Mathematical Obscurities in Special Relativity

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by kc3mx</i>
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The issue boils down to understanding what is meant by the velocity of light being a constant. <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Well, of course, the speed of light is not a constant and has never been a constant.

Einstein said it varied in his 1911 paper. He finally realized that strong gravity fields slow down light speed, but for some reason, his 1911 comments about the speed of light slowing down in a gravity field are totally ignored today.

One of the latest theories about light speed is that it is steady relative to the local gravity field of every astronomical body, and that the local gravity field has something to do with that. A Taiwan physics professor thinks local light speed is regulated by local gravity fields, and he thinks that these fields do not rotate with the astronomical body that generates them.

In deep space light speed would be controlled by some sort of “blend” of the gravity fields of all the stars in that area of space.

So, inside a galaxy, light would be regulated to an approximate average of “c”, but its local speed would be faster or slower, depending on the strength of the local gravity field through which it is passing.

This would be why all light speed tests on earth would return a “c” result. But there is some evidence that light travels to the East at a slightly different rate than it travels to the West, evidently because the earth is rotating.

Obviously, if a star is stationary relative to the sun, and the star light is moving between the star and the sun at about “c”, and when the earth moves toward the sun in its annual rotation, the light and the earth are moving toward each other at a combined speed of c + v, with v being the speed of the earth toward the star.

I think some physicists already know this, but they don’t want to harm Einstein’s 1905 “constancy” myth.

The Michelson-Morley “null” result was because their apparatus was resting inside the earth’s gravity field, except for a small speed to the East because of the rotation of the earth, but their interferometer wasn’t sensitive enough to detect any shift because of that motion of their apparatus, assuming that the earth’s gravity field does not rotate with the earth.

This is why I’ve been talking about the classical Doppler effect.

First, a physicist needs to understand how it works with sound, then he needs to apply it to light.

It was Doppler who first predicted redshifts and blueshifts of starlight, based on motion and Doppler shifts, and he did that in the 1840s.

If light speed is about “c” here at the earth, that doesn’t mean it is “c” everywhere else. Not if its local speed is based on the strength of the gravity field (or other fields) through which it travels.

The long-sought “ether” might be a “local” phenomenon, and it might be related to all the local gravity fields of each astronomical body. In other words, it might not be a “substance” in space, but “fields” in space. Anyway, light is supposed to be two oscillating electric and magnetic fields that move through space. It’s possible that gravity fields regulate their speed in space.

All of the electrical, electrodynamic, and radio experiments of the 19th Century were conducted at the surface of the earth, so they should have expected earth-centric results. On another planet the size and mass of the earth, in another galaxy, I expect the speed of light is “c” relative to that planet, but not relative to the earth, if that galaxy is moving at high speed relative to our own.

Our whole galaxy carries its own light speed regulating medium through space with it. The microwave background radiation reveals that our galaxy is moving at about 600 mps through this area of space, but this speed does not alter the speed of light on earth. So, obviously the speed of light at the earth is regulated to “c” at the earth, and to an average of “c” all around our galaxy, but the speed, locally, apparently goes up and down a little, as it travels through different gravity fields.

We can’t observe any “redshift” or “blueshift” if the light waves are not stretched out or compressed in a deep-space medium, or if we are not moving through the deep-space medium. If the emitter of light moves though the deep-space medium, the waves will be either stretched out or compressed in the medium. If the observer moves through the deep-space medium, the frequencies of the incoming light will either be lower or higher, because of the slower or faster light-reception time factor, because of the motion of the observer through the medium. This is a fundamental Doppler Law, and light can not escape observing that Law.

The only question is, what is the deep-space medium? Is it the gravity fields? Is it electric and magnetic fields? Is it some unknown field that fills space?

When I first heard of the idea that light velocity is determined by gravity, I, like you, thought this was a good idea. But now I am not sure this is really a useful idea. It is a neat way to avoid the real problem. The real problems are the nature of space and time. To suppose that something which we are incaple of describing in any meaningful way can be determined by something else which is just as obscure and indefinable is not really a very useful procedure. I reccomend against it.

To say that space is determined by gravity is to explain the unknown by the more unknown. Furthermore, it doesn't offer any better understanding than General Relativity does. In GR, space and time are warped by gravity. This as I said above expalins the obscure by the use of the more obscure. Now gravity is a property of matter and to make it even more confusing, energy has gravity too. But since gravity is a form of energy, it can create itself, or so it seems if we adhere to this confusing theory.

