In article <I3drbDAKRlL4EwyN@clef.demon.co.uk>,
Charles Francis <charles@clef.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <oRaX3.706$n5.113065@news1.rdc2.pa.home.com>, Androcles
> <androcles@home.com> writes
>>
>>Charles Francis <charles@clef.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>>news:TJmNkBAgK7K4Ew7d@clef.demon.co.uk...
>>> In article <nbKW3.403$n5.62589@news1.rdc2.pa.home.com>, Androcles
>>> <androcles@home.com> writes
>>>>> 1. Is the speed of light constant?
>>>>Yes. Qualified by "with respect to the source, in a vacuum."
Also
>>qualified
>>>>by "in a medium".
>>>>Is it constant with respect to an observer? NO. It depends on
the
>>relative
>>>>motion of the observer and the source.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Apart from the proviso "in a vacuum". This response is flat
>>> contradictory to both experimental and theoretical physics. It
is
>>> constant with respect to an observer, because an observer uses
light for
>>> the determination of all measurements of time and distance, so
that
all
>>> measurements of speed determine speed as a proportion of the speed
of
>>> light.
>>Have you never seen a rainbow? Or looked at a 'bent' stick in water?
Does
>>the medium cause the light to refract? Why is that? Is it
contradictory to
>>experimental physics to say the speed of light changes from medium
to
>>medium?
>>As to it contradicting theoretical physics, I have no problem with
that.
>>What you do regarding measurement is a practicality, nothing more.
It
just
>>happens to be the only solution we have at this time.
>>Androcles
>>
> Any other solution would require a universe which behaves in a very
> different way to the one we observe. When light passes through a
> medium,
> it does not move more slowly, but the photons are absorbed and re-
> emitted by the electrons in the medium, giving the appearance that
it
> has slowed down.
1. Is this the same as saying the "waves" have slowed down
their frequencies? Or that because the waves now "curl" (through
the electrons) it takes them longer to travel across the same volume
of space (distances having grown as far as the waves know)? Or neither?
2. Is a perfect vacuum possible at all? It is true that
since A. A. Michelson's 1879 measurements through evacuated
steel pipes (vacuum) the speed of light has been more precisely
gauged, however... a very elegant fact has to be overlooked
in the conception of so-called perfect vacuums: namely, they are
all down here on earth (and that means that, at the very least,
gravitons are passing through such vacuums--not to mention all
& any other as-of-yet unsustected particles/waves). Even if
gravitons do not exist, gravity is still nevertheless ACTING
through/across all such perfect vacuums, and so that fact cannot
be easily dismissed out-of-hand. e.g. SOMETHING may yet be
keeping us from knowing the true speed of light in a true vacuum.
Or, do we have to depend on the presumption that gravitons
and all particles not yet discovered by us have no effect
whatever on photons? (Since, obviously, if we noticed an effect
it would be tantamount to discovering them!)
S D Rodrian
sdr@t-three.com
http://members.aol.com/sdrodrian
> --
> Charles Francis
> charles@clef.demon.co.uk
*********************************
From: sdrodrian@aol.com
Subject: Re: WHY SHOULD THE SPEED OF LIGHT BE CONSTANT?
Date: 15 Nov 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <80pp4e$i9b$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
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In article <v6GX3.1010$n5.173133@news1.rdc2.pa.home.com>,
"Androcles" <androcles@home.com> wrote:
>
> Ahem... 1929- 1933, "Measurement of the Velocity of Light in a Partial
> Vacuum", Michelson, Pease and Pearson.
> Michelson died before the experiment was completed.
> The point you make is that there may yet be undiscovered events which
> affect
> our view of what we see. I endorse that, good thinking.
> Androcles
>
But there does seem to be more head-butting in this NG than
consensus: Perhaps we need to ask simpler questions
(in the hope of eliciting more elegant responses): Some posts
here even seem to suggest that SR is some sort of pacifier
for inquiring minds to suckle until classical proofs of
classical physics are finally unearthed.
This NG thread started from the same point of departure
(in history) where Einstein stept into the picture (namely
the Lorentz-Fitzgerald equations that suggested matter
contracts in the direction of its motion & that, consequently,
if the charge of a charged particle is compressed into a
smaller volume the mass of the particle increases). [The figures
at half the speed of light are 15% compression, and,
consequently, a 15% increase in mass.] Add Planck's
discovery that the photon is a (quantum) particle... and
Einstein can say that the photon travels as a wave while
yet having spatial/temporal existence as a particle.
Analogy: Unlike a planet traveling past us at the speed
of light (which, imagine it: if we could "see" it, would "look"
to us as if it had a contraction "to" zero), or an electron
traveling past us at the speed of light (which would seem
to have infinite mass), photons (traveling at the speed of
light all around us, naturally) can yet be "seen" by us as both
wave and particle [because?] instead of having infinite mass
photons consist solely of massless infinite energy (at/for
their volumes, of course, which are infinitesimally small
indeed): Photons can travel through a vacuum because they
are still (quantum) particles even through they might travel as
waves: A quantum contains the frequency of a given radiation
(visible light , radar, x-rays, et al), and thusly expresses
itself as waves while still summing itself up as a particle unit.
That is [why?] it can travel through a vacuum as a particle,
or/and curve around an obstruction (its own size) exactly like
all other wave-forms (diffraction).
