RELATIVITY SCAM

Density Gradient v. Mirage, Gravitational Lensing, E, mc^2

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Tue Feb 11, 2014 12:54 am

This is a continuation of a discussion that started in another thread, but was off-topic for that thread. For book-keeping purposes, here are the posts that most directly pertain to the fundamental relativistic issues (and not including the stuff on stellar composition, which was more on-topic). The people who participated on the other thread have already read all of this, but for newcomers, and for my archives, this saves having to read through all of the other posts that were on-topic.

CharlesChandler wrote:

oz93666 wrote: It's been experimentally demonstrated in the Pound–Rebka experiment which anyone who lives in a tall building can duplicate.

Pound & Rebka's conclusions are questionable. They fired photons downward at an absorber, and found that the electrons didn't like absorbing the photons unless they were slightly redshifted. To get better absorption, Pound & Rebka had to move the emitter away from the absorber, producing a Doppler redshift. They concluded that the photons were getting blueshifted by gravity on the way down, and perfect absorption could only occur if the photons began with a slight redshift. Thus the necessary degree of redshifting could be a measure of the degree of blueshifting that was occurring in flight. So far so good.

But Pound & Rebka did not rule out other well-known possibilities, such as effects on the absorbers themselves caused by external fields.

For example, in an electric field, what would otherwise be a single absorption/emission line in a spectrum gets split into two lines. This is known as the Stark effect, and it's one of the primary methods for detecting electric fields from a distance. The reason for the split is that electrons changing shells move faster if they are going with the field, and slower if they are going against it. When emitting photons, the faster electrons emit blueshifted photons, and the slower ones emit redshifted photons. Since these could be traveling in any direction, an observer at a distance will get both varieties -- thus the single emission line has been split into two lines. The corollary to this rule for emission is that during absorption, an electron that has to fight against the electric field can only absorb a redshifted photon, and an electron being accelerated by the field can only absorb a blueshifted photon.

For precisely the same reasons, we should expect spectral lines to be split by a gravity field -- electrons moving upward/downward in the field should absorb only redshifted/blueshifted photons. But Pound & Rebka didn't look for spectral splitting. They tested for absorption of the redshifted downward photons, and confirmed their preformed conclusions by testing the absorption of blueshifted upward photons. To rule out spectral splitting because of an external field operating on the absorber (as with the Stark effect), they should have looked for both effects in both configurations. They should have known this, since the Stark effect was discovered in 1913, and they did their experiment in 1959. But none of the write-ups on this experiment mention this double-check, so we can only assume that it was neglected. As such, this is still an open issue.

oz93666 wrote: Also stars have been shown to bend light by other experimental observation.

Here you're referring to work done by Eddington and others, which is highly contentious. The only known way to bend light is {to} pass it through a density gradient, producing a mirage effect, which is quite easy to see, in nature as well as in the laboratory. Since the light is bent toward the greater density, if light passes near the horizon of a planet or star with an atmosphere, and since the denser atmosphere is nearer the gravity source, the light is deflected in the direction of the gravity. But that doesn't mean that light in a vacuum would be deflected in a gravity field. Eddington didn't have the instrumentation to measure the density gradient in the atmosphere to a degree of accuracy greater than the deflection he observed. We still don't have such instrumentation. This means that the deflection of photons in gravity fields -- just because of the gravity and not because of the mirage effect -- is a premature conclusion.

My conclusion is that if somebody does an experiment that seems to prove general relativity, without further scrutiny it is accepted as fact. Anything that seems to disprove it will never be accepted, no matter how rigorous and methodical the work. Only poorly built foundations have to be defended like that, so this to me is tantamount to proof that general relativity is false.

CharlesChandler wrote:

oz93666 wrote: This was first done over 50 years ago, and must have been repeated may times by others, surely this is reliable, and any other causes have been ruled out...

Your faith in the scientific community is so quaint -- but it isn't exactly scientific.

Perhaps we should call it the faith community...

But I no longer take anything from the mainstream on faith.

oz93666 wrote: ...but lets look at things from another angle. It seems to me that a photon has to do some work in escaping the pull of a star, and the only way, is to shift its frequency down.

If a photon had mass, then you'd be right -- the gravity field would exert a force on it, slowing it down. If the speed of light is constant, then (somehow) the force acts on the frequency instead of the transmission speed. (I never quite understood that. Anyway...) But if a photon does not have mass, none of that is true.

CharlesChandler wrote:

oz93666 wrote:...you're a total anarchist!!

No, I'm not an anarchist -- I'm a rationalist -- there's a difference.

oz93666 wrote: Now to dismiss this experiment you must invoke willful falsification of data...

I can go one better than that -- I'm not even going to look at any more "proofs" of general relativity. All of the ones that I have examined so far turned out to be specious, and when I questioned such things on more conventional forums, I got flamed really bad for questioning. Clearly, the mainstream has locked down on their tenets, and isn't willing to acknowledge that there are problems. So why should I make a full-time job out of finding errors that aren't going to get fixed anyway? That would be irrational.

oz93666 wrote: It seems to me if you dump general relativity you have to embrace the general theory of conspiracy, which holds that such confusions don't just happen, but are a directed concerted effort by those in control to deliberately mislead.

Not necessarily. I actually think that GR was an honest mistake. IMO, it can only be understood in its historical context. By the mid-1800s, everybody was sold on Newtonian mechanics, and Victorian materialism could do no wrong. But scientists like Faraday, Volta, Oersted, etc., who were studying EM, knew for a fact that they were dealing with non-Newtonian forces. Still, anybody claiming to be a scientist in that era without explicitly standing on Newton's shoulders was considered to be a fraud or a wannabe. You can hear the frustration in Maxwell, and more so in Lorentz. They tried to explain EM in Newtonian terms, but it just didn't work. Finally, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, society became disillusioned with materialism, and embraced the new idealism. The implication for science, as worked out by Einstein, was that an abstract, non-physical, idealist framework could break the Newtonian mold, and thereby open up all kinds of new avenues of research. The whole scientific community jumped at the chance, and society went along with it. All of a sudden, great strides were being made in EM, and in atomic theory, including the eventual discovery of nuclear forces. This never could have happened in the Victorian era. So the non-physical strategy broke the mold, progress was made, and Einstein was promoted to prophet.

But now, scientific idealism isn't just a nonsensical abstraction that you use to think outside the box for a little while, so that you can make the next physical discovery. Rather, non-physical modeling has become The Paradigm, and anybody not explicitly standing on Einstein's shoulders is a fraud or a wannabe. It's ironic that scientists are now so committed to the Einsteinian method that they feel compelled to disagree with his physical work. For example, Einstein said that black holes were not possible, because the centrifugal force should prevent the collapse. He was thinking mechanically. But shortly after he died, scientists announced that black holes were a prediction of GR, and everybody bought it. Thinking mechanically is now taboo (even if you happen to be agreeing with Einstein), because Einstein's claim to fame was his mind-bending non-physical abstractions, not his rationality.

100 years passed, and now, we face a similar dilemma -- the established paradigm is standing in the way of progress. Outside of the context of stretching the imagination so that new physical discoveries can be made, mind-bending abstractions are just science fiction, with zero intrinsic merit. It isn't even good science fiction. Star Wars re-runs get better ratings than Discovery Channel programs, and they do this without the benefit of public funding. So we should leave the science fiction to Hollywood. The opportunity in front of us now is in re-introducing the idea of physical physics, with tangible benefits. Still, I don't see a conspiracy in all of this. Victorian scientists became credible, and then they became constrained by that credibility, and then they had to be discredited to make progress. In the 1900s, scientists broke the old mold, and built a new one. Now that mold needs to be broken. No BFD -- this is just how science always worked, and always will.

oz93666 wrote: do many in the EU community believe general relativity false?

Some do -- a lot more than on mainstream forums -- but it isn't everybody.

JeffreyW wrote: Going into a science forum and saying how wrong Einstein was about gravity and other things would be like going to church and trying to convince people that Jesus was wrong. Its idolatry.

I totally agree. True science favors dissent, because by definition, progress always defies the consensus. So what type of endeavor is it, when maintaining the consensus has become the hard constraint? Scams work better if there is a consensus -- the more people who are going along with it, the more credible it is, and a scam needs that credibility, because without that, it is nothing at all. But to really understand this, just remember that there is a difference between a consensus and a conspiracy. A conspiracy is a small number of people acting secretively. A consensus is a large number of people acting out in the open. So it has a slightly different dynamic.

Lloyd wrote: Regarding Relativity (It's Real!)
The following is from Mathis' paper, Relativity Demystified, at http://milesmathis.com/rel4.html and it seems that he does a rather good job of demystifying it. “... Einstein, the high priest, understood Relativity in large part, but his explanations only confused the rest of the world. And even Einstein did not understand Relativity in full. That is why he was not able to simplify it. Relativity is much more transparent than we have been led to believe. ... The reason the receding train looks shorter [length contraction] is that the length of the train is determined by a single image. Unlike the wave [lightwave], which is built of a series of images, the length is determined by one image only. In other words, we could take a picture with a real camera, and using that one image, we could determine the apparent length of the train. (And, yes, that one image would be distorted by Relativity. That real picture, taken by a real camera, would be distorted by Relativity.) Now, that one image is made up of all the light reaching us at the same instant, from all the points on the train. Since all the light is moving the same speed, the light from more distant points on the train must be earlier light. To say it another way, all the light is reaching US at the same time, to make the image, so it can’t have left all points on the train at the same time. If we work backwards from our eye, and go the speed of light for x seconds, we can reach some points on the train, but not others. This means that our image is made up of older and newer light. For instance, if the light from the nearest parts of the train was emitted at t = .0002s, then the light from the farthest parts of the train might have been emitted at t = .0001s. The light has farther to go, so to reach us at the same time, it had to be emitted earlier. If it was emitted earlier, then it was emitted when the object was not quite as far away. Therefore, the far end of the object will appear closer than it is. Therefore, the object will appear smaller or shorter than it really is. - That was a bit difficult, I realize. It is probably the most difficult thing to understand about Relativity, and it has been misunderstood and misinterpreted millions of times. If you can make sense of that paragraph, you can make sense of any of the subtleties of Relativity. - As one more aid to understanding, I will point out that this length contraction is exactly the opposite of the contraction of sound....”

CharlesChandler wrote:

Lloyd wrote: Regarding Relativity (It's Real!)

