Faster than Light

John Cox

Eckard,

Sorry, typo! and I'd double checked. So you see, learning to use someone else's language just so you can communicate with them, does deserve some thanks. jrc

Eckard Blumschein

John C,

Before continuing my posting of June 10, 17:17, I will tell you that I usually don't use garbage bags but some compost piles instead. BTW, in Germany, cutting hedges and the like is not allowed in the time when birds may breed.

My only huge garbage bag is already well filled, partly due to support by Pentcho Valev. Hopefully, I will convince him that Einstein's first postulate is the wrong one but not the second one.

Eckard

[deleted]

Eckard,

"Hopefully, I will convince him that Einstein's first postulate is the wrong one but not the second one."

That would be very difficult. Not in the sense that I would not accept your arguments, but in the sense that you would find no helpful literature. Even the John Chappell Natural Philsophy Alliance, who are all etherists or close, are obscure when it comes to the principle of relativity and can be of no help. See this:

Harry Hamlin Ricker: What Happened To The Principle Of Relativity?

Pentcho Valev

Eckard Blumschein

Pentcho, all,

Ricker reminds me a bit of Smolin who criticized Relativity but looked for a way to nonetheless still loving it or at least pretending to do so by refusing to answer questions concerning his essay. Otherwise he did certainly not win a prize. Perhaps, my reasoning does better agree with Nick Percival's:

http://www.naturalphilosophy.org/site/nickpercival/2015/06/02/

empirical-data-does-not-match-special-relativity-time-dilation/

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

Eckard,

Thank you for this link. One of the blessings of FQXi is the possibility of others pointing out information that one would otherwise not have seen.

In the coming days or weeks I will be requesting you, Pentcho and others to criticize an article I am writing on the make or break, "Einstein velocity-addition formula".

Regards,

Akinbo

John Cox

Eckard,

I promote bird life also, as I can, and watch and wait for any nestlings to fledge. Also, where I live the recycling picks up the bagged clippings and is metered with dry waste for commercial composting. I'm quite sure you need an extra heavy mil bag, yourself. I'm off to more pruning, though its a bit hot but the damage shouldn't be too bad. :-) jrc

Pentcho Valev

Einstein Brainwashes the World

Albert Einstein: "There is hardly a simpler law in physics than that according to which light is propagated in empty space. Every child at school knows, or believes he knows, that this propagation takes place in straight lines with a velocity c = 300,000 km./sec. At all events we know with great exactness that this velocity is the same for all colours, because if this were not the case, the minimum of emission would not be observed simultaneously for different colours during the eclipse of a fixed star by its dark neighbour. By means of similar considerations based on observations of double stars, the Dutch astronomer De Sitter was also able to show that the velocity of propagation of light cannot depend on the velocity of motion of the body emitting the light. The assumption that this velocity of propagation is dependent on the direction "in space" is in itself improbable. In short, let us assume that the simple law of the constancy of the velocity of light c (in vacuum) is justifiably believed by the child at school."

At first some children were not quite sure but then the evidence presented by de Sitter finally convinced them that Einstein was absolutely right:

It's the law!

Max Tegmark's teaching is based on even more evidence, plus reductio ad absurdum: The speed of light is independent of the speed of the source - de Sitter hammered it. It is also independent of the speed of the observer - Michelson and Morley hammered it. Finally, if the speed of light were not constant, you'd see things moving backward in time, and you don't see things moving backward in time do you:

Max Tegmark: "Observed properties of speed of light. Does speed depend on motion of source? No! Does speed depend on motion of observer (frame)? No! Does c depend on source motion? Does speed of a bullet depend on speed of rifle? Does sound speed of a gun shot depend on speed of rifle? Binary stars provide great test. If velocities add, then... You'd see things moving backward in time. Answer: No dependence on source motion observed (and should be dramatic). Does c depend on observer motion (frame)? No 1st order effect had been seen. Michelson-Morley experiment hammered it. But they saw no fringe shift at all! So c appears not to depend on frame."

