"Ilja Schmelzer" wrote in message
...

"Bill Hobba" schrieb
"Ilja Schmelzer" wrote
"Bill Hobba" schrieb
"Ilja Schmelzer" wrote
"Bill Hobba" schrieb
The curious
thing of course is it has no observable consequences - so we might
say
LET
obeys a slightly different POR - all observable laws of physics are
the
same.

Not a nice formulation, because I don't think there is a
philosophically
well-defined distinction between "observable laws" and "non-observable
laws".

That is where I must disagree - in principle LET works differently to
SR -
an aether wind causes actual shortening in LET - a rod at rest in any
inertial frame is the same in SR.

I don't understand your objection. AFAIU, we agree that a principle like
"No observer can distinguish certain states by observation" holds in above
theories. There is also agreement that LET works differently. But I
don't
see
a connection with my claim. I don't think there are "observable laws".
There
are only observable predictions derived from laws.

I am not interested in aether
theory - I in fact philosophically object to the idea.

I would be interested to discuss these philosophical objections with you.

Just letting Ilja know I have not forgotten him and will reply in a day or
so.

Sorry for the delay.
Bill


But philosophical
positions are like bums - everyone has one - it does not make it
correct.

I don't agree with the position that philosophical ideas cannot be
discussed.
Philosophical theories are proposed solutions to philosophical problems.
It is possible to discuss if these theories really solve these problems or
not,
or if other theories solve them in a better way, or if the theory created
new
serious problems.

Ilja

In message , writes
John Kennaugh wrote:

Eric Baird

Thank you for the reply. A great deal to think about.

IMO there's a hell of a lot of work here that still needs doing, and
during the fifty years since Einstein died, nobody seems to have even
made a start on it.
We seem to have wasted half a century coming up with reasons why no
further research should be done.

Research seems aimed at taking things further not in questioning whether
we are going in the right direction.

I recall a TV program some years ago documenting the search for a new
particle which had been predicted. The experiment was conducted at CERN
and involved millions of collisions. I remember the result was a
'triumph' in that the new particle had been detected. The actual
statement was something like "six definites and a probable". It was the
'probable' which worried me. It implies that they had set acceptance
limits ignored millions of results selected the few which fitted the
theory and one of those was just on the limit.


They rejected millions that agreed with the theory but which could
probably have been explained by something else.

Your reinterpretation of this experiment is ignorant.

That is quite possible, one cannot expect a great deal of information
from a popular TV program and I cannot even recall the particle they
were looking for. I find it hard to believe however that they examined
the products of every collision to make sure that there was a
theoretical interaction which explained it? My understanding was that
they had built a detector to specifically look for that particular
particle. It was the 'probable' which I found intriguing. It suggested
something which maybe, maybe not met their acceptance criteria.
Certainly it implies doubt. If it wasn't the required particle then it
was something else. If it was something else then that something else
has come close to meeting their acceptance criteria so logically another
'something else' of the same sort may have actually met the criteria and
been counted which in turn allows that all of those counted were
'something else' and that the particle had not in fact been detected.

It could of course be, as you say, my ignorance.
--
John Kennaugh
to email convert the number from hex to decimal

"Bill Hobba" schrieb
"Ilja Schmelzer" wrote
"Bill Hobba" schrieb
"Ilja Schmelzer" wrote

Kant would say Euclidian geometry is a-priori so maybe inertial
frames are a-priori? I do not agree with such a position - I am
simply
mentioning it.

Why, that's fine. Theories are postulated, they are a-priori.
Predictions
are derived from them, they are a-posteriori.
The point is that a-priori does not mean valid. Once some a-priori
ideas
appear to be false, we reject them and postulate others.

Agreed. That is the reason I do not believe Euclidian geometry being
a-priori - that idea was dealt a fatal blow by Gauss and Riemann. In fact
I
only actually believe in logic as a-priori.

Hm, you write "agreed" and then state the reverse.

There are different meanings of "a priori". One as some inborn, instinctive
human theories. In this sense, Euclidean geometry can be said to be a
priori.
Our visual senses create an image in our mind which is based roughly on
Euclidean geometry and straight light rays. And it fails already in the
typical
cases where light does not follow straight lines: Mirrors, water, fata
morgana.
Gauss and Riemann are not necessary to see that the a priori theory is
wrong.

Another meaning is simply about ordering in time. Once we have to
define a theory before we can derive predictions we can say the theory
is a priori but the predictions are a posteriori. Roberts interpretation
(The
predictions are as a prior as the axioms being derived by logic. It is the
experimental measurements which are a posteriori.) is also fine - yet
another meaning.

But the common part of all them is that something may be a priori but
nonetheless wrong. In Kant's theory AFAIU the assumption was that
something a priori should be therefore true - a priori as a replacement
for self-evidence. "Believe only in logic as a priori" seems to be
something
along the same lines.

SR rejects absolute time
but some people find this so unnatural they want to save it.

I would like to note here that this was not the issue which has lead me
to
ether theory.

I suspected as much. Would I be correct in assuming it has to do with the
simplest way to bring in symmetry breaking ie by assuming somthing along
those lines in the first place?

The issue which has lead me to ether theory was a quantum gravity question -
the meaning of quasiclassical superposition of two different gravitational
fields,
and what is observable for such superpositions.

Quasiclassical means that we don't yet care about uncertainty principles,
but assume some quantum states approximate classical configurations
(say a particle path, or, in case of gravity, a field g_ij(x,t)). An then
we
consider superpositions of such states

|g^1_ij(x,t) + |g^2_ij(x,t)

or, more accurate, a superposition of some test particle path on such a
metric

|x^i_1(tau),g^1_ij(x,t) + |x^i_2(tau),g^2_ij(x,t)

or, similarly, some wave function of the test particle on the background

|psi^1(x,t),g^1_ij(x,t) + |psi^2(x,t),g^2_ij(x,t)

Now, my thesis was that it is observable if the test particle is at some
moment t at the same place in above gravitational fields. Or, in terms
of wave functions, the scalar product

psi^1(x)|psi^2(x)

is observable. You cannot compute a prediction for this observable
using classical GR. This is an inherently new, quantum, observable.
Similar to the case of Bohm-Aharonov experiment, where quantum
theory gives a new observable int A_i dx which is not observable
classically in the region used in the quantum experiment.

Why should this thing be an observable? Simply because it is an
observable in the nonrelativistic approximation of quantum gravity,
namely Schroedinger theory with Newtonian potential. To measure
the value psi^1(x)|psi^2(x) we do not have to measure the
test particle! Using this scalar product we can predict if the
interaction with this test particle has "measured" the position of the
first particle and destroyed an interference pattern
(psi^1(x)|psi^2(x)=0) or not (psi^1(x)|psi^2(x)=1). Thus,
we ignore the test particle, measure the first particle and look if
we observe an interference pattern or not.

A theory of QG should be able to predict psi^1(x)|psi^2(x)
at least in the nonrelativistic limit. But what I need to justify
a common background is not more than this observable
psi^1(x)|psi^2(x).