Well, some parts of it are. It's certainly true that everything is relative -- we have Galileo to thank for the modern concept of relative frames of reference, disregarding Aristotle's notion of absolute position and motion. As concerns Lorentz contraction, there is actually nothing new there, and Galileo could have calculated it, if he had known that light has a velocity. But in relativity, Lorentz contraction isn't explained in Galilean terms. Rather, it uses this fancy new jargon in which space and time are getting warped to produce the observations. This is what the scientific community loved about Einstein's special relativity, which bloomed into general relativity due to the encouragement that he got. It's just a fancy way of talking about stuff that makes it sound more complicated. And for BS artists, that's a Good Thing. For example, in Newtonian mechanics, the Sun's gravity field exerts a force on the Earth, bending its linear momentum into angular momentum, establishing a stable orbit. In general relativity, the Sun's gravity field warps space, such that the Earth continues going straight, but space curves around to meet it. What's the difference? The calculations come out the same either way. But relativity is really hard to grasp. When it's just force vectors, and equal-but-opposite reactions, it's all very easy to conceptualize, and people can work out real-world problems with simple formulas. From the perspective of a BS artist, that's a Bad Thing. So why not warp space and time, so that only PhDs can calculate stuff? That would be a Good Thing.

What is my reason for maintaining this position? To my knowledge, there is no real-world problem that can be solved with relativity, and which cannot be solved with Newtonian methods. There are certainly non-Newtonian forces, such as EM and nuclear forces. But the interactions among inertial, gravitational, EM, and nuclear forces can all be calculated with vector addition, or with vector calculus if there is a force gradient. In other words, Newton could have done it, if he had known about all of the forces. Furthermore, the Newtonian framework is simpler. Occam's Razor does the rest. If you know of an exception, please let me know. I certainly know of theoretical problems that relativity has created for itself, that only relativity can solve. But that isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about real-world problems that can be solved in you twist the frames of reference one way, and not in the other.

But that's just the beginning. Once scientists got away with obfuscating the terminology and the frames of reference, they started creating abstract entities, such as cold dark matter, dark energy, etc., and claiming that these are all predicted by general relativity. Aside from the fact that it would have been news to Einstein, the method employed in such work was deeply flawed. In good scientific method, if you detect an anomaly, you have to rule out all of the known factors before concluding that you have discovered something new. But when scientists found that the amount of mass in a dusty plasma is only 1/5 of the requirement for dusty plasma collapse, they didn't rule out the two other forces known to operate at the macroscopic level, namely, the electric and magnetic forces. Rather, they invented a strange new type of matter (i.e., CDM) to supply the missing force. But the application of Feynman's "like-likes-like" principle to Debye cells supplies the missing force, and Occam's Razor does the rest here too. So my opinion of general relativity is that it is all somewhere between BS and Bad Science.

CharlesChandler wrote:

oz93666 wrote: But to return to the main subject, I'm totally willing to believe it's all corrupted, but surely some of relativity is good? E=MC2? a hydrogen bomb does go bang after all...

E=MC² has never been proved to my satisfaction. The EM radiation released in a nuclear explosion comes from vibrating protons in the disrupted nucleus. This doesn't affect mass. Splitting an atom releases EM radiation. Fusing atoms releases EM radiation. If every time a nuclear reaction occurred, and energy was released, and thus the atoms lost mass, I don't see why there would still be any mass left in the Universe, since we have every reason to believe that every single atom in the Universe has been through this process many times. So something doesn't add up. I tend to think that EM waves are created simply by the movement of charged particles, with no effect on mass. For example, a wood stove doesn't lose mass just because the atoms in the crystal lattice are vibrating due to heat, and emitting infrared radiation. Analogously, a speaker cone doesn't lose mass because it is creating sound waves in the air. Energy and mass are two different things. IMO, the mass differences due to fission/fusion are evidence of some sort of particle other than protons and neutrons.

E=MC² was blindly accepted by the scientific community as soon as Einstein published it. Had it been verified? It still hasn't. Why was it accepted? Because scientists were falling all over themselves to get on board with relativity, because it was a new paradigm that broke the Newtonian mold. Does anybody actually use this formula to solve real-world problems? No. How do you estimate the energy to be released in a nuclear reaction: by general relativity, or by experimentation? The answer is: experimentation. Both general relativity and quantum mechanics are notoriously poor at making accurate predictions. So if you really want to know what's going to happen, you just go ahead and do it, and find out that way. Then you adjust the formulas after the fact.

oz93666 wrote: ...and you haven't dealt with the Perihelion precession of Mercury can't we check that ourselves?

Yes, we can check this ourselves. But just because some ad hoc formulas in general relativity "predict" this doesn't mean anything. Good scientific method involves the elimination of all known forces before concluding that something new has been discovered. A gravitational anomaly was detected. OK, so are there any other forces operative at the macroscopic level? Yes -- the electric and magnetic forces. Were those checked? No. Those should be checked. If either of those can account for the anomaly, the problem is solved, and Occam's Razor will do the rest. How should we proceed? Precession takes two forces: angular momentum, and then a force applied along the axis. For example, when a spinning top starts to precess, the angular momentum comes from the spinning, and the precession comes from the force of gravity, which is trying to get the top to lay down on its side. So we should be looking for an electric or magnetic force applied parallel to the axis of rotation. Maybe there is a galactic magnetic field that is accelerating or decelerating the solar system. Different degrees of precession in different planets might match up with different strengths of planetary dynamos. Or different degrees of planetary charge. I haven't pursued this, but that's where I'd start. And until that work has been done, I'll accept no fancier solution.

nick c wrote: Thornhill on the precession of Mercury and other "predictions" of Einstein's GR theory: http://www.holoscience.com/wp/gravity-probe-b-and-related-matters/

Be that as it may, the question of the true status of general relativity within science should be assessed. Soon after the theory first appeared, it was credited with success for solving the old problem associated with the shift of the perihelion of Mercury. But why? A satisfactory explanation had already been provided in 1898 by a German schoolteacher, P. Gerber, who published his findings in Zeitscrift für Math u Phys. (vol. 43, p 93). For some reason this seems to have been ignored even though it concerned a well-known outstanding problem and Gerber had published in a highly prestigious journal. Of course, the dubious expeditions of 1919 which led to the claim that the theory correctly predicted the bending of light rays were possibly the clincher as far as popular acclaim was concerned. However, is general relativity required to explain these phenomena? The answer is an emphatic ‘No!’ Apart from other publications by such as Harold Aspden, Bernard Lavenda eventually succeeded in publishing an article in 2005 entitled Three Tests of General relativity as Short-wavelength Diffraction Phenomena (Journal of Applied Science, vol 5, no. 2, pp. 299-308). It might be noted that this article didn’t claim general relativity incorrect, merely that there was an alternative method for obtaining various physical results.

CharlesChandler wrote:

oz93666 wrote: ...if something fishy was going on I would have noticed it.

And I'm supposed to take your word for that? And if I don't, I'm too headstrong? I don't even know your real name. Are you actually so full of yourself that you think that you can make statements anonymously, and then insist on the benefit of the doubt??? You're saying these things just to be funny, right? Well, just on the outside chance that you're actually serious, and in the hopes that others would better understand such issues...

If an arrogant person makes an assertion, and another person does not give the benefit of the doubt, the arrogant person will generally conclude that only arrogance could preclude agreement. But that's just because the arrogant person sees the world through arrogant eyes, and therefore sees nothing but arrogance. Requiring that scientists do their due diligence, and correctly check all known forces before concluding that something new has been discovered, is not arrogance. Refusing to accept work that was not done properly is not arrogance. Especially when such a substantial percentage of the work clearly was not done properly.

I should like to point out that I didn't say that GR or QM was wrong. I just said that I refuse to accept it until/if/when it can be demonstrated to my satisfaction that all known perturbing factors have been ruled out. That isn't throwing anything in the trash. It's just insisting that it be run through quality control checks before being accepted. The only thing that is thrown in the trash is the benefit of the doubt. This was forfeited by the mainstream when they abandoned the scientific method, and started spewing out mostly trash. Now I insist that everything be inspected.

Of course, I don't have time to inspect everything, so I prioritize, like everybody does. If something figures significantly in a topic that I'm researching, I'll question the assumptions. If they stand up to scrutiny, with laboratory confirmation, I build my thesis on that foundation. If they do not check out, they go in the recycling bin. And if the people spewing the assertions resent the questioning, the assertions go in the recycling bin. The reason is that work that can stand up to scrutiny is proud to be scrutinized, while work that is flawed is scared of it -- therefore, if somebody resents being questioned, the assertions are usually gibberish. This inference does not prove that the assertions are false. It merely demonstrates that the person making them doesn't know how to support them, and therefore resents being questioned. But like I said, we all have to prioritize, so I play the odds, the same way everybody else does. So I figure that the more educated somebody is, and the more consistent the assertions are with the opinions of other educated people, and the more the person demands the benefit of the doubt, the less truth value his assertions contain. If it's something important to me, I'll attempt a thorough review. If it isn't important, I'll set it aside, in the "to be reviewed" stack. The one thing that I will never do is accept it because somebody forcefully insisted that it be taken on faith.

So, I have questioned Eddington's "gravitational lensing" conclusions, because I'm not satisfied that the mirage effect was properly ruled out, to anywhere near the degree of accuracy that Eddington claimed. I never get a response past that point. I have questioned the Pound-Rebka experiment, on the grounds that frequency splitting due to an external field was not ruled out. I never get a response past that point on that issue either. I have questioned the equivalence of mass and energy. The absorption of energy in breaking something up, and the release of energy in the formation of aggregates, is one of the fundamental principles of thermodynamics, and does not constitute proof of a conversion between mass and energy. And all that I ever get when I question GR or QM is insistence on the benefit of the doubt. IMO, the whole thing needs to be thoroughly reviewed, and nothing in it should be taken on faith.

CharlesChandler wrote:

oz93666 wrote: I can't imagine where the error could be.

That might just be the limits of your imagination, or the power of your assumptions. For example, the "proof" of GR, based on high energy collisions, actually isn't proof at all, because it merely assumes the conclusion. "If" a particle cannot exceed the speed of light (which is one of the axioms of GR), and if you continue to supply the energy to accelerate it, you go up against a mathematical barrier that your GR formulas can't cross. The only other variable in the equation is mass, so the energy must be getting converted to mass. You get the energy back out in the bubble chamber collision, and you conclude that GR is proved. But you haven't proved GR at all. You have merely confirmed the conservation of energy. Newton would have gotten the same results using F=m*a. If you assume that the particle never exceeded the speed of light, you have to accept that the mass is variable, or the conservation of energy is violated. But how did you proof that particles cannot exceed the speed of light?

