"bernard.chaverondier" wrote in message ...
"Old Physics" a écrit dans le message de
om...

Assuming a rigid stationary aether that propagates light, this
system would be able to detect an aether drift if the speed through it
were greater than about 16000 mph.
Does this conceptual experiment make sense to you?

I have just understood your thought experiment (where I will move the clocks
instead of rotating the rod. That amounts to the same thought experiment
with easier notations for a clear explanation) and why you don't understand
the impossibility to detect the aether drift when rotating your rod.

* You assume Lorentz contraction to occur, that's to say because of its
speed v with regard to the medium where quantum waves propagate, your rod
AB (assumed to be a stationary quantum wave in its rest frame) is contracted
to the length L0 = L(1-v^2/c^2)^(1/2) (where L is the proper length of the
rod)

* Thanks to the transmission of a signal at light speed from the middle I
of your rod AB, you perform a relativist synchronization process of a front
end clock CB and of a rear clock CA standing at the ends A and B of your
rod. Hence, with regard to the synchronisation process prevailing in a frame
at rest with regard to the aether, your clock CB is late with regard to your
clock CA by an amount of v.AB/c^2, (ie clock CA is ahead of time by
an amount v.AB/c^2 with regard to CB if a synchronization with regard
to a rest frame was used instead).

* In the comoving frame of your rod, you perform a measurement of the
travel time T of a light wave from A to B and find of course T = AB/c

* Now, you move your rear clock CB from the front end B of your rod to
the rear end A and move the rear end clock CA initially standing at the rear
end A to the front end B (it's easier for the notations and explanation but
amounts to the same thought experiment than your one)

Hence, with regard to the synchronization prevailing in frame at rest with
regard to the medium where quantum waves propagate, your light clock
have changed their absolute synchronisation during this motion (and have
conserved their relative synchronization). The clock CA which is now at the
front end and was ahead of time by an amount v.AB/c^2 with regard to CB
is now on the contrary late with regard to CA by an amount v.AB/c^2
(when the synchronization prevailing in a frame at rest with regard to the
aether is considered).

That's because a slow translation of a clock from one location to an other
one in a moving frame is a Lorentz invariant phenomenon. If you move slowly
your rear light-clock CA from the rear end A to the front end B, your clock
CA undergoes a loss of absolute synchronisation which amounts to
v.AB/c^2 so that the relativist synchronization is preserved. This is easy
to calculate with a light-clock thanks to very simple arithmetic
calculations.
This is because the photon moving back and forth in your light clock CA
has to travel a longer path when you move your light clock CA from the
rear end A to the front end B of your rod.

Now, if you perform a new synchronisation process with a light signal
emitted from the middle I of AB to check how your clocks CA ad CB are
synchronized, you will have the surprise to find that your clocks CA and CB
are correctly synchronized with regard the relativist synchronization
process prevailing in the moving frame of the rod.

I suppose that it was this lack of physical explanation about of the loss of
absolute synchronization of a light clock (and conservation of relativist
synchronization) when it is slowly moved in a frame moving at speed v with
regard to the medium where quantum wave propagate that was puzzling you.

Bernard Chaverondier
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/lebigbang
Compatibility of Alain Aspect experiment interpretation as an action at a
distance with a formulation of Special Relativity in the framework of
Aristotle space-time (and an interpretation of relativist invariance as an
intrinsic property of phenomena that actually satisfy this invariance).

Admitedly, this experiment only tests the classic stationary
euclidean concept of the aether. My assumption is that the slow
transport of the clocks with the earth's rotation will only affect the
clocks by one part in 10^-25s, far to small to measure.
I propose this setup for its simplicity, in both concept and
execution.
You nailed it. It is the "lack of explanation for a loss of
absolute synchronization" that still puzzles me.

"Old Physics" a écrit dans le message de
om...

You nailed it. It is the "lack of explanation for a loss
of absolute synchronization" that still puzzles me.

I wrote this aether type of calculation about the loss of absolute
synchronization (and more specifically of conservation of the relativist
synchronization) of a light clock slowly moved in a moving frame R
from a location A to a location B somewhere on the web page
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/lebigbang/Lorentz.htm .

Mathematically it is a very simple arithmetic calculation. A light clocks
"runs late" when it is "moved forward" from location A to location B
because the photon has more path to travel when the light clock is
slowly moved "forward" from A to B. During this slow motion, the
clock loses a time v.AB/c^2 with regard to an absolute synchronization.
However the difficulty of the calculation comes from the numerous
notations that are involved in this calculation.

