A Disproof of the Principle and Theory of Relativity

[Bufofrog]

1 hour ago, lidal said:

The clock at S2, upon receiving the pulse, is set to t= 2D/c , and starts counting from there. This procedure will be affected by absolute motion and the clocks will be out of synch, which will manifest as time difference (at the detector) of 'simultaneously' emitted pulses from S1 and S2.

You keep saying this and everyone keeps telling that you're wrong, so this not very productive.  The speed of light is always measured at c, so it is not possible that it is effected by the relative or absolute velocity of the inertial frame of the experiment.

[swansont]

If there was an absolute velocity we should see a diurnal effect in clock signals, since at noon we would be traveling at a different absolute speed than at midnight. The effect should also show an even larger fluctuation over the course of the year, from the change in orbital velocity.

Do you have evidence of this?

[lidal]

18 hours ago, studiot said:

 

Can we please separate the history of the study of the nature and propagation of light from this discussion as you have several important omissions that you are perhaps not aware of.
By itself the history is an interesting subject and we could certainly discuss that in another thread where all might learn something new.

As far as I know Galileo did not offer a principle of relativity.
He did, how ever offer a principle of inertia, which is what perhaps you are referring to.
But for the purposes of this thread if you know of some reference showing that Galileo made the statement you claim above please post it.

 

 

I think now I somewhat get what you meant by the origins of relativity. I interpreted it as the historical development. And as I was writing, I was also using this as an opportunity to learn it because it is very important. I also knew that my account of the historical developments would have gaps. As you said, the history of the development of relativity theory and the speed of light is interesting, and complex.

 

18 hours ago, studiot said:

 

As far as I know Galileo did not offer a principle of relativity.
He did, how ever offer a principle of inertia, which is what perhaps you are referring to.
But for the purposes of this thread if you know of some reference showing that Galileo made the statement you claim above please post it.

 

This is a subtlety that a non- expert like me may not be able to discern. However, now that you have pointed it out, I will try to understand if there is any distinction.

I will get back with some ideas on your main question in relation to homogeneity and isotropy of space. Your question on this will help me understand how my theory relates with existing knowledge, for better communication.

15 hours ago, swansont said:

If there was an absolute velocity we should see a diurnal effect in clock signals, since at noon we would be traveling at a different absolute speed than at midnight. The effect should also show an even larger fluctuation over the course of the year, from the change in orbital velocity.

Do you have evidence of this?

 Do you mean (atomic?) clocks would count faster (or slower) depending on the time of day? GPS signals?

Edited November 3, 2023 by lidal

[lidal]

15 hours ago, swansont said:

If there was an absolute velocity we should see a diurnal effect in clock signals, since at noon we would be traveling at a different absolute speed than at midnight. The effect should also show an even larger fluctuation over the course of the year, from the change in orbital velocity.

Do you have evidence of this?

Clock signals in digital circuits?

Edited November 3, 2023 by lidal

[studiot]

2 hours ago, lidal said:

This is a subtlety that a non- expert like me may not be able to discern. However, now that you have pointed it out, I will try to understand if there is any distinction.

I will get back with some ideas on your main question in relation to homogeneity and isotropy of space. Your question on this will help me understand how my theory relates with existing knowledge, for better communication.

 

Taking pause for thought and consideration is excellent practice.  +1

 

Most presentations of relativity make a big fuss of transformations early on but never say why we should care.

Pages of text, formulae and diagrams to wade through are often given to wade through, right at the outset, with no apparent reason for the effort.

I think this is counter productive for many students, Einstein himself did not think this way. He always held that we should be led by the Physics and then pick the appropriate Maths to match.

Perhaps you would also like to think about and even discuss this ?

[lidal]

2 hours ago, studiot said:

 

Most presentations of relativity make a big fuss of transformations early on but never say why we should care.

Pages of text, formulae and diagrams to wade through are often given to wade through, right at the outset, with no apparent reason for the effort.