CharlesChandler wrote:

oz93666 wrote:

CharlesChandler wrote: So what is involved in the collision -- a single particle, or the whole bunch, or something in-between?

But we're digressing, not only has Einstein's mass energy equivalence been proved, but also the idea that time slows down when moving, particles with a known half-life live longer when moving at speed in these accelerators.

Ummm... you didn't answer my question.

To accelerate the discussion, the next question is: assuming that the particles are traveling in clumps, and that the velocity of the clump is accurately measured (because that sounded reasonable), how is the total energy in the collision measured? The reason for the question is that I can easily think of a way that energy could get stored in something other than momentum, and other than mass, giving the illusion that GR had been proved, when really, it hadn't. The energy could get converted to electrostatic potential by a z-pinch.

To explain the question, I'll start with a metaphor. Let's consider a supersonic aircraft, that has adjustable wings, which are perpendicular to the aircraft in subsonic flight, but which get tucked parallel to the aircraft for supersonic flight (such as the US F-14). Now let's suppose that this is accomplished just by making the wings spring-loaded, such that with increased drag on the wings, they tuck themselves in when approaching the speed of sound. This would mean than in tucked position, some of the thrust has been converted to elastic potential. If the drag is reduced, that potential can get released, getting the wings to spread out again. So if the plane is instantaneously decelerated (because it hit something), there is of course all of the momentum of its forward motion, but there is also the release of that elastic potential. This would make it look like the plane was releasing more potential than just its resting mass times its forward velocity.

Similarly, charged particles at relativistic velocities undergo a z-pinch, in which despite their electrostatic repulsion, the magnetic pressure forces them together. If they could ever achieve the speed of light, the magnetic force would become equal to the electric force, and the particles would fuse (even without any spins that create relative motions in a charge stream, encouraging fusion). Of course, actually accelerating particles to the speed of light is tough, because the accelerator is EM fields, which travel at the speed of light. So while energy is still building up in momentum, or being lost in particle spins, the forward velocity is less than the speed of light. But there is another force that needs to be overcome to achieve the speed of light, other than the particle clump's resting inertial force, and any Lorentz forces due to conflicting magnetic fields, and that's the Coulomb force between the particles. So as you pump energy into those particles, and they get going faster and faster, as you approach the speed of light, you start seeing energy absorption beyond what shows up in forward motion, or in particle spins. Where did the energy go? And then, on collision, all of the input energy is released, beyond just what you'd get from the forward motion. So where did that energy come from? A portion of the energy release on collision will be electrostatic potential re-converted to kinetic energy, because as soon as the particles are decelerated on collision, the z-pinch goes away, and the electrostatic repulsion takes over, accelerating the particles away from each other. In other words, there will be a Coulomb explosion. This might look a whole lot like the conversion of forward motion to radial motion in an explosion. But the energy will exceed that of the forward motion. So you do the F=m*a thing, where you know the force of the explosion, and you know the incoming velocity, and you adjust the mass accordingly, and you think that you have proved GR. Oops, you didn't take the Coulomb explosion into account.

So, in order for me to be convinced that energy is being converted to mass, I need to see where they're explicitly acknowledging electrostatic potential as an energy store. Otherwise, I'll conclude that they (once again) forgot to take a known force into account, which created a discrepancy, which they then called proof of GR, but which actually is just proof of their sloppy method.

CharlesChandler wrote:

oz93666 wrote:

CharlesChandler wrote: Ummm... you didn't answer my question.

...it's going to take a while to analyze your whole post...

That's fine. Frankly, I thought that by now, you would have broken into one of the standard responses, such as, "If you had a PhD, you'd know better than to question such things." My compliments to you for being head-n-shoulders above the mainstream, understanding that a put-down isn't an answer.

To clarify the questions:
1) Is the mass-energy equivalence apparent in the excess energy of a single particle, or is it only apparent in the total energy of a clump?
2) If the excess energy can be observed in individual particle collisions, how is that energy measured?
3) If the excess energy is only apparent in a clump, has a Coulomb explosion been ruled out?
4) If so, where can I find literature on how it was ruled out?
I might be wrong here, but I'd rather be thought a fool for asking one stupid question after another, than to BE a fool for feigning acceptance of something that I don't even understand. PS: if there is a more appropriate thread for this, just post a link to the other thread here, and we'll continue the GR discussion on that thread.

Re: Realativity

by CharlesChandler » Tue Feb 11, 2014 1:56 pm

JeffreyW wrote: All relativity states is that when light travels, it appears to take time to get to its destination. [...] Everything else was tacked on by those obsessed with making a simple thing too complicated!

I totally agree. It's deliberate obfuscation. Study Zeno. Study Zen Buddhism. Go out on the streets and watch a confidence man at work. It's all the same -- it's BS (i.e., Bad Science). Now, it is certainly true that things in the microscopic world don't necessarily have to obey the same laws as the macroscopic world, in which case they wouldn't be intuitively accessible. So just because something doesn't make sense doesn't mean that it isn't true. But Good Science requires that all known factors be ruled out, before concluding that some strange new thing has been discovered. And so far, I haven't seen any proof of GR that does this. As a matter of fact, it seems that scientists have made a paradigm out of jumping to the conclusion that something strange is going on, and it will take some very strange ideas to describe it. I find scientists like that to be simply strange. And in no sense is the preference for strange to be considered Good Science. So I'm of the opinion that strange scientists are really nothing but professional BS artists.

D_Archer wrote: mass is not a physical entity but a derivation, Miles simply uses length (space) and time for better accuracy in the math, because both can be measured.

I know of large objects with small masses, and small objects with large masses. So mass being dependent on volume isn't true. And I have yet to see any disproof of the conservation of mass, no matter how much time passes. The masses are directly measurable, by their inertial and gravitational forces. So Mathis has a construct that makes anomalies out of all of the observations. No worries -- he can fix what he broke by redefining G. But if his construct is less intuitive, and more complicated, and doesn't predict anything that could not be predicted by a simpler construct, he has nothing. So this too is Bad Science (BS).

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Wed Feb 12, 2014 2:38 pm

Mass isn't so complicated. It is known by the two fundamental forces that it manifests: inertia, and gravity. (I consider inertia to be a fundamental force, because I don't see how it reduces to any of the other forces, which means that it is fundamental itself. Anyway...) There is a direct relationship between inertial and gravitational forces -- something that exerts a large gravitational force is also hard to accelerate. But since there are two distinct forces (i.e., inertia & gravity), it is useful to have a concept of the one property of matter that gives rise to both forces, hence the concept of mass. But unless you're dealing with both inertia and gravity in the same maths, you can simplify your equations by just referring to the one force in question. For example, F=m*a can be rewritten as the resultant force being equal to the resting inertial force times the amount of accelerating force that was applied to it.

But nooooo... that's just too freakin' simple... so in modern physics, everybody (starting with Einstein) looks for a way of redefining all of the terms. Mass is length cubed divided by time squared, or just plain volume, or energy irrespective of velocity, or it's all just relative to whatever you want it to be at the moment. This of course creates problems, since things were so well described by Newtonian laws. But in modern science, that isn't a problem -- it's an opportunity. When you redefine a term, it creates a discrepancy, and then you get to sprinkle some fairy dust on it, and poof! a new particle is discovered, or a new force, or a new variability in what was previously immutable, or a new form of energy. And then you're famous! But when Occam gets back from vacation, the fur will fly, and fame will be reduced to infamy. In the end, there is truly no utility to obfuscating the sciences. We have enough problems in this world. Why manufacture problems, instead of using science to ease the suffering of the masses?

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Fri Feb 14, 2014 3:54 pm

marengo wrote: I can only repeat what i have said at length before. Relativistic effects do occur BUT Special Relativity is not the correct theory to explain them. The Twins Paradox is proof of that.

I'm not sure that SR actually constitutes a "theory". It's really just a different way of talking about things that sounds cool. A clock moving away from you appears to run slower, because each successive "tick" has further to travel to get to you. Thus its arrival time is delayed, and from your perspective, that delay added to each interval makes it seem as if the clock is running slower. Likewise, on the way back, the clock is moving toward you, and it appears to run faster, because each successive "tick" has less distance to travel. The clock itself is running at the same rate, and in no sense is time being "warped" by relativistic velocities. Einstein's "genius" amounted to nothing more than just figuring out that there is a certain way of talking about stuff that makes it sound a lot more complicated than it really is, and for a BS artist, that's a Good Thing. When a train passes by you, its whistle drops in pitch. For Einstein, and anybody else playing the same game, time is being warped. Just imagine what it would be like to be riding on the sound wave generated by a train whistle... very mind-bending indeed... But that isn't a "theory". It's just a rhetorical technique that makes something sound more complicated than it really is. By popular demand, Einstein then figured other ways of turning modified appearances into warped realities. In GR, not only is time relative to velocity, but mass and energy as well. If the whistle on an approaching train has a higher pitch, and if it takes more energy to produce a higher pitch, velocity makes the action of the whistle more energetic. Wow -- that's so cool! If you could get the train traveling at the speed of sound itself, the energy would become infinite or something. And then maybe it would explode or something. Holy cow. It's like time and space are being warped, and all of the rules go away. But that isn't a "theory". It's science fiction, and that's all it is.

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Fri Feb 21, 2014 1:02 am

oz93666 wrote: Theory and experiment show that time slows for a moving object, weather moving away from, OR towards the observer. The great body of prof for this lies in particle physics. When a particle, which has a well known half life, is made to move fast, it life is extended to an extent precisely predicted by theory, becoming almost immortal at the speed of light.

Are you going to describe how that was experimentally verified, and perturbing factors ruled out? I'm still waiting for you to explain how relativistic mass was verified, from earlier in this thread: http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=14874#p92618

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Sat Feb 22, 2014 4:36 pm

Sain84 wrote: Eddington used multiple stars near the Sun to measure the light deflection all taken in the same image. They all had different distances from the Sun so would have different deflections. Atmospheric refraction which causes mirages would depend on angle above the ground, so stars would be shifted depending on altitude not distance from the Sun. Atmospheric refraction does have to be removed in such observations as it is in many others. Eddington's original experiment however is not the prime example because few now believe it's results are reliable.

