Much Ado About Nothing by Peter Jackson

Judy N wrote on Oct. 13, 2012 @ 09:23 GMT: "An emitter, even a voice, but consider a trumpet, emits at a wavelength and frequency. If it then starts moving, then the wavelength (so frequency) in the propagation medium changes. So we have delta L. Now consider perhaps the detectors eardrum, to which an oscillation rate is imparted. (We are now entering areas where you nor anyone has given deeper thought); Those oscillations are (so initially try to 'emit') at some wavelength L. If at rest with the medium this may match the L of propagation (we may here ignone n). BUT, and this is the crux, if the eardrum start moving; the changed frequency of arrival means a changed wavelength of re-emisssion L' alongside the changed frequency. The logic is impeccable, it matches observation, and it is as brilliant as it is unfamiliar. With light waves the ontology is, surprisingly for many, identical. Lambda and frequency deltas are inseperable."

Judy,

If the eardrum (observer, detector, receiver) starts moving, the frequency and the speed of the waves relative to it/him change but the wavelength remains unchanged. You can clearly see this here.

Both you and Peter refer to possible changes of the wavelength AFTER the waves have crossed the outer boundary of the eardrum (observer, detector, receiver) but this is irrelevant.

Pentcho Valev

Pentcho,

I have seen your desire to learn, but you must be aware it is currently disabled by your beleif that you do not need to. The video you cite nowhere claims that wavelength does not change. It simply does not ostensibly consider that case. There will be a thousand similar explanations, but none falsify the implicit inverse relationship of f and lambda. From 10yrs old we teach that relationship for any speed. It has never been falsified.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelength You will also find a thousand other references to this on the web. If there IS a wave, so a 'frequency,' then there must be a wavelength.

You cannot claim that some real physical property is 'irrelevant' without a very rigorous proof. In this case it must be relevant because it is required to derive the local propagation speed.

The only possibility for it not to be relevant is if you can find any new propagation speed from f alone. Which is of course not possible. It has only been the common 'assumption' that we needed special relativity to do this for us. Peters simple and beutiful kinetic logic removes that need.

The fact is that there are TWO relevant wave speeds. One in the propagating medium between the emitter and detector, and one in the medium of the detector (though as Peter points out this is limited to the case of a detector made of matter, so forming a new 'medium'). c+v then always exists 'relatively' but never exists once it's interacted with matter. The 'relevant' part is that this renders the illogicalities of the current paradigm unnecessary. Surely nothing is then more relvant.

Various teaching techniques can overcome this 'familiarity' issue. None are 'instant' as the ability to remove oneself from the familiar view and look afresh is needed. In this case perhaps imagine yourself very small, and a refractive plane between co-moving media half way between and emitter and detector, both at rest in their own 'frame' or medium. imagine the effect on wavelength at that moving refractive plane. But as I wrote to Eckard, only repeat doses are effective. (Peter referred to 'rehearsal', which is equivalent).

I wish you well in your quest for truth. But it will never be as we assume.

Judy

If a macroscopic mechanical spring operated mantle clock is moving close to and horizontally to the surface of the Earth at a constant velocity, will it physically undergo length contraction and/or time dilation. Will its time keeping function slow? Will the clock keep slower time than an identical clock sitting stationary on the surface of the Earth. Will its size or shape change compared to an identical stationary clock sitting on the surface of the Earth?

If a macroscopic mechanical spring operated mantle clock is moved from a stable high position above the Earth, stationary with respect to a point of the surface of the Earth, to a stable position on the Earth, will it have changed size or shape and/or rate of its time keeping function due to General Relativity type effects? Will it physically undergo length contraction and/or time dilation?

I am not asking about effects due to acceleration. There is no acceleration of either clock with respect to the Earth. There is no velocity for the stationary clock. There is constant velocity for the clock moving parallel to the Earth. I am not asking about photons or doppler effects. I am not asking what the clocks look like from different perspectives. I am asking what happens to the clocks themselves with regard to relativity type effects? Please disregard any atmospheric resistance. The moon could be substituted for the Earth.

James

Judy,

All reasonable scientists explicitly teach that, when the observer starts moving towards the source of SOUND waves, the frequency and the speed of the waves relative to him change while the wavelength remains unchanged.

Reasonable scientists are usually not so explicit about light waves because the topic is dangerous but sometimes they forget the danger and teach the same:

"Sound waves have speed c, and f and L are related by c=Lf. For an observer moving relative to medium with speed u, apparent propagation speed c' will be different: c'=c±u. Wavelength cannot change - it's a constant length in the medium, and same length in moving coordinate system (motion does not change lengths). Observed frequency has to change, to match apparent speed and fixed wavelength: f'=c'/L."