I would appreciate a bit more detail on why you think so.

The world we observe is approximately flat on the large scale and has
approximately a preferred frame. That's the symmetry of the GLET
background.

I think I see where you are coming from now.

No. I'm coming from a quite different starting point.

You think a theory
with the symmetry breaking already built in may be a simpler and firmer
foundation than one where we have a high degree of symmetry and the broken
symmetries we see around us must somehow have an inbuilt mechanism in that
is more fundamental theory to do that breaking?

Hm, I do not doubt that spontaneous symmetry breaking is a reasonable
way to obtain observable broken symmetry in a theory with larger symmetry.
But that also needs something nontrivial, like an instable symmetric vacuum.

No. Relativity requires symmetry breaking to explain CBR.

I do not see that. The CBMR results from matter decoupling from radiation
and is more of a issue for particle physics that GR. Of course a
fundamental theory that links GR and particle physics should explain it in
a
single theory - but I do not think it is a problem for GR.

GR or particle theory is not the point. Last not least, my ether theory is,
if completed, a theory of everything. GLET is only the gravitational part.

Aether theory needs a mechanism of creation of additional symmetry
- the observable EEP symmetry. This mechanism I have found,

I see that.

Essentially, above theories have a problem with symmetries, because
different parts of the universe have different symmetries. Local
observation shows relativistic symmetry, the global structure shows
a preferred frame.

That is a point I do not agree on - not that we can not find preferred
frames in the universe but whether they are fundamental or not.

I have written "shows". That's about the observables. The answer which
of the symmetries are fundamental is obviously a different one in above
paradigms.

But because I do not believe those asymmetries are fundamental this is not
a
direction I would pursue.

Of course, the considerations using the CBR frame for justifying ether
theory is one of the less important arguments for the ether. It shows only
that the usual symmetry argumentation in favour of relativity is not
convincing at all.

Today the strongest arguments in favour of the ether are the geometric
and ether interpretation of the standard model fermions as sections of
the bundle (A(3)xCx/\)(R^3) which appears as the large distance limit
of (A(3)xC)(Z^3). To explain the 24 standard model fermions in such
a simple way as a regular lattice Z^3 with cells whose state is defined
by a 3D affine transformation A(3) seems IMHO the almost ultimate
simplicity ideal for an ether theory. (What remains is to finish the
theory that all gauge fields appear as defects of the regular Z^3
structure.)

And, then, of course the violation of Bell's inequality. It leaves you with
the choice to accept a preferred frame or to reject realism.

I think we may be homing in on an agreed position.

May be. It would be nice to have some conversation with you about
the many other arguments in favour of my ether theory.

Ilja

"Ilja Schmelzer" wrote in message
...

"Bill Hobba" schrieb
"Ilja Schmelzer" wrote
"Bill Hobba" schrieb
"Ilja Schmelzer" wrote

Kant would say Euclidian geometry is a-priori so maybe inertial
frames are a-priori? I do not agree with such a position - I am
simply
mentioning it.

Why, that's fine. Theories are postulated, they are a-priori.
Predictions
are derived from them, they are a-posteriori.
The point is that a-priori does not mean valid. Once some a-priori
ideas
appear to be false, we reject them and postulate others.

Agreed. That is the reason I do not believe Euclidian geometry being
a-priori - that idea was dealt a fatal blow by Gauss and Riemann. In
fact
I
only actually believe in logic as a-priori.

Hm, you write "agreed" and then state the reverse.

There are different meanings of "a priori". One as some inborn,
instinctive
human theories. In this sense, Euclidean geometry can be said to be a
priori.
Our visual senses create an image in our mind which is based roughly on
Euclidean geometry and straight light rays. And it fails already in the
typical
cases where light does not follow straight lines: Mirrors, water, fata
morgana.
Gauss and Riemann are not necessary to see that the a priori theory is
wrong.

Another meaning is simply about ordering in time. Once we have to
define a theory before we can derive predictions we can say the theory
is a priori but the predictions are a posteriori. Roberts interpretation
(The
predictions are as a prior as the axioms being derived by logic. It is the
experimental measurements which are a posteriori.) is also fine - yet
another meaning.

But the common part of all them is that something may be a priori but
nonetheless wrong. In Kant's theory AFAIU the assumption was that
something a priori should be therefore true - a priori as a replacement
for self-evidence. "Believe only in logic as a priori" seems to be
something
along the same lines.

SR rejects absolute time
but some people find this so unnatural they want to save it.

I would like to note here that this was not the issue which has lead
me
to
ether theory.

I suspected as much. Would I be correct in assuming it has to do with
the
simplest way to bring in symmetry breaking ie by assuming somthing along
those lines in the first place?

The issue which has lead me to ether theory was a quantum gravity
question -
the meaning of quasiclassical superposition of two different gravitational
fields,
and what is observable for such superpositions.

Quasiclassical means that we don't yet care about uncertainty principles,
but assume some quantum states approximate classical configurations
(say a particle path, or, in case of gravity, a field g_ij(x,t)). An then
we
consider superpositions of such states

|g^1_ij(x,t) + |g^2_ij(x,t)

or, more accurate, a superposition of some test particle path on such a
metric

|x^i_1(tau),g^1_ij(x,t) + |x^i_2(tau),g^2_ij(x,t)

or, similarly, some wave function of the test particle on the background

|psi^1(x,t),g^1_ij(x,t) + |psi^2(x,t),g^2_ij(x,t)

Now, my thesis was that it is observable if the test particle is at some
moment t at the same place in above gravitational fields. Or, in terms
of wave functions, the scalar product

psi^1(x)|psi^2(x)

is observable. You cannot compute a prediction for this observable
using classical GR. This is an inherently new, quantum, observable.
Similar to the case of Bohm-Aharonov experiment, where quantum
theory gives a new observable int A_i dx which is not observable
classically in the region used in the quantum experiment.

Why should this thing be an observable? Simply because it is an
observable in the nonrelativistic approximation of quantum gravity,
namely Schroedinger theory with Newtonian potential. To measure
the value psi^1(x)|psi^2(x) we do not have to measure the
test particle! Using this scalar product we can predict if the
interaction with this test particle has "measured" the position of the
first particle and destroyed an interference pattern
(psi^1(x)|psi^2(x)=0) or not (psi^1(x)|psi^2(x)=1). Thus,
we ignore the test particle, measure the first particle and look if
we observe an interference pattern or not.

A theory of QG should be able to predict psi^1(x)|psi^2(x)
at least in the nonrelativistic limit. But what I need to justify
a common background is not more than this observable
psi^1(x)|psi^2(x).

I would appreciate a bit more detail on why you think so.

The world we observe is approximately flat on the large scale and has
approximately a preferred frame. That's the symmetry of the GLET
background.

I think I see where you are coming from now.

No. I'm coming from a quite different starting point.

You think a theory
with the symmetry breaking already built in may be a simpler and firmer
foundation than one where we have a high degree of symmetry and the
broken
symmetries we see around us must somehow have an inbuilt mechanism in
that
is more fundamental theory to do that breaking?