I don't understand why the deflection would be a function of distance from the Sun, and not altitude. If a spacecraft flies past the Sun, is the gravitational attraction a function of how close it gets to the Sun, or is it a function of how long the craft traveled before the encounter? Does the so-called gravitational lensing follow the inverse square law? I'm sooooooo confused!!!!!! Please recommend that I enroll in the nearest university, so I can find the error in my ways as soon as possible!!!!

Sain84 wrote: However now there is no shortage of these sorts of measurements which can now be done with much more precise measurements. Hipparcos the ESA mission was capable of detecting the deflection at all angles from the Sun, and from some planets.

Sounds really fancy. Now, for me to be convinced, they would have to go out to the desert, and predict the deflection of light due to a mirage to that degree of accuracy, before claiming that their deep-space measurements were that accurate. Mirages can deflect photons several degrees in just a couple of kilometers. Anticipating the deflection to within a few arc-seconds requires measurements of the density gradient with even more precision than that, to get the experimental variance smaller than the assertions. Good luck.

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Sun Feb 23, 2014 4:21 am

Sain84 wrote: As far as I'm aware gravitational lensing approximates (in the case of small angles and relativity weak fields) to an inverse law, proportional to 1/r, where r is the closest approach of the light ray.

I thought that gravity obeyed the inverse square law. Was this predicted by GR, or was it an heuristic adjustment? And on what grounds does this prove the effect to be due to gravity, if it doesn't behave like gravity? It sounds like an effect was observed, and it didn't act like gravity, but they wanted it to be gravity, so they said that it was gravity, but in this special case, gravity acts differently. Ah, the power of the preformed conclusion.

Sain84 wrote: Note that paper in question was done in space, atmospheric refraction has nothing to do with those results.

So space physics is different from terrestrial physics? How was that determined? They acknowledged gravity, but not EM, and nothing made sense, so they concluded that gravity acts really funny out in space? Once again we observe the power of the preformed conclusion.

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Sun Feb 23, 2014 1:34 pm

Sain84 wrote: Atmospheric refraction is not a potential source of error here so it is not the basis for criticism.

How is it that a robust gravitational source in space, sufficient for "gravitational lensing", doesn't have an atmosphere? Moons and small planets in our solar system, if sufficiently bathed in solar wind, are without atmospheres. But Mars, and everything bigger, have atmospheres. The Sun has an atmosphere. Where did they observe lensing in the absence of an atmosphere that would refract the light?

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Wed Feb 26, 2014 7:12 pm

Can you show evidence that the sort of refraction in question (i.e., a density gradient in an homogenous gas, not a boundary between two substances) affects different wavelengths differently? The reddening of sunlight near the horizon isn't refraction -- it's scattering. So it isn't that the atmosphere is acting like a prism -- it's just that tangential light has to pass through more atmosphere, and thus is subjected to more blue absorption. I wasn't able to find any info on density gradient prismatic effects, so I'm questioning this. For example, there are several degrees of deflection in this mirage, but no noticeable color shift: http://ctein.com/STS1_in_Desert.jpg

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Wed Feb 26, 2014 9:10 pm

Sain84 wrote: You're image is visible light so dispersion would need to be significant to be noticeable over such a small range in frequencies. If we look over longer distances we can see something.

What are you talking about? If a mirage was a prismatic refraction, everything in the mirage would be in rainbow colors.

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Thu Feb 27, 2014 8:23 am

Sain84 wrote: It's entirely dependent on the amount of dispersion. Not all prisms are equal, you can make one which disperses the light much more than another.

Of course, but you're evading the issue. Show me a picture where a prism deflects light several degrees, such that you can see a primary and an inverted secondary image, and the colors in the secondary image match the primary image. If you do, it isn't a prism -- it's a lens. Of course, according to you, if you detect a milli-arc-second deflection, and if it operates on long and short wavelengths the same way, it can only be due to gravitational lensing. But here I'm showing you several degrees of deflection, and we see no change in color in the secondary image, and you insist that it isn't a lens -- it's a prism. The reason is that if it's a lens, you have to answer for why density gradients in space can't fully account for the so-called "gravitational lensing" effect. And you continue to cite near-horizon effects on sunlight (such as green flashes) as evidence of the supposed prismatic effects of a density gradient, which are actually due to scattering. The example that I provided of a mirage displays more deflection than we see in the Sun near the horizon, even in extreme cases where atmospheric layering also produces mirages. The effects on near-horizon sunlight are obvious in photography, but we see no such effects in mirages. And you say that it's a function of distance, not angle of deflection? The only thing that is a function of distance is scattering, which fully accounts for the blue sky and the red Sun at the horizon. To float arguments like that, you need an audience that gives you the benefit of the doubt, and if it sounds good, it is good. But among people who know how to think critically, you have to do better than that. Sorry.

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Fri Mar 14, 2014 12:26 am

Sain84 wrote: I mean honestly, I've shown you examples of dispersion in stars and you can see how small the effect is, do you really expect it to be obvious in any image? Those are high magnification images, very different to the wide field camera shots of mirages you presented. At those wide angles you don't see the dispersion of starlight, it doesn't mean it isn't there. You can't expect to see every effect in any observation.

Oh, OK. So Eddington measures a deflection of a couple arc-seconds, with none of the expected effects of refraction, and calls it proof of GR. Then I show you a photograph where there are several degrees of deflection, and none of the expected effects of refraction, and you don't see that I just caused you a problem?

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Fri Mar 14, 2014 5:44 pm

Sain84 wrote: I've shown you observations from visible to radio, 15 GHz to 600 THz (a frequency change of factor 40,000) which show no dispersion. Nothing known can do that.

What is the dispersion over that frequency range for a mirage -- say, for example, one that can refract the light 5 degrees?

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Fri Mar 14, 2014 8:42 pm

Sain84 wrote:

CharlesChandler wrote: What is the dispersion over that frequency range for a mirage -- say, for example, one that can refract the light 5 degrees?

No idea, there are no papers on such a topic that I can find. As I said people work away from the horizon.

Right. So when you said, "Nothing known can do that" (in reference to deflection that is not differentiated per wavelength), that was just arguing from ignorance? In order for the argument to be worth more than that, somebody has to actually check that mirages are, in fact, refractions, with all of the characteristics of a lens, including chromatic dispersion, and not some fundamentally different mechanism. The QM explanation for mirages certainly doesn't necessitate that they would behave as prisms.

As concerns green flashes, I'm actually not convinced that they're chromatic dispersions due to refraction from the mirage effect. First, there is almost no deflection -- the effect is right there on the limb of the Sun, not a rainbow that is offset from the light source. This is significant in that I have shown an example of a mirage that deflected the light several degrees, with no dispersion. If a couple of minutes of deflection shows dispersion, but a couple of degrees of deflection does not, something is seriously wrong with somebody's assumptions. Second, have a look at this, and tell me that it is simple refraction. How can there be a blob of yellow above a green flash? And how come the upper blob doesn't have its own green fringe? I think that refraction might actually be just a convenient, but not necessarily accurate, description of mirages.

I know you think that I'm just being ornery, but the supposed gravitational lensing was the first "proof" of GR, and continues to be the first thing cited whenever anyone challenges GR. You'd think that after 80 years, the proof would have been formalized, and double-checked, and there wouldn't be anything about it left to chance, considering the weight that is put on GR. In fact, it should be THE textbook example of how to do good science with the new physics. So when questioned on gravitational lensing, the GR proponent should be able to lay out how the known factors were quantified, and the remaining discrepancy therefore could only be attributed to the new physics. As it is, GR proponents don't even understand why, or how, you would ever question anything. That tells me that they don't even understand good scientific methods. Somebody told them that gravity deflects photons; the proper method for arriving at such a conclusion was not specified; they didn't ask; so they simply accepted what they were told. That isn't science. To make a reasonable case for gravitational lensing, you have to show me where somebody quantified the characteristics of mirages, to the accuracy necessary to rule them out as a cause for the observed deflection. If you cannot, gravitational lensing must surrender to the forces of Occam.

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Sat Mar 15, 2014 3:53 pm

Sain84 wrote:

CharlesChandler wrote: Right. So when you said, "Nothing known can do that" (in reference to deflection that is not differentiated per wavelength), that was just arguing from ignorance?

No, it's exactly like your post on mass conservation. There are lots of experiments showing materials and the atmosphere are dispersive. There are no known materials which are non-dispersive over such a huge wavelength range. Until someone shows me something otherwise this will continue to be true. It's not an argument from ignorance, it's a fact. [...] I have made a case for gravitational lensing. You have suggested another hypothesis which is something else entirely. No one has done your experiment because nobody thinks it's worth doing, if you think otherwise that's your job. If that's what it would take for you to be convinced then you are welcome to your opinion.

You can't be serious, can you? This is getting funny. Thanks for that.

Wikipedia wrote: Argument from ignorance (Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance stands for "lack of evidence to the contrary"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there is insufficient investigation and therefore insufficient information to prove the proposition satisfactorily to be either true or false. In debates, appeals to ignorance are sometimes used to shift the burden of proof.

You must have already read that, except you thought that it was instructions for the proper way to do a debate!!! It is certainly a fact that you don't know of anything that can deflect light without chromatic dispersion. But you're definitely asserting that the atmosphere is dispersive, because you don't know of anything that isn't. And yet it seems that nobody has bothered to check to see if mirages, capable of far more deflection than sunsets, are dispersive, when visually, there isn't any evidence that they are, and visually, there is evidence that sunsets are. Your mistake is to not leave open the possibility that mirages deflect light without dispersion. As concerns sunsets over the ocean, I know of something that can cause dispersion, other than density gradients in the air, and that is expected over the ocean: water aerosols. That would explain why, with just a couple of minutes of deflection, we (sometimes) see green flashes, while in dry air out in the desert, we see several degrees of deflection, with no dispersion (determined visually in both cases).

Sain84 wrote: How do we know mirages come from refraction? As I have shown you distortions like that can be calculated, for example the Sun.

So why can't we "calculate" non-dispersion, for example in a mirage out in the desert, with the same formulas? Oops, because they would predict more dispersion, and what we see is none. So those calcs wouldn't be worth running.

Sain84 wrote: That shows refraction is consistent with the observation, we can do no better.

Speak for yourself.

