is

delta (Action) = delta of the integral 0 --> 1 L(q_i,q-dot_i) d t = 0

One can find it explained in Susskind-Hrabovsky, The Theoretical Minimum. I recommend this book as the best primer in classical physics since Einstein-Infeld, The Evolution of Physics.

[deleted]

Akinbo,

All cosmology becomes nonsense if photons don't experience time. Astronomy is all based on spectroscopy and delta lambda, which gives the absorption history of each particular 'photon' of light (or WHATEVER wavelength) analysed. Each is different, most can be matched well to it's journey. Reverting to old myth and legend fudged to cover the anomalies will only continue to confound us.

THE BUS. You got close but stumbled at the last minute and fell off! Forget the LT for a moment the runner doesn't 'stumble' when he jumps on the bus, he is 'accelerated' into the new rest frame. Just think about that alone for a while to embed it. (And remember 'deceleration' is also properly 'acceleration').

Now that is simply the 'Galilean Transformation'; an 'acceleration'. All very simple and entirely logical yes? (and light ON the bus always propagates at c wrt the bus, as we know).

Ok. Now on to the LT, which is also simple but a DIFFERENT and additional effect only becoming a factor at high relative speeds.

For this the bus is rapidly approaching a line of say 5 runners 1 metre apart who each jump on in turn. The 1 metre gaps then clearly reduce. That is 'Doppler blue shift' (shorter wavelength). OK so far?

Bit when the bus is going VERY fast there's clearly a problem as wavelength can only reduce so much! The runners will be squashed together as they jump on the bus. The last two may even just bounce off! Are you following? There is a minimum possible wavelength (gamma). If the transform requires a shorter wavelength then the light simply can't penetrate! The excess energy is emitted as heat (i.e. check out the nose plasma bow shock of the shuttle on re-entry, where even radio waves can't penetrate! That's why the plasma density at gamma is called 'optical breakdown mode'.

That is the LT, an additional factor added to the GT as a 'power curve' when relative speed approaches c. Now if you did the homework I set it would be clear as a bell and I wouldn't have to repeat all this over and over! (lol)

Imagine the electrons trying to oscillate but not having the elbow room. If they can't oscillate then light cant get through. The propagation speed of light ('between' particles that is) is then set by a 'rev limiter' the min electron wavelength gamma (electron refractive index is n=1, same as the 'vacuum').

I recommend you should really read that lot again to ensure it gets assimilated! If you can't find the logic of any parts or would like to see the mass of consistent evidence do just ask. (Is that Tom I hear having a confounded fit!?)

Best wishes

Peter

pjackson

Also all astronomy, astrophysics and logic. T'was me.

Peter

Thomas Ray

"All cosmology becomes nonsense if photons don't experience time."

Only if one has no idea how classical physics, and particularly the principle of least action, work. If you could understand the equation I posted, you would know.

Thomas Ray

If you understand Doug Singleton's essay, you can see that classical and quantum least action may have implications for social behavior as well -- the most novel idea I have ever seen on FQXi both in concept and presentation!

And maybe this will help, too.

[deleted]

No Tom,

As I tried to explain in my essay, clocks belonging to A and B, respectively which are in steady motion with velocity v relative to each other can easily be synchronized at the moment when they had or will have the same position in space, i.e. at the same point on the line IR (blackboard bold R) of real numbers.

Einstein in 1905 ignored that unbiased synchronization. Instead he adopted so called Poincaré synchronization, a method that is suited if the distance between A and B doesn't change when he considered a light signal from A to B and return to A. Given A is moving towards B then common sense tells us: The path from B return to A' got meanwhile shorter than the path from A to B. Einstein defined: The time the light needs as to go from A to B equals to the time it needs as to go from B to A.

Nowadays, such silly method is called a conventional one. While it has the apparent advantages to provide a surprizing interpretation of the Lorentz factor and to explain Michelson's 1881/87 experiment, it requires to abandon the good old notion of ubiquitous common time.

What don't you understand?

Eckard

I don't know, Eckard. It's the question that special relativity already answers: All physics is local. That is, all results in all observers' reference frames are valid, and none are privileged.

"I already suggested restricting consideration to A and B on IR."

I don't understand what you mean.

Eckard Blumschein

Tom,

Holonomic and non-dissipative social behavior? Did you intend revealing a weakness of the essay?

I ignored what you wrote: "It's the question that special relativity already answers: All physics is local. That is, all results in all observers' reference frames are valid, and none are privileged."

You are using buzzwords instead of either accepting or refuting my arguments. As an engineer, I wonder if e.g. ideal electric, magnetic, and gravitation fields are local. Perhaps you meant that energy cannot propagate faster than with c?

Also it remains obscure to me what you meant with results.

