This is even more perplexing than rejection of MEE.

"So to constantly harp on 'Lorentz follows from MEE' may be ontologically correct in such a construct, but as an argument it has the form of a rhetorical fallacy, that of substitution. And further, you must assume Lorentz to obtain 'momentum' in the equation anyway."

Galileo and Newton knew about momentum way before Lorentz...if there is a question about the validity of momentum, then of course lots of things do not make any sense.

Wiki on Lorentz covariance together with http://milesmathis.com/adp.html comes close to what I arrived at in my last essays. They do nonetheless still not yet mention that the actual past is different from the actual future. I regret feeling not strong enough as to advocate for a real-time physics without the fake of symmetry breaking.

Eckard

JRC,

I think you are right on target here. Do you have a reference to how 'Also, E=mc^2 was independently obtained without employing a Lorentz or Fitzgerald transform'? A translation of Einstein's original paper, DOES THE INERTIA OF A BODY DEPEND UPON ITS ENERGY-CONTENT? is linked. He makes use of the the Lorentz factor in such a way that energy conservation law is even violated, viz.

E' = E/в€љ(1 - v2/c2), (if П† = 90o)

Of course such absurdity follows or results also from the equation posted at beginning of the conversation here, i.e.

m' = m/в€љ(1 - v2/c2)

That is the energy depends on the frame of reference of the observer! The energy content of a body also increases with speed. This should not be confused with kinetic energy formula where the mass is invariant and depends only on the velocity. From energy conservation law, common sense should tell us that energy is a scalar quantity. As I have said before scalar quantities like time, length and mass are turned upside down to become vectors, while vector quantities like velocity (when of magnitude c) are turned to scalar.

Steve,

Thank you for volunteering an answer: "For the rest frame, velocity = 0. For the moving frame moving at v, velocity = c..."

Your answer means, when an interferometer is at rest to an observer, i.e. its velocity = 0, length contraction of an arm of the interferometer cannot be used as a mechanism to explain light arrival time independent of earth motion in the direction opposite to incoming light beam. Same with time dilation for light coming in the direction opposite to earth motion hoping to arrive earlier. Interferometer is also at rest to the observer in that scenario.

For moving frame moving at velocity v relative to observer, Lorentz formula says length contraction, time dilation, mass increase will occur. Which velocity is to be used to calculate the amount of length contraction? 30km/s, 225km/s or 371km/s? Whichever way you slice it, you get absurdity. Note also that there is said to be no preferred frame for you to choose from in SR so even that escape route is blocked.

"Am not at all sure why you would even ask this question".

The moral of the foregoing is that it should be clear that there are too many mathematical and physical absurdities in using the Lorentz factor as presented. It is very big rabbit, without even looking at the further absurdities that will result in the scenarios where v can be + or -, depending on how the observer and observed are moving relative to each other.

Since you like MEE so much check the alternative way it can be derived without using the Lorentz factor.

Regards,

Akinbo

I always tend to start completely disagreeing with Mathis. He argued that the velocity v of k measured relative to K differs from a velocity v' of K measured relative to k while Einstein used only one velocity v. Mathis meant: "If the clocks and measuring rods in K are different from k, then K and k will measure velocity differently."

I don't follow Einstein and also not Mathis: To me there is no reason to assume that a relative motion between k and K actually changes the real clocks and measuring rods. The Doppler shift just describes in a symmetrical manner how a length in k is seen by K and vice versa.

Mathis' argument to which I subscribe is: "Einstein's postulate 1 is correct, if it is read correctly", cf. my last essay "Peace via ...". However, what Mathis called "my velocity measured by you" is not the true velocity between you and me. Mathis does not pay attention to Einstein's use of Poincaré synchronization.

Nonetheless common sense lets him arrive at the opinion that gamma is not justified: A train passes. ... All we can see is a pulse clock on the train. Can we know its velocity relative to us? No. The Lorentz transformations, as used up to now, can tell us nothing."

Mathis however eventually tried in a coward manner to merely correct SR: "The current equations are ... not far off, since they have been verified by many experiments."

Eckard

Somehow your resilience intrigues me...

"Your answer means, when an interferometer is at rest to an observer, i.e. its velocity = 0, length contraction of an arm of the interferometer cannot be used as a mechanism to explain light arrival time independent of earth motion in the direction opposite to incoming light beam. Same with time dilation for light coming in the direction opposite to earth motion hoping to arrive earlier. Interferometer is also at rest to the observer in that scenario."