Bernard Chaverondier
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/lebigbang
Compatibility of Alain Aspect experiment interpretation as an action at a
distance with a formulation of Special Relativity in the framework of
Aristotle space-time (and an interpretation of relativist invariance as an
intrinsic property of phenomena that actually satisfy this invariance).

Old Physics wrote:
Thomas J Roberts wrote in message ...
Such experiments have indeed been performed, and they are all consistent with a
null result within their resolutions. See the FAQ for references, specifically
the measurement by Cialdea, Krisher et al, and others in those sections.

I tried to find out about these experiments but found very limited
information on the net. Any chance you could direct me to an
informative site?

They all predate the NET by many years. You need to go to a library with
a good collection of physics journals. Except that articles in Phys Rev,
Phys Rev Lett, and RMP are all in the PhysicalReviewOnlineArchives
(PROLA), if you can get access -- requires a subscription, or access
from an institution that has a subscription; yes, they scanned in all of
those journals going back to their inception (well before 1900 for Phys
Rev).


Any ether theory that is to survive EXISTING experiments must predict that the
round-trip speed of light is isotropically c [#]. This puts a strong constraint

I assume you mean that the one way trips will show the same time
of travel, within the experimental error of the hardware.

No, I mean round-trip measurements. For instance, time an out-and-back
light pulse reflecting from a mirror mounted on a rigid stick, and
rotate the stick in all directions and observe no variation in flight
time. In practice, the "stick" is a solid optical bench, and one waits
for the earth to rotate; one uses interferometer techniques to measure
flight time, rather than simple clocks....


Tom Roberts

C.J. Luke wrote:
Thomas J Roberts wrote:
Not true. This is a direct requirement of a multitude of experiments [references
in the FAQ], specifically the metrological measurements leading up to the 1983
redefinition of the meter. All of them were round-trip measurements, and all of
them gave a value of c within their resolution. So requiring a theory to
reproduce those results is ESSENTIAL to doing physics.

I take exception to that. We did not have in the 1980's and we don't
have now a reliably accurate way to measure the speed of light.

Nonsense. It just boils down to how accurate you want it to be. For a
~0.1% measurement it just takes a modern oscilloscope, a pulsed LED and
detector, and a 10-meter path or so....

And the part of those measurements I was referring to is their
REPRODUCIBILITY over different times of day and year, not their absolute
result.


Since
the re-definition of the meter in terms of the number of wavelengths
of red light all "timing" test that have been published have been just
a "test" of the reliability, repeatability, and accuracy of our
measuring devices.

You ignore why the meter was re-defined, and the measurements leading up
to it. Ditto for the second.


To actually measure the speed of light to within +- 1 meter per second
[...]

Yes, any measurement to 10 ppm is difficult. But your "requirements" are
really irrelevant -- go read the literature to see how they actually do
this.


Tom Roberts

On Mon, 31 May 2004 22:45:22 GMT, Tom Roberts wrote:

C.J. Luke wrote:
Thomas J Roberts wrote:
Not true. This is a direct requirement of a multitude of experiments [references
in the FAQ], specifically the metrological measurements leading up to the 1983
redefinition of the meter. All of them were round-trip measurements, and all of
them gave a value of c within their resolution. So requiring a theory to
reproduce those results is ESSENTIAL to doing physics.

I take exception to that. We did not have in the 1980's and we don't
have now a reliably accurate way to measure the speed of light.

Nonsense. It just boils down to how accurate you want it to be. For a
~0.1% measurement it just takes a modern oscilloscope, a pulsed LED and
detector, and a 10-meter path or so....

And the part of those measurements I was referring to is their
REPRODUCIBILITY over different times of day and year, not their absolute
result.


Since
the re-definition of the meter in terms of the number of wavelengths
of red light all "timing" test that have been published have been just
a "test" of the reliability, repeatability, and accuracy of our
measuring devices.

You ignore why the meter was re-defined, and the measurements leading up
to it. Ditto for the second.


To actually measure the speed of light to within +- 1 meter per second
[...]

Yes, any measurement to 10 ppm is difficult. But your "requirements" are
really irrelevant -- go read the literature to see how they actually do
this.