Hm, I do not doubt that spontaneous symmetry breaking is a reasonable
way to obtain observable broken symmetry in a theory with larger symmetry.
But that also needs something nontrivial, like an instable symmetric
vacuum.

No. Relativity requires symmetry breaking to explain CBR.

I do not see that. The CBMR results from matter decoupling from
radiation
and is more of a issue for particle physics that GR. Of course a
fundamental theory that links GR and particle physics should explain it
in
a
single theory - but I do not think it is a problem for GR.

GR or particle theory is not the point. Last not least, my ether theory
is,
if completed, a theory of everything. GLET is only the gravitational
part.

Aether theory needs a mechanism of creation of additional symmetry
- the observable EEP symmetry. This mechanism I have found,

I see that.

Essentially, above theories have a problem with symmetries, because
different parts of the universe have different symmetries. Local
observation shows relativistic symmetry, the global structure shows
a preferred frame.

That is a point I do not agree on - not that we can not find preferred
frames in the universe but whether they are fundamental or not.

I have written "shows". That's about the observables. The answer which
of the symmetries are fundamental is obviously a different one in above
paradigms.

But because I do not believe those asymmetries are fundamental this is
not
a
direction I would pursue.

Of course, the considerations using the CBR frame for justifying ether
theory is one of the less important arguments for the ether. It shows only
that the usual symmetry argumentation in favour of relativity is not
convincing at all.

Today the strongest arguments in favour of the ether are the geometric
and ether interpretation of the standard model fermions as sections of
the bundle (A(3)xCx/\)(R^3) which appears as the large distance limit
of (A(3)xC)(Z^3). To explain the 24 standard model fermions in such
a simple way as a regular lattice Z^3 with cells whose state is defined
by a 3D affine transformation A(3) seems IMHO the almost ultimate
simplicity ideal for an ether theory. (What remains is to finish the
theory that all gauge fields appear as defects of the regular Z^3
structure.)

And, then, of course the violation of Bell's inequality. It leaves you
with
the choice to accept a preferred frame or to reject realism.

I think we may be homing in on an agreed position.

May be. It would be nice to have some conversation with you about
the many other arguments in favour of my ether theory.

Sorry Ilja just noticed your post - happy to discuss any aspect of your
theory. However you are the expert on that - not me - so I would feel more
comfortable in you taking the lead in what indirection you would like the
discussion to proceed. So I guess it is over to you.

Thanks
Bill


Ilja

On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 18:46:07 +0000, John Kennaugh
wrote, in message
:

Eric Baird

Thank you for the reply. A great deal to think about.

IMO there's a hell of a lot of work here that still needs doing, and
during the fifty years since Einstein died, nobody seems to have even
made a start on it.
We seem to have wasted half a century coming up with reasons why no
further research should be done.

Research seems aimed at taking things further not in questioning whether
we are going in the right direction.

I recall a TV program some years ago documenting the search for a new
particle which had been predicted. The experiment was conducted at CERN
and involved millions of collisions. I remember the result was a
'triumph' in that the new particle had been detected. The actual
statement was something like "six definites and a probable". It was the
'probable' which worried me. It implies that they had set acceptance
limits ignored millions of results selected the few which fitted the
theory and one of those was just on the limit.

I am reminded of something I read many years ago I think in 'New
Scientist'. A lecturer set a puzzle for his students. He sealed the
answer in an envelope. The puzzle was to find the relationship between
the 3 numbers which he gave the students. The students were told that if
they submitted other SETS of 3 numbers to the lecturer he would tell
them whether or not each SET followed the correct relationship.

What happened was the same for all his students. They would come up with
an idea submit a few sets of numbers, have them confirmed as satisfying
the relationship. The students would confidently declare that they knew
the relationship and were invariably told they had it wrong. The student
would go away and have another go producing variations on their initial
theory. Having gone around this loop a few times the average student,
having by now produced hundreds of sets of numbers according to his
'theory' all of which had 'worked' - been declared as meeting the
required 'relationship' - began to rebel. Convinced that they had found
the right relationship and that the lecturer had inserted some little
proviso which they were never going to guess they insisted that the
lecturer open the envelope. When the envelope was opened the solution
read 'any three whole numbers in ascending order'.

Oo, that's sneaky!


When I first got onto the internet, one of the tests I used to do was
to post innocent-looking little enquiries about effects that didn't
exist in SR, but which did exist under GR. I'd use language to suggest
that I was only thinking about them in the context of some
non-standard theory, and I wouldn't mention the GR connection.
so you'd take something like the Mach/GR frame-dragging effect around
rotating bodies, find a counterpart in some crusty old aether theory,
and then innocently ask whether this "aether theory" effect had been
discovered

What would usually happen would be that some SR expert would reply
that no such effect existed, that experiments had proved beyond a
reasonable doubt that no such effect existed, and that if such an
effect /did/ exist, the planets would fall out of their orbits or some
other suitably cataclysmic thing would happen.

Then I'd tactfully point out that mainstream GR also predicted the
effect, and watch them backtrack.


I found that a distressing number of physics people I encountered had
a nasty habit of making things up -- if you are in a debate with them,
and they want to be able to say that your argument is disproved by
experiment, they'll say it, regardless of whether any real experiments
of that type actually exist in the literature or not.
I'm not sure that its deliberate dishonesty, I think its probably more
that at those moments, they are so convinced that their side of the
argument has to be true, that they convince themselves that those
experiments must exist, even if they can't think of any examples at
that precise moment.


The odd thing was, that the "harder" the field of physcs they worked
in, the more liable they seemed to be to invent things.


The mathematicians that I came across were fine, though.
(I think I like mathematicans)


It seems to me that to check if theory is sound CERN experiments should
be devised which predict interactions which cannot take place and show
that they don't.


If we'd spent the effort and brains
that that went into "cheerleading" SR and GR and balck holes and
directed it towards constructing a fourth-generation theory that
actually addressed these issues instead of avoiding them, then perhaps
we'd have achieved a more credible realtivistic model by now, and
perhaps "relativity" wouldn't be considered to be such a dodgy
subject.

One feels that what is needed is for a university to be brave enough to
have a department of 'alternative physics'. The sole purpose of which
being to think the unthinkable and to examine non mainstream ideas. It
would not get funding on the grounds that 'we know it is a waste of
time'.

Sounds fun!

I did take a looksee at the Princeton IAS a few years back, but they
seemed to have gotten more into the humanities and less into natural
sciences. I don't know if there are any other "blue sky" institutes
out there.


=Erk= (Eric Baird)
:
: " [ I ] am frequently asked to appear in TV science documentaries "
: " [ You ] are a typical eccentric media-friendly boffin "
: " [ He ] is a self-promoting pseudoscientific media whore "
:
: -- John Hodgson, "Irregular scientific conjugations"
: Nature 388, p.420 (31 July 1997).