You want to believe that all of space is filled with an absolute aether through which light propagates and that solves all of the conundrums of science. Somehow you believe that the aether math works without Lorentz invariance and that MEE is also valid as well. The fact that there is no mathematical model that describes both aether and MEE does not seem to dissuade you from believing it and belief is a much more powerful tool of consciousness than reason is by far.

We first of all must make sense out of reality with beliefs that anchor the characteristics of each of our universes and so above all, the universe must make sense. Then, if reason can help better predict action, we can use reason as well as belief and who knows...maybe what we believe and what we reason will eventually be consistent.

First you say the interferometer is at rest...then of course, the answer is easy. There is no length contraction because v = 0. Then in the middle of the sentence, the earth starts to move at 0.47 km/s, but since the interferometer and observer are still at rest, velocity is still zero, v=0, and so the answer is still no changes for the rest frame. Done with the rest frame already...

What you seem to be asking, though, is about another observer in a frame moving at 0.47 km/s and how that moving frame sees the rest frame interferometer. Rest assured that the rest observer measures the same length for each arm with v = 0 even if there is moving observer.

The moving frame measures the arm along the direction of motion as shorter and the moving frame sees the rest clock running slower as well. All the while these measurements of the moving frame do not affect those of the rest frame. This result is a simple consequence of MEE and MEE means Lorentz invariance. Or you can say that the result is the consequence of Lorentz invariance and Lorentz invariance means MEE. There is not one without the other.

Currently there are 12 GPS satellites moving in orbits of 2/d in a gravity that means a 45 microsecond per day gain in gravity time compared to surface gravity time. In fact, each GPS atomic clock is programmed to account for this time gain due to gravity in order to stay synchronized with surface clocks. Furthermore, the relative velocity of each GPS clock results in a time shift of up to a 7 microsecond loss per day at maximal relative velocity and that time loss also has to be carefully accounted for in order for GPS to keep track of objects accurately on the surface.

The GPS system works quite well and depends on a full accounting of both gravity and velocity affects along with its atomic clocks. It is not at all clear what kind of math would replace the very well known gravity and velocity affects that science has measured and remeasured so well on earth and in earth orbits.

A convenient moving frame that keeps relative velocity constant is a geosynchronous orbit some 35,800 km directly overhead moving at 3.1-0.47 = 2.6 km/s relative velocity. The moving frame is then always directly overhead at a fixed time distance from the rest frame on the surface and in continuous pulse communication with the rest frame.

According to the rest frame on the surface, the moving clock in orbit has a pulse stream that runs slower due to velocity, but runs faster due to gravity. According to the moving frame, the rest clock pulse stream runs slower due to both velocity and gravity. However, the moving frame can geo synchronize on the rest frame's gravity clock and so each frame measures the same distance from the surface as the same time delay of exactly 0.12 s.

This seems funny since the rest frame still sees the moving clock running slow even while the moving frame still sees the rest clock running slow by the same dilation factor, but we also notice that at least light moves sideways along with earth's rotation. Given the rest interferometer arms of 1 km each, there would be a 3.3 usec pulse delay returned to the moving frame. Furthermore, there would be a further 1.2e-16s delay in the pulse from the arm along the direction of motion.

Now the rest frame will still measure no change in the rest interferometer arm pulse delay along the direction of motion. However, the geosynchronous frame moving at 2.6 km/s uses its pulse stream to measure and communicate a very much shorter pulse delay for the interferometer arm along the direction of motion and therefore a shorter arm length. The rest frame measures with its clock and finds both arms have the same delay length, while the moving frame measures a shorter time delay for the rest frame arm in the direction of motion.

The speed of light depends on gravity acceleration and so there is change in c due to the change in gravity with elevation. However, even after the moving frame has geo synchronized its clock to the rest frame, the moving frame still sees a shorter pulse delay for the rest arm along the direction of motion.

Note that geosynchronization only corrects for the gravity difference between the geo and surface clocks. Gravity clock shifts are an absolute effect of the earth's frame of reference and both clocks can agree and take account. However, there is no correction for the clock difference between rest and moving frames. Each frame sees the other frame's clock run slower and each frame sees the other frame's length shorten along just the direction of motion.

If the moving and rest clock were synchronized to cancel velocity differences along the motion axis, the other two dimensions would both appear to expand. The moving frame would need to send out a return pulse slightly before it actually received a pulse from the rest frame. Mass-energy equivalence is impossible to ignore...