Joe Wolfe is straightforward: The constancy of the speed of light appears to be absurd but still it is true; moreover, it cannot be understood because there is nothing to understand:

Joe Wolfe: "At this stage, many of my students say things like "The invariance of the speed of light among observers is impossible" or "I can't understand it". Well, it's not impossible. It's even more than possible, it is true. This is something that has been extensively measured, and many refinements to the Michelson and Morely experiment, and complementary experiments have confirmed this invariance to very great precision. As to understanding it, there isn't really much to understand. However surprising and weird it may be, it is the case. It's the law in our universe. The fact of the invariance of c doesn't take much understanding."

What Einstein, Tegmark and Wolfe have achieved:

Yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity!

Pentcho Valev

The Science of Bingo the Einsteiniano

Initially Bingo the Clowno is sure that his name is not Bingo but in the end...

Bingo (Chris Landreth, 1998)

Initially Joe Wolfe's students are sure that the speed of light cannot be invariable but in the end all of them get the name Bingo the Einsteiniano:

Bingo the Einsteiniano teaches that, even if the speed of light is variable, Divine Albert's Divine Theory gloriously remains unaffected, Divine Einstein, yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity:

Tom Roberts: "If it is ultimately discovered that the photon has a nonzero mass (i.e. light in vacuum does not travel at the invariant speed of the Lorentz transform), SR would be unaffected but both Maxwell's equations and QED would be refuted (or rather, their domains of applicability would be reduced)."

Tom Roberts: "As I said before, Special Relativity would not be affected by a non-zero photon mass, as Einstein's second postulate is not required in a modern derivation (using group theory one obtains three related theories, two of which are solidly refuted experimentally and the third is SR). So today's foundations of modern physics would not be threatened."

Mitchell J. Feigenbaum: "In this paper, not only do I show that the constant speed of light is unnecessary for the construction of the theories of relativity, but overwhelmingly more, there is no room for it in the theory."

Why Einstein was wrong about relativity, 29 October 2008, Mark Buchanan, NEW SCIENTIST: "...a photon with mass would not necessarily always travel at the same speed. Feigenbaum's work shows how, contrary to many physicists' beliefs, this need not be a problem for relativity."

Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond: "Il se pourrait même que de futures mesures mettent en évidence une masse infime, mais non-nulle, du photon ; la lumière alors n'irait plus à la "vitesse de la lumière", ou, plus précisément, la vitesse de la lumière, désormais variable, ne s'identifierait plus à la vitesse limite invariante. Les procédures opérationnelles mises en jeu par le "second postulat" deviendraient caduques ipso facto. La théorie elle-même en serait-elle invalidée ? Heureusement, il n'en est rien..."

Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond: "The evidence of the nonzero mass of the photon would not, as such, shake in any way the validity of the special relalivity. It would, however, nullify all its derivations which are based on the invariance of the photon velocity."

Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond: "Supposez que demain un expérimentateur soit capable de vraiment mettre la main sur le photon, et de dire qu'il n'a pas une masse nulle. Qu'il a une masse de, mettons 10^(-60)kg. Sa masse n'est pas nulle, et du coup la lumière ne va plus à la "vitesse de la lumière". Vous pouvez imaginer les gros titres dans les journaux : "La théorie de la relativité s'effondre", "Einstein s'est trompé", etc. Or cette éventuelle observation ne serait en rien contradictoire avec la théorie de la relativité ! Einstein a certes construit sa théorie en analysant des échanges de signaux lumineux propagés à la vitesse limite. Si on trouve que le photon a une masse non-nulle, ce sera que cette vitesse n'est pas la vitesse limite, et la démonstration initiale s'effondre donc. Mais ce n'est pas parce qu'une démonstration est erronée que son résultat est faux ! Quand vous avez une table à plusieurs pieds, vous pouvez en couper un, elle continue à tenir debout. Et heureusement, la théorie de la relativité a plusieurs pieds."