I think this is counter productive for many students, Einstein himself did not think this way. He always held that we should be led by the Physics and then pick the appropriate Maths to match.

Perhaps you would also like to think about and even discuss this ?

 

The way I think is that no one completely knows Einstein's relativity other than Einstein himself: the path he took,  the myriads of alternative networks of ideas he tried and abandoned, the limits and doubts, subtleties, etc . . . .  What he wrote and told could be only a part of this because not every thought can be clearly expressed. Therefore, physicists should learn from Einstein not only the theory itself but also how to think about the theory. I have noticed that many physicists seeking to deeply understand relativity ignore some of Einstein's remarks about his own theory.

Yes, I would be interested in discussing this. However, for now I am afraid it would be taking on too much for me. 

[joigus]

6 minutes ago, lidal said:

The way I think is that no one completely knows Einstein's relativity other than Einstein himself: the path he took,  the myriads of alternative networks of ideas he tried and abandoned, the limits and doubts, subtleties, etc . . . .  What he wrote and told could be only a part of this because not every thought can be clearly expressed. Therefore, physicists should learn from Einstein not only the theory itself but also how to think about the theory. I have noticed that many physicists seeking to deeply understand relativity ignore some of Einstein's remarks about his own theory.

Sorry, but I couldn't disagree more. People like Minkowski, Wheeler, and others understood aspects of relativity that didn't occur to Einstein himself. Example: What Einstein discovered is equivalent to space and time being a 4-dimensional continuum, and relations from one inertial frame to another being equivalent to hyperbolic rotations in that space. This idea is not in Einstein's writing prior to 1908, and for a while he was reluctant to wholeheartedly accept it. Other people helped him --and everybody else-- understand his own ideas much better.

 

[swansont]

4 hours ago, lidal said:

Clock signals in digital circuits?

Clock signals between separated atomic clocks. 

5 hours ago, lidal said:

Do you mean (atomic?) clocks would count faster (or slower) depending on the time of day? GPS signals?

You tell me - it’s your conjecture. According to your equations, the propagation time would vary, so a GPS clock being synchronized at one time of day would have a different delay than at another time. The system would have to account for this so that the GPS clocks could all show the same time. Is there any evidence that this is the case?

[lidal]

25 minutes ago, swansont said:

Clock signals between separated atomic clocks. 

You tell me - it’s your conjecture. According to your equations, the propagation time would vary, so a GPS clock being synchronized at one time of day would have a different delay than at another time. The system would have to account for this so that the GPS clocks could all show the same time. Is there any evidence that this is the case?

The GPS has been one of the problematic experiments for my theory.

However, I also think that the GPS system design and its operation are complex. And the GPS was not setup to test relativity from the start. I am not sure but I think I read something like that ('variations') somewhere, but I need to search again. 

Also, as I have said already,  the standard synchronization procedure hides/suppresses the effect of absolute motion in the thought experiment I described, that is, if the synchronization signals were sent from the mid- point. I haven't thought about how this applies to the GPS, I am just saying it is one possibility.

[iNow]

3 minutes ago, lidal said:

The GPS has been one of the problematic experiments for my theory.

Hint: It's not the experiments that are wrong 

[Bufofrog]

3 minutes ago, lidal said:

The GPS has been one of the problematic experiments for my theory.

You don't actually have a theory.  Being very gracious, I would say you have a hypothesis.  That being said I would further say your hypothesis has been disproven by experimentation.

[lidal]

On 11/2/2023 at 1:36 AM, Bufofrog said:

 

 

Just now, joigus said:

Sorry, but I couldn't disagree more. People like Minkowski, Wheeler, and others understood aspects of relativity that didn't occur to Einstein himself. Example: What Einstein discovered is equivalent to space and time being a 4-dimensional continuum, and relations from one inertial frame to another being equivalent to hyperbolic rotations in that space. This idea is not in Einstein's writing prior to 1908, and for a while he was reluctant to wholeheartedly accept it. Other people helped him --and everybody else-- understand his own ideas much better.