    Steve,

    I admit to a little bit of rambling in my last post. Apologies...

    But having done that no where in my post did I mention aether and that is deliberate. It has become common to use that to discredit any alternative opinions without looking at the merit. (calling a dog a bad name to find excuse to hang it). Don't resort to that.

    The fact that there is no mathematical model that describes both aether and MEE does not seem to dissuade you from believing it and belief is a much more powerful tool of consciousness than reason is by far.

    There is a mathematical model that explains the null Michelson-Morley finding using old reliable Galilean relativity. But let me not digress.

    It appears you are unaware that the null Michelson-Morley findings were interpreted with length contraction of the interferometer arm? That is the Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction. Or how do you interpret the null results? Is it without length contraction and time dilation?

    As you seem to agree if the experimenter is at rest with interferometer, your v = 0. How then do you get your length contraction to mathematically model Lorentz invariance? Michelson, Morley and their interferometer were not moving relatively to each other. I will ask that you critically review that interesting experiment - its aim, method, results , discussion and the conclusion and result interpretation.

    In your other post, you said: "The speed of light depends on gravity acceleration and so there is change in c due to the change in gravity with elevation". Do you not know this statement is a blasphemy in Einsteiniana? Speed of light is a UNIVERSAL constant and does not depend on anything!

    You will also be contradicting your own sacred Lorentz invariance by saying this.

    All the best,

    Akinbo

    I thought that you had asked a simple question about any rest frame measure of a difference in length of each of two interferometer arms. Since v = 0, the answer is no difference and there is no need to talk about contraction or dilation.

    Then you begin to speak about some kind of length contraction, which means that now there is a moving frame from which separate moving observations occur. I was just trying to fill in the blanks. There is no sense in talking about a stationary interferometer changing length in a rest frame. You need a moving frame and to measure the rest frame interferometer from the moving frame to even talk about contraction.

    Light can and does change speed, just not in a comoving frame. After all, a black hole stops light cold which sure looks like a change in velocity to me. You are confusing velocity invariance of c in a comoving frame with acceleration in space across different frames, which does slow and bend light just like refraction in a lens. And then the speed of light also increases over time, since force increases with time in a contracting universe.

    There is nothing wrong with imagining an aether filled universe as long as you have the math to back it up. After all, the new Higg's field is very much like Newton's aether and the Higg's field is now what gives matter mass. All forces in a contracting universe are due to the decay of boson matter and that boson matter of the universe has many of the properties of Newton's aether as well.

    Even better way is make each interferometer arm also in geosynchronous orbits at the horizons along rotation and perpendicular to rotation. This makes each arm 35,200 km given 35,800 km geo orbit and 6,400 km earth radius.

    Each interferometer arm pulse will be slightly less than the main pulse, 0.117 instead of 0.119 s and the moving frame will measure the arm in the direction of motion to have an 8.8 ps delay due to the 2.6 km/s relative velocity between arms. The rest frame will not measure any pulse difference between arms.

    Of course, there will be some extra delays due to atmospheric refraction and noise due to atmospheric variability will mean some period of signal averaging. But these are the same rest and moving frame calculations that the GPS satellites do many times per second along with clock delays due to gravity. Every time you use a GPS device you implicitly validate MEE and Lorentz invariance.

    Anon, et al,

    May I offer a glass of beer? It clarifies thinking.

    Observe a light pulse passing through the glass & beer at c/n... (the other 99% of the post seems to be lost in cyberspace due to use of a forbidden symbol!; A concise version;)

    Now are you seeing the pulse? No of course not, you're seeing a sequence of emissions from particles charged by the pulse, each emitting light at c.

    So if you then drive past the glass in a car at v, does the glass need to shrink to stop propagation speed in the glass exceeding c? Do some of us really believe the glass must contract in length? You are joking ...right? Why?

    Ah a vacuum. OK, we'll drink the beer and seal a vacuum into the glass, with just a few particles to 'glow' when hit by the pulse so we can follow the track. Each of those still emits at c.

    So we drive past at v again. This time with a fast video camera. The replay shows us apparent c+v, but there's no REAL c+v anywhere!

    There are TWO cases of light speed 'Propagation' speed as Einstein's Postulates, and 'relative' or 'closing' speed. Just as there is between your spacecraft and the one coming the other way. Light arriving is instantly scattered' (absorbed and re-emitted) to the local c. How else do we really get Doppler blue shift (wavelength reduction).

