Ripping Apart Einstein

Children of the universe's confessions:

Lubos Motl: "...Albert Einstein's 1918 speech celebrating Max Planck's 60th birthday... (...) Einstein divided the temple of science to profit-seekers (or utilitarians) and ego-builders (or athletes) on one side and monks (or missionaries) on the other side. Max Planck was included into the rare latter category by Einstein. Despite Einstein's stellar moral credentials in the public, I actually find it plausible today that Einstein himself might have been a representative of the former category as the Einstein and Eddington movie suggested. He might have been an utilitarian, not a monk (which I used to believe to be an accurate label for Einstein 25 years ago)."

John Barrow: "Einstein restored faith in the unintelligibility of science."

What If Einstein Was Wrong? Brian Clegg, Jim Al-Khalili: "It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that Einstein could get it wrong, because science is not about absolute truth..."

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."

"Was Einstein wrong? At least in his understanding of time, Smolin argues, the great theorist of relativity was dead wrong. What is worse, by firmly enshrining his error in scientific orthodoxy, Einstein trapped his successors in insoluble dilemmas..."

Philip Ball: "Einstein's theory of special relativity not only destroyed any notion of absolute time but made time equivalent to a dimension in space: the future is already out there waiting for us; we just can't see it until we get there. This view is a logical and metaphysical dead end, says Smolin."

"...says John Norton, a philosopher based at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Norton is hesitant to express it, but his instinct - and the consensus in physics - seems to be that space and time exist on their own. The trouble with this idea, though, is that it doesn't sit well with relativity, which describes space-time as a malleable fabric whose geometry can be changed by the gravity of stars, planets and matter."

Aspects of Time, Julian Barbour, Warwick, August 24th 2011: "Was Spacetime Glorious Historical Accident? (...) ABSOLUTE SIMULTANEITY RESTORED!"

Frank Wilczek: "Einstein's special theory of relativity calls for radical renovation of common-sense ideas about time. Different observers, moving at constant velocity relative to one another, require different notions of time, since their clocks run differently. Yet each such observer can use his "time" to describe what he sees, and every description will give valid results, using the same laws of physics. In short: According to special relativity, there are many quite different but equally valid ways of assigning times to events. Einstein himself understood the importance of breaking free from the idea that there is an objective, universal "now." Yet, paradoxically, today's standard formulation of quantum mechanics makes heavy use of that discredited "now."

"If there's one thing Einstein taught us, it's that time is relative. But physicist Petr Horava is challenging this notion..."

Etienne Klein: "On pourrait s'attendre à voir la cosmologie confirmer la vision d'un espace-temps statique telle que la prône la relativité restreinte. Il n'en est rien. La quasi-unanimité des physiciens s'accorde aujourd'hui sur des modèles d'univers particuliers, dits de big bang, dans lesquels on peut définir un temps cosmologique, lié à l'expansion de l'univers. Sans pour autant s'identifier au temps absolu de Newton, ce temps cosmologique partage avec lui la propriété d'être universel : des observateurs qui ne sont soumis à aucune accélération et ne subissent aucun effet gravitationnel mutuel peuvent en effet synchroniser leurs montres, et celles-ci resteront en phase tout au long de l'évolution cosmique."

Pentcho Valev

Pentcho,

If you know where Julian Barbour is, please ask him:

- What is an instant?

- Does it have a number of seconds or is it of zero duration?

- Can any activity occur during the duration of an instant?

- If nothing can happen during the instant, how can the 'the positions

of objects relative to each other in one instant affect the position of objects in the next instant?

And if you know the answers, you can tell us.

Thanks for linking Julian's lecture.

Akinbo

The children of the universe are leaving the sinking ship because they now know that Einstein's 1954 forewarning was justified:

Albert Einstein (1954): "I consider it entirely possible that physics cannot be based upon the field concept, that is on continuous structures. Then nothing will remain of my whole castle in the air, including the theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the rest of contemporary physics."

There had been a similar hint as early as in 1909:

Albert Einstein: "A large body of facts shows undeniably that light has certain fundamental properties that are better explained by Newton's emission theory of light than by the oscillation theory. For this reason, I believe that the next phase in the development of theoretical physics will bring us a theory of light that can be considered a fusion of the oscillation and emission theories."