Sain84 wrote: What "QM interpretation" allows for a non-dispersive medium over such a wavelength range?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-causes-a-mirage/

To understand how a mirage forms, one must first understand how light travels through air. If the air is all the same temperature--cold or hot--light travels through it in a straight line. If a steady temperature gradient exists, however, light will follow a curved path toward the cooler air. The standard freshman physics explanation for this phenomenon is that cold air has a higher index of refraction than warm air does. As a result, photons (particles of light) travel through hot air faster than they can through cold air because the hot air is less dense. The quantum electrodynamics explanation is that photons always take the path of minimum time when traveling from one point to another. In order to get from one point to another in a minimum time, photons will take "shortcuts" even though the length of the path is curved and it covers a longer distance than the direct route.

Mirages are a direct result of photons taking the path of minimum time in vertical temperature gradients. Ideal conditions for a mirage are still air on a hot, sunny day over a flat surface that will absorb the sun's energy and become quite hot. When these conditions exist, the air closest to the surface is hottest and least dense and the air density gradually increases with height. Incoming photons take a curved path from the sky to the viewer's eye. The illusion comes from the fact that quantum electrodynamics is not intuitive and the human brain assumes that light travels in a straight line. A viewer looking at, say, the road ahead on a hot, still, day will see the sky because photons from the sky are taking the curved path that minimizes the time taken. The brain interprets this as water on the road because water would reflect light from the sky in much the same way that a vertical temperature gradient does.

I love that they said that the illusion is the product of the counter-intuitive nature of the explanation!!! Anyway, photons knowing to steer around high densities so that they can get to where they are going faster makes no mention of one wavelength being more adept at it than another.

Sain84 wrote: The paper I quoted earlier actually simulated a green flash using refraction.

Ooooooooooooooooo...

Sain84 wrote: GR has been double checked...

Against what?

Sain84 wrote: What you are proposing is another hypothesis entirely for which you need some mystery material which conveniently hangs around mass proportional to that mass.

Whaaaaaa... Who's talking about a "mystery material"???? I'm saying that AIR causes mirages. You can't believe that a density gradient in air can deflect photons without dispersion, because nothing else that you know can do this, so you think that I cannot possibly be talking about air. But yes -- I'm talking about AIR!!! And no, I don't invent mystery materials when things don't go my way -- only mainstream scientists are licensed to do that!!!

Sain84 wrote: I was under the impression you people had a problem with ad hoc hypotheses like this.

Mirages have been observed since ancient times. That's what you call "ad hoc"????

Sain84 wrote: Let's consider Occam's Razor for 2 minutes. It says if you have two models with equal power to explain the data the one with fewer free parameters is the favoured one. It does not say one is wrong. Firstly your model hasn't been shown to have equal explanatory power, so Occam's Razor doesn't apply.

Sain84 wrote: Secondly your model requires the assumption that such a material exists and would need to assume several parameters needed to describe it's distribution and the reason it sticks to mass.

No, I don't have to assume that air exists, nor why it sticks to mass.

Sain84 wrote: No one has done your experiment because nobody thinks it's worth doing...

As easy as it would be to do this, I am simply staggered by the fact that nobody has ever checked for deflection without chromatic dispersion in mirages, considering that gravitational lensing is one of the cornerstones of GR. It speaks volumes about the absence of rigor in the GR camp.

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Sat Mar 15, 2014 7:06 pm

Sain84 wrote: "Nothing known can do that" which is true until there is a counter example.

If there is a counter example, you'll refuse to acknowledge it.

Sain84 wrote: We could calculate it but mirages are specifically caused by perturbations to the equilibrium of the atmosphere rather than refraction above the horizon where stratification is dominant and perturbations along the line of slight are less significant.

Oh, OK, so now you understand mirages? Can you explain how a stable temperature inversion on that scale can exist, to produce an inferior mirage? Given a surface layer around 30 degrees C, topped by another layer that is typically 20 degrees C, why isn't the hotter air positively buoyant? Doesn't that break all of the laws of thermodynamics?

Sain84 wrote: The article doesn't mention wavelength dependence but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Well, if QM explains it, I don't understand it, and that's an argument from fact!

Sain84 wrote: Again I ask what theory allows for refraction over such a frequency band without dispersion.

I never said that there was an existing explanation.

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Sun Mar 16, 2014 2:05 pm

Sain84 wrote:

CharlesChandler wrote: If there is a counter example, you'll refuse to acknowledge it.

How about we confine the argument to the evidence that actually exists.

Please define what you mean by the word "exists"! Does this "exist"...
http://ctein.com/STS1_in_Desert.jpg It doesn't suit your view, so for you, it just doesn't exist, and as such, it isn't a legitimate counter example!!!!

Sain84 wrote: The ground layer is heated and that energy diffuses largely with convection but in the steady state solution the lowest layers can continue to be the warmest. It depends on the strength of diffusion, in this case convection. It's not that convection is shut off, warmer air is buoyant.

Oh, OK, so you don't actually know much about inferior mirages. Well let me fill you in. If you simulate a burner that is 10 degrees C warmer that the overlying air, at STP, you quickly get Benard cells. Roughly speaking, they'll be something like 30 m wide, and about 50 m tall, with convection running at a couple m/s. Not exactly a gale force wind, but enough to be noticeable. As the air skims along the burner, it will pick up just a couple of degrees C, but that's enough to drive the convection. But in the conditions in which inferior mirages form, there is no convection -- absolutely none at all. I could refer you to literature on this, but you could also observe it in this image:
http://ctein.com/STS1_in_Desert.jpg Could such a near-perfect mirror image be produced with light traveling through air at a variety of temperatures, going in and out of at least a couple of those Benard cells? No. So the question is: why isn't there any convection at all?

Note that the thermodynamic question here would typically be considered outside the scope of a discussion of relativity. But I tend to think that since scientists don't actually understand inferior mirages, they start with a gibberish framework. Then they proceed to make more mistakes past that point. Part of the problem is that they started with something they didn't actually understand. So I traced it all of the way back, so that I'd be standing on terra firma the whole way through. And there's more to inferior mirages than just a burner that produces air that's hotter while it's up against the burner. Hint: stable inferior mirages only occur over non-conductive surfaces, such as dry sand, or asphalt (which works better because it's generally flatter, and the darker color absorbs more photons, and therefore heats up faster). Now do you understand why there is no convection, even though all of the simulators say that there simply has to be? Hot air rises, right? If it doesn't, there has to be a force offsetting the buoyancy. It has something to do with the absence of conductivity in the burner...

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Tue Mar 18, 2014 2:33 am

Sain84 wrote: Fine you think mirages are an example of non-dispersion, but there is no evidence that any material could do the same from optical to radio.

You're right that I have failed to produce instrumented evidence that mirages are non-dispersive, and you obviously have no intention of inferring any information whatsoever from the photographs of mirages, except whatever supports your position. For example, in rare cases green flashes have been photographed, which is consistent with refractive dispersion. But if the atmosphere was actually dispersive, and given that there is always a density gradient, dispersion would be typical, not rare. And if I show a photograph that does not show any dispersion, with a greater degree of deflection, you dismiss it as non-instrumented. So you're cherry-picking, and you're citing rare cases to prove a general principle, without explaining why the proof is rare. And you don't see a problem with that. So OK, I'll stop wasting my time trying to convince you of anything there.

But there's no getting around the more fundamental issue concerning the lack of rigorous method on the part of GR proponents. Call all of the attention you want to the fact that there is no instrumented evidence of dispersion in mirages -- this merely proves my point that GR proponents are not doing their due diligence. Gravitational lensing is one of the cornerstones of GR, and nobody ever did an instrumented study on dispersion in mirages. An an analogy, suppose that one of the cornerstones of GR was that water boils at random temperatures, which in classical mechanics isn't true. I come along and propose that something is getting dissolved in the water that alters the boiling point. You say that I can't cite any instrumented evidence. Therein you win the battle, but you lose the war, because you're saying that their method is scientific while mine is not, and yet they never even bothered to check for contaminants in the water before concluding that the boiling point is random. Likewise, gravitational lensing is one of the cornerstones of GR, but nobody even bothered to measure dispersion in mirages. This is particularly odd in that mirages are extremely common, and therefore would make an extremely easy study. I can only conclude that GR proponents believe whatever they want to believe, and do not do the simplest of sanity checks. And there's just no getting around that.

Sain84 wrote:

CharlesChandler wrote: But in the conditions in which inferior mirages form, there is no convection -- absolutely none at all. I could refer you to literature on this

I would appreciate that.

I spoke too soon on this -- I thought that I remembered seeing instrumented data on the absence of convection in the conditions in which mirages form, but on searching, I couldn't find any instrumented data at all. I guess I was just going on the basis of lore, of which there is plenty, but that doesn't count. I did find one study of the temperature gradient which is curious. Surface convection and the distribution of temperature near a heated surface

Last summer we took some temperature measurements under the steady conditions prevailing at the epoch of diurnal maximum temperature above an asphalted road where inferior mirage could be seen on any clear day. The temperature variation with height above a hot surface was shortly afterwards measured also in the laboratory. The lapse-rates were of the order of 20°-30° C. per cm. in the first centimetre, and of the order of 1°-2° C. per cm. at higher levels near a heated surface. The observations showed that there was (1) a 'skin layer' within the first centimetre, and (2) a 'surface layer' extending up to about 20 cm. above the hot surface. The variation of temperature above these layers is practically negligible compared to the much larger variations below.

In thermodynamics, there is no model for diffusivity that provides for a "skin layer" or a "surface layer" -- the temperature gradient should be smooth, given that the substance being heated is homogenous, which we'd expect air to be. If there was convection, there would be boundary layer vortexes, and these would be hotter than the laminar flow above. But there isn't any instrumented evidence of convection. So this doesn't match theoretical expectations at all.

In the absence of instrumented data, the only thing that can be done is to issue predictions, and to collect the field data to test them. So here are my predictions.

1. Temperatures should be similar those obtained in the study cited above, with a hot skin layer 1 cm deep, a warm surface layer 20 cm deep, and ambient temps above that.

2. The humidity should follow the same gradient as the temperature, with high humidity in the skin layer, moderate humidity in the surface layer, and low humidity above that.

3. There shouldn't be any measurable convection (i.e., <0.1 m/s), despite the buoyancy necessary to drive a powerful updraft.

4. There should be an inverted fair weather electric field, with the surface of the asphalt being positively charged, and the skin layer being negatively charged (>10^-4 Coulombs per cubic meter). The surface layer should have a slight charge (~10^-9 Coulombs per cubic meter), and the air above that should have no detectable charge.

5. There shouldn't be any measurable chromatic dispersion.

The last 2 items would take more expensive instrumentation to measure, but the first 3 could be tested quite easily.