Eckard

Thomas Ray

"As an engineer, I wonder if e.g. ideal electric, magnetic, and gravitation fields are local."

Field influences are infinite. Measured effects of those influences are local.

"Perhaps you meant that energy cannot propagate faster than with c?"

Of course. No physical influence can.

"Also it remains obscure to me what you meant with results."

Observations. Measurements.

Eckard Blumschein

Tom,

While the issues of Poincaré synchronization and of an allegedly a priori existing spacetime let me doubt that SR is correct, it seems to me being evident that mass increases as a function of squared velocity divided by c^2. Wasn't this already found out before Einstein?

Also, I am ready to imagine "steady" motion of a treated as "rigid" body actually consisting of oscillations of many parts and its speed therefore restricted to less than c.

Eckard

[deleted]

" ... it seems to me being evident that mass increases as a function of squared velocity divided by c^2. Wasn't this already found out before Einstein?"

It was known that potential energy increases as a function of velocity proportional to the mass. It was not known that the limit of the energy increase is the speed of light constant, such that mass and energy are interchangeable quantities. One of the early fears in setting off a nuclear chain reaction, was that the phenomenon would be infinite, i.e., so long as matter is available, the explosion would continue to convert all mass into energy. We know now -- thanks to special relativity -- that the atomic binding energy is the only potential for conversion to pure energy (gamma radiation). The same phenomenon that assures atomic stability on the quantum scale, assures gravitational stability on the cosmic scale; the speed of physical influences is limited to the speed of light.

What the quadratic relation between mass and energy tells us, is that physical phenomena are self limiting. Everything physical is finite and local.

"Also, I am ready to imagine 'steady' motion of a treated as 'rigid' body actually consisting of oscillations of many parts and its speed therefore restricted to less than c."

There are no actually rigid bodies, so your imagination does align with the physical facts. A rigid transformation in spacetime -- Lorentz transformation -- is the mathematical artifact that uses the constant c to confirm the uniformity of physical facts for observers in different states of motion relative to a given event. Were c not a constant, we could not be sure that the same physical laws apply to observers in different inertial systems.

Best,

Tom

Akinbo Ojo

Peter, these days my time seems to have stopped flowing like that of Tom's photon. As a result I am yet to read more on Optical Breakdown mode, etc. However, following your post of Jun. 13, 2014 @ 17:04 GMT, I couldn't resist asking before reading up, even if I may be betraying my ignorance...

You say, IF the transform requires a shorter wavelength then the light simply can't penetrate! The excess energy is emitted as heat (i.e. check out the nose plasma bow shock of the shuttle on re-entry, where even radio waves can't penetrate! That's why the plasma density at gamma is called 'optical breakdown mode'. That is the LT,...

Given, c = fλ, during transformation between frames, suppossing what changes is only frequency, f and speed, c change and wavelength, λ remains unchanged? Your mechanism seems to depend on IF wavelength changes. Will read up as soon as my time starts flowing again, but you may give the 'if wavelength does not change' possibility a thought.

Akinbo

Eckard Blumschein

Tom,

I referred to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_mass . By the way, Lorentz conjectured longitudinal contraction of a moving electron, which is not the same as length contraction in the sense of a squeezed coordinate of space.

Eckard

Thomas Ray

I can't figure out what you're trying to communicate, Eckard. Lorentz contraction refers to foreshortening in the direction of motion. To an observer in another frame, it might appear longitudinal. It certainly is the same phenomenon, however -- as the Lorentz transform confirms. Point is, that the faster moving a mass, the farther it is spread out in spacetime. Contraction in one direction is expansion in the orthogonal direction.

Eckard Blumschein

Tom,

I intend conveying that decisive elements of SR were stolen from earlier work. In particular, J. J. Thomson wrote in 1893: "a charged sphere moving with the velocity of light behaves as if its mass were infinite." I didn't deal with the various related theories because they were based on aether and other speculations.

This nurtures my hope that the silly Poincaré synchronization and the fatalistic block of an a priori existing spacetime will turn out not at all experimentally confirmed.

Eckard

pjackson

Akinbo,

"Given, c = f*lambda during transformation between frames, supposing what changes is only frequency, f and speed, c."

They are indeed what change, in a particular circumstance. You forget I derived that some time ago for you. But always discern between the physical entity and the mathematical derivative. Wavelength, amplitude and ellipticity are physical. 'frequency' is a derivative, a 'number' found by applying 'time' at the processor (brain). However the effects of observer relative motion can change 'apparent' as well as real phenomena. As the human brain isn't good at remembering concepts perhaps, rationalise this scenario, write it down and memorise it.