Clearly, if the field concept is fatal for physics, as Einstein suggests in 1954, the only reasonable alternative is Newton's emission theory of light stating that the speed of light (relative to the observer) does depend on the speed of the emitter:

"The two first articles (January and March) establish clearly a discontinuous structure of matter and light. The standard look of Einstein's SR is, on the contrary, essentially based on the continuous conception of the field."

"And then, in June, Einstein completes special relativity, which adds a twist to the story: Einstein's March paper treated light as particles, but special relativity sees light as a continuous field of waves."

"Relativity and Its Roots" by Banesh Hoffmann, p.92: "Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had suggested in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one, the second principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding train can do far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the speed of the particle is not independent of the motion of the object emitting it. And if we take light to consist of particles and assume that these particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to Newtonian relativity and thus automatically account for the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to contracting lengths, local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as we have seen, Einstein resisted the temptation to account for the null result in terms of particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian ideas, and introduced as his second postulate something that was more or less obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether."

Pentcho Valev

The only reason the laws of physics even work is because they are imprinted upon spirit. Same with the physics constants.

Pentcho,

Einstein's relativity goes back to H. Poincaré's understanding of relativity.

Poincaré called the "impossibility of demonstrating an experimental evidence for the absolute motion of the Earth" a general law of nature: "the Postulate of Relativity".

Some authors argue that Einstein's SR could be better characterized as theory of invariance which goes back to a guess by Lorentz.

What about the experiments by Michelson 1881 without and 1887 with Morley, they did contradict to the assumed by Maxwell aether wind relative to Earth but not to Maxwell's relation c^2=1/(my_0 eps_0) with my_0 and eps_0 constant.

I am not aware of an emission theory that describes how the mass of a particle depends on its velocity of motion in space as actually measured.

May I ask you to comment on the opinion of Kuratowski's Ghost?

Eckard

Professor Sidney Redner: "The Doppler effect is the shift in frequency of a wave that occurs when the wave source, or the detector of the wave, is moving. Applications of the Doppler effect range from medical tests using ultrasound to radar detectors and astronomy (with electromagnetic waves). (...) 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)."

The statement:

" Relative to you, the waves travel at a higher speed: v'=v+vO "

is fatal for special relativity. Einsteinians prefer the antithesis:

" Relative to you, the waves travel at the same speed: v'=v "

The problem is that the frequency shift, f'=(v+vO)/(lambda), cannot be derived from the antithesis, v'=v. Clearly the antithesis is false and Redner's statement:

" Relative to you, the waves travel at a higher speed: v'=v+vO "

is true. Special relativity is wrong.

Pentcho Valev

On the "impossibility of demonstrating an experimental evidence for the absolute motion of the Earth"

What do you make of the 380km/s absolute motion of the earth relative to the otherwise smooth cosmic microwave background as evidenced by a Doppler blueshift and a redshift in the direction of the Leo constellation?

First this contradicts the Poincaré's assertion you mentioned. Second it also contradicts the SR postulate that "the motion of the earth cannot be detected from electromagnetic phenomena".

What is Kuratowski's Ghost?

Akinbo

Akinbo Ojo replied on Apr. 21, 2014 @ 10:08 GMT

"If you know where Julian Barbour is, please ask him:

- What is an instant?

- Does it have a number of seconds or is it of zero duration?

- Can any activity occur during the duration of an instant?

- If nothing can happen during the instant, how can the 'the positions of objects relative to each other in one instant affect the position of objects in the next instant?

And if you know the answers, you can tell us."

These questions, of course, are at the root of Zeno's paradox. How can anything move in the infinitely divisible void of space if time consists of infinitely divisible instants of frozen action?

However, there actually is no meaning to the idea of a frozen instant of time. Objects undergo continuous matter exchange with other matter objects throughout time and so there is no frozen moment of time.

Our minds use a convenient fiction that there is an absolute universe of objects that are somehow frozen in time and space and that infinitesimal forces and impulses come along that then result in changes in those objects. This intuition of action serves us very well for most predictions of action, especially gravity action of macroscopic objects.

However, the reality is that all objects in the universe are always in fundamental matter exchanges with all other objects and those matter exchanges define what we call moments differently for each object as action.