Tom Roberts

I thought this thread was about OWLS.
You are talking about TWLS, which is always constant according to the ballistic
theory and experiment.
Henri Wilson.
www.users.bigpond.com/hewn/index.htm
See how three orbiting bodies interact:
www.users.bigpond.com/hewn/threebody.exe

See proof that light speed is source dependent.
www.users.bigpond.com/hewn/variablestars.exe

On 5/28/2004 12:02 PM, greywolf42 wrote:
Thomas J Roberts wrote in message
...
Tom Roberts wrote:
Such experiments have indeed been performed, and they are all
consistent with a null result within their resolutions. See the
FAQ for references, specifically the measurement by Cialdea,
Krisher et al, and others in those sections.

Cialdea is not this type of experiment. Cialdae is
simply an interference experiment, not a timing test.

Think of an "ideal light clock" with a light pulse bouncing back-and-forth
between a pair of mirrors. Now compare to a laser. One can consider Cialdea's
lasers as such light clocks, and it is indeed this type of experiment. As for
most highly-accurate experiments, it is a difference measurement, and does not
actually measure any time interval directly (it looks for anisotropic
differences in timing).


Not true. This is a direct requirement of a multitude of experiments
[references in the FAQ], specifically the metrological measurements
leading up to the 1983 redefinition of the meter. All of them were
round-trip measurements,

But not measurements of speed. They were geometrical fringe-shift
experiments.

Those measurements have the following consequences:
1. They are consistent with ANY theory in which the round-trip speed
of light is isotropic in a lab on earth.
2. They are INconsistent with ANY theory in which the round-trip speed
of light is not isotropic in a lab on earth.

It does not matter whether or not you think they made "measurements of speed"
(though everyone else thinks so). What is relevant here is their refutation of a
large class of theories. As I said.


and all of them gave a value of c within
their resolution. So requiring a theory to reproduce those results
is ESSENTIAL to doing physics.

You neglected to mention that none of those experiments were timing tests.

Again your poor reading ability prevents you from realizing that I am discussing
general properties of ether theories, and not specifically those "timing tests".
Even after I point this out you still don't get it. shrug


Tom Roberts

On 5/28/2004 1:01 PM, chaverondier wrote:
Tom Roberts wrote:
Any ether theory that is to survive EXISTING experiments must
predict that the round-trip speed of light is isotropically c [#].
This is a direct requirement of a multitude of experiments
[references in the FAQ], specifically the metrological measurements
leading up to the 1983 redefinition of the meter. All of them were
round-trip measurements, and all of them gave a value of c within
their resolution. So requiring a theory to reproduce those results is
ESSENTIAL to doing physics.

Chaverondier
I had misunderstood your point. I thought that you were advocating the
case when a rotating motion is involved (in which case the anisotropy
of the light velocity with regard to the rotating frame shows up in
agreement with relativity theory)

Consider mounting two clocks at opposite ends of a rotatable turntable, and
arrange so they measure the time-of-flight of a light pulse from one to the
other. Assume the center of the table is at rest in an inertial lab frame, and
rotate the turntable slowly enough so its rotation can be neglected for any
given light pulse, but over a few seconds it significantly changes the
orientation of the light path. Idealize everything enough so the clocks are
accurate enough to detect any anisotropy induced by "motion of the lab wrt the
ether".

Any ether theory that predicts the round-trip speed of light is isotropic in any
inertial frame will predict a null result for this experiment. THAT is my point
-- all such theories predict that the synchronization of the clocks changes due
to their slow clock transport, in such a manner that this holds. In fact, there
is a large class of theories that are experimentally indistinguishable from SR,
and the criterion for membership in this class is that the theory predict that
the round-trip speed of light be isotropic in any inertial frame.

This is a mathematical and physical truth that the ether advocates around here
have so much trouble understanding. Because there is a large body of experiments
that show that the round-trip speed of light is indeed isotropically c in any
inertial frame occupied by a lab on earth, this is a STRONG constraint on viable
ether theories -- it essentially means that no ether can ever be detected
(unless someone comes up with an ether theory that "lives within the error bars"
of these experiments -- extremely difficult given their small error bars).

See:
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=38...4%40lucent.com
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=38...0%40lucent.com
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=38...D%40lucent.com


If you were advocating that light velocity is isotropic with regard to
any inertial frame as soon as the synchronisation process (used to
define the distant clocks settings) is Lorentz invariant, of course
this doesn't depend on the hypothesis of presence or absence of a
medium in which quantum waves propagate.

