216 thoughts on “Relatively Speaking”

  1. Newton,

    Phoodoo is on my ignore list.

    I think the experiments confirm that Einstein is by and large correct, except for the anomalies I pointed out, which in the grand scheme of things may not be minor, but it works well for a lot of things at our current level of technology. But that could change with improved technology…

    It’s obvious I favor Lorentz’s version of relativity vs. Einstein’s, but for the most part their math predicts many of the same results that have been confirmed experimentally. Lorentz’s Relativity theory however seems to explain some experiments that don’t apparently agree with Einstein’s Relativity theory.

    The most obvious experiment, which has confirmation from other experiments, is DeWitte’s Belgacon experiments with atomic clocks and coax cables that demonstrated the existence of the Ether. The Ether’s existence argues for Lorentz’s version of Special Relativity over Einstein’s.

    http://signallake.com/innovation/RolandDewittJul2006.pdf

    In 1991 Roland De Witte carried out an experiment in Brussels in which variations in the one-way speed of RF waves through a coaxial cable were recorded over 178 days.

    The data from this experiment shows that De Witte had detected absolute motion of the earth through space, as had six earlier experiments, beginning with the Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887. His results are in excellent agreement with the extensive data from the Miller 1925/26 detection of absolute motion using a gas-mode Michelson interferometer atop Mt.Wilson, California. The De Witte data reveals turbulence in the flow which amounted to the detection of gravitational waves. Similar effects were also seen by Miller, and by Torr and Kolen in their coaxial cable experiment. Here we bring together what is known about the De Witte experiment.

    A lot of interferometers trying to measure the anisotropy are built with vacuums! Cahill rightly points out the effect is noticeable if one is using refractive media like gases or glass or copper (for radio waves).

    However during 1991 Roland De Witte performed the most extensive RF travel time experiment, accumulating data over 178 days. His data is in complete agreement with the 1925/26 Miller experiment. These two experiments will eventually be recognised as two of the most significant experiments in physics, for independently and using different experimental techniques they detected the same velocity of absolute motion. But also they detected turbulence in the flow
    of space past the earth; non other than gravitational waves.

    Both Miller and De Witte have been repeatably attacked for their discoveries. Of course the experiments indicated the anisotropy of the speed of light, but that is not in conflict with the confirmed correctness of various relativistic effects.
    While Miller was able to publish his results [4], and indeed the original data sheets were recently discovered at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, De Witte was never permitted to publish his data in a physics journal. The only source of his data was from a e-mail posted in 1998, and
    a web page that he had established. This paper is offered as a resource so that De Witte’s extraordinary discoveries may be given the attention and study that they demand, and that others may be motivated to repeat the experiment, for that is the hallmark of science‡.

    In a 1991 research project within Belgacom, the Belgium telcommunications
    company, another (serendipitous) detection of absolute motion was performed. The study was undertaken by Roland DeWitte. This organisation had two sets of atomic clocks in two buildings in Brussels separated by 1.5 km and the research project was an investigation of the task of synchronising these two clusters of atomic clocks. To that end 5MHz radio frequency (RF) signals were sent in
    both directions through two buried coaxial cables linking the two clusters. The atomic clocks were caesium beam atomic clocks, and there were three in each cluster: A1, A2 and A3 in one cluster, and B1, B2, and B3 at the other cluster. In that way the stability of the clocks could be established and monitored. One cluster was in a building on Rue du Marais and the second cluster was due south in a building on Rue de la Paille. Digital phase comparators were used to measure changes in times between clocks within the same cluster and also in the propagation times of the RF signals. Time differences between clocks within the same cluster showed a linear phase drift caused by the clocks not having exactly the same frequency, together with short term and long term noise. However the long term drift was very linear and reproducible, and that drift could be allowed for in analysing time differences in the propagation times between
    the clusters.

  2. DNA_Jock: So if the dome comes down really slowly, then we all agree that Adam gets beheaded. Was that your point?

    I believe the technical term is “smushed.”

  3. Rumraket: A hundred ton train accelerated close to the speed of light?

    The train weighs less and less as it approaches the speed of light. Didn’t they teach you anything?

  4. Mung: The train weighs less and less as it approaches the speed of light. Didn’t they teach you anything?

    I thought it would be the opposite, as something approaches the speed of light its mass approaches the infinite.

  5. newton,

    Newton is correct.

    Experiments with particle accelerators where the particles are brought closer and closer to the speed of light must take into account the extra mass in order to direct the particle correctly in the electro magnetic fields of the accelerator.

  6. stcordova:
    newton,

    Newton is correct.