Sorry to respond to a post a month old

On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 07:25:55 -0700, "N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" N:
dlzc1 D:cox wrote, in message
S18fd.18022$SW3.16268@fed1read01:


"Eric Baird" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 5 Oct 2004 20:50:36 -0700, "N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" N:
dlzc1 D:cox wrote:
...
Look at the case of a centrifuged clock. We can calculate the
clock-slowing effect by using GR-style methods, and combining the
equivalence principle with the general idea of gravitational time
dilation, and seem to get the right answers. We can also do it by
applying SR and calculating the effect as a speed effect.

But the later does not obtain a correct result. And even doing this does
not show that GR was grown from SR. Contrariwise, you have stated that
entirely different methods are involved.

Yes, but the "equivalence principle method" of calculating the
centrifuge shifts then got itself declared illegal, on the grounds
that its description of the centrifuge effect was geometrically
incompatible with SR's version, and so one or both had to be wrong,
and that since SR was not "allowed" to be wrong, the GR principles had
to be downgraded and allowed to be suspended when a conflict with SR
otherwise seemed inevitable.

I don't mind the idea that SR is a first approximation of a more
thorough theory of relativity, but what we actually seem to be doing
in practice is finding where the more general principles conflict with
SR, declaring that SR has to be correct, and saying that the more
general principles are only general design guides and not properly
principles at all

So while I like the idea of a general theory of relativity, I think
that what we actually got was a sort of hacked-about stitched together
composite of two conflicting sets of ideas, with no overall principles
dictating the shape of the final theory (other than "SR cannot be
wrong").

You are arguing about the engineering view, as compared to the purist's
view.

No, I'm arguing with the theoretician's view, that new theories must
reduce to the laws of special relativity, or be considered wrong.
I have no argument with SR as a useful engineering approximation.
I do have a problem with the idea that SR-compliance is being imposed
upon the theoretical and mathematical communities. If we aren't
allowed to study other potential branches of relativity theory, I
don't see how we can be confident that the version that we are
currently using really is better than other potential implementations
of the principle of relativity

If there are genuinely not any other potential implementations that
can work, I want to see a decent mainstream study that examines the
problem and says so, and is signed off by a researcher who is prepared
to take the flak if their reasoning turns out to be wrong.



I assure you that GR is a "seamless" whole. It just does not avail
itself of closed form solutions, and "when the only tool you [understand]
is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail."

I have multiple tools at my disposal and tried and rejected a heck of
a lot of possible approaches to get to where I did.
I'd suggest that perhaps its instead the mainstream guys who seem to
be limiting themselves, by only considering relativistic solutions
that reduce to SR.

I considered SR-supersets and non-SR approaches before settling on the
model that seemed to me to be the cleanest. The mainstream guys don't
seem to be giving any indication that they've tried that sort of
exercise themselves. When one of their number wants to say that
they've also tried this sort of background study, and gotten different
conclusions to me, I'll listen to them and take their opinions
seriously.

But unless someone else has tried it since about 2000/2001 (when I
drew a line under my research and stopped looking), I'm afraid the
closest thing to an authority on the subject seems to be me.


Not a good situation, I think you'll agree.

[...]


If we eventually end up with a better theory, and a lot of people
decide that SR is "good enough" as tool for them to want to continue
using it, fine.

But what's been happenning is that we aren't given a choice.

We aren't allowed to investigate the possibility of "non-SR" tools
that might potentially turn out to be better, and without the
research, we don;t know what we might be missing out on.
It might well be that a hypothetical replacement theory might only
give a marginal increase in accuracy for a major additional investment
in complexity, or it might be that it gives a simpler structure and
easier concepts that blow away SR GR and give us ways of tackling
whole new sets of problems.

But we aren;t supposed to try to find out which of these alternatives
is most likely to be true. SR is simply declared to be compulsory, and
people who are dissatisfied with it are declared to be crackpots or
ignorant or deluded, or somehow mentally deficient, and that's that.

Since you have provided no specifics, I cannot comment on this. There are
alternative approaches proposed, and researched, and funded, all the time.
MOND for example is *not* GR.

Are you saying that MOND is categorised as not reducing to SR?


[...]


And as to experiments that can shake relativity theory, you need to look at
the postulates. Because the methods are only as solid as the foundation.
Uncle Al has his proposed Eotvos experiment, for example. Working on the
conclusions, or in your case, application of simplifications, is a waste of
time. *Don't* choose the simplifications, and see if you get a
significantly different result.

Done it.

I dropped the assumption that inertial physics has to be an
intrinsically flat-spacetime problem, and tried to derive the minimal
set of corrections to NM that would satisfy the principle of
relativity in a curved spacetime version of mechanics.

I'd expected to end up rederiving most or all of SR's standard
modifications. Instead I found that the correct NM set of energy
relationships already seemed to work in the new context, as-is,
without any modifications at all.

Special relativity's particular derivations seem to be dependent on
the idea that the lightbeam geometry has to stay Euclidean, and its
modifications only seem to be required in order to make the thing
compatible with flat spacetime. Since we know that lightbeams get bent
by simple stationary matter (eg blocks of glass), and also get
measurably deflected and dragged along by the motion of that matter
(Fizeau), the idea that these effects conveniently disappear when
chunks of matter are whizzing past each other at significant fractions
of the speed of light doesn't seem to me to be very credible.

Once you accept the loss of that flat lightbeam geometry, you seem to
lose both the geometry of the special theory, and also its claim to
having the correct basic equations. Trying to replicate the SR math in
a geometry warped by the velocities of the masses involved doesn't
seem to work.

So, if these light-dragging effects don't fit SR, but we want them to
fit the principle of relativity, then what's the new relativistic
scheme in which they /do/ fit?

That's what the mainstream can't tell you, because they've been told
not to consider potential non-SR solutions.


[...]

SR is wrong, in curved space. Anyone in the business knows this.

Indeed!

So I'd suggest that that is the obvious candidate for being the
special theory's "Achilles Heel"
If real life moving objects drag light in their immediate vicinities
(as the Fizeau result indicates they do), then the relative motion of
physical bodies warps lightbeam geometries, and inertial physics
becomes an exercise in curved space (or curved spacetime).

And, in that more realistic attempt to model relativistic physics, as
you say, SR is wrong.

So what alternative relativistic theory replaces it?
We would probably say the general theory, but our current
implementation of a general theory is designed to reduce to SR.

So, IMO our natural response should then be to ask what a general
theory of relativity might look like that did not reduce to SR, and
which applied our new curvature ideas to the realm of "normal"
mechanics.

That study seems to be missing from the literature.


Suggest that we chuck in an additiona Lorentz redshift compared to SR
to deal with the curvature effects, we then get an "acoustic"
gravitational metric, the work be Unruh and Visser on acoustic metrics
and Hawkign radiaiton then solves the black hole informauiton paradox,
the gravitaitopnal shift equaitons revert to those of emission-theory,
the gravitaitonal shift equations then soeem to come into line with
the cosmological shift equations, the new general theory then reduces
directly to NM more concisely without needing the SR layer, we lose
all the artificial idealisations that SR introduced, we lose all the
disputes about SR'time dilaiton effects etc that normally clog up
s.p.r. We'df have to introduce a new way of maintaining local
c-constancy without SR, but saying that motion shifts are
gravity-equivalent solves that, and then we have a bright sunny new
relativistic physics with no nasty SR.