    Can someone please identify where the light was supposed to be propagating at more than c to cause all the paradoxical nonsense we still have to suffer as 'interpretation' of two perfectly sound postulates.

    Or anyone who thinks the above is logically flawed wrong please do explain where and why.

    Thanks

    Peter

    Steve,

    On Nov. 21, 2014 @ 04:19 GMT you wrote: "velocity affects that science has measured". Is this correct? I guess you meant effects of v^2. Doppler effect depends on the sign of v.

    I am sorry for putting my question in the wrong path.

    John C,

    I trust in the Encyclopedia Britannica in that Lorentz in 1892 developed the concept of length contraction independent from Fitzgerald's short article in 1889 although the Encyclopedia calls Einstein in 1905 a German/American physicist, speaks of the Michelson-Morley experiment in the 1880s instead of Michelson's 1881 published experiment in Potsdam and his 1887 published with Morley experiment in Cleveland, and even worse it declares space contraction a logical consequence of the relative motion of different observers instead of admitting that Michelson's null results in the 1880s can be interpreted as did Michelson himself: as evidence against the hypothesis of a light-carrying medium without length contraction, Poincaré synchronization, and time dilution.

    Eckard

    Steve, you seem to have missed out on what the argument of the last 100 years has been all about and innocently cling strongly to Lorentz invariance.

    Examples:

    "I thought that you had asked a simple question about any rest frame measure of a difference in length of each of two interferometer arms. Since v = 0, the answer is no difference and there is no need to talk about contraction or dilation".; "Then you begin to speak about some kind of length contraction, which means that now there is a moving frame from which separate moving observations occur. I was just trying to fill in the blanks. There is no sense in talking about a stationary interferometer changing length in a rest frame. You need a moving frame and to measure the rest frame interferometer from the moving frame to even talk about contraction".

    Michelson, Morley and their interferometer WERE AT REST TO EACH OTHER in 1887. According to Lorentz invariance, since the earth on which they are situated and AT REST is moving, the arm of the interferometer (i.e. the light path) will undergo length contraction and time dilation to EXPLAIN the constant light arrival times. Michelson and Morley WERE NOT measuring the rest frame interferometer from the moving frame, yet Lorentz invariance talks about length contraction!

    "Light can and does change speed, just not in a comoving frame"

    This is more or less a statement of Galilean relativity (invariance) as opposed to Lorentz invariance.

    In Lorentz invariance, whether comoving or from different frames, velocity of light is invariant!! It is therefore amusing that you seem to support what Lorentz invariance holds as untrue, yet claim you are supporting Lorentz invariance.

    "But these are the same rest and moving frame calculations that the GPS satellites do many times per second along with clock delays due to gravity. Every time you use a GPS device you implicitly validate MEE and Lorentz invariance"

    Again, you mix up issues. Motion of the receptor DOES NOT have any influence on signal arrival times in Lorentz invariance! Michelson and Morley's experiment seemed to show results supporting this using earth's orbital motion. However, in 1913 Sagnac performed his experiment using receptors on turntable and demonstrated that receptor motion CAN AND DOES affect signal arrival times. So what you see in GPS is a Sagnac effect, which if you go back to the history negates Lorentz invariance which was claimed to hold due to the 1887 experiment and the SR theory that followed in 1905. The Sagnac effect was actually buried for years and only when observations in GPS became inevitable, those observations are now being fraudulently appropriated as being in support and a manifestation of GR, not Lorentz invariance which they contradict.

    (From your other post) "the moving frame will measure the arm in the direction of motion to have an 8.8 ps delay due to the 2.6 km/s relative velocity between arms"

    If you now research further and find that Lorentz invariance preaches that there will be no delay due to the relative velocity between the arms, will you then abandon Lorentz invariance?

    Actually, experiments have been done to find out whether earth rotation can affect signal arrival times on earth surface, and the results seem to suggest earth rotation has no such effect. The question and the experimental task is to then find out at what height above earth surface does earth rotation begin to affect signal arrival times as confirmed in the GPS observations.

    Regards,

    Akinbo

    Now let me see if I got this straight. A rest frame interferometer necessarily undergoes some kind of change because of some kind of velocity and MEE simply misinterprets the lack of change and there are actually two different changes that somehow cancel out...

    And the Sagnac effect, which is a very well defined and well understood effect of rotation of light, now has something more to do with its translation as well as rotation...