    Experiments with particle accelerators where the particles are brought closer and closer to the speed of light must take into account the extra mass in order to direct the particle correctly in the electro magnetic fields of the accelerator.

    Perhaps Mung was being mungish

  8. newton: You realize phoodoo they have preformed the experiment many times since with equipment which is more accurateand addresses the criticisms of the original experiment.

    Well, here’s what I do know, the Hafele Keating experiments proved absolute nothing. Quoting them as having shown something is a lie. So why do people quote something so false?

    So now you are telling me, oh, its ok, others are right. Well, how do you know, did you know Hafele Keating was not true? Does Wikipedia, and Ohio State and about a thousand other references only lie once?

  9. phoodoo,

    Amazing how in every branch of science, no matter how little you have studied it, and how much others have, no matter that their theories make your computer, clock, oven and the jets you fly in work, no matter that there are thousands of confirmatory experiments and the involvement of a lot of math you don’t understand at all– in each and every branch, you are right and everybody else is wrong.

    How proud you must be of yourself! And what a shame for the rest of humanity that YOU are not designing computers, clocks, ovens and jet planes!

  11. walto,

    Remember how DNA Jock said “Its a simultaneity problem.” and then I explained why it wasn’t. Then he said “Its a shape problem.” Then I explained how it wasn’t. Then he said its an angle problem, then I explained how it wasn’t. Then he said, “Well, its a mortality problem.” Then I explained how it wasn’t.

    Then he said, “Well, its an Einstein is smarter than you problem.”

    Well, DNA supposedly knows this stuff, and he was wrong at least four times.

    “But I believe” shouts Walto, “Feel the spirit of skepticism, I believe!! I read there is a consensus I believe!!”

  12. phoodoo:
    walto,

    Remember how DNA Jock said “Its a simultaneity problem.” and then I explained why it wasn’t.Then he said “Its a shape problem.” Then I explained how it wasn’t. Then he said its an angle problem, then I explained how it wasn’t.Then he said, “Well, its a mortality problem.” Then I explained how it wasn’t.

    Then he said, “Well, its an Einstein is smarter than you problem.”

    Well, DNA supposedly knows this stuff, and he was wrong at least four times.

    “But I believe” shouts Walto, “Feel the spirit of skepticism, I believe!! I read there is a consensus I believe!!”

    If I were you, I wouldn’t fly–or use my microwave oven.

  13. phoodoo: Remember how DNA Jock said “Its a simultaneity problem.” and then I explained why it wasn’t. Then he said “Its a shape problem.” Then I explained how it wasn’t. Then he said its an angle problem, then I explained how it wasn’t. Then he said, “Well, its a mortality problem.” Then I explained how it wasn’t.

    BTW, in every one of the cases you mention, DNA-Jock was correct, and your “explanations” were wrong.

  14. walto: BTW, in every one of the cases you mention, DNA-Jock was correct, and your “explanations” were wrong.

    Oh, now you’re the expert?

    If it was a simultaneity problem, why did he say it was a shape problem?

    If it was a shape problem, why did he say it was an angle problem. And then why did he say we can’t know which direction the glass flies? And then why did he say they wouldn’t live.

    Because it was a simultaneity problem?

    ‘I believe, I BELIEVE!!. Heathens!”

  16. Mung: Say it isn’t so!

    And perhaps mass is not weight.

    Don’t recall saying it was. However lest we forget you claimed the train weighed less as it approached the speed of light. With the mass increasing what scenario would result in the train weighing less?

  17. phoodoo: If it was a simultaneity problem, why did he say it was a shape problem?

    You’re funny.

    Your failure to understand the simultaneity issue produces all the other problems. That you are confused about more than one facet of special relativity doesn’t make other people wrong about any of them.

    And BTW, one doesn’t need to be an expert to see your confusions here. It’s all common freshman stuff.

  19. phoodoo:
    walto,

    So its not a shape problem or an angle problem, or a mortality problem, or a knowing problem then?

    If I say that you are a pumpkin, is that a shape problem, a fruit problem, a species problem or a knowing problem?

  23. walto: If I say that you are a pumpkin, is that a shape problem, a fruit problem, a species problem or a knowing problem?

    I’m unable to rule out the possibility that Phoodoo is a pumpkin

  25. phoodoo: Well, here’s what I do know, the Hafele Keating experiments proved absolute nothing.

    I agree, but what the repeated experiments did do is support a prediction of relativity, that time passes at different rates for two observers depending on differences between them in relative velocity and gravitational field

    Quoting them as having shown something is a lie. So why do people quote something so false?