Not likely. SR has very reasonable postulates, and provides correct
results... in flat space (or space that has non-varying curvature in the
"lab").

It's the flat-spacetime assumption that's the killer, IMO.
I think that condition is probably breached as soon as we introduce
some particulate matter into the experimental region in order to be
able to do some real physics. A light-signal approaching an atom
arguably ought to be already changing speed before it reaches the
atom, so as soon as you start using real particulate matter as your
objects and observers, you've probably already lost Euclidean
lightbeam geometry.

This proximity lightspeed effect isn't just a new thing that appeared
with modern C20th quantum mechanics (smudging of the atom's position
due to uncertainty, producing a "fuzzy" interaction between the atom
and nearby light), the idea it's so old that it actually appears in
Newton's Optiks.

: Optiks, Query 4
: " ... rays of Light ... reflected of refracted, begin to
: bend before they arrive at the Bodies ... "

Of course, the mere fact that something is suggested in Optiks doesn't
make it reasonable or true, but it does mean that physics people have
had rather a long time to think about these issues.


I do accept the idea of inertial physics being performed against a
flat background, but I don't accept that the physics itself, involving
particles bouncing off each other at relativistic speeds, is then
necessarily also flat.



And if that new physics turns out to have problems too, well at least
we made some progress and tried something constructive, rather than
all this sitting around staring at our feet and not daring to make any
suggestions in case the "SR police" get us.

Do it the hard way then. Create a set of empirical formulae to yield
results. Just don't whine when relativity ends up providing a larger
solution domain, with better accuracy.

I think you misunderstand my position

I'm actually suggesting a more purist, cut-down set of formulae than
SR/GR uses, with the modifications that SR introduced to create
compatibility with flat spacetime stripped out, and saying that if
this approach is correct, it should be more "relativistic", have a
larger solution domain than SR&GR, and have equal or greater accuracy.


I'm saying that if this approach is correct, the original NM/emission
theory Doppler relationships should turn out to be more accurate than
the "improved" SR versions, if we ever get around to testing them
against each other (without presuming flat spacetime).

I'm also imposing far more rigorous conditions that this older set of
equations has to meet than the SR&GR people use with their theories
-- where modern GR now only seems to apply the equivalence principle
and the principle of relativity as a first approximation, I'm saying
that /this/ model would have to implement those ideas 100% with no
allowed room for maneuver.

Where SR & GR appear to conflict before we impose domains of
applicability, I'm stripping away that firewall and saying that the
theory has to apply without reservations, all the way down, with
nothing declared off-limits and no artificial barriers.

Where GR requires "QM effects" to be retrofitted by hand to bring its
horizon descriptions into line with QM, I'm, saying that this model's
horizons need to be 100% compatible with QM from the start.

Where SR&GR compartmentalise velocity shifts and gravitational shifts
and cosmological shifts and treat each category differently, I'm
saying that the new model needs to be able to make all three classes
of effect interchangeable, and have them sharing the same shift
equations

I'm suggesting that this sort of model looks as if it may be cleaner,
more concise, more integrated, less able to be fudged, more valid AND
more accurate.

So I don't think I've left myself any "wriggle room" here.


I'm saying that -- if we redo those old "transverse redshift"
experiments but this time pay special attention to whether the
redshift is a single Lorentz shift or a Lorentz-squared redshift,
we'll find that what the hardware is actually reporting is the
stronger redshift result of NM/emission theory, and not the weakened
redshift result of SR/LET.

So I'm even supplying a straightforward "experiment crucis" that can
rule out either SR or this alternative, using old technology.

If its wrong, its wrong ... but if its right, well, it'd be nice to
know, yes?


Ideally you'd have heard about this from the mainstream, not from the
likes of me. I don't know whether this is hap penning because the
mainstream have peeked at this sort of solution and said nothing
(because it conflicts with SR), or because they honestly didn't know
about it.




If you really want to see a physics revolution in relativity theory in
your lifetime, I think this may be your best chance.

And if its wrong, well, then its wrong. [shrugs]

....

I don't think that a gravitational theory that says that "energy
gravitates" ought to reduce to a theory that says that
arbitrarily-high concentrations of KE between particles moving with
arbitrarily high energies, ARE still explaniable legally by insisting
that the physics of the region is still perfectly flat.

I think that's a major design "wonk", and I think it spoils the purity
of the theory and breaks the principles that the theory ought to be
ruled by.

I think you are concerning yourself about the wrong things. But that is
your right.


I wouldn't be so concerned if this was just about cosmology and black
holes and other abstract things. What used to keep me up at nights was
knowing that the most obvious solution to most of these issues seemed
to be to say that SR was currently making bad predictions in its home
territory, and was getting the most basic velocty-shift predictions
wrong, and that when I went scouring through the literature to try to
find some good objective experiments that could disprove this idea and
support SR's superiority over the idea of NM on a velocity-distorted
metric, I couldn't find any.

So SR is making valid predictions, and you feel that the right experiments
were not being funded to show it as being wrong?

No, the right basic experiments /were/ being carried out, but the
results were compromised AFA this sort of comparison is concerned,
because the test theory used to set up those experiments and analyse
the results was deficient.

For instance, in the "transverse redshift" tests of SR, nobody seems
to have looked for the Lorentz-squared redshift result associated with
the NM relationships -- the experiments seem to have been carried out
in the faulty belief that it was only SR that predicted redshifts in
those experimental setups. That was very wrong.

This mistake should have been caught maybe half a century ago and
corrected, but apparently it hasn't been, and experiment after
experiment has been performed since, apparently using the same faulty
assumption that the only possible outcomes were "null" or "Lorentz".
If the test theory had been better, we wouldn't be having this
conversation -- either this potential competitor to SR&GR would have
been disproved decades ago, or SR&GR would have been disproved decades
ago.




There are plenty of bucks
out there that would love to poke Einstein in the eye. Don't believe that
a counter experiment isn't possible to be funded. Relativity still stands.

This isn't about whether relativity is right or not, it's about
whether or not SR is the /right/ theory of relativity.

That's the mental block that the mainstream folks seem to have, they
seem to have been trained to equate the word "relativity" with the
structure of Einstein's special theory.

Ask them how much work has been done on "non-SR" relativity theory and
you can see their brains stalling.
Even the guys who are supposed to be experts in cross-theory work tend
to screw this one up, so eg, you have Clifford Will laying down the
conditions for a credible gravitational model and including the
condition that it must be "relativistic" ... but then explaining the
word "relativistic" as meaning that it "must reduce to the laws of
special relativity".

(Bong!)

The folks that would like to "prove Einstein wrong" typically swallow
the idea that "relativity is SR", so because they think SR is lousy,
they end up taking a stance that the whole idea of relativity is
lousy. I don't think they are likely to be so motivated by the chance
to prove that SR is wrong but that a different form of relativity is
correct.

Non-SR relativity theory seems to be an orphan subject, nobody appears
to want it.