Professor Sidney Redner: "We will focus on sound waves in describing the Doppler effect, but it works for other waves too. (...) Let's say you, the observer, now move toward the source with velocity vO. You encounter more waves per unit time than you did before. Relative to you, the waves travel at a higher speed: v'=v+vO. The frequency of the waves you detect is higher, and is given by: f'=v'/(lambda)=(v+vO)/(lambda)."

Pentcho Valev

Dear Peter,

I'm back now from a trip (sorry for the late answer). Thanks for your words about my essay. With great interest I read yours.

After a second look, it seems we share the same passion. You have a feeling for the complex net of relations between all objects in the world. I agree, the space is not empty: it is full of interactions (in form of radiation etc.).

The physics should never depend on a coordinate system but the choice of one is important to make a measurement (a precondition of the measurement process). I have the feeling that quantum mechanics is also connected with this circle of problems.

For more comments I have to read the essay again (which I will do). I like the style as play (a kind of drama?).

Best Torsten

Doppler's Effect when Source is at rest and Observer is Moving. As you can see, Judy, the frequency and the speed of the waves relative to the observer change while the wavelength remains constant.

Pentcho Valev

Dear Peter,

Apologies for this delay in replying. I readily agree with the hypothesis that space is `not empty'. In considering space as an emergent feature which derives from underlying physics, this definitely becomes apparent.

However, I could not understand your remark on my page that Continuous Spontaneous Localization emerges from your ideas. I could not figure out from your essay how that is happening.

I understand from your essay that you accept special relativity. Given this, ideas such as `change of speed of light on arrival' are very hard for me to comprehend. Having grown up as a conventional physicist, I have, like other physicists, got habituated to seeing new ideas implemented through a mathematical formalism and equations. You have a more intuitive way of looking at things, which makes it hard for me to follow many things you say. But I do like your poetic and enthusiastic expression.

I am afraid I do not have anything more useful to say, at the moment.

Best regards,

Tejinder

Judy Nixey and Peter Jackson,

I am confident that electromagnetic waves behave as calculated. Nonetheless they are difficult to measure because we do not have anything that moves faster. Acoustic waves propagate about a million times more slowly. That's why I restrict my argumentation to the latter.

Do we need infinitely many spaces in relative motion in order to describe acoustic waves? As long as we do not calculate with phonons one medium is definitely enough.

The essay 1448 by RKN has a decisive advantage. Its Fig. 1 shows to the left a velocity c+v, then a medium with larger than 1 refraction index n and to the right a new velocity c. If I understood the figure correctly then v is the velocity of the body with n relative to the medium. This is obviously wrong. The velocity of a wave does not depend on emission but only on the medium.

You are nurturing false hope for rescuing SR and MMX. That's why I feel obliged to object. The idea of fresh c with each re-emission would allow velocities of light in excess of c. You merely adapted to common opinion when you admitted observed superluminal velocities only apparent ones.

Lanyi observed a blast. The expanding front initially moves faster than with c until it gets the front of a wave, and then it continues to propagate with constant velocity. I admit, physicists have a problem with the imagination of electromagnetic waves as plurality of single photons. I am an old EE.

Eckard Blumschein

Petcho

Your video shows only the simplified incomplete explanation that has been around for hundreds of years. It does not consider the quantum mechanism in interaction at an observer.

when learning potential new science, it is invalid to try to invoke old understandings to 'disprove' it. Nothing can be disproved in this way. You must forst understand the new axiom, analysis it, then falsify it. That is the only way to do science! I'm sure you're able to do that well, and will find the results enlightening.

Judy

Peter,

You wrote: "There is a remarkable difference between the Doppler effect in sound waves and the Doppler effect in light waves. For light waves there is no preferred frame of reference, no material "medium" in which the waves travel... One consequence is that, unlike a sound wave, the speed of a light wave is the same to all receivers regardless of their velocities. The details are left to a careful derivation elsewhere. (SR). http://www.physnet.org/modules/pdf_modules/m204.pdf "

There is no such consequence, Peter. The assumption that there is no preferred frame of reference, true or false, does not entail that "the speed of a light wave is the same to all receivers regardless of their velocities". Why do you adopt and teach the thoughtless "logic" you find in relativistic texts?

Pentcho Valev

Peter,

I definitely do not take an 'anthropocentric' view, assuming somehow my own state of motion is relevant to some other medium. On the contrary, I blame the so called Einstein synchronization and SR for ascribing velocity to an observer. In acoustics, the speed of a propagating wave relates to the medium. Emitter, receiver, and observer like me do not matter.