Bingo the Einsteinano's Great Teacher

Pentcho Valev

Bingo the Einsteiniano's torment:

Joao Magueijo, Faster Than the Speed of Light, p. 250: "Lee [Smolin] and I discussed these paradoxes at great length for many months, starting in January 2001. We would meet in cafés in South Kensington or Holland Park to mull over the problem. THE ROOT OF ALL THE EVIL WAS CLEARLY SPECIAL RELATIVITY. All these paradoxes resulted from well known effects such as length contraction, time dilation, or E=mc^2, all basic predictions of special relativity. And all denied the possibility of establishing a well-defined border, common to all observers, capable of containing new quantum gravitational effects."

"The speaker Joao Magueijo, is a Reader in Theoretical Physics at Imperial College, London and author of Faster Than the Speed of Light: The Story of a Scientific Speculation. He opened by explaining how Einstein's theory of relativity is the foundation of every other theory in modern physics and that the assumption that the speed of light is constant is the foundation of that theory. Thus a constant speed of light is embedded in all of modern physics and to propose a varying speed of light (VSL) is worse than swearing! It is like proposing a language without vowels. For Magueijo relativity is not really difficult to grasp and a constant speed of light is the start point. To help to visualise this he invited the audience to imagine driving alongside a car made of light. Since the speed of light is constant it does not matter what you do in terms of accelerating or decelerating the light car will still have the same relative speed to you. This counter-intuitive notion led Einstein to propose that speed and time must be variable - in particular that time advances at different rates for objects moving relative to each other. The speed of light, c, thus is a speed limit - it is not possible to go faster than it. This is quite annoying..."

Physics without constant speed of light = language without vowels! Bravo, Magueijo! That is the reason why the following discovery, published in Science a few months ago, is now long forgotten:

"Physicists manage to slow down light inside vacuum (...) ...even now the light is no longer in the mask, it's just the propagating in free space - the speed is still slow. (...) "This finding shows unambiguously that the propagation of light can be slowed below the commonly accepted figure of 299,792,458 metres per second, even when travelling in air or vacuum," co-author Romero explains in the University of Glasgow press release."

"The speed of light is a limit, not a constant - that's what researchers in Glasgow, Scotland, say. A group of them just proved that light can be slowed down, permanently."

Glasgow researchers slow the speed of light

Pentcho Valev

"This month, The New York Times carried an editorial by two distinguished astrophysicists asking whether string theorists are doing science at all. (...) Such flexibility is a classic symptom of pseudo-science, and it is what particularly irks physicists about string theory - along with the arrogance of some of its practitioners, who insist it is the only way to complete Einstein's quest. But there is another source of resentment, and one with which we can all sympathise: that an entire generation of brilliant minds may have been lost to an esoteric mind-game."

"Pseudo-science" and "esotheric mind-game" - that's all Einstein's science developed into. It all started when Einstein managed to convince the gullible world that the speed of light (relative to the observer) is independent of the speed of the observer - a proposition incompatible with both Newton's emission theory of light and Maxwell's 19th century electromagnetic theory:

John Stachel: "But here he ran into the most blatant-seeming contradiction, which I mentioned earlier when first discussing the two principles. As noted then, the Maxwell-Lorentz equations imply that there exists (at least) one inertial frame in which the speed of light is a constant regardless of the motion of the light source. Einstein's version of the relativity principle (minus the ether) requires that, if this is true for one inertial frame, it must be true for all inertial frames. But this seems to be nonsense. How can it happen that the speed of light relative to an observer cannot be increased or decreased if that observer moves towards or away from a light beam? Einstein states that he wrestled with this problem over a lengthy period of time, to the point of despair."