Almost every experiment, argument, or theoretical discussion that ytou
woudl expect to find in the literature to do with this subject was
either missing, or (as in the case of the grvaitaitonal explanation
given in the Hay-Shiffer paper) if it had somehow slipped through peer
review, was slapped down and then written out of the history.
All the key pieces that you'd need to know about to construct that
alternative model seemed to have been "nobbled".
Sources said that E=mc^2 was SR-specific, even though Einstein
published at least two papers saying otherwise. They said that
transverse redshifts were only predicted by SR, even though Lodge had
already described them in print as an aether theory result. They said
that there had never been any other explanation for the centrifuge
shifts, even thtough Hay and Schiffer had explicitly given one in
their experimental paper. Time after time, when I went back to the
proffs , they had accidentally made mistakes and screwed up the math
of the definitions in SR's favour, and the peer group eitgher hadn;t
spotted it and issued a correction, or had just let it pass.

The overall impression was of a group that had gone so far off the
rails that they were now rewriting history to fit the theory, and were
so far off-centre that they were not just amusing themselves by
bull****ting impressionable newbies, but actually seemed to be
believing it themselves.

If this was some little academic game, it wouldn;t matter, buit this
is hardcore science that these people are screwing up, it's supposed
to be one of the purest most logical enterprises that the human
species has to its credit, and it seems that for my entire life (and
longer), the people in charge of this enterprise seem to have been
consistently and carefully ****ing The Thing Up.

This is your supposition, not fact. In fact, relativity is tested, and
reported. After more than half a century, the only surprise *would* be if
relativity failed in its solution domain. And people are looking.

See, that deadly confusion over words again.
I'm not arguing that "relativity" is wrong, I'm arguing that the
principle of relativity should actually be implemented more fully than
it is under current GR (even if that means jettisoning SR).

How many people have been looking for "non-SR" relativistic solutions?
Not many, I'd guess.


People don't seem to know where to look.
When Klein et al did their transverse test and found about double the
expected redshift (which you'd expect if SR was wrong and this sort of
model was correct), instead of ringing the newspapers and announcing
that their test had disproved SR and validated the older NM energy
relationships, and waiting to be nominated for a Nobel prize, they
said that since no classical theory predicted transverse redshifts,
the result could not be correct, the detector must have been
misaligned, and when they then did a statistical analysis to check
whether the results favoured a null result or a single Lorentz
redshift, they found very categorically that in that two-way
comparison, SR was the clear winner, and so their test was announced
as validating special relativity.

There never seemed to be a followup experiment. I don't know whether
this was because of a lack of interest, or whether it was because
nobody could get the test to work "properly". One can only guess.

So if you think that here's no way that an experimenter could get this
sort of non-SR result without there being a big fuss and a massive
debate, I'm afraid its already happened at least once, and I'm afraid
that nobody seemed to notice.


I don't know whether the Klein test was a one-off, or whether similar
"inexplicable" too-strong-redshifts have been showing up in the other
experiments and been calibrated out or made to go away by other means.
I know that one of them found too much redshift and suggested mirror
recoil as the reason, and the Ives And Stilwell test had a
mysteriously missing spectral line (which may or may not suggest a
possible misidentification, dunno)


Anyhow, the number of published experiments that set out to compare
the SR shift relationships against the NM set still seems to be zero.

This might be an outrageous coincidence, or it might be significant.




If there really /is/ another, better, theory here, and it gives
recognisably different results that we should have been seeing in our
experiments going back fifty years, and we missed it because we were
stupid ... then the economic and social cost of losing that
next-generation theory are scary. Think about the talent that we've
had working on black hole theory and string theory for the last fifty
years, and think where we'd now be if those guys --- Wheeler and
Thorne and Hawking and Visser and Preskill and Penrose -- had instead
been handed the next generation of relativity theory back in 1955, and
had had half a century to work on further extensions and new
engineering ideas based on it.

And what if we miss this psychological window in 2005? People have
been wrestling with the Black Hole Information Paradox for thirty
years without quite daring to suggest that perhaps SR is the problem,
so what happens if this situation grumbles on for another fifty?

What's the human and economic cost associated with waking up in 2055
and finding that we are now fully a century behind where we should
have been?

Since we are bound to a path through spacetime, we are *exactly* where we
need to be.

Ah, but SR says that the characteristics of a path through spacetime
is exactly the same irrespective of whether there's really any mass
traveling along that path or not. Under SR, masses are supposed to
flit through the region without leaving "footprints" in the metric.
The Minkowski metric does not incorporate effects associated with real
particulate matter.
In the suggested alternative, the motion of a real particle, through a
region containing other real particles, creates a curvature trail as
it passes.
Hypothetically, you should be able to look at the shape of the metric
and read off the positions and states of motion of all the material in
the region. With the Minkowski metric, it's as if you are always
looking at a blank sheet of paper.


If we need to be on a different path, and if you are the
creator of this new path, why are wasting time arguing with me?

Because you were nice enough to respond, because I didn't want people
thinking that I was advocating nonrelativistic physics, and because
there's going to be more than one person reading the reply.

I don't seem to be capable of piquing the interest of anyone in the
mainstream in this topic, from their point of view I suppose I'm an
annoyance, and all they have to do to "win" is to ignore me and ignore
these issues until I go away. I really gave up in about 2001.

However, with Hawking's change of tack on the black hole information
paradox, lining up nicely for the Einstein anniversary coming up in
2005, perhaps there might be a small flurry of activity on the subject
of possible non-SR theory, and perhaps the anniversary might allow the
usual peer-review blocks to be lifted for a while. If there's a
research group or two out there looking at this sort of subject with
an eye to publishing something fundamental in early 2005, and they
have run into a wall on some questions of how to implement the thing,
hopefully they'll be able to do a "Google Groups" search of the stuff
I've been posting over the last few months and find some answers.

Maybe this sort of model might be considered to be more palatable if
it comes from an undergrad research team than from me, so I'm trying
to be useful.

=Erk= (Eric Baird)
: " Dumb sometimes wins. They have numbers on their side. "

Dear Eric Baird:

"Eric Baird" wrote in message
...
Sorry to respond to a post a month old

This is the second response to the same post of mine, just FYI.

On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 07:25:55 -0700, "N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" N:
dlzc1 D:cox wrote, in message
S18fd.18022$SW3.16268@fed1read01:


"Eric Baird" wrote in message
. ..
On Tue, 5 Oct 2004 20:50:36 -0700, "N:dlzc D:aol T:com \(dlzc\)" N:
dlzc1 D:cox wrote:
...
Look at the case of a centrifuged clock. We can calculate the
clock-slowing effect by using GR-style methods, and combining the
equivalence principle with the general idea of gravitational time
dilation, and seem to get the right answers. We can also do it by
applying SR and calculating the effect as a speed effect.

But the later does not obtain a correct result. And even doing this
does
not show that GR was grown from SR. Contrariwise, you have stated that
entirely different methods are involved.

