harry wrote:

"John Kennaugh" wrote in message
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 6:52 PM

Authors trying to sell Relativity to a student have a problem. They
cannot go through a logical sequence of historical events - the history
of relativity is quite frankly embarrassing. Neither can they appeal to
common sense, relativity is of course counter intuitive. Some text books
use semantic trickery. The most honest I have seen is an on-line Harvard
university text book where the author says in effect "it may seem daft
but it works". I would point out however that the same could be said of
the geocentric theory of the solar system. A dominant belief that the
earth was at the centre forced the maths to be transformed in such a way
that they gave the right answer.

It is true that the historical development is often insufficiently explained
or even camouflaged as a result of intellectual dishonesty (not necessarily
due to the authors themselves). But since you know that SRT was a logical
development from ether theory, I find it strange that you make such
comparisons - except if you really forgot most of the historical
development!
Note: such forgetfulness may easily look like dishonesty on your part...

I don't see your point. SRT was indeed developed from aether theory and
I clearly present the reasoning used. It is in my view flawed because it
totally ignored the particulate nature of light. The process is further
compromised by the later arbitrary rejection of the aether by
relativists which in my view is the intellectual equivalent of sawing
off the branch you are sitting on and I believe compromised the
integrity of Physics. I believe that physical interpretation or at least
causality is an essential part of good physics. Physical changes need
physical causes.

Again my personal view is that light cannot be both waves and particles
and that the most promising approach is to accept that light is made up
of photons and try and come up with a model of a photon which would
explain the very convincing wavelike behaviour of light.

I do not have a problem with people who still believe in the aether. I
don't think they are right but they are intellectually more honest then
relativists who believe a whole host of untenable myths starting with
the one that SR is a different theory to LET, and that Einstein came up
with a theory which didn't require the aether.


"If the Lord Almighty had consulted me before embarking on creation I
should have recommended something simpler." Alfonso 'the wise' of
Castile (1221-1284) having studied the Ptolemaic system.

As I will explain later I see parallels in the history of relativity
where I will show that a dominant belief played a part in distorting our
way of viewing things.

If you are a follower of Occam then the MMX shows that the speed of
light is not constant w.r.t the aether as had been supposed

No, that is mistaken. Perhaps some followers of Occam would think so, but
others not - it depends on if one regards only a single issue or the total
predictive strength of a theory.

I would agree that Lorentz was totally justified in trying to find a
fix. The wave in aether theory was very convincing and ticked all the
boxes apart from this one experiment. By the time you get to Einstein
the wave in aether theory had a much more devastating challenge via the
ultraviolet catastrophe, Planck and the photoelectric effect. The latter
cannot be explained if light is waves only if it is particulate. In that
context if you revisit the MMX then it was the first experiment devised
which could clearly distinguish between the two theories of light which
had dominated physics for two centuries and its result is as predicted
by the "light is something which travels from source to destination"
school of thought rather than the "light is a wave propagating in a
medium" school of thought.

I agree that the wave theory is very convincing up to a point but having
reached that point I feel one has to accept that light IS made up of
particles although it BEHAVES like a system of waves.

and so must
therefore be constant w.r.t the source - there being no plausible
causality by which 'where it ended up' could be responsible for the
speed at which it travelled to get there.

And what would cause all radiation to be the same speed relative to the
source?

What causes an electron to always have the same mass. Something
fundamental to nature.


A cannon ball's speed depends on the energy of its emission.

OK but contrary to modern physics belief - which stems from SR - a
photon clearly has mass. Its energy increases if it falls under gravity,
it loses energy if it escapes from a gravity field, it has momentum, it
is deflected if it passes a massive object etc.
"if it looks like a duck walks like a duck, quacks like a duck..." The
only thing which says it can't have mass is SR.

Waldron did the calculations and concluded that a photons mass comes
from the following expression:
hf = mv^2/2 + mc^2/2
kinetic internal
energy energy (rotational)

For a stationary source v = c and hf = mc^2 or m = hf/c^2
Using this value the maths works out just as if a photon is a perfectly
ordinary particle.

Your analogy therefore requires a modification in that if you double the
charge you put in the cannon you also double the weight of the cannon
ball so the muzzle velocity remains the same.

Ritz's emission theory of
light published in 1908 and Waldron's Ballistic theory of light
published in 1977 are both based on the assumption that the speed of
light is source dependent. Both theories were suppressed, not by any act
of censorship but by totally ignoring them - which is much more
effective.

The reason for ignoring them was probably that the Electromagnetic theory of
Maxwell as further developed by others upto the point of SRT was so
successful that it seemed unlikely that another theory would be as good or
even better.

Yes it was developed particularly by Lorentz and it was very convincing
but nevertheless flawed. You cannot explain the photoelectric effect if
light is waves. So light cannot be waves.

The direction of physics was in my view changed by the premature death
of Ritz 1n 1909 one year after publishing his theory which left Einstein
without opposition. I believe that a strong opposition is necessary for
good debate and whatever the outcome physics would be better had the
opposition not died.


My suggestion is that the ballistic theory is based on a correct concept
and what the Lorentz transforms do is transform a wrong concept ( the
basis of SR) in such a way as to give the correct answer. It shares with
the geocentric theory the fact that though mathematically adequate it is
impossible to ascribe to it a physical description of the physical
processes described by the maths, i.e. a causal description of what is
going on.