We can of course imagine a frozen moment of time because that is how our minds imagine objects in Cartesian space. How long is the human moment of thought?However, this projection of objects into space is just a convenient way for our minds to organize the object changes the complexity of sensation and therefore to help us predict object actions. The reality of object existence and action involves continuous exchange of matter as moments with other objects. This continuous change is what defines both objects that we imagine are and are not changing in time.

So time alone does not define action, it takes the integration of matter over time together to define action. Likewise action alone does not define time, it takes both action and matter moments to define time as a ratio. It is the three axioms of matter, time, and action that define a universe where any two axioms necessarily define the third.

There is a universal time defined by the fundamental action of the universe as an object, but we use a definition of time defined by the action of objects that we call clocks, either an atomic clock or some other convenient object, and just presume that that time is the same time as universe time.

Why Einstein Proposed His Second Postulate

Introduction to Special Relativity, James H. Smith, p. 42: "We must emphasize that at the time Einstein proposed it [his second postulate], there was no direct experimental evidence whatever for the speed of light being independent of the speed of its source. He postulated it out of logical necessity."

Logical necessity? Yes. Einstein needed the false constancy of the speed of light as a premise in order to procrusteanize time and become famous:

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. We have no details of this struggle, unfortunately. Finally, after a day spent wrestling once more with the problem in the company of his friend and patent office colleague Michele Besso, the only person thanked in the 1905 SRT paper, there came a moment of crucial insight. In all of his struggles with the emission theory as well as with Lorentz's theory, he had been assuming that the ordinary Newtonian law of addition of velocities was unproblematic. It is this law of addition of velocities that allows one to "prove" that, if the velocity of light is constant with respect to one inertial frame, it cannot be constant with respect to any other inertial frame moving with respect to the first. It suddenly dawned on Einstein that this "obvious" law was based on certain assumptions about the nature of time always tacitly made."

Pentcho Valev

It amounts to rewriting history for authors to claim that, "at the time Einstein proposed it [his second postulate], there was no direct experimental evidence whatever for the speed of light being independent of the speed of its source. He postulated it out of logical necessity". Such distortions of history, thanks to the information age and the internet must no longer be tolerated in science. When lies are repeated constantly they tend to take on the semblance of truth. Einstein's 1905 paper is now available for all to read. In that paper, he said, "unsuccessful attempts to discover any motion of the earth relatively to the light medium". Those unsuccessful attempts were the experiments of Michelson and Morley carried out before 1905.

Akinbo

Steve, Pentcho.

Okay, Pentcho I get what you mean. All the same Einstein certainly knew of the Michelson-Morley experiment before 1905. That experiment is not one any body would have trouble recalling.

We have gone this road before but I cant help asking what you think of the results of Sagnac's experiment where the rotation of the source and observer on a disk results in earlier and later arrival times depending on direction of rotation. This appears to conflict with the Michelson-Morley results, which after all was also conducted on a rotating and orbiting disk called Earth.

Akinbo

Steve, let me reply here. From your post, "there actually is no meaning to the idea of a frozen instant of time" and it is only in the mind according to you.

If objects do not undergo matter exchange, is there time? Is there any sense in saying two objects did not have any matter exchange for the past 5 minutes?

When you say, "There is a universal time defined by the fundamental action of the universe as an object", what fundamental action are you talking about? Can the universe by definition exchange anything with another object?

In summary, your proposal does not succeed in doing that which it is designed for which is to kill the 'instant' and wish Zeno's paradox away.

Akinbo

"Okay, Pentcho I get what you mean. All the same Einstein certainly knew of the Michelson-Morley experiment before 1905."

Of course he did. And James Smith does not say he didn't. Smith even interpets the experiment in terms of Newton's emission theory of light. Unfortunately I don't have the text in English - here it is in French:

James H. Smith, "Introduction à la relativité", édition française dirigée par Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond, pp. 39-41: "Si la lumière était un flot de particules mécaniques obéissant aux lois de la mécanique, il n'y aurait aucune difficulté à comprendre les résultats de l'expérience de Michelson-Morley.... Supposons, par exemple, qu'une fusée se déplace avec une vitesse (1/2)c par rapport à un observateur et qu'un rayon de lumière parte de son nez. Si la vitesse de la lumière signifiait vitesse des "particules" de la lumière par rapport à leur source, alors ces "particules" de lumière se déplaceraient à la vitesse c/2+c=(3/2)c par rapport à l'observateur. Mais ce comportement ne ressemble pas du tout à celui d'une onde, car les ondes se propagent à une certaine vitesse par rapport au milieu dans lequel elles se développent et non pas à une certaine vitesse par rapport à leur source. (...) Il nous faut insister sur le fait suivant: QUAND EINSTEIN PROPOSA QUE LA VITESSE DE LA LUMIÈRE SOIT INDÉPENDANTE DE CELLE DE LA SOURCE, IL N'EN EXISTAIT AUCUNE PREUVE EXPÉRIMENTALE."