 

I don't necessarily disagree. It depends on your interpretation of the current state of relativity. Did those new aspects discovered by other physicists such as Minkiwoski (despite being beautiful)  necessarily advance relativity theory? Were the influence of these on Einstein's later path necessarily productive?  I am not saying they were or were not; I am just saying it depends on your interpretation. I read somewhere that as Einstein became older  he abandoned the intuitive approach he pursued during his youth, and increasingly pursued the mathematical approach.

I wonder how many young physicists today know Einstein, before his theory of special  relativity, seriously considered the classical emission theory, for example. I wonder how many physicists know about the Miller experiments and what Einstein's opinions about them were. 

I think I should stop here and not prentend to be an expert on relativity. I only gave an amateur's opinion in my last post in reply to @studiot.

[KJW]

Special Relativity is embedded in Maxwell's equations. Maxwell's equations indicate that electromagnetic waves propagate at the speed of light, expressed in terms of the permittivity of free space and the permeability of free space. Maxwell's equations are invariant to Lorentz transformations, indicating that the speed of light is also invariant to Lorentz transformations. That is, the speed of light is the same for all inertial observers regardless of their velocity relative to some specified frame of reference. Thus, the notion of an absolute frame of reference is denied by Maxwell's equations. However, Special Relativity does go beyond Maxwell's equations and electromagnetism in general. Indeed, the speed of light in Special Relativity should not be regarded as specifically about light, but rather about the relationship between space and time. In principle, underwater creatures could determine the speed of light in a vacuum without measuring the speed of light in a vacuum by measuring the speed of light in both stationary and moving water, applying the relativistic velocity-addition formula. In this case, the speed of light in water is an "ordinary" speed, distinct from the c that appears in relativistic formulae.

 

[swansont]

1 hour ago, lidal said:

The GPS has been one of the problematic experiments for my theory.

However, I also think that the GPS system design and its operation are complex. And the GPS was not setup to test relativity from the start. I am not sure but I think I read something like that ('variations') somewhere, but I need to search again. 

Also, as I have said already,  the standard synchronization procedure hides/suppresses the effect of absolute motion in the thought experiment I described, that is, if the synchronization signals were sent from the mid- point. I haven't thought about how this applies to the GPS, I am just saying it is one possibility.

GPS may be complicated, but it was designed to work using Einstein’s relativity. If that’s wrong, GPS wouldn’t work. And yet it does…

[studiot]

1 hour ago, KJW said:

Special Relativity is embedded in Maxwell's equations. Maxwell's equations indicate that electromagnetic waves propagate at the speed of light, expressed in terms of the permittivity of free space and the permeability of free space. Maxwell's equations are invariant to Lorentz transformations, indicating that the speed of light is also invariant to Lorentz transformations. That is, the speed of light is the same for all inertial observers regardless of their velocity relative to some specified frame of reference. Thus, the notion of an absolute frame of reference is denied by Maxwell's equations

Maxwell only offered his view that  then best estimate of the speed of light is the same as the EM waves his equations predicted. He therefore suggested that light was some sort of EM wave.

Maxwell also offered a totally mechanical mechanism for the propagation of light which satisfied all the known properties.
He said that this model was wrong and that he envisioned such a mechanism only to show that it could be done.

The person whose experiment definitely showed that EM waves have a finite speed was Hertz in 1888.

1 hour ago, KJW said:

In principle, underwater creatures could determine the speed of light in a vacuum without measuring the speed of light in a vacuum by measuring the speed of light in both stationary and moving water,

Fizeau tried this in 1851

 

2 hours ago, lidal said:

I wonder how many physicists know about the Miller experiments and what Einstein's opinions about them were. 