Yes, but the "equivalence principle method" of calculating the
centrifuge shifts then got itself declared illegal, on the grounds
that its description of the centrifuge effect was geometrically
incompatible with SR's version, and so one or both had to be wrong,
and that since SR was not "allowed" to be wrong, the GR principles had
to be downgraded and allowed to be suspended when a conflict with SR
otherwise seemed inevitable.

I don't mind the idea that SR is a first approximation of a more
thorough theory of relativity, but what we actually seem to be doing
in practice is finding where the more general principles conflict with
SR, declaring that SR has to be correct, and saying that the more
general principles are only general design guides and not properly
principles at all

So while I like the idea of a general theory of relativity, I think
that what we actually got was a sort of hacked-about stitched together
composite of two conflicting sets of ideas, with no overall principles
dictating the shape of the final theory (other than "SR cannot be
wrong").

You are arguing about the engineering view, as compared to the purist's
view.

No, I'm arguing with the theoretician's view, that new theories must
reduce to the laws of special relativity, or be considered wrong.

You are mistaken. QFT does/can not reduce to SR.

I have no argument with SR as a useful engineering approximation.
I do have a problem with the idea that SR-compliance is being imposed
upon the theoretical and mathematical communities.

Be happy, because such is not the case.

If we aren't
allowed to study other potential branches of relativity theory, I
don't see how we can be confident that the version that we are
currently using really is better than other potential implementations
of the principle of relativity

Study what you will. Frankly, testing relativity, and finding new
predictions that can be tested with limited means, appears to be very
boring.

If there are genuinely not any other potential implementations that
can work, I want to see a decent mainstream study that examines the
problem and says so, and is signed off by a researcher who is prepared
to take the flak if their reasoning turns out to be wrong.

Why? There are as many "implementations" as there are researchers. If the
apparatus/procedure is made/operated to best available technique/method,
the difference between observation and prediction is null.

So maybe the answer is not to look at relativity as wrong, but to look at
the fringes where it doesn't truly apply. If there is a star drive (or no
need for a star drive), the answer is there.

I assure you that GR is a "seamless" whole. It just does not avail
itself of closed form solutions, and "when the only tool you [understand]
is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail."

I have multiple tools at my disposal and tried and rejected a heck of
a lot of possible approaches to get to where I did.
I'd suggest that perhaps its instead the mainstream guys who seem to
be limiting themselves, by only considering relativistic solutions
that reduce to SR.

Nothing about curved spacetime reduces to SR. Nothing about QFT reduces to
SR. Nothing about the previous 13 Gy of this Universe's history reduces to
SR. You have your wish. Quit flogging the dead horse.

I considered SR-supersets and non-SR approaches before settling on the
model that seemed to me to be the cleanest. The mainstream guys don't
seem to be giving any indication that they've tried that sort of
exercise themselves. When one of their number wants to say that
they've also tried this sort of background study, and gotten different
conclusions to me, I'll listen to them and take their opinions
seriously.

But unless someone else has tried it since about 2000/2001 (when I
drew a line under my research and stopped looking), I'm afraid the
closest thing to an authority on the subject seems to be me.

Not a good situation, I think you'll agree.

You understand that:
1) you are not the clearinghouse for all approved research, and
2) your understanding/participation/awareness is not guaranteed.

The recent attempt to measure v_g did not count then?

[...]

If we eventually end up with a better theory, and a lot of people
decide that SR is "good enough" as tool for them to want to continue
using it, fine.

But what's been happenning is that we aren't given a choice.

We aren't allowed to investigate the possibility of "non-SR" tools
that might potentially turn out to be better, and without the
research, we don;t know what we might be missing out on.
It might well be that a hypothetical replacement theory might only
give a marginal increase in accuracy for a major additional investment
in complexity, or it might be that it gives a simpler structure and
easier concepts that blow away SR GR and give us ways of tackling
whole new sets of problems.

But we aren;t supposed to try to find out which of these alternatives
is most likely to be true. SR is simply declared to be compulsory, and
people who are dissatisfied with it are declared to be crackpots or
ignorant or deluded, or somehow mentally deficient, and that's that.

Since you have provided no specifics, I cannot comment on this. There
are
alternative approaches proposed, and researched, and funded, all the
time.
MOND for example is *not* GR.

Are you saying that MOND is categorised as not reducing to SR?

Modification of Newtonian Dynamics... I'd say definitely not. SR doesn't
do gravity, while GR and Newton do.

[...]

And as to experiments that can shake relativity theory, you need to look
at
the postulates. Because the methods are only as solid as the foundation.
Uncle Al has his proposed Eotvos experiment, for example. Working on the
conclusions, or in your case, application of simplifications, is a waste
of
time. *Don't* choose the simplifications, and see if you get a
significantly different result.

Done it.

I dropped the assumption that inertial physics has to be an
intrinsically flat-spacetime problem, and tried to derive the minimal
set of corrections to NM that would satisfy the principle of
relativity in a curved spacetime version of mechanics.

NM is itself a simplification of SR. So what you are doing is wasting your
time.

I'd expected to end up rederiving most or all of SR's standard
modifications. Instead I found that the correct NM set of energy
relationships already seemed to work in the new context, as-is,
without any modifications at all.

Special relativity's particular derivations seem to be dependent on
the idea that the lightbeam geometry has to stay Euclidean, and its
modifications only seem to be required in order to make the thing
compatible with flat spacetime. Since we know that lightbeams get bent
by simple stationary matter (eg blocks of glass), and also get
measurably deflected and dragged along by the motion of that matter
(Fizeau), the idea that these effects conveniently disappear when
chunks of matter are whizzing past each other at significant fractions
of the speed of light doesn't seem to me to be very credible.

So SR isn't GR. Your point is...

Once you accept the loss of that flat lightbeam geometry, you seem to
lose both the geometry of the special theory, and also its claim to
having the correct basic equations. Trying to replicate the SR math in
a geometry warped by the velocities of the masses involved doesn't
seem to work.

And your point is...

So, if these light-dragging effects don't fit SR, but we want them to
fit the principle of relativity, then what's the new relativistic
scheme in which they /do/ fit?

GR.

That's what the mainstream can't tell you, because they've been told
not to consider potential non-SR solutions.

Look, your insistence on a Sekret Kabal is sometimes amusing. Because you
don't understand, doesn't mean that others are not working with and
publishing works on GR. Works that do not reduce to SR.

[...]

SR is wrong, in curved space. Anyone in the business knows this.

Indeed!

So I'd suggest that that is the obvious candidate for being the
special theory's "Achilles Heel"
If real life moving objects drag light in their immediate vicinities
(as the Fizeau result indicates they do), then the relative motion of
physical bodies warps lightbeam geometries, and inertial physics
becomes an exercise in curved space (or curved spacetime).

It is no Achille's heel. It is like asking the blacksmith to shoe your
car.

And, in that more realistic attempt to model relativistic physics, as
you say, SR is wrong.

Wrong for the broader world of "gravitation", yes. Not wrong (yet not
complete) for particle physicists, for the most part.

So what alternative relativistic theory replaces it?
We would probably say the general theory, but our current
implementation of a general theory is designed to reduce to SR.