    A lie is a deliberate falsehood with intent to deceive, so far you have not shown either every experimental result is false or any deliberate intent of different experimenters to deceive. You just know it it must be false. Just seems a strange hill to pick to die on

    So now you are telling me, oh, its ok, others are right.

    Not really, I am telling you different people over time have done the same experiment with similar results. Improved technology has not changed to outcome. Could they all be lying, possible I guess. Then the question becomes why would they risk their professional reputation?

    Well, how do you know, did you know Hafele Keating was not true?

    That is the difference,I don’t know it is true whereas you know it is false.For me your position requires much more heavy lifting, you have discount the repeatable results of the same experiment , you have to discount other types experiments that support time dilation. A conspiracy of silence. All to prop up relativity.

    That requires humans and corporations to be extraordinarily disciplined and cooperative . In my experience that seems way more unbelievable

    Does Wikipedia, and Ohio State and about a thousand other references only lie once?

    If you believe a thousand references are all lying as part of some grand scheme to prop up an experiment which few people even know or care about ,then taking the the extra step to believe a conspiracy is afoot to prop up the conspiracy ,I agree that makes sense to maintain belief

  26. colewd:
    J-Mac,

    Unless the entanglement is the result of a stimulus equal distant from the two entangled particles.

    Or… the entangled particles are rooted in the deeper level of reality where distance has no meaning….or time…or both…

  27. J-Mac: Or… the entangled particles are rooted in the deeper level of reality where distance has no meaning….or time…or both…

    Seems like a reasonable conjecture, wonder how one might test that?

  28. I’ve looked as much as I could regarding Maxwell’s equations, and as far as I can tell, the velocity of c is constant in the hypothetical absolute reference frame. I gave justification of the existence of such a frame based on the twin paradox, and Cahill also argues ironically, that Einsteins’ GENERAL (not special) Theory of Relativity implies an absolute reference frame (as in the hypothetical un-accelerated frame from which things like twin paradox can be resolved.

    However, I’ve not found out why the speed of light must be invariant in relative frames. That seems to be the sticking point.

    Additionally from Wiki:

    Since the mid-20th century, it has been understood that Maxwell’s equations are not exact, but a classical field theory approximation of some aspects of the fundamental theory of quantum electrodynamics, although some quantum features, such as quantum entanglement, are completely absent and in no way approximated. (For example, quantum cryptography has no approximate version in Maxwell theory.) In many situations, though, deviations from Maxwell’s equations are immeasurably small. Exceptions include nonclassical light, photon–photon scattering, quantum optics, and many other phenomena related to photons or virtual photons.

    Soo, where was the assumption introduced regarding the question of the constancy of the speed of light in all inertial reference frames? Some have attributed it to Michelson-Morely:

    http://physicsoftheuniverse.com/topics_relativity_light.html

    The famous Michelson-Morley experiments of 1887, in a failed attempt to prove that light travels through a medium known as aether, had unexpectedly demonstrated that light travels at the same speed regardless of whether it was measured in the direction of the Earth’s motion or at right angles to it.

    But others say it came from another source.

    Well, the history of all this is still murky, and I get conflicting accounts.

    But Cahill and others point out, other Michelson type interferometers that don’t have vacuums can measure the Ether, in fact the original Michelson interferometer that wasn’t evacuated had a residual measurement of the ether consistent with the refractive index of air.

  29. Naah phoodoo,
    The history here is that you keep “adjusting” your thought experiment in an ever-increasingly desperate attempt to try to preserve the apparent paradox.
    The paradox is simply resolved by the fact that Adam and Sarah do not agree about simultaneity.
    When it was explained to you that Sarah’s “simultaneously” shutting doors at both ends of the tunnel did not preserve the paradox, you switched to having a single, really big door close over both ends “simultaneously” : your dome. Gordon explained to you that, for Adam, your dome would not hit the tracks simultaneously at each end. This you could not fathom, writing

    phoodoo
    In what way can a dome, which is moving exactly perpendicular with the ground, have one side touch the ground before another. I am pretty sure there is nothing in relativity which can change the shape of a dome so that its shape can touch a surface at different times.
    This has nothing to do with me understanding the Lorentz transformation, this is just making up any rationalization so that it fit the problem.