Pentcho Valev

In my universe...

Akinbo Ojo replied on Apr. 26, 2014 @ 10:20 GMT

"If objects do not undergo matter exchange, is there time? Is there any sense in saying two objects did not have any matter exchange for the past 5 minutes?"

In my universe, it makes no sense to imagine matter without time and action or to imagine time without matter and action. They are all axioms and depend on each other for definition. However, if you imagine a universe where matter and time and action are somehow separable, you are very correct in noting that you end up with knife edge time. That one of the reason's why science's current approach does not make complete sense.

"When you say, "There is a universal time defined by the fundamental action of the universe as an object", what fundamental action are you talking about? Can the universe by definition exchange anything with another object?"

In my universe, there is a fundamental exchange of all matter with the universe matter, which is mostly bosonic. That exchange drives both gravity and charge force and so I am fond of it. But I must admit that current science has a slightly different continuous exchange of matter with the vacuum oscillators of empty space. That is the fundamental exchange that is current science, except for gravity of course.

"In summary, your proposal does not succeed in doing that which it is designed for which is to kill the 'instant' and wish Zeno's paradox away."

Actually, my proposal does indeed kill the Zeno demon, but my proposal does presume unified gravity and charge forces. The singularities that you mention in time are also present in space and are both due to the fact that relativistic gravity is presumed to be a continuous force. These gravity force singularities will persist until science recognizes gravity action as the exchange force that it is and gravity as an exchange force will result in the same possible futures for an object as quantum action.

I just happened to run across the Sagnac effect...

Akinbo Ojo replied on Apr. 26, 2014 @ 10:20 GMT

"We have gone this road before but I cant help asking what you think of the results of Sagnac's experiment where the rotation of the source and observer on a disk results in earlier and later arrival times depending on direction of rotation. This appears to conflict with the Michelson-Morley results, which after all was also conducted on a rotating and orbiting disk called Earth."

I just happened to run across the Sagnac effect and I must admit, I had really not paid much attention to it until recently. It turns out that while it is not possible to deduce absolute motion with an interferometer, any rotating interferometer will show a fringe shift due to optical rotation. The magnitude of the effect depends on the geometry of rotation and the type of interferometer.

Actually, it is easier to imagine a rotation of the polarization of a pulse of light due to the rotation of the experiment. In transit, the polarization of a light pulse remains fixed while the experiment rotates and the rotation of that polarization is at the root of the Sagnac effect. A rotating ring interferometer is especially well suited to measuring these very small changes.

The Michelson-Morley interferometer actually shows the Sagnac effect due to earth's rotation as well as the ring interferometer of the later Michelson-Gale experiment, just in a different way.

Steve,

1. To kill the very powerful Zeno demon, your proposal must demonstrate beyond doubt that space is not infinitely divisible, because if it is the runner will forever nearly reach his destination but not actually get there. It is more important to do this physically, rather than mathematically because there is no magic math cannot be used to perform. Methods like those of Cauchy and the rest do not really physically resolve the Paradox without sacrificing some cherished beliefs. You can see more here and on the online Stanford Encyclopedia. On second thought, your proposal can show how space is infinitely divisible and yet physically allows a runner reach his destination. Some of these issues are also part of the age-long debate whether space is a substantival or relational concept. You may check the Stanford entry here.

2. On the Sagnac experiment. It is not realized by many that the Michelson-Morley experiment though stationary but by virtue of being mounted on a rotating earth is actually also a Sagnac experiment. The dilemma is why one rotational experiment, the M-M one does not show difference in arrival times by counter-rotating beams, while another, the Sagnac one shows different arrival times for counter-rotating beams. I have my idea why, but let me leave that meanwhile. It is incorrect to say, "The Michelson-Morley interferometer actually shows the Sagnac effect due to earth's rotation". Modern versions of the M-M expt capable of detecting the 465m/s daily rotation turn up no difference in arrival times. References can be provided.