On a transform between inertial systems there are FOUR observer cases;

1. At rest in first system; A.

2. At rest in second system; B.

3. At rest in A then accelerates to be at rest in B.

4. Reverse to 3, - but we'll ignore that one (and both may speed up or slow down).

To make it easy picture yourself in the cockpit of a fast jet circling earth. The thin air outside is rest frame 'A'. The denser air inside is rest frame B. The media have almost the same refractive index but a relative speed v. The mechanism is the same as sound; When at rest in the plane two light pulses (or sound signals) in the plane propagate LOCALLY at c (s). When at rest outside, clearly they propagate at c (s) there too.

As you float in your balloon watching the plane pass (case 1) you see the pulses hit the cockpit window one at a time, then propagate inside the plane. What apparently happens to them? (answer (a)) below). But will their apparent 'frequency' (past you) change? Watch them carefully; they 'slow down', but are also closer together, so will 'pass by you' at exactly the SAME 'rate' (frequency f).

Now as you sit in the cockpit (case 2) the two pulses come towards you, let's say at 'closing speed' c+v but far apart, so at frequency f. The moment they reach the electrons outside the glass they're scattered down to c in the electron frame. What will appear to happen to them? (answer (a)) below). And again, though now slowed to c as they reach you they're closer together (Blue shifted) so still at 'frequency' f.

Now case 3. You find the frequency in the balloon as the pulses pass at c, say 10/sec. But the plane hooks up the balloon, you accelerate rapidly, and somehow get inside. Now you STILL find the pulse doing c, BUT now they're closer together, so at a higher frequency. Only if YOU accelerate from the old into the new propagating medium rest frame to do find a frequency change!

(a) The pulses close together (Doppler shift/ WAVElength contraction) and 'appear' to slow down, always propagating at c.

Space is merely a very diffuse version of air. The electrons (plasma) do the job. The mechanism doesn't "depend" on wavelength change, it logically derives it in the (normal) fixed observer case. Astronomy relies on spectroscopy. Calling it 'frequency' change produces nonsense. Redshift can ONLY be a lambda/lambda transformation. Now try to find a Doppler shift equation that recognises that and uses wavelength! It's not 'joined up' science. No wonder theory ends in paradox! (That is a VERY VERY important missed fact; see my prev. essay).

You'll need to read twice slowly and visualise, then once more to memorise, unless you're a genius! Best wishes

Peter

Thomas Ray

"I intend conveying that decisive elements of SR were stolen from earlier work."
I don't intend to respond to Einstein-bashing myths. That's covered more than abundantly here.

Eckard Blumschein

Tom,
"When the Nobel Prize Committee decided against a prize for the theory of relativity then they did not disregard Albert Einstein. He got awarded for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. Members of the Committee distrusted Einstein's relativity."
Don't pretend being bashful instead of confessing a lack of arguments.
Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Peter, thanks. A bit confusing so let me leave it for now. It would appear simpler if only lambda, λ always remained constant during transformations (i.e. change in media traversed, Doppler changes due to source or observer motion, etc) but Nature may not be that simple or may have another way of expressing its simplicity.
I read a bit about Optical breakdown mode as you urged. Full of laser stuff, photo-ionization, etc. I doubt if relevant to light that is not laser.
And by the way, being an astronomer what is your take on the precession of Mercury's perihelion? What is the cause? Is there a Planet Vulcan?
Akinbo
*Another thing that I think about but you may not reply here if it will confuse issues and be a digression: why does a planet and its Sun alternately move towards and away from each other like an oscillating spring if the only force between them is an attraction one without a repulsion?

pjackson

Akinbo,
Oh Dear. You do surprise me with your approach sometimes. The first thing you've missed is that physically, wavelength, the scalar quality ALWAYS changes! I suggest we should remain with sound science (evidenced consistency) rather than what may 'appear simpler'.
Indeed also what you 'doubt' seems to have no basis or consistency! I take the view that a quick 'glimpse' of something doesn't make me an expert able to make such judgements! My co-author is an optics specialist and I've learned a lot. Fluctuations of EM radiation are fluctuations of EM radiation, period. The 'optical' range is just a small bit of the full spectrum, and lasers are just one focussed beam type. Optical breakdown is admittedly poorly understood but it appears in ALL quantum optics at the plasma density. It is certainly NOT laser specific. It corresponds to minimum wavelength gamma.
With respect Akinbo you comments sound a little like a nurse saying to a radiologist 'I don't think x-rays will pass through doors as "it would appear simpler' if they only worked on flesh, as I've only seen bodies and I doubt if they're relevant to anything else." I suggest the radiologist may look to the sky for divine inspiration!
If you didn't have time to properly research or understand an effect yourself then do you think it could be a good idea to take advantage of those who did rather than contradict them with guesses?
I put a lot of time and effort into writing out the full logical derivation for you in classical dynamics and optical science, for the second time. Consider how your dismissive response looked!
Best wishes
Peter

« Previous Page Next Page »