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Wed Mar 19, 2014 1:15 am

Sain84 wrote:

CharlesChandler wrote: How did they create a density gradient in laboratory air?

You don't have to. For one thing you can make a piece of optics that has a changing refractive index and test theory against that. It's analogous.

Oh OK. So is the following an accurate summary of the "logic" by which scientists have concluded that astronomical lensing is not caused by density gradients in atmospheres?

1. Observe that light is deflected by mirages here on Earth.

2. Assume that mirages are refracting light like a prism.

3. Test prisms in the laboratory.

4. Observe that prisms accomplish chromatic dispersion.

5. Observe that astronomical lensing is non-dispersive.

6. Conclude that astronomical lensing is non-prismatic.

7. Conclude that astronomical lensing cannot be attributed to the mirage effect.

8. Conclude that mirages do not need to be studied, because they are irrelevant.

Can you spot the logical error in that? Hint: carefully examine #2.

Re: Relativity

by CharlesChandler » Wed Mar 19, 2014 7:13 am

Oh and then there are just a few more steps, in case steps 1~8 leave anybody unconvinced that density gradients cannot deflect light in a non-dispersive way:

• Stick to the assumption that density gradients deflect light like a prism, and hope that nobody realizes that it's just an assumption.

• Conclude that anybody who asserts that density gradients are non-dispersive, given that they are assumed to be, must also be asserting the presence of something else in there (a.k.a., a "mystery material"), with the ability to put the dispersed frequencies back together again, assuming that dispersion had to have occurred, and without undoing the deflection.

• Call attention to the absence of evidence of said "mystery material".

• Count the number of moving parts in the "density gradient plus mystery material" thingy, versus GR.

• Call attention to the fact that you just manufactured something even more mysterious than GR.

• Invoke Occam's Razor to make it go away.

• Hope nobody realizes that it was a straw man argument.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Thu Mar 20, 2014 12:43 pm

  Sain84 wrote: Assume non-disperse refraction occurs in a single material from optical to radio with no known example of such a material (hence the "mystery material"). It's important to note it doesn't matter if this "mysterial material" is a new one or one we know of today, the argument is the same, we know of no material that has this property. It could be hydrogen for all we know but it wouldn't matter.

  Why does this have to be an assumption? All that needs to happen here is for somebody to take a spectroscope out into the parking lot on a hot, sunny summer day, and measure the spectrum in a mirror-image mirage, versus line-of-sight light, to see if there is any measurable dispersion. How could this not be considered simple due diligence? Gravitational lensing is one of the cornerstones of the new physics -- what kind of physics is this, that doesn't require the simplest of double-checks? So you repeat your "count the moving parts" argument, saying that gravitational lensing is simpler, and therefore better. Here you're revealing a fundamental disconnect from reality, which is typical in the mainstream these days. You fail to realize that there is more to a model than just the number of moving parts. Whether or not it has anything to do with reality is also a factor. Within the present context, you're saying gravity is deflecting the photons, and I'm saying that density gradients are doing the work. But the implications go far beyond just the number of moving parts in each model. Models make predictions. Models based on the true nature of the explanandum make good predictions. Models based on mis-attributed observations make poor predictions. For example, given a measured amount of deflection, my model estimates the density gradient in the atmosphere surrounding the gravity source, while yours denies that there is an atmosphere (otherwise there would be dispersion), and estimates the mass of the gravity source. Subsequent data collection will then confirm which predictions were correct. Does that matter?
  If simplicity is the only issue, why aren't you arguing that we return to Aristotlean physics? Fewer moving parts...

  Sain84 wrote: Lastly I'd like to ask if you believe that non-dispersive refraction happens in the atmosphere why doesn't it occur in observations of lensing? After all the radio measurements were made from the ground and the optical measurements I quoted were made in space and yet they agree on the value of gamma.

  I don't understand what you're saying here.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Thu Mar 20, 2014 4:54 pm

  Sain84 wrote: If you nor I am aware of any experiment that proves it either way it's an assumption.

  Of course. The point there was that the properties of mirages have not been investigated, and I'm questioning why not.

  Sain84 wrote: Fundamentally the space based measurements would disagree with the ground based ones.

  In what sense would they have disagreed?

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Fri Mar 21, 2014 1:05 pm

  Sain84 wrote: So why didn't they disagree?

  Probably because somebody assumed the conclusion, and never bothered to establish benchmarks. But you're right about one thing -- we have hit an impasse. You cannot be forced to acknowledge what you're taking for granted. And if I don't take the same things for granted, you call it an assumption on my part! For me, the discussion was actually never about which model was correct -- my point is the GR camp isn't doing their due diligence. Every time I ask questions about how results were obtained, I get evasive answers, and preformed conclusions. GR is not meant to be challenged. Therefore, I conclude that GR is bad science. I find it absolutely mind-boggling that gravitational lensing has been universally accepted, and yet nobody has even bothered to make direct measurements of the characteristics of mirages. You don't see the issue -- GR gets the results that it wants, so studying mirages would be assuming that there is a problem when actually there is none. I don't see it that way -- I think that it would be one more part of our world that we'd understand, and oh by the way, if mirages are dispersive, we'd have the quantification thereof. And if they're not, we'd have discovered a new type of deflection. But that's just me.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Sat Mar 22, 2014 1:56 am

  chrimony wrote: Where is your predictive model? I haven't seen any equations or predictions.

  Good point -- I haven't done the field work, so I don't have the base data to quantify. But don't try any argumentum ad ignorantiam here, or it will just call more attention to the fact that I'm not the only one who hasn't quantified mirages -- the mainstream hasn't either -- but that didn't stop them from buying into GR. Now I come along 100 years later, when GR is taken for granted, and before I accept it, I want to know how it was proved, and how the classical explanation was ruled out, and I get nothing but rhetorical responses. So I conclude that GR is BS (i.e., Bad Science). And don't bother trying to put the burden of proof on me, the way Sain84 attempted (and where I didn't even bother engaging), saying that if I'm going to argue against an accepted paradigm, I have to do all of the work. The classical explanation was accepted, before the equivalence of mass & energy was proposed (with its gravitational lensing implications). Then scientists dropped the classical approach in lieu of GR, without doing the work to prove it. So you'll be saying that if I want to go along with GR, imagination is more important than knowledge, and thought experiments are more important than field work, but if I want to go against GR, I have to show incontrovertible proof. Well, OK, but who am I going to show incontrovertible proof TO??? People who think that thought experiments are more important than field work??? They'll laugh at me for wasting my time!!!

  Besides, I have shown definitive proof to scientists before (in another discipline), and they were not impressed. For people like that, if you put all of the proofs in one pile, and all of the money they can make going along with the current political agenda in another pile, they'll always go for the money, and shrug as they turn their backs on the proofs. So no, I'm not going to prove anything to the mainstream. But that doesn't matter. Galileo never convinced the scholastic monks of anything, and it didn't hold him back. I just have to develop a model that marshals more of the phenomena into a framework that makes more sense, and (ultimately) makes better predictions, and prove it to people who are willing to consider proofs, because they don't have an economic incentive to disregard them. And such is always how scientific progress is made. This isn't the exception -- it's the rule.

  chrimony wrote: Also, the mass of the Sun has been measured by other means, so if it matches what General Relativity predicts when it comes to deflection of light, that is independent confirmation.

  You're going to predict deflection to within a couple of arc-seconds on the basis of the mass of the Sun, and with the force of gravity accurate only to within 1.2 × 10⁻⁴, and call it confirmation? That's making assertions that are finer than the experimental deviation. Without a more accurate definition of G, gravitational lensing can't even be tested, much less confirmed. But even if the numbers were more accurate, it wouldn't prove that the light was deflected by gravity, because it wouldn't rule out the mirage effect. But that doesn't mean that both models are equivalent, if they both make the same predictions. One of them corresponds to the physical reality, and one of them does not. We might not have the data to determine which one is correct, but that doesn't mean that it's a closed case, where GR has been confirmed, and further investigation is not necessary. Rather, we don't have the data to tell what's going on, so it's still wide open. Then comes the question concerning why we don't do the terrestrial investigations to rule out the mirage effect? I "think" that the answer is that thought experiments are more important than field data, and political agenda are definitely more important than rigorous proofs. But that's your game, not mine. I'm seeking the truth, not funding. Sometimes it is necessary to choose between truth and money. I choose truth.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Sat Mar 22, 2014 2:05 am

  karnak wrote: This morning on my drive to work I saw a sundog. Normally they come in pairs, but this morning it was just the one on the left, nothing on the right. The sundog, instead of being just a bright spot, presented itself as a mini rainbow with three colours visible. Explain that. Why was only one sundog visible, and why did it appear as a spectrum and not as a bright spot.

  Rainbows are well-described by classical optics. If they are dancing around, it's because the aerosols are in an electric field that is rapidly changing, due to discharges within the cloud. The shape of the droplets gets distorted by the electric field, so when the field changes, the refraction changes.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Sat Mar 22, 2014 4:17 am

  chrimony wrote: You say "the" classical explanation, and you've been harping on mirages. Yet scientists have been trying to rule out classical explanations by performing many different experiments. One source of error is the Earth's atmosphere, and space probes have been used. One source of error is the Sun's atmosphere, so different wavelengths are tested which are known, under classical science, to be affected differently. Now you come along and demand that GR science is garbage until they show that your underspecified and unpredictive model of a mirage doesn't account for the predicted effect under GR.

  That's correct. The reason for my interest in mirages is that they would be a lot easier to measure than near-horizon refraction in the Earth's atmosphere, and near-limb refraction above the solar surface. After all, in the conditions that produce mirages, we can just walk out there and make direct measurements (temperature, chemical composition, etc.), so that we can determine the actual density gradient. How are you going to get instrumented data on the density gradient in the Earth's atmosphere, or the Sun's, to that degree of accuracy? So if it's still valid that more accurate measurements that are easier to get are better, and if good science has a strong preference for good data, we ought to get direct measurements of the effects of density gradients on photons by measuring mirages. But despite how legitimate that reasoning actually is, scientists appear to be contending that GR already got the results it wanted, and no additional investigation is necessary -- case closed. That's what draws the charge of bad science on the GR camp. So you can do the argumentum ad ignorantiam thing all you want, but calling attention to the lack of instrumented in situ data on density gradients doesn't dismiss my argument -- it calls your process into question -- and that's my point. And until mirages are directly studied, there's no getting around that. Sorry.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Sat Mar 22, 2014 8:16 am

  chrimony wrote: Funny how the charges of bad science and argumentum ad ignorantiam come from somebody who has done no field work and not made a single prediction.