Akinbo

Why Einstein Proposed His Second Postulate III

The assumption that the speed of light (relative to the observer) is independent of the speed of the light source is false but still can be justified in terms of light waves propagating in the ether. In contrast, the conclusion (derivable from Einstein's 1905 two postulates) that the speed of light (relative to the observer) is independent of the speed of the observer is unjustifiable. Any serious interpretation of the Doppler effect (moving observer) refutes both this conclusion and special relativity as a whole:

"Doppler effect - when an observer moves towards a stationary source. ...the velocity of the wave relative to the observer is faster than that when it is still."

"Doppler effect - when an observer moves away from a stationary source. ...the velocity of the wave relative to the observer is slower than that when it is still."

Tony Harker, University College London: "The Doppler Effect: Moving sources and receivers. The phenomena which occur when a source of sound is in motion are well known. The example which is usually cited is the change in pitch of the engine of a moving vehicle as it approaches. In our treatment we shall not specify the type of wave motion involved, and our results will be applicable to sound or to light. (...) Now suppose that the observer is moving with a velocity Vo away from the source. (....) If the observer moves with a speed Vo away from the source (...), then in a time t the number of waves which reach the observer are those in a distance (c-Vo)t, so the number of waves observed is (c-Vo)t/lambda, giving an observed frequency f'=f(1-Vo/c) when the observer is moving away from the source at a speed Vo."

Tony Harker: "In a time t the number of waves which reach the observer are those in a distance (c-Vo)t."

Consequence: The speed of the light waves relative to the moving observer is:

c' = distance/time = (c - Vo)t/t = c - Vo,

in violation of special relativity.

Albert Einstein Institute: "The frequency of a wave-like signal - such as sound or light - depends on the movement of the sender and of the receiver. This is known as the Doppler effect. (...) Here is an animation of the receiver moving towards the source: (...) By observing the two indicator lights, you can see for yourself that, once more, there is a blue-shift - the pulse frequency measured at the receiver is somewhat higher than the frequency with which the pulses are sent out. This time, the distances between subsequent pulses are not affected, but still there is a frequency shift: As the receiver moves towards each pulse, the time until pulse and receiver meet up is shortened. In this particular animation, which has the receiver moving towards the source at one third the speed of the pulses themselves, four pulses are received in the time it takes the source to emit three pulses."

Let "the distance between subsequent pulses" be 300000 km. Then the frequency measured by the stationary receiver is f = 1 s^(-1) and that measured by the moving receiver is f' = 4/3 s^(-1). Accordingly, the speed of the pulses relative to the moving receiver is:

c' = (4/3)c = 400000 km/s

in violation of special relativity.

The relativistic corrections change essentially nothing. The speed of the receiver is (1/3)c so gamma is 1.05. Accordingly, the corrected f' is (1.05)*(4/3) s^(-1) and the corrected c' is (1.05)*(400000) km/s. Special relativity remains violated.

Pentcho Valev

You are correct that the finite divisibility of the universe must be proven...

"To kill the very powerful Zeno demon, your proposal must demonstrate beyond doubt that space is not infinitely divisible, because if it is the runner will forever nearly reach his destination but not actually get there. It is more important to do this physically, rather than mathematically because there is no magic math cannot be used to perform."

You are correct that the finite divisibility of the universe must be proven just as the finite divisibility of matter has been proven...or at least mostly proven. I glossed over the fact that there are actually an infinity of vacuum oscillators in QED, and so one needs renormalization to make sense out of that concept.

My notion is rather that the universe is simply a very large number of boson particles, not an infinite number. Thus, there is still a renormalization needed to reduce the action integral to a practical form, but now renormalization is just for a finite but large number of particles.

Similar to the concept of the indivisibility of fermionic quarks, there should be a notion of indivisible bosons that make up most of the universe. This should manifest itself as a limiting energy for the proton accelerated by charge force on the order of 1/alpha^2 mp, or about 18 TeV. This is because a particle can only gain so much charge energy from a finitely divisible universe.

