Dear John-Erik Persson,
I enjoyed your essay and agree that theoretical physics today depends on more than 100-year-old assumptions and interpretations of experiments, some of which are in error. Like you, I feel that perhaps the easiest way to advance physics is to reveal old fundamental errors.
You discuss too many physical phenomena for me to critique, so I will focus on those aspects on which I believe we agree. For example, you state that
"Instead of by time dilation, observed effects must be explained by clock behavior."
Any analysis of atomic clocks must be based on clocks counting cycles, which are inversely related to time, while (per Einstein) frequency is directly related to energy. Thus clocks measure energy directly and time only indirectly. Einstein's idea of 'perfect clocks', located at every point in the moving frame and perfectly synchronized, is an erroneous idea. Formulated long before the development of atomic clocks (the only ones that show relativistic effects) Einstein might be forgiven his mistake, but why hold onto it?
You note that the "Lorentz transform is based on the absurd assumption that light moves with the same speed in relation to all observers moving with constant, but different speeds." Of course Rindler, whose name is associated with several aspects of special relativity, agrees with this, and I discuss this in detail in my essay.
Like you, I feel that Faraday's pedestal could be raised much higher.
You also note that experiments that detect the ether wind based on rotation of the planet surely cannot be interpreted to "assume our own planet to entrain the ether in the whole universe." I propose that light propagates in local gravity, and that this is compatible both with MM's null result and with the motion of clocks circling earth in opposite directions. I suspect that when you say that
"Such an ether wind can explain gravity as well",
you are in agreement with the fact that
"Local gravity can explain ether"
as detailed in my essay.
You note the absurdity of the twins paradox, which is a logical consequence of 'space-time symmetry' that vanishes in an 'energy-time conjugate' formalism (while retaining relativistic particle physics quite well) and note (as I do) that an older, wiser Einstein said "physics without ether is unthinkable."
You develop the idea of "falling ether", then state that "this falling ether describes gravity". I would respectfully suggest that the concept of "gravity as local ether" satisfies the goals you have in mind, but perhaps I need to study your essay more closely.
In any event, we are almost identical in our analysis of the problem, and I think in general agreement in our solutions.
I hope you enjoy my essay as much as I have enjoyed yours.
My very best regards,
Edwin Eugene Klingman