To clarify the statement about light velocity, Einstien does not assert that gravity changes the velocity of light. He says that the velocity of light is a constant and that space and time are warped by gravity so that light velocity is always constant. This doesn't make sense at all to me, but that's what the theory asserts.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by kc3mx</i>
<br />To say that space is determined by gravity is to explain the unknown by the more unknown. Furthermore, it doesn't offer any better understanding than General Relativity does.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Why not read some of the related material posted at this web site so you will have the same background as many others here? Especially, get a copy of <i>Dark Matter...</i> and read the first few chapters about the nature of space and time, and see how those are set in place before gravity is ever mentioned. Then see exactly what gravity is, and how and why it operates as it does. Meta Research Members are supporters precisely because this new way of viewing things does lead to a better understanding of the nature -- and without assumptions.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Einstien ... says that ... space and time are warped by gravity so that light velocity is always constant. This doesn't make sense at all to me, but that's what the theory asserts.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">That is not what Einstein asserted, nor what GR asserts. It is what modern relativists assert, who then invoke Einstein and GR to add weight to their own personal opinions.

From where I stand, Wheeler and Wald are among the worst offenders. Wheeler invented "black holes" even after Einstein wrote a beautifully reasoned paper proving that such a concept could not exist. Wald pushed the idea that spacetime consists of space and time, when in reality it is purely temporal with no space component. See metaresearch.org/cosmology/gravity/space...ravity/spacetime.asp for details and related references.

Things won't start making sense until you get rid of all assumptions, no matter how attractive they appear, and start listening to nature using logic as the only filter. Then once you get onto the right track, everything just drops into place. -|Tom|-

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by kc3mx</i>
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To clarify the statement about light velocity, Einstien does not assert that gravity changes the velocity of light. He says that the velocity of light is a constant and that space and time are warped by gravity so that light velocity is always constant. This doesn't make sense at all to me, but that's what the theory asserts.
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Einstein said two things about light speed. in 1905 he said it was “constant”, and in 1911-16 he said it slowed down in a gravity field.

He said all this stuff back when he thought the universe was “static” and all the stars and galaxies were “fixed”. So what he said about light speed back then just no longer applies.

Now we’ve got galaxies that are moving away from us at high speed, and if we assume light travels at an average of “c” inside a galaxy that is moving away from us at high speed, then that light can’t be moving relative to us at “c”, while it’s still traveling inside that galaxy.

A big science Einstein cult began to develop in this country in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, and members of this cult have tried to make Einstein the “god” of science. And much of what they claim he said or “predicted” was actually predicted by other people, such as Lorentz, Doppler, Maxwell, or Newton. For example, Newton was the first person to predict the big bang theory, in his suggestion that the universe might be expanding because of some initial “projectile impulse”. Einstein never predicted the big bang theory, and many of his original ideas are now obsolete, even though they are still being taught in university physics courses.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by DAVID</i>
<br />Einstein said two things about light speed. in 1905 he said it was “constant”, and in 1911-16 he said it slowed down in a gravity field.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Once you learn Einstein's theories, you will see how both statements can be true in those theories. Gravitational potential fields create a difference between "coordinate time" (uninfluenced by mass) and proper time (slowed by a gravitational potential field). Then light propagation near masses slows when measured by coordinate time clocks, but remains constant with respect to proper time clocks.

One advantage of MM over GR is that time is no longer coordinate-frame-dependent or gravitational-field-dependent, but is simply a dimension that measures change. Clocks still slow when moving in or immersed in gravitational potential fields, but that does not change time any more than the slowing of a heated pendulum clock slows time.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Now we’ve got galaxies that are moving away from us at high speed, and if we assume light travels at an average of “c” inside a galaxy that is moving away from us at high speed, then that light can’t be moving relative to us at “c”, while it’s still traveling inside that galaxy.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">In relativity 101, you will learn the opposite. In Einstein's theories, the velocity addition law is not linear, and has an upper limit of c no matter how many velocities are added or how large each one is.

There are many things that can legitimately be criticized about Einstein's theories. Some are Einstein's "fault" and some were introduced by later relativists. But incorrect inferences arising from not having learned the theories cannot be blamed on Einstein or his followers. -|Tom|-