I maintain: Fig. 1 of 1448 is wrong at least for acoustics. My Fig. 5 refers to a reproducible experiment that shows:

- An acoustic variant of the experiment by M&M yields the same null-result as the MM-experiment (MMX) with light. This confirms, acoustic and electromagnetic waves behave equally in this respect even if the SR-based theory you pointed to states the opposite. Independent of the many signers of the twinparadox petition, I trust in the experiments by Feist, by Shtyrkov and by others.

- A majority of experts is still believing that the MMX disproved the existence of a common frame of reference. This requires reconsideration, see Fig. 5. Even Einstein himself admitted the possible existence of an ether. Israel Perez, who believes in SR, has been advocating for a preferred frame of reference.

EEs like me consider light an electromagnetic wave, and we are in position to calculate how the components of such a wave propagates in space. Far field calculations do not let room for a theory based on emitted photons. Didn't you Peter point me to Dowdye as someone who inspired you? He offers an emission theory. Einstein as well as Ritz preferred the idea to create an emission theory before Einstein fabricated SR.

Eckard

Pentcho

When I write; "The common error is here;" with a semi colon followed by the text and a link address which you repeat above, it means that the 'mistake' I identify is embodied in that text.

So you are in fact agreeing with me. Which is good. However, the finer points of the cause of the mistake are not entirely agreed. We agree the speed of an approaching light wave can be relative c+v.

The difference is that you stop there, and suggest that alone is enough to convince the troglodyte armies to renounce their god, repent and lay down their arms.

I on the other hand suggest there is also a fundamental quantum reason that we always find local c as a maximum speed (c=dt), giving rise to the great paradox of the 19th century that SR set about logically resolving (and failed).

My suggestion also closes the chasm between Galilean Relativity and Quantum Physics, and resolves the paradoxes and anomalies referred in my essay.

My logic purely explains how both sound and light in Concord travel at c with respect to the rest frame inside Concord (whichever way it's heading). No other explanation can do this. But the key is in understanding what happens to the light from the headlight of the other Concord approaching ours also at Mach 2, when it enters through the cockpit windows. And WHY we then find it does c in the cabin wrt the cabin (so very blue shifted).

My consistent working model says the glass and air re-emit the em waves at c. (see also my bus analogy #15 on Eckard's string if needed).

It seems you agree this, as you must, but say it's not important. I propose that as it is what we find it IS important that it be explained, thus finally allowing SR to fade into the sunset and physics to progress once more.

Why would you wish to keep discouraging this?

Peter

Eckard

You can't have both. Either waves propagate at c in the medium wrt the medium rest frame, or c wrt your own rest frame which is different and anthropocentric.

I clearly say always c wrt the medium, so NOT wrt arbitrary observer frames. Yet you suggest RKN Fig 1, (where you are observing a moving medium from an arbitrary frame) is wrong. I am sure it is simply that you have not yet mastered the tricky task of picturing yourself in motion WITH that medium as the waves move within it at c. Your citations are not in conflict.

Israel and many others, as I, do indeed advocate a background frame. And the problem caused by this is removed by it not being an 'absolute' background frame. i.e. (see your blog) the runner doing 15kph on a moving bus is only doing 15kph wrt that bus! NOT the road, or any other observer in arbitrary motion!!

You say "Far field calculations do not let room for a theory based on emitted photons." I disagree. They do not currently DO so, so Snell's Law, Fresnel refraction and linear optics remain violated with media motion. If propagation speed c is changed to c' = c-v, they are all recovered! Ask yourself why reflections from a mirror in motion in a vacuum do c wrt the vacuum not the mirror.

Q; Can you explain this, or recover Snell's Law, in any other way?

You make three other wrong suggestions; 1. That I "have only published in viXra" (I won't tell Phil you said that!) but also the GSJ and (accepted) Hadronic Journal (for what that matters!). 2. I corrected you before about being 'inspired' by Dowdye. I agree with, but only found and cited Dowdye more recently. and 3. That I look for agreement. As I've said before, I, unusually, do the precise opposite. I fail to comprehend the point of other approaches as verification does not exist, only consistency or falsification.

I hope you'll read the analogy on your blog, and also follow Steve's advice as you inferred you would. I promise you do NOT yet understand the models kinetic logic, and until you accept that fact you may never do so. I'd also be grateful if you'd find yourself able to refrain from the increasing unwarranted disparaging inferences.

Many thanks

Peter