  My predictions concerning mirages are at the end of this previous post.

  chrimony wrote: But carry on, would-be Galileo.

  Thanks!

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Sat Mar 22, 2014 1:05 pm

  chrimony wrote: What's crucially lacking is how this model applies to the Sun and deflection of starlight around it, which is what Einstein did when he put forth his theory of General Relativity.

  What makes you think that my model would only apply to terrestrial density gradients (or that Einstein's only applied to the Sun)? … Am I wrong, before my work is complete? Was Einstein right, before his work was complete? The bottom line here is that it is always a mistake to prematurely rule out possibilities. I'm insisting on clear explanations of how things work, and if I don't get them, I conclude that there is still something that we don't know about this Universe. This is the premise of all scientific progress. You're convinced that GR is a closed case. I'm not. Ironically, Einstein would have agreed with me, and not with you. Same with Newton, and Galileo. I might not be qualified to play in the big leagues, with heavy hitters like those guys. But at least I understand the game. So I could be a bat boy or something. You, on the other hand, are only qualified to be a spectator in a game like this. So why don't you just sit back and watch, while players have a go at this? Why conclude that the game is already over, for all time? I like this game.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Sun Mar 23, 2014 10:34 am

  chrimony wrote:

  You're convinced that GR is a closed case. I'm not.

  But right now, the evidence points to GR.

  But when you say that alternative interpretations need not be investigated, isn't that a closed case??? BTW, I've been doing some more reading, and it might turn out that everybody was wrong about the optical properties of mirages (including myself). For example, see: Zhou, H. et al., 2011: Road surface mirage: A bunch of hot air? Chinese Science Bulletin, 56 (10): 962-968. The researchers note that cars can drive straight through mirages, and to the observer at a distance, the mirages are not disturbed. Since there's no way that the air in the wake of the car would not be disturbed, the optical phenomenon cannot possibly be refraction in a density gradient. The researchers go on to maintain that the mirage is actually a reflection directly off of the road surface. (See the references in the article for their review of others who have held this position also.) They're basically saying that at a small enough angle of incidence, surface scattering combines into a "reflected" image. I find that unconvincing, and they didn't seem to account for the fact that this only happens when the Sun is shining. For other reasons, I'm convinced that the surface has gotten photo-ionized. I have no idea how an ionized surface becomes reflective, but I "think" that it's the only variable left, so that deserves investigating. Maybe the ionization polarizes the remaining electrons, and then they emit photons that they receive in a specific direction, which they wouldn't otherwise do, thus making the surface reflective. And that would explain why there is no apparent dispersion in inferior mirages -- it isn't refraction at all. Does this mean that density gradients are insufficient to deflect light as I previously argued? I don't know, but anything's possible. Until they are directly measured, we have no way of knowing.

  I'm actually considering the possibility that density gradients don't refract light at all. In inferior mirages, my model asserts that there is a chemical differentiation, with a boundary layer that is much richer in water vapor than the air above. There is also instrumented data showing an anomalous build-up of heat in that boundary layer. I'm attributing that to the ability of water vapor to absorb infrared radiation, which diatomic nitrogen and oxygen cannot do. The water molecules are all negative ions, bound tightly to the surface, which is positively charged due to photo-ionization. So I was thinking that it wasn't so much the heat, but the difference in refractive indexes between water vapor and diatomic nitrogen or oxygen. If the mirage is actually just specular reflection, that goes out the window. But we definitely know that chemical differences can deflect photons. (Look closely across the top of a cup containing gasoline to see wavering in the air due to gas vapors that treat photons differently from the surrounding air, without any density gradient.)

  Back to the issue at hand: does the GR position get stronger, if one of its adversaries bites the dust? Not exactly. Could the atmosphere around a distant gravity source have chemical differentiation that deflects light? Yes. My point is this: when I hear things that don't ring true, I ask questions, and I learn. Sometimes I end up proving the position I was challenging, though nobody ever thanked me for this. Sometimes I end up on an alternative road, which I later find to have been traveled before. And sometimes I find myself bushwhacking through the wilderness. But no matter what, I learn something. And I have fun! I guess the GR folks find playing follow the leader to be fun too. To each his own, I guess. I have fun getting past people like that!!!

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Mon Mar 24, 2014 2:41 am

  David wrote: Just speaking for myself alone, I have enjoyed following this conversation and hope it continues. It's been a good debate.

  There has been good to it, but I'm not sure why we would continue. I think that the principle positions have been restated several times, and the only progress that I saw in all of that was that my position concerning the optical properties of density gradients shifted. But my essential position concerning the process of GR hasn't changed, which is what, for me, this discussion was about from the beginning. GR is presented as well-supported, and yet there are fundamental issues that are still in flux. For me, this means that the whole thing is, and should be, a wide open debate.

  chrimony wrote:

  CharlesChandler wrote: But when you say that alternative interpretations need not be investigated, isn't that a closed case???

  Another straw man and a case of binary thinking from you. I never said "alternative interpretations need not be investigated". However, not all alternative explanations are equal. Unfortunately, I'm having to repeat myself a lot here. What I said was: "If you want to make fringe claims of dubious value, while ranting and raving about the "garbage science" the other side is doing, the onus is on you. If you find these mirages so fascinating why haven't you done the field work?"

  This is how people respond when they can't defend their territory on scientific grounds. Most tellingly...

  CharlesChandler wrote:

  chrimony wrote: Also, the mass of the Sun has been measured by other means, so if it matches what General Relativity predicts when it comes to deflection of light, that is independent confirmation.

  You're going to predict deflection to within a couple of arc-seconds on the basis of the mass of the Sun, and with the force of gravity accurate only to within 1.2 × 10⁻⁴, and call it confirmation? That's making assertions that are finer than the experimental deviation. Without a more accurate definition of G, gravitational lensing can't even be tested, much less confirmed.

  I never got a come-back to that one. chrimony did follow up with a correction, stating that the measurements of "gravitational lensing" are actually in milli-arc-seconds, but perhaps without realizing that this only exasperates the problem of assertions that are finer than the experimental deviation, given the approximate value of G. Everything past that point from chrimony was ad hom attacks. Go figure.

  In the end, chrimony's position is just a double standard. The onus is on the one who challenges the mainstream. Sure it is. But then chrimony seems to believe that people challenging the mainstream should keep very quiet about it -- never discussing their ideas with like minds on forums. Before you disagree with GR, you'd better do all of the work to support your position, or you're doing bad science. So, without funding, and without online discussions, what chance does an alternative view have? No chance! Of course, that would suit the mainstream just fine. But people in the mainstream get to discuss stuff online, knocking ideas around, and mentioning relevant literature. They get to challenge methods, results, implications, and conclusions. But then they'll tell you that before you go challenging the mainstream, you'd better have all of that worked out. If you don't, all manner of ad hom attacks are justified. But that's a double standard.

  And that's why alternative forums get started, like this one. And this particular forum even tolerates people challenging the positions of the people who set up the forum, which speaks volumes about what kind of people they are. I might disagree with them, but I have a great deal of respect for the work that they have already done, and even more respect for the way they tolerate dissenting opinions, because that's the mark of true scientists. I get an ad hom attack out of the EU every once in a while -- there's no avoiding that, especially if the topic is methodology, and I'm guilty of it too. As long as there are still legitimate points that can be sifted out of the rhetoric, there is still value, and people looking for intrinsic merit just blow past the rhetoric. The time to walk away is when it's nothing but rhetoric. And I'm afraid that such is the trend in this thread.

  In closing, I'd like to call people's attention to the abstract from the paper on mirages that I'm currently studying. Zhou, H. et al., 2011: Road surface mirage: A bunch of hot air? Chinese Science Bulletin, 56 (10): 962-968.

  The inferior mirage from road surfaces is a common phenomenon, which can be easily seen in everyday life. It has been recognized in the literature as a light refraction phenomenon due to the refractive index gradient caused by the temperature gradient in the air strata above the road surfaces. However, it was also suggested that the mirage is just a phenomenon of specular reflection at grazing incidence. Because of the lack of reasonable and quantitative evidence, the generally accepted light refraction theory has not yet been refuted. Here we show some mirror-like reflection images captured from a road surface stretch in Yujiashan North Road, Wuhan, China, when there was no obvious temperature gradient on or above the road, measured on a winter day in December 2009. This provided direct evidence to doubt the temperature induced light refraction mechanism of the inferior mirage. Furthermore, the critical grazing angle of about 0.2° to the road plane where the mirror-like reflection appears could not make the rough surface scatter incident light as a smooth surface according to the Rayleigh criterion. Therefore the phenomenon is a mirror-like observation effect of scattering from the surface, which cannot be entirely explained by light refraction via air strata. The results demonstrate that the image-formation mechanism and the observer-based-analysis method shown here potentially offer a means of understanding a wide range of scattering phenomena from rough surfaces at grazing angle; for example, the superior mirages of unusual brightness occasionally observed over frozen lakes and the off-specular reflection phenomenon.

  So here we are, over 300 years after Sir Isaac Newton started formalizing the principles of optics, and we're not really sure whether inferior mirages are refractions in density gradients, or specular reflections due to some unknown mechanism. Wow. Some people seem to believe that scientists are pretty sure that they've figured out pretty much everything, and the only ongoing research has to do with extremely large and extremely small scale stuff (but all of the evidence definitely suggests that GR and QM respectively are the most promising paradigms). That's laughable. There are tons of uninvestigated assumptions embedded in everyday science that might all turn out to be false. And if that's how scientists treat simple stuff that's right in front of their faces, how are we going to interpret what they're saying about what's going on at extremely large/small scales? With an open mind, and with large doses of healthy skepticism. And we should share our ideas, so that others can find the flaws, and reveal opportunities for progress. Scientists who think that they pretty much have it all worked out aren't going to give us progress, because they're not even looking for it. Progress can only come from those who question.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Tue Mar 25, 2014 4:31 am

  Sain84 wrote: Gravitational studies of the Sun do not provide the mass of the Sun, they provide the product of G and Msun, GM. We know GM to much greater precision than we do G and hence M but that isn't important. That only means we can't determine M from GM to high precision but it does not affect our ability to test gravity because GM is the factor we need. And we know it very well.

  And how do we know GM so well? By the amount of lensing, assuming GR?