I have no idea what you are trying to say. In the description above there is no
clock synchronization required (one can simply look for changes in the measured
time difference, without ever setting the clocks to be synchornized in any
manner). And QED, for instance, has no "medium in which quantum waves
propagate". And no ether theory of which I am aware actually handles "quantum
waves" in any way -- it seems particularly difficult to reconcile the notion of
an all-pervasive ether with quantum phenomena....


Tom Roberts

On 5/28/2004 5:32 PM, HenriWilson wrote:
Most round trip experiments DO measure the time taken for an EM signal to
travel a certain distance and back again, using one clock.
The fact that the answer is apparently constant is clear evidence in support of
the ballistic light theory.

Sure. But ballistic-light theories are refuted by experiments like Brecher,
Sadeh, and Alvaeger. See the FAQ for references.


Tom Roberts

On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 09:19:35 -0500, Thomas J Roberts
wrote:

On 5/28/2004 5:32 PM, HenriWilson wrote:
Most round trip experiments DO measure the time taken for an EM signal to
travel a certain distance and back again, using one clock.
The fact that the answer is apparently constant is clear evidence in support of
the ballistic light theory.

Sure. But ballistic-light theories are refuted by experiments like Brecher,
Sadeh, and Alvaeger. See the FAQ for references.

Not one of those is worth the paper they are written on.



Tom Roberts

Henri Wilson.
www.users.bigpond.com/hewn/index.htm
See how three orbiting bodies interact:
www.users.bigpond.com/hewn/threebody.exe

See proof that light speed is source dependent.
www.users.bigpond.com/hewn/variablestars.exe

luke wrote in message
om...
"greywolf42" wrote in message
...
Thomas J Roberts wrote in message
...

{snip higher levels}

Such experiments have indeed been performed, and they are all
consistent with a null result within their resolutions. See the
FAQ for references, specifically the measurement by Cialdea,
Krisher et al, and others in those sections.

Tom's big lie again. Cialdea is not this type of experiment. Cialdae
is simply an interference experiment, not a timing test.

So is it really a TWLS experiment then? Sorry, I will keep trying to
find that paper myself..

IIRC, it's more a 'two path', than a 'two way' experiment. But the main
problem is that it is a pure interference experiment. There is no timing of
anything.

The only attempt at a timing test in the FAQ is Krisher. And Krisher
found the effect. They simply ascribed it to temperature variations
... even though it wasn't correlated to day/night. And they had to
throw out 99% of their data (and an entire series of runs) in order
to suppress what they called a 'false positive' reading.

I have just read the Krisher paper (actually the Krisher review, I
haven't read the full paper yet: [poceedings of the twentieth annual
precise time and time interval applications and planning meeting, US
naval observatory, 1989, pp. 251]. Where did you learn that
information?

From reading the Krisher paper.

Here are my general questions for discussion; please excuse the light
tone and my ignorance:

1) The authors devote a paragraph or two to proposed improvements of
the experimental setup. Were such improvements made and lower limits
placed on anisotropy?

Not to my knowledge.

2) The authors claim to test anisotropy "with respect to a
hypothetical universal rest frame", chosen at rest w.r.t. CMBR. (Of
course the LET defendant is actually interested in anisotropy w.r.t.
local rest frame of an ether, which has not been measured, and from
inside the heliosphere inside the milky way is unlikely to coincide
with the CMBR rest frame. (gigo?)

The CMBR frame should be the aether rest coordinate system. If there is a
luminiferous aether.

Couldn't the results be interpreted
to indicate limits on the relative velocity of Earth and the ether
rest frame?

Nope. For the above reasons.

3) An heliospheric rest frame of the ether would still predict an
anisotropy in OWLS as measured via the 21km fiber optic link at the
equator.

1) No one is proposing that, to my knowledge.
2) Krisher wouldn't be able to address that anyway.

a) does this experiment rule out predicted anisotropy w.r.t. such a
heliospheric frame?

No.

b) can LET reconcile/worm out of/escape this result by saying the
anisotropy is in the ether frame and not visible in the
electromagnetic frame (i.e. Lorentz contracted fiber optics line)?

There is nothing to 'escape' from, in Krisher. Krisher is a flawed, biased
effort. (It was one of Clifford Will's efforts to further his worldview.)

--
greywolf42
ubi dubium ibi libertas
{remove planet for return e-mail}