You appear to have forgotten that the LT were originally based on an ether
model, and next shown to follow necessarily if one assumes the POR and
source independence.

Not at all. Source independence is a physical property of the aether. No
one around here believes in the aether so why should they believe in a
theory which assumes source independence. The answer would appear to be
that they accepted the theory and then stopped believing in what it is
based upon and didn't like to accept they were wrong so redefined
physics. Logically the success of SR would indicate the existence of the
aether.

One of the myths of SR is that the aether was assumed not to exist
because it is undetectable. This isn't true. According to Maxwell there
are two predictions relating to the aether which are testable.

1/ That the speed of light varies with the speed of an observer relative
to the aether - shown not to be true by the MMX

2/ That because the speed of light is controlled by the aether the
motion of the source does not affect it.

Relativists - who vehemently deny the existence of the aether claim that
experiments demonstrate source independence. I find such experiments
less than totally convincing but if they were convincing they would
have detected the aether. It is only our speed relative to the aether
which is undetectable, the aether itself can be detected by showing
source independence.

Basically if there is no aether a source is surrounded by nothing which
can take part in a physical process so the only physical process which
can be responsible for the speed at which light travels is the source.



The following experiments demonstrate how my suspicion arose.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

_________________________
train [____________X____________] --v
|
|
|
|
T T'


Imagine you have a train with a laser mounted at right angles at X.
Suppose it fires a very short burst of light, triggered by a switch on
the track when X is exactly opposite distant target T.

[snip details]

I will have to ask the help of a relativist on this one but
I assume - but don't know for certain - that SR says that what is a
right angle in the FoR of the train is transformed in the FoR of the
target to an angle such that SR says that it hits T' because in the FoR
of the target the laser was pointing at T' and not at right angles to
the train. Maybe someone can confirm that. If so then this change of
angle is not the result of any identified physical process, there is no
physical explanation.

Wrong - it follows directly from classical wave theory, taking into account
length contraction.

If you believe in Lorentz's aether I agree but modern relativists say
there is no aether so there is nothing physical which can take part in a
physical process. Thus there is no identifiable physical process
consistent with modern physics dogma.


It simply *has* to be so in order to get the right
answer - in order to get the same answer ballistic theory gives.

The "right answer" is the basic assumption that the PoR holds...

The PoR is totally consistent with ballistic theory. Einstein himself
said that the second postulate of SR was 'apparently irreconcilable with
the PoR'". With SR he had to ditch 3 long standing and apparently
sensible axioms of physics to reconcile the second postulate with the
PoR (the first). Ballistic theory requires no such distortion of
reality. It quite naturally fits in with the PoR.


Ballistic theory also has a full physical explanation of what is going
on.

An important point here is that ANY experiment viewed from the FoR of
the source must have the same outcome for both theories as both theories
state that in the FoR of the source light travels at c w.r.t the source.

Sigh... Wrong again! In SRT, the light from the source travels at a speed
that is "INDEPENDENT of the state of motion of the emitting body".

My statement was correct. In SR in the FoR of the source light travels
at c w.r.t the source. In Ballistic theory in the FoR of the source
light travels at c w.r.t the source.
SR says that the speed of light is c w.r.t the observer observing it so
if that observer is stationary w.r.t the source it is also c w.r.t the
source. Ballistic theory say that it separates from the source at c in
all FoR. In the FoR of the source i.e. for an observer stationary w.r.t
the source both agree.

BTW this
is now a fact of life that is used in GPS, see below.

no see below.

[snip a long story that leads to a simple to debunk result]

So Ballistic theory predicts the same result using a velocity triangle
as SR predicts as being due to 'time dilation'.

Wrong, see below.

right - see below

Note again that there is no identifiable physical mechanism which causes
time dilation it is simply assumed to take place as it is necessary to
get the right answer - i.e. the answer given by the credible physical
explanation of ballistic theory.

Wrong again - and this time I find it hard to believe that you don't know
that the physical mechanisms are as clearly identifiable as for example
those that are involved in engines for keeping the laws of thermodynamics.

SR is a mathematical model which does not attempt to answer physical
questions. If you are a believer in Lorentz's aether you maybe have a
point.


----------------------------------------------------------------------
GPS "Time Dilation"

As seen above the frequency measured when orthogonal to the source is
predictably the same for both theories. The centre of the earth is
always orthogonal to the motion of a GPS satellite (assuming a circular
orbit) therefore the frequency will always be Fo x Sqr(1 - v^2/c^2)
whichever theory is used. The ballistic theory explains it without
exotic time dilation. It is simply the result of a velocity triangle.

A velocity triangle can only affect the signal readout

The frequency measured.

- it cannot cause an
accumulation of time retardation as is the case with GPS.

Rubbish. The tick of a clock is simply a frequency divided by some
number n. If the frequency on board the satellite is Fo and that
frequency is transmitted then you will only measure it as Fo if it
reaches you travelling at c. According to ballistic theory it doesn't
reach you travelling at c. Because of the velocity triangle the
frequency measured orthogonal to the source is the same for both
theories if you divide it to get a clock the ticks will be the same for
both theories thus both theories need to adjust the oscillator on the
satellite so as to keep the ticks the same.



Clock resonators
are adjusted for speed and height in orbit by misadjusting them on the
ground. Thus ballistic theory fails here!


Harald



--
John Kennaugh