Miller's experiments were repeated by several workers, none of whom were able to reproduce his results. Miller's explanations of this became ever more tenuous as others reported failure to reproduce. His results were finally discredited when analysed by a proper statistician in 1955.
Barlow's Manchester Physics book A guide to the Use of Statistial Methods in the Physical Sciences was not written until 1980.
Miller would have benefitted from reading this book.

 

2 hours ago, lidal said:

I read somewhere that as Einstein became older  he abandoned the intuitive approach he pursued during his youth, and increasingly pursued the mathematical approach.

...

I think I should stop here and not prentend to be an expert on relativity. I only gave an amateur's opinion in my last post in reply to @studiot.

I recommend to you Professor Ferreira's Book 'The Perfect Theory'

"A Century of Geniuses  and the battle of General Relativity"

Even Einstein artgued with himself, and changed his mind and theory a couple of times in the first half of the 20th century.

The book goes 50 years beyond that. and was bang up to date with modern views in 2014.

 

Note also that modern treatments of Special Relativity are quite unlike the early 20th cent treatments and that Minkowski was a mathematician who died tragically early, shortly after introducing his 4D world view.

[KJW]

1 hour ago, studiot said:

Fizeau tried this in 1851

Fizeau performed the measurements of the speed of light in moving water compared to the speed of light in stationary water, but my purpose is to obtain the value of c without measuring the speed of light in a vacuum, thus disconnecting c from the properties of light. If the dispersion of light in water is ignored, the relativistic velocity-addition formula can be rearranged to express c in terms of the two velocities of light in water and the velocity of the water.

[studiot]

15 minutes ago, KJW said:

If the dispersion of light in water is ignored, the relativistic velocity-addition formula can be rearranged to express c in terms of the two velocities of light in water and the velocity of the water.

So you are offering a theoretical calculation (if your theory is correct) not an experiment as I originally read your piece.

[KJW]

8 minutes ago, studiot said:

So you are offering a theoretical calculation (if your theory is correct) not an experiment as I originally read your piece.

It's my experience that a lot of people think Special Relativity is about light, with c being called "the speed of light in a vacuum". I prefer to think of c as a ratio of a distance in space over an equivalent distance in time. What I'm offering is an in-principle method of determining c without measuring the speed of light in a vacuum.

[joigus]

4 hours ago, lidal said:

Did those new aspects discovered by other physicists such as Minkiwoski (despite being beautiful)  necessarily advance relativity theory?

Not just that, but so much more. 4-dim formulation of SR is essential to understand theory of scattering (the so-called Mandelstam variables are relativistic invariants in 4-D language that make many other symmetries obvious: crossing symmetries, CPT, and the like). It provides the necessary preamble for the theory of gravitation (which-point-to-point has a local version of special relativity in it). It also makes many aspects of electromagnetism obvious. 4-dim SR explains magnetism. Tells you exactly how it comes about when charges move. It also indirectly explains spin 1/2 when you try to make the quantum theory every bit as 4-dim relativistic as the classical theory. I'm only talking about the 4-dimensional aspect of SR. It really, really lets you see behind corners that otherwise stay in the dark. So yes.

A theory gives you a 'big picture' perspective. It affords you a tool to predict new range of phenomena. So @Bufofrog was spot on, I think, when saying you don't really have a theory.

People who aren't trained in physics really do not understand the full import of what 'beautiful' means to physicists. It's not about looking pretty on a blackboard, with fancy Greek symbols. Rather, it's about empowering you to understand, it's about economy of thought. It's about being able to solve complicated problems immediately. Also about relating apparently unrelated phenomena. It's about understanding the language in which the laws of physics are written.

[lidal]

Since the time difference to be measured (t₂ - t₁ ) is extremely small, typically tens of pico seconds,  I propose taking many measurements and averaging to suppress all random errors.