    And all of the GPS calcs that claim they are due to gravity and velocity (squared) corrections are all simply just lucky to get the right answer for location on earth...

    All with just simple declarative statements of fact that appear to contradict a large body of experimental evidence, all without a single calculation. Normally answers to simple questions that include measurements and calculations help people to better understand and predict action, not obfuscate.

    I simply do not know how to respond to declarations of belief that are inconsistent with measurements and calculations. You can of course believe in anything that you want as long as you are not in charge of GPS programming...or satellite navigation or precision clocks. It is not clear what predictions of action you believe are improved by rejecting the very nice system of MEE that works so darn well.

    Michelson and Morley and hundreds of later experiments show that the time delays of interferometer arms at rest do not depend the orientation or location of the interferometer. Period. Motion has nothing to do this this result and it is simply an observation of fact.

    Now MEE is consistent with this result and that makes a nice story that helps make GPS part of the same story and it seems all very consistent. Accurate GPS calcs include both gravity and v2/c2 time dilation, so there is no mystery there...just look it up.

    Now you want to throw MEE under the bus because you can't understand why a moving interferometer is different from a rest interferometer, or why light stops at a black hole, or why light is slowed and bent by gravity.

    You can spend a lifetime in these kind of rabbit holes...

    When I say velocity effects, I mean all velocity effects, doppler and MEE time dilation.

    "On Nov. 21, 2014 @ 04:19 GMT you wrote: "velocity affects that science has measured". Is this correct? I guess you meant effects of v^2. Doppler effect depends on the sign of v."

    Most common calculations involve a combination of the two effects after all.

    Thanks Steve for the exchange. May I just ask this one last question, and perhaps I may finally be a convert to collapsing universe, MEE and Lorentz invariance.

    If you are 3 x 108m away from a source emitting light every one second, assuming c = 3 x 108m/s you receive a signal every one second.

    If on receiving the last signal, half a second later to ensure the next incoming signal is already in transit, can you hasten its arrival time to below one second by moving towards source or delay the arrival time above one second by moving away?

    I think that wraps things up. Eckard I think I will like your answer too because you sometimes get things mixed up, what 'constant speed of light' means.

    Akinbo

    Akinbo,

    As I explained in an essay of mine, the velocity of something in linear motion from A to B without acceleration results from the distance between the position in space of A at the moment of emission and the position in space of B at the moment of arrival divided by the time of flight. Neither the velocity of emitter nor that of the receiver do directly matter.

    You are right, I had to correct a mistake that I shared with Maxwell, Lorentz, and others. In case of waves in a medium like air that moves relative to A and B, already Michelson's first experiment 1881 under the auspice of v. Helmholtz in Potsdam near Berlin would have provided a non-null result.

    Einstein preferred for a while Newton's idea that light behaves like a bullet. In this case its velocity would depend on its value given by the emitter. His SR postulates a constant c without obeying the definition I gave above. Instead he adopted the Poincaré synchronization as to achieve formal agreement with gamma which was fabricated by Lorentz as to defend a light-carrying medium.

    Steve,

    Einstein claimed in 1905 that his SR could be checked experimentally. He wrote: "This relation allows an experimental check because the velocity of the electron can also be directly measured, e.g. by means of rapidly oscillating electric and magnetic fields" [my translation]. Who performed this experiment, and would it likewise be valid for motion toward and away from what Einstein called the frame of rest? Neo-Lorentzians like T. Van Flandern denied this.

    Eckard

    You are so resilient...I like stubbornness as long as reason is involved. We are after all still figuring out how the universe that we live in works.

    "If you are 3 x 108m away from a source emitting light every one second, assuming c = 3 x 108m/s you receive a signal every one second. If on receiving the last signal, half a second later to ensure the next incoming signal is already in transit, can you hasten its arrival time to below one second by moving towards source or delay the arrival time above one second by moving away?"

    So we are back to moving and rest frames, but coming toward each other, so we see the pulse frequency increase due to doppler shift. So yes, the next pulse comes sooner after we begin our motion. Or we see the space shrink due to dilation and that is why the pulse frequency increases. But the moving clock is no different than it was before motion according to the moving frame.

    You ask simple questions like a lion on the stalk, ready to pounce on and consume a suitably juicy answer...

      I don't know who performed this experiment.

      "Who performed this experiment, and would it likewise be valid for motion toward and away from what Einstein called the frame of rest?"

      However, every accelerator and TV picture tube uses the equivalence for electron deflection between magnetic and electric force.