Pentcho Valev

"Right now, top physicists from around the world are arriving in Waterloo, Canada, to attend a unique conference. Christened Convergence, the meeting is the brainchild of Neil Turok, director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) in Waterloo, where the event will be based. I spoke to Turok to find out what motivated him to set up this conference, what makes it so special, and what he hopes it will achieve. "I had a feeling about the future of physics that at the time few people shared," says Turok, describing his thoughts around two years ago when he first proposed the idea of the conference to colleagues at PI. Turok explains that the "large bandwagon" of the last 30 years has not found experimental support. The bandwagon in question is the Standard Model of particle physics established in the 1970s, which, he says, people have been elaborating ever since. "Grand unified theories, supersymmetry, string theory, M-theory, multiverse theory," he lists. "Each is not particularly radical, but is becoming ever more complex and arbitrary." To illustrate the lack of experimental support for these ideas, Turok describes how many people were hoping string theory would represent a radical development; but since string theory - as currently interpreted - leads to the multiverse, Turok describes it as the "least predictive theory ever". Indeed, experimental support has not been found for other extensions of the Standard Model either. "We have discovered the Higgs and nothing else," says Turok, "yet the vast majority of theorists had been confidently predicting WIMPS (weakly interacting massive particles) and supersymmetric particles... Theorists are walking around in a bit of a stunned silence." He adds that it could turn out to be right that all sorts of other particles are needed along with the Higgs - but that thought seems to be misguided. "My view is that this has been a kind of catastrophe - we've lost our way," he says. "What we need are ideas as simple and radical as in the start of the 20th century with quantum mechanics."

Not with Einstein's relativity? Why not? Einstein's idea was idiotic but simple and radical - the speed of light (relative to the observer) is independent of the speed of the observer - and Einstein wrestled with human rationality and his conscience "to the point of despair' in order to introduce it and ruin physics:

Pentcho Valev

Eckard Blumschein

Pentcho,

I strongly agree with Neil Turok's criticism "ever more complex and arbitrary" and would like to add that I see unwarranted arbitrariness in the fundamentals of set theory too. The only difference is the suggestive effect of seemingly compelling agreement between predictions by Relativity and experimental results in physics while in mathematics the futility of set theory does not worry the experts. The logical foundation is at least questionable for both Einstein's Relativity and Cantor's naive set theory. Both are relying on arbitrarily chosen unwarranted and fiercely defended beliefs.

In order to hopefully contribute some clarification, one needs many alternative interpretations to what has been perhaps incorrectly attributed to SR. Maybe, this will eventually guide to alternative interpretations in physics in general. That's why I support your effort.

Eckard

John Cox

Pentcho did not speak with Neil Turok.

You have to expand his full post to get the highlighting of the opening phrase to click on and find that it is a cut and paste of a blogger with PhysicsWorld, Louise Mayor. Lack of proper citation is indicative of an overall lack of discipline that should alert all to beware of anti-Semitic bias masquerading as 'science', and which persistently misstates the historical record in an interpretive fashion contrary to the logical ontology. The velocity of an observer has no effect on the velocity of intercepted light, only the frequency observed. Don't care if you want to put that in a quantum or relativistic regime. It has consistently held experimentally. Hitler is DEAD! jrc

Pentcho Valev

John Cox,

Do you accuse me of anti-Semitism?

Pentcho Valev

John Cox

You make it pretty damn clear, Valev. Suffer!

Eckard Blumschein

Pentcho, John C,

I don't see any reason to accept distraction from the need to reject arbitrariness affecting a scientific theory.

What about the question whether the speed of light (relative to the observer) is independent of the speed of the observer, I am not sure who introduced the silly notion "speed of light relative to the observer". Can you please lecture me?

In my understanding, propagation of energy is independent from anyone who observes it, and the velocity of light or sound is not at all directly related to the velocity of emitter or receiver.

Eckard

Akinbo Ojo

I used to think that hate crimes were the preserve of more developed countries but I have since realized it is part of the animal nature in men of all races and in all places. We have witnessed hate massacres too here in Africa.

There are not that many regulars commenting here these days and I think we should shake hands all round and not allow the beast in us come out.

This space would also certainly be diminished if racism or anti-semitism is allowed to take root.