To understand the shortening-of-time effect on matter
traveling at faster rates, all you need to do then is think (as
did Einstein) of ordinary matter contracting in the direction
of its motion and/but, like a charged particle, ALSO gaining
greater and greater mass the faster it traveled (in relation to us):
With respect to its own closed system (say a hydrogen atom
passing by us at speeds closer and closer to that of light)...
the atom's electron would always continue orbiting its nucleus
at the same rate regardless of everything outside it. But
with respect to us (a slower-moving point of reference)
the passing atom's increase in mass would seem to "stretch out"
(or slow down) the electron's orbit over greater and greater
"relative" mass: e.g. as far as it knew, the electron would still
be taking the same amount of time to complete one orbit
as it always did, but to us (a slower-moving point of reference)
it would "seem" as if the electron was taking longer and longer
to complete that same orbit (the more massive the atom itself became
in relation to us) as it got closer & closer to the speed of light:
Bring back that hydrogen atom to us after its travels... and its
electron will have traveled fewer orbits around its nucleus than
the electrons of the hydrogen atoms which remained with us. Time
has been warped and has warped reality (even though time does not
exist outside the human brain). But meanwhile we do not have to
take into consideration the dimensionalities of time to explain
the phenomenon. All we need now is for the good mathematicians
to apply the ("how much") quantum of time exactly to each case.
There is poetic truth and then there is scientific truth
(which is poetic truth supported by proofs, of course).
Meanwhile, here is a bit of poetic truth for you.
S D Rodrian
sdr@t-three.com
**********************
From: sdrodrian@aol.com
Subject: Re: WHY SHOULD THE SPEED OF LIGHT BE CONSTANT?
Date: 19 Nov 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <812b8c$otu$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
References: <I3drbDAKRlL4EwyN@clef.demon.co.uk>
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In article <80ulpm$nr8$1@news.fsu.edu>,
jac@ibms48.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr) wrote:
>
> ... note followups to sci.physics ...
>
> In article <80pp4e$i9b$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
> sdrodrian@aol.com writes:
>>
>> ... Add Planck's
>>discovery that the photon is a (quantum) particle... and
>>Einstein can say that the photon travels as a wave while
>>yet having spatial/temporal existence as a particle.
>
> That is not correct physics history.
>
> Planck did not "discover" that the photon is a quantum particle.
> He did not even postulate it. He got the black-body expression
> by quantizing the 'oscillators' that made up the black body
and
> were absorbing and emitting the electromagnetic radiation.
Even if you are technically historically accurate,
it was still Planck's quantum equations Einstein
"formulated" into the present terms. And my point was
what Einstein did with the help of Planck's equations
to help us (here/now) understand what the photon is
... or might be. Sorry if the historical record
was not as important to me as it perhaps ought to be.
S D Rodrian
sdr@t-three.com
> It was Einstein who provided a derivation suggesting that the
> electromagnetic field itself should be quantized into photons,
> and pointed out that this would explain both black bodies and
> the photoelectric effect with the same constant, h, a prediction
> later confirmed by Millikan's experiment.
>
> Even later, Compton used Einstein's photon to explain the puzzle
> of x-ray scattering from free electrons, which is really when
the
> photon was discovered (and, about the same time, named).
>
> --
> James A. Carr
*************************
From: sdrodrian@aol.com
Subject: Re: WHY SHOULD THE SPEED OF LIGHT BE CONSTANT?
WHY SHOULD THERE BE A LEAST UPPER BOUND FOR SPEEDS?
Date: 01 Dec 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <823kt2$kaj$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
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80f00s$4h2$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <slrn82m1nt.2qc.abergman@tree0.Stanford.EDU>
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In article <81bh8d$u25$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
bhanwara@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <slrn833mgs.nfp.abergman@tree1.Stanford.EDU>,
> abergman@princeton.edu wrote:
>>
>> That's quite a broad accusation you make there.
>>
>> Aaron
>
> Sorry, I got a little carried away in the moment there...
> I do think social inertial plays a role here, but
> a rather small one.
>
> Basically, my view on MMX and related experiments
> is this:
>
> 1) MMX is crucial socio-historically.
> 2) Technically, it's still a defining test.
> You cannot just ignore it and proceed with
> "better" tests.
>
> The reason is that MM has sufficient
> accuracy, so that if it doesn't support
> SR, it directly refutes SR.
>
> If you admit a "normal" explanation for MM,
> e.g. (1) light behaves as particles and
> you need to add source velocity or (2)
> medium is moving at earth speed, then it
> explains MM observations. Furthermore,
> it refutes SR because SR would require
> an _additional_ contraction, which is
> not seen.
>
> Of course, the fundamental conflict is
> between the assumptions
> A) C is a universal constant
> B) C is a normal velocity
>
> If you accept (A), and then experimental
> data refutes it, you can adjust the
> rest of the universe until (A) fits.
> The required "adjustments to the rest of the
> universe" can be summarized as SR.
> Naturally, your observations will match
> expectations in normal experiments,
> since you have assumed A and therefore
> you have a need to adjust the rest of
> the universe, as provided in SR.
>
> Of course, you can still carefully
> devise experiments that get around
> SR and find some part of the universe
> it has failed to adjust. But
> here, social inertia comes in.
> Atomic clock comparison is supposed
> to be one such experiments where
> calculations were (presumably subconsciously)
> adjusted until supporting SR.
I completely refuse to believe that the obvious solution
has not occurred to at least one of you! And if "that person"
doesn't step up SOON and "take credit" for it... I myself
shall be forced to post it here myself.
And, this is neither a warning nor a bluff.
S D Rodrian
sdr@t-three.com
**************************