No, it is not. Only in limited circumstances, to where those things that
invalidate SR have a contribution below our ability to measure.

So, IMO our natural response should then be to ask what a general
theory of relativity might look like that did not reduce to SR, and
which applied our new curvature ideas to the realm of "normal"
mechanics.

That study seems to be missing from the literature.

Only if you are blind. It is a continuing effort since the 1930's.

Suggest that we chuck in an additiona Lorentz redshift compared to SR
to deal with the curvature effects, we then get an "acoustic"
gravitational metric, the work be Unruh and Visser on acoustic metrics
and Hawkign radiaiton then solves the black hole informauiton paradox,
the gravitaitopnal shift equaitons revert to those of emission-theory,
the gravitaitonal shift equations then soeem to come into line with
the cosmological shift equations, the new general theory then reduces
directly to NM more concisely without needing the SR layer, we lose
all the artificial idealisations that SR introduced, we lose all the
disputes about SR'time dilaiton effects etc that normally clog up
s.p.r. We'df have to introduce a new way of maintaining local
c-constancy without SR, but saying that motion shifts are
gravity-equivalent solves that, and then we have a bright sunny new
relativistic physics with no nasty SR.

Not likely. SR has very reasonable postulates, and provides correct
results... in flat space (or space that has non-varying curvature in the
"lab").

It's the flat-spacetime assumption that's the killer, IMO.
I think that condition is probably breached as soon as we introduce
some particulate matter into the experimental region in order to be
able to do some real physics. A light-signal approaching an atom
arguably ought to be already changing speed before it reaches the
atom, so as soon as you start using real particulate matter as your
objects and observers, you've probably already lost Euclidean
lightbeam geometry.

With what ability to measure? Keep in mind you know neither *exactly*
where the atom is, nor can you assign an *exact path* to the photon. Why
expect a broad statistical brush to apply to the very tiny?

This proximity lightspeed effect isn't just a new thing that appeared
with modern C20th quantum mechanics (smudging of the atom's position
due to uncertainty, producing a "fuzzy" interaction between the atom
and nearby light), the idea it's so old that it actually appears in
Newton's Optiks.

: Optiks, Query 4
: " ... rays of Light ... reflected of refracted, begin to
: bend before they arrive at the Bodies ... "

Of course, the mere fact that something is suggested in Optiks doesn't
make it reasonable or true, but it does mean that physics people have
had rather a long time to think about these issues.

And they have the answer, QFT.

I do accept the idea of inertial physics being performed against a
flat background, but I don't accept that the physics itself, involving
particles bouncing off each other at relativistic speeds, is then
necessarily also flat.

Flat enough that prediction = measurement +/- error bars.

Argue with nature.

And if that new physics turns out to have problems too, well at least
we made some progress and tried something constructive, rather than
all this sitting around staring at our feet and not daring to make any
suggestions in case the "SR police" get us.

Do it the hard way then. Create a set of empirical formulae to yield
results. Just don't whine when relativity ends up providing a larger
solution domain, with better accuracy.

I think you misunderstand my position

I'm actually suggesting a more purist, cut-down set of formulae than
SR/GR uses, with the modifications that SR introduced to create
compatibility with flat spacetime stripped out, and saying that if
this approach is correct, it should be more "relativistic", have a
larger solution domain than SR&GR, and have equal or greater accuracy.

Do it and publish it in a peer reviewed journal. We're due for a New
Einstein. Or a New Dark Age. I'm never sure which.

I'm saying that if this approach is correct, the original NM/emission
theory Doppler relationships should turn out to be more accurate than
the "improved" SR versions, if we ever get around to testing them
against each other (without presuming flat spacetime).

I'm also imposing far more rigorous conditions that this older set of
equations has to meet than the SR&GR people use with their theories
-- where modern GR now only seems to apply the equivalence principle
and the principle of relativity as a first approximation, I'm saying
that /this/ model would have to implement those ideas 100% with no
allowed room for maneuver.

Where SR & GR appear to conflict before we impose domains of
applicability, I'm stripping away that firewall and saying that the
theory has to apply without reservations, all the way down, with
nothing declared off-limits and no artificial barriers.

Where GR requires "QM effects" to be retrofitted by hand to bring its
horizon descriptions into line with QM, I'm, saying that this model's
horizons need to be 100% compatible with QM from the start.

Where SR&GR compartmentalise velocity shifts and gravitational shifts
and cosmological shifts and treat each category differently, I'm
saying that the new model needs to be able to make all three classes
of effect interchangeable, and have them sharing the same shift
equations

I'm suggesting that this sort of model looks as if it may be cleaner,
more concise, more integrated, less able to be fudged, more valid AND
more accurate.

So I don't think I've left myself any "wriggle room" here.

You've said nothing substantive, only what you'd expect of what you haven't
presented. Looks like a lot of wiggle room. And GR is presented formally
in a three term equation, so you can't get much simpler than that.

I'm saying that -- if we redo those old "transverse redshift"
experiments but this time pay special attention to whether the
redshift is a single Lorentz shift or a Lorentz-squared redshift,
we'll find that what the hardware is actually reporting is the
stronger redshift result of NM/emission theory, and not the weakened
redshift result of SR/LET.

So I'm even supplying a straightforward "experiment crucis" that can
rule out either SR or this alternative, using old technology.

If its wrong, its wrong ... but if its right, well, it'd be nice to
know, yes?

You are talking, just to be talking. Now you need to walk the walk. And
you don't need to be doing it here.

Ideally you'd have heard about this from the mainstream, not from the
likes of me. I don't know whether this is hap penning because the
mainstream have peeked at this sort of solution and said nothing
(because it conflicts with SR), or because they honestly didn't know
about it.

If you really want to see a physics revolution in relativity theory in
your lifetime, I think this may be your best chance.

And if its wrong, well, then its wrong. [shrugs]

Relativity is tested. Proving relativity wrong would make a career. Short
of that, areas where relativity applies and has been tested, is the wrong
place to keep testing... just because you don't like the result. Quantum
mechanics, which underlies all of space and time, and supports the illusion
of "conservation of energy" and "net production of entropy", cares not one
whit for approximating methods we call "theory".

...
I don't think that a gravitational theory that says that "energy
gravitates" ought to reduce to a theory that says that
arbitrarily-high concentrations of KE between particles moving with
arbitrarily high energies, ARE still explaniable legally by insisting
that the physics of the region is still perfectly flat.

I think that's a major design "wonk", and I think it spoils the
purity
of the theory and breaks the principles that the theory ought to be
ruled by.

I think you are concerning yourself about the wrong things. But that
is
your right.


I wouldn't be so concerned if this was just about cosmology and black
holes and other abstract things. What used to keep me up at nights was
knowing that the most obvious solution to most of these issues seemed
to be to say that SR was currently making bad predictions in its home
territory, and was getting the most basic velocty-shift predictions
wrong, and that when I went scouring through the literature to try to
find some good objective experiments that could disprove this idea and
support SR's superiority over the idea of NM on a velocity-distorted
metric, I couldn't find any.

So SR is making valid predictions, and yo