The rules change for gravity force acceleration, and so cosmic ray proton energies are limited by the current sizes of supermassive black holes...I think. Without a quantum gravity, though, there would be no such limit.

Notice that I am talking about a universe of matter in time, not a universe of space in time. Although space is a useful projection of the universe, my approach is to consider matter, time, and action as axioms that then project objects into space. That way maintains Lorentz invariance but avoids the messy tensors of GR spacetime.

The Sagnac effect is due to optical rotation, right?

"It is incorrect to say, "The Michelson-Morley interferometer actually shows the Sagnac effect due to earth's rotation". Modern versions of the M-M expt capable of detecting the 465m/s daily rotation turn up no difference in arrival times. References can be provided."

The Sagnac effect is due to optical rotation, right? That is all I am saying. If that is somehow wrong, I will stand to be corrected. All interferometers are subject to translation effects as Doppler shifts as well as optical rotation, which are more like polarization effects.

Whether a particular interferometer has the geometry and configuration to show optical rotation or spatial displacement or both is just a matter of design. When I read the literature about the Sagnac effect, there seems to be much confusion about what it measures, but the equation is very straightforward. Sagnac measures either rotational velocity or even just rotational displacement. To get a velocity, you need to know the geometry of the inertial frame.

In order to vindicate the introduction of Einstein's 1905 false constant-speed-of-light postulate (directly adopted from the otherwise discarded ether theory), Einsteinians teach the following two blatant lies:

1. Maxwell's 19th century electromagnetic theory predicted that the speed of light (relative to the observer) does not depend on the speed of the observer. (The truth is that Maxwell's theory predicted that the speed of light VARIES with the speed of the observer.)

2. The Michelson-Morley experiment showed that the speed of light (relative to the observer) does not depend on the speed of the observer. (The truth is that in 1887 the Michelson-Morley experiment unequivocally showed that the speed of light DOES DEPEND on the speed of the observer, as predicted by both Newton's emission theory of light and Maxwell's electromagnetic theory.)

Examples of blatantly lying Einsteinians:

Why Does E=mc2?: (And Why Should We Care?), Brian Cox, Jeff Forshaw, p. 91: "...Maxwell's brilliant synthesis of the experimental results of Faraday and others strongly suggested that the speed of light should be the same for all observers. This conclusion was supported by the experimental result of Michelson and Morley, and taken at face value by Einstein."

Leonard Susskind: "One of the predictions of Maxwell's equations is that the velocity of electromagnetic waves, or light, is always measured to have the same value, regardless of the frame in which it is measured. (...) So, in Galilean relativity, we have c'=c-v and the speed of light in the moving frame should be slower than in the stationary frame, directly contradicting Maxwell. Scientists before Einstein thought that Galilean relativity was correct and so supposed that there had to exist a special, universal frame (called the aether) in which Maxwell's equations would be correct. However, over time and many experiments (including Michelson-Morley) it was shown that the speed of light did not depend on the velocity of the observer measuring it, so that c'=c."

The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene, p. 19: "If she fires the laser toward you - and if you had the appropriate measuring equipment - you would find that the speed of approach of the photons in the beam is 670 million miles per hour. But what if you run away, as you did when faced with the prospect of playing catch with a hand grenade? What speed will you now measure for the approaching photons? To make things more compelling, imagine that you can hitch a ride on the starship Enterprise and zip away from your friend at, say, 100 million miles per hour. Following the reasoning based on the traditional Newtonian worldview, since you are now speeding away, you would expect to measure a slower speed for the oncoming photons. Specifically, you would expect to find them approaching you at (670 million miles per hour - 100 million miles per hour =) 570 million miles per hour. Mounting evidence from a variety of experiments dating back as far as the 1880s, as well as careful analysis and interpretation of Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light, slowly convinced the scientific community that, in fact, this is not what you will see. Even though you are retreating, you will still measure the speed of the approaching photons as 670 million miles per hour, not a bit less. Although at first it sounds completely ridiculous, unlike what happens if one runs from an oncoming baseball, grenade, or avalanche, the speed of approaching photons is always 670 million miles per hour. The same is true if you run toward oncoming photons or chase after them - their speed of approach or recession is completely unchanged; they still appear to travel at 670 million miles per hour. Regardless of relative motion between the source of photons and the observer, the speed of light is always the same."

Pentcho Valev