    That’s a monumentally stupid thing to write. I entered this conversation to point you to the bar and ring paradox, which explains why your dome doesn’t preserve the paradox.
    You kept digging:

    the Dome is not changing shape

    Of course the dome is changing shape! Adam views your dome as “smushed”. If he didn’t, then there wouldn’t be a paradox in the first place! How can you not see this?
    At this point I did also note that you were

    DNA_Jock
    You’re also idealizing the behavior of “rigid” bodies too.

    before you had even started in with your “collision” thought experiment.
    Your next adjustment was to argue that if Adam and Sarah see the dome at different heights, then they will disagree about the point of contact with the train.
    No they won’t; they will disagree about the height of the opposite edge of the dome.
    Then you tried to claim that, by careful examination of the broken glass, you could tell the difference between Adam’s and Sarah’s view of where the CoG of the dome was at the moment of impact.
    That was funny. I made fun of that. Sorry.
    I made a final attempt at pointing you to the bar and ring paradox, which has all the elements of your descending dome argument. However, if you want to stick with your collision scenario, and argue that Adam and Sarah will have differing views of the effects of the collision, you are going to have to deal with math that is far more complicated than the simple Lorentz transformation. The burden is on you to show that they will have a differing view of the collision. Note that, as I told you: “(Both ‘rigid’ bodies will start to deform, the ring will accelerate and the bar will deccelerate, by the time the deformation reaches the opposite side of the ring, its CoG will be below the rod, etc. etc….” That’s a whole other kettle of fish.

    Here’s a much simpler paradox for you to figure out : suppose Adam’s train is traveling at a conventional speed, say 30metres/sec, and weighs a million kg, when it collides with an identical train coming in the opposite direction, leaving a smoldering heap of wreckage sitting on the tracks. Luckily, Adam was throw clear. What do Adam and Sarah calculate as the kinetic energy dissipated?
    Sarah says: Two trains, each 1/2mv^2, that’s ½ M x 30 x 30 + ½ M x 30 x 30 = 900 MJ”
    Adam says “No! my train was stationary when it was hit by a train doing 60m/s. 1/2mv^2 =
    ½ M x 60 x 60 = 1,800 MJ”
    See! Adam and Sarah can’t even agree on the energy dissipated in a conventional crash! Einstein was wrong!
    [Please let phoodoo have a go at figuring this one out on his own, kids.]

  30. DNA_Jock,

    Oh please, how hard is it to imagine that the two doors must move together? That thought experiment was too tough for you to imagine? That is the whole point, why would you need to imagine they can move separately, so that you can find an easy way out that says they don’t move at the same time. This is why you try to force the analogy by saying using a light switch instead, change to my bar and ring instead. This isn’t about a bar and a ring, its about being able to imagine something that would block both ends of the tunnel at exactly the same time, which one can do. I can think of many many ways that could be accomplished in both Sarah and Adams perspective. If when Adam arrives at the tunnel the shape he encounters at impact is different than Sarahs, then different things occur. You still haven’t overcome that.

    You originally said smushed, well, smushed doesn’t change the issue, which your imagination failed to grasp. You then said tilted (because smushed is totally irrelevant-I was well aware that attempting to change the shape wasn’t going to help you here, that is why I asked what shape. There’s lots of shapes Jock, you are not a sports Jock I guess). Well tilted IS still going to result in a different paradigm for Adam then for Sarah. That you are so unimaginative that you couldn’t imagine why, your claim being that it doesn’t matter what the angle of the dome is at impact, as if there wouldn’t be 1000 ways to show why this was different. Do you now admit that if you tilt an irregular shape and strike it you get a different result depending on the angle? It can be made of styrofoam, it can be made of cloth, it can be made of silly putty, ALL of which will show something different for Sarah then for Adam.

    You didn’t overcome that, you simply said, “Oh, you are smarter than Einstein huh?”

    You are the one who keeps wanting to change it to a ring and a bar, because then you can use wikipedia to help you. That doesn’t help you here.

    Now you want to change it again, to help you defeat your own imagination, not mine.

  31. phoodoo: Oh please, how hard is it to imagine that the two doors must move together?

    By asking that question, you are already demonstrating that you do not understand the issue with simultaneity, as shows up relativity.

  32. DNA_Jock: [Please let phoodoo have a go at figuring this one out on his own, kids.]

    I’m doing a thought experiment in which phoodoo turns out to be right. Relatively speaking.

  33. phoodoo: Oh please, how hard is it to imagine that the two doors must move together? That thought experiment was too tough for you to imagine? That is the whole point, why would you need to imagine they can move separately, so that you can find an easy way out that says they don’t move at the same time.

    I’m hesitant to get involved in this one, but I have a starter question for phoodoo. This is just to see if we can agree on anything regarding this thought experiment. Assume normal non-Relativistic speeds for the sake of argument.