One measurement cycle involves :

1. S1 sends a synch pulse to S2.
This takes 2D/(c+-v) seconds , where D is in (m) and c is in (m/s ) , which is approximately 2D/c

2. S1 and S2 send pulses to the detector 'simultaneously' at t = 2D/c. This takes approximately D/c seconds.

3. The detector sends a pulse to S1 to start a new cycle. This takes approximately D/c.

Therefore, one measurement cycle takes (2D/c) + (D/c)+D/c = 4D/c seconds.

If D= 1000m , one measurement cycle takes:
4*1000/300000000 = 0.0000133 seconds = 13.3 micro seconds

If the experiment is done for one hour when Leo is on the horizon, by aligning the axis with the direction of Leo, in theory 3600 seconds/0.000013 seconds = 270.7 million measurements can be taken and averaged.

In theory the experiment is first adjusted and calibrated in a lab that is at absolute rest. Since such a lab is not available, some adjustment and calibration may be done by aligning the axis to be at 90 degrees relative to the direction of Leo. For example, from this it can be checked if the detector is exactly at the mid-point between the sources and any adjustments and calibrations can be done accordingly.

Once triggered by a START pulse, this is a free running experiment until it is stopped by a STOP pulse.

If the measurement system cannot cope up with this speed , a delay can be introduced before S1 starts the next cycle. But I think with today's technology this is not challenging.

If several such experiments are carried out and the experiment consistently gave the time difference predicted by the equation for a given D, then we can be confident that the prediction has been confirmed.

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by lidal

[swansont]

1 hour ago, lidal said:

Since the time difference to be measured (t₂ - t₁ ) is extremely small, typically tens of pico seconds, 

Under what conditions is it tens of picoseconds?

[studiot]

1 hour ago, lidal said:

Since the time difference to be measured (t₂ - t₁ ) is extremely small, typically tens of pico seconds,  I propose taking many measurements and averaging to suppress all random errors.

Since you propose measuring a time difference of the order of 10-11 seconds, please explain the electronics of your 'start pulse', which must be several orders of magnitude smaller.

Please also evaluate the accuracy to which the synchronisation must be achieved.

[lidal]

Just now, swansont said:

Under what conditions is it tens of picoseconds?

Just now, swansont said:

Under what conditions is it tens of picoseconds?

The axis of the experiment pointing towards Leo, so v = 390 km/s

For example, D = 1km

From the formula

t₂ -  t₁  =  (2D/c) β² /(1-β² )  

where β = v/c

This gives time difference of 11 pico seconds.

[swansont]

1 hour ago, lidal said:

The axis of the experiment pointing towards Leo, so v = 390 km/s

For example, D = 1km

From the formula

t₂ -  t₁  =  (2D/c) β² /(1-β² )  

where β = v/c

This gives time difference of 11 pico seconds.

But what if D were ~35,000 km? You send a signal to a geostationary satellite and back to the source. The error is now almost a microsecond. When the satellite is in the opposite direction, it’s that much, but in the opposite direction.

Wouldn’t we notice this happening? The source clock, good to much better than a nanosecond, being almost a microsecond off by more or less than expected?

[Halc]

On 11/2/2023 at 1:33 PM, swansont said:

If there was an absolute velocity we should see a diurnal effect in clock signals, since at noon we would be traveling at a different absolute speed than at midnight. The effect should also show an even larger fluctuation over the course of the year, from the change in orbital velocity.

Do you have evidence of this?

Alternate theories that posit absolute velocity and time and non-isotropy of light speed (such as LET) still do not predict any empirical differences.  Yes, the clock rates on Earth would change over the course of the day and year, but none of those effects would 'show' (my bold). If it were, we'd have a method to empirically determine the preferred frame and one of SR or LET would be falsified.

So asking for 'evidence of this' is unreasonable.  Lidal is claiming the possibility of 'evidence of this' by incorrectly calculating that the signals would reach the detector at different times in the moving lab frame.  It is his calculations that are necessarily wrong, and not his assertion of absolutism, which is merely 'probably wrong' and not necessarily wrong.