Akinbo

Pentcho Valev

The people of Bulgaria managed to save all its Jews in World War 2, although we were among the allies of Germany. So, John Cox, you would not find anti-Semites amoung us.

Pentcho Valev

John Cox

Pentcho,

One would hope so. But then why the diatribe calling everyone who understands the Lorentz Transformation(s) as a *transform* not the derivatives, 'brainwashed', 'worshipers of Einstein the Devine', deluded 'believers in Einsteinia', and all the constant contemptuous straw man derisions?

Newtonian physics is entirely based on *instantaneous measure*... to infinity. The extrapolation of Fitzgerald's Contraction by Lorentz is nothing more, or less, than a transform from that measurement scheme to one which is limited to light velocity. That is all it does because Lorentz was a mathematician, and probably sweat blood, to keep it within that concise quadratic form. It's two dimensional. Why? Because 'quad' means 'four', and there are four sides to a square. The equivalence principle is inherent to that transform because it has to have the identity of an equality for any point between here and infinity to correlate to a point between zero and light velocity.

It takes about 8 minutes for light to reach earth from the sun. Fitzgerald remarked that it's measurable velocity was 'astonishingly slow'. Compared to 'instantaneous'! yeah, it's like a stone. You don't have to accept Minkowski's 'spacetime' to understand Special Relativity. It's called 'special' because it applies to the special case of uniform motion. It IS mathematically complete, as a theory of measurement. It makes no claim , nor did Einstein, that it is the end all of be all.

When light is the only physical measurable, why is it so difficult to accept that measured velocity as the absolute value instead of arbitrarily assigning as absolute some value to the inherently immeasurable dimensions of space and time. Given even Galilean relativity, something must be taken as the absolute value as a benchmark from which to protract measure. It is not others whom have been taking SR as a belief system, but rather as an expedience of mathematical symmetry necessary in scientific method.

It is astonishingly simple to recognize that light propagating at that universally absolute velocity would not be physically effected by the relative velocity of an observer. There remain questions that experiment has yet to find means of determining; such as 'what is the physical reaction if EM registers on an observing system but is not absorbed'? There is much in optics and RF that give the refractive index, but there is also the dual results of elastic and inelastic scattering. And given a complete absorption, light would naturally have to slow at some finite rate from c to the rest frame of the relative motion of the absorber. It does not necessarily need an aether to propagate at uniform velocity, and an intercepting observer would not physically alter that velocity, only the frequency of the waveforms, or particle forms. It is really that simple.

But if you throw derision at those who follow the math, not some arithmetic, as devotees of a famously secular Jew, why would you not be suspect of bigotry? You have no idea of how many rednecks I've had blow smoke in my face. jrc

Pentcho Valev

"...why would you not be suspect of bigotry?"

You are free to suspect me of anything, John Cox, but you have no right to publicly accuse me of anti-Semitism. This is a crime in my view.

Pentcho Valev

John Cox

Mr. Valev,

And so is you accusing others of being believers in a false God. jrc

Pentcho Valev

"And so is you accusing others of being believers in a false God"

This is just a figurative, not very polite, way of saying that they are wrong, John Cox. Some people are much harsher than myself - Lubos Motl for instance - but this is still not a crime. In contrast, a public accusation of anti-Semitism, racism, fascism etc., in the absence of any supportive evidence, is a crime.

Pentcho Valev

John Cox

"This just figurative"

Pentcho, that is stock in trade. It's harassment and its insidious, and was as systematic of the Durzhavna as the Waffen SS. Is it still so commonplace in Sophia today that one feels as comfortable with it, as a modern northerner in the States with a Confederate flag on the bumper of his pick-up truck? Nine more innocent people were just murdered in their Church here in the States by a man spouting the same sort of 'figurative speech'. I am not alone in feeling deep political and personal offense. When will You dare say "Enough!" And it has nothing to do with logical expression of a competing theoretical discipline, especially one that has been falsified to the degree that it can be considered a good first approximation. jrc

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