    I have two premises followed by two questions:

    Premise 1 – The doors move together and fully close at the exact same moment.
    Premise 2 – When either door closes fully it makes a sound audible throughout the tunnel.

    Question 1 – Will the sounds of the two doors closing be simultaneous according to Sarah (who is stationary equidistant from the two doors)?
    Question 2 – Will the sounds of the two doors closing be simultaneous according to Adam (who is equidistant from the doors but moving away from one and toward the other)?

  34. Neil Rickert: By asking that question, you are already demonstrating that you do not understand the issue with simultaneity, as shows up relativity.

    They are one door not two doors! Relativity can’t change that. Make it a hinge that is attached to the ground, is length contraction going to make it no longer a hinge? Is it going to make it no longer one piece?

    You know, length contraction in special relativity is just a theory right? We don’t have physical proof of it. And the theory doesn’t claim it turns apples into chess pieces.

  36. newton: Seems like a reasonable conjecture, wonder how one might test that?

    In backwards causation sub-particles either travel back in time…or…time on subatomic level is meaningless or doesn’t exist…

    Which option do you like?

    With distance, it is a little more complex because nobody knows neither what dark energy is nor what can do ….with very few exceptions…

    However, if the expansion of the universe is really accelerating faster than the speed of light due to the dark energy, then it is easier to do a thought experiment of dark energy either being a connection of the entangled particles or sending the quantum state information of entangled particles instantaneously…

    I always imagine that entangled particles are like bike pedals attached to the shaft…each of them moves instantaneously… in the opposite direction when biking…

  42. 2 entangled sub-particles could be like bike pedals attached to a shaft of an infinite length… They move instantaneously in the opposite direction during biking…

  45. phoodoo:
    RoyLT,

    The sound is an entirely different medium.Sound is not the object.That’s a rather silly question frankly.

    Sounds travels as does light.

  47. Neil Rickert,

    But I thought you and Jock were claiming that the reason I challenged some of Einsteins concepts was because I don’t understand anything about relativity.

    Is that the same reason Phd’s in physics challenge Einsteins theory, because they just don’t understand it?

    So you and Jock understand physics better than Jefimenko? I wonder why he was ever given a degree, must be something wrong with our universities and who they give degrees in physics to, if they give them to people who don’t even understand relativity.

  48. phoodoo:
    Neil Rickert,

    https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/zna.1998.53.issue-12/zna-1998-1208/zna-1998-1208.pdf

    I have only skimmed through the paper.

    He seems to agree with the experimental results that support Einstein. But he has an alternative explanation of those results.

    Perhaps his alternative explanation is really the same explanation as Einstein’s, but made more complex.

    If you go with Einstein’s explanation, then you have to apply the Lorentz transformation. But if you apply Lorentz, then you have to apply it to all of physics in order to have a consistent physics. So maybe Jefimenko has, in effect, worked out those changes for the rest of physics (or the part that concerns him). And then he has applied the modified dynamics. And that explains the evidence. But that’s probably just applying the Lorentz transformation in a very roundabout way that still gets the same results.

  49. phoodoo: But I thought you and Jock were claiming that the reason I challenged some of Einsteins concepts was because I don’t understand anything about relativity.

    I haven’t said that. I have no idea why you are challenging Einstein. I don’t read minds so I cannot guess motives.

    My comment was just that you seem to be misunderstanding what is the simultaneity problem.

  50. Neil Rickert,

    The problem is, much as I said in my skeptical ills thread, is that there is this precept that any challenge to Einstein’s ideas is by definition a misunderstanding of relativity, or just crank science. So no matter how many credentialed scientists you can point to who challenge some of the assumptions, the response is always, well, they don’t count. The same thing is prevalent to challengers of evolution. The fact that they challenge it already disqualifies them as a valid authority.

    In fact, most of the physics forums where they discuss these matters, they have rules which disallow anyone from referencing what they classify as “crank” websites. And what is a crank website, well, any that challenge what the moderator has already determined is truth.

    So where does one find unimpeded discussions about the validity of scientific assumptions? That’s a pretty tough question to answer, because so many places have their own agenda, and furthermore, it is the skeptics who are the most insidious in trying to monopolize discussion-by the very nature of their purpose. A skeptic group is a group which wants to determine what is fact and what isn’t for its audience (and for unintended audiences as well). That is of course the opposite of being skeptical, and so the very nature of a skeptical “group” is oxymoronic.

    If you were a skeptic, why would you need a group? So you could maintain doubt collectively? A thinking person cannot help but chuckle at the notion.

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