  Sain84 wrote: Secondly errors in gravitational lensing are linear so if you only knew GM to for example 1 part in 10,000 then we would have an uncertainty in predicted light deflection of 1 part in 10,000. If out deflection is big say 1 arcsecond, then the error is 100 microarcseconds. If our deflection however is 10 miliarcseconds then the error is 1 microarcsecond. In this equation errors are linear. The numbers in this case are made up but even if GM was only known to 1 part in 10,000 your experimental uncertainty would be tiny.

  No, you don't get to say that the experimental variability, which is a relatively small number, axiomatically means that any effect that is measured is subject to a very small variability, and thus the variability can be neglected. You have to apply the variability to the total, and see if it is greater than the effect that was measured. In other words, if you were measuring the boiling point of water, with a thermometer that was accurate to 1 degree out of 100, and if you unexpectedly found that your water sample boiled at 101 degrees C, meaning a discrepancy of 1 degree from the expected 100 degrees C, giving you reason to call it relativistic water, you wouldn't say that the discrepancy is 1 degree +/- 1/100 of degree, or 101.00 +/- 0.01 degree. It's 101 +/- 1 degree, which means that for all you know, the water actually boiled at 100 degrees C, but your thermometer just isn't accurate enough to detect variations like that. Likewise, you don't observe a discrepancy of 10 milli-arc-seconds, and then realize that one of the numbers in the calcs is only accurate to 1 part in 10,000, and then conclude that the discrepancy is indeed 10 milli-arc-seconds, accurate +/- 1 micro-arc-second. That's ridiculous.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Tue Mar 25, 2014 7:43 am

  Sain84 wrote: G wasn't determined for many years after newton because it is hard to measure, you need to know the mass of both bodies.

  Indeed. So how did Eddington determine in 1920 that gravitational lensing had been proved, before space-based measurements were available? I "think" that the answer is, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

  Sain84 wrote: In a equation with a linear equation and only one source of error you just take the percentage error on the variable as the error on the result.

  Correct.

  Sain84 wrote: Vupper=101*100*100=1010000 cm^3
  Vlower=99*100*100=990000 cm^3

  That's a +/- 1% error in the total volume, given a +/- 1% error in the measurement of one of the sides, which is correct.

  Sain84 wrote: So yes, if you have a predicted deflection of 10 milliarcseconds the uncertainty in the theoretical prediction is 1 micro-arc-second. Now what you are confused about is that this is only the theoretical uncertainty, it is not the measurement uncertainty. The measurement uncertainty is something else entirely but GM only affects the theoretical number. It's not ridiculous at all.

  That is NOT correct. The "predicted deflection of 10 milli-arc-seconds" is the discrepancy -- you don't multiply that by the deviation, to prove that your instrumentation is accurate to within 1 micro-arc-second!!! That would be a very neat trick indeed, if it was not sophistry. Nice try.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Tue Mar 25, 2014 9:20 am

  Sain84 wrote: GM can be calculated very well just with observations of the orbits of planets.

  If you know the mass of one object, and the orbital characteristics, you can calculate the mass of the other object. But what if you don't know the mass of either object? Then you only know the relative masses. They could both be heavy, or light, but either way, you'd get the same orbits. You can measure the mass of an object on Earth by its inertial force, and then come up with an estimate of the Earth's mass, given the gravitational force. And then you can estimate the mass of the Sun, given the mass of the Earth, and its orbital characteristics. But none of that is any more accurate than the benchmark measurement, which was of the object that you weighed here on Earth. And that's going to give you the precision to estimate milli-arc-second deflections due to the supposed gravitational lensing?

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Tue Mar 25, 2014 12:40 pm

  Sain84 wrote: As I said there are many ways to calculate GM not just these methods but as I said the precision measurements already exist, you don't need much.

  Were they thinking about using these or something? The last time I checked, gravity could only be estimated to within a factor of 1.2 × 10⁻⁴. Or is that what you mean by super-duper-high-precision measurements?

  … Where can I find GMsun defined?

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Tue Mar 25, 2014 3:38 pm

  Sain84 wrote:

  http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?constants

  How is that derived?

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Tue Mar 25, 2014 8:16 pm

  Sain84 wrote: http://iau-comm4.jpl.nasa.gov/XSChap8.pdf

  When I read papers like that, full of fancy heuristics, it always makes me think of the state of the geocentric theory just before Copernicus proposed the heliocentric theory. I remember watching a documentary that described a planetarium that was constructed to predict the celestial motions based on Ptolemy's work. It was a pretty fancy apparatus, instantiating all of the tweaks that had been applied to the geocentric theory, to absorb as many of the inaccuracies as possible. Copernicus looked at that, and at the fact that no matter what they did, they just couldn't get the last little bit of inaccuracy out of it, and concluded that they were missing something. Mother Nature doesn't do random or arbitrary. Things happen for reasons, and layer upon layer of heuristics doesn't get you closer to the truth. Sometimes you have to take a step back, and wonder what you're missing. So when I see a paper where they achieved an "exact solution" with a bunch of fancy heuristics, I wonder why it took such fancy heuristics. Mother Nature does physics, not statistics. Anyway... When the predictions of a best-fit numeric model confirm the predictions of a totally different model (i.e., GR), I call that coincidence. You'd have to show me where GR predicted the motions of the celestial bodies to nine places past the decimal point, of sufficient accuracy to be worth something in explaining gravitational lensing. But it doesn't.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Wed Mar 26, 2014 12:58 pm

  Sain84 wrote: This is GR. "Post-Newtonian mechanics" is what the simulation is, that's general relativity. The equations don't look the same because this is computational GR derived specifically to deal with the problem in a way that can be computed as simply as possible whist reducing errors. There is no coincidence here. That is GR predicting the orbits of bodies good enough to land spacecraft on Mars.

  My bad -- I didn't know that GR was a best-fit numeric model. But there goes all of your assertions about the physical forces at work. Of course the "predictions" of a best-fit model will come true -- and to a high degree of accuracy -- the model was fitted to that which is being predicted!!! That proves nothing, and it rules out nothing. Good numeric models can "predict" new observations by interpolation, but they tend to extrapolate poorly, and they typically leave the physical forces unidentified. So if all you have is numeric models, you're liable to be surprised every time a new type of data is collected, because your numeric model was fitted to the existing data, but that didn't give it the ability to extrapolate out into new territory. And how often do you hear scientists say that they were surprised at the results that they got when they tried something new? This is where physical models outshine numeric models. Once the causal factors are identified, the full range of behaviors can be derived a priori. For example, using the atomic theory, chemists can now predict the properties of chemicals that have never been observed before. And the economy of accurate extrapolations is the whole reason to engage in theory in the first place. If you just want to do fit curves after the fact, you don't need (or want) theory -- you just go with whatever works numerically. If interpolations are all that you need, that's the way to go. Just expect to be surprised if you ever try something new. IMO, we've passed the point of diminishing returns with that strategy. I'm tired of hearing how proud scientists are of the accuracy of their after-the-fact numeric modeling, while being very comfortable with being surprised every time they collect a new type of data. Those are people who just like playing with numbers, and see no need in pursuing the economy of physical modeling. It's good money if you can get it. But in no sense does the accuracy of numeric modeling preclude debates over the actual physical forces behind the observations.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Wed Mar 26, 2014 4:27 pm

  You're right -- I am confused. So GR is a quantitative model, which describes how stuff acts, but without explaining why or anything like that. Is that correct? And because it describes how stuff acts, without explaining why, there is no need to wonder why -- am I on the right track here?

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Thu Mar 27, 2014 3:01 pm

  Sain84 wrote: They are quite correct but they do not say they do not use relativity. At low speeds and large distances from the Sun Newtonian dynamics is fine, there GR reduces to Newtonian dynamics. If you took the time to actually read what I posted you would see plain and simple, the use of relativistic post-Newtonian physics. The JPL ephemerides in particular strive for maximum possible accuracy, hence why relativistic factors are used which only become important in some situations.

  They use GR alright. It just doesn't do anything, because at non-relativistic velocities, you're not supposed to get relativistic effects. And if you're going to argue that they're doing such accurate work that they feel compelled to compute even near-infinitesimal effects at non-relativistic velocities, I'll feel compelled to wonder why G is only accurate to 4 places past the decimal point, and GMsun only to 9 places. At orbital velocities, which are nowhere near relativistic, if they're worried about relativistic effects, I'd expect accuracy to dozens of places past the decimal point. But that's not what I'm hearing. So I "think" that what I'm hearing is nothing but BS.

  As concerns special relativity, I don't have a use for that either. Why rewrite the physics textbooks to accommodate the rare exceptions? How much of the physics that actually gets used in this world actually requires relativity? Almost none of it. And rare exceptions make bad rules. Any decent scientist will tell you that, as well as any decent engineer. I wouldn't see much utility to something like that, even if we had already solved all of the other mysteries that are a lot closer to home. In that we haven't solved all of the other mysteries, such as how to predict earthquakes and geomagnetic storms, relativity isn't just a waste of time/money. It's taking time/money away from real projects.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Thu Mar 27, 2014 5:12 pm

  A-wal wrote: If the speed of light is constant then the only way that can work is if space and time are relative.

  Check your assumptions before locking down on your conclusions. The speed of light in a vacuum is (supposedly) constant. Unfortunately, a perfect vacuum has never been achieved, much less on the scale necessary for measuring the speed of light. Yet all kinds of conclusions concerning the relativity of time and space have become accepted as "discoveries" (as if they are incontrovertibly true). I require more than preformed conclusions. And no, that isn't a preformed conclusion on my part, that something is definitely wrong. It's just an insistence on clear reasoning, and well-documented tests. When I don't get this, that's when I start to think that something is wrong. As concerns relativity, for me that was several years ago.

  A-wal wrote: Velocity is a measurement of distance in space over time. Time and space have to shorten from the perspective of an observer as they accelerate to keep the speed of light the same once they've stopped accelerating. There's no way around it.

  The sound of a train whistle travels at the speed of sound, regardless of the speed of the train. There will be a Doppler Effect if the train is moving relative to the observer. But this doesn't affect the wave transmission speed. No warping of time and/or space is necessary for these physical laws to hold true.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Fri Mar 28, 2014 2:45 am

  A-wal wrote: When your watching an object moving at half the speed of light relative to you you're seeing light moving away from them at half the speed of light.

  And how was this demonstrated? By a thought experiment in the mind of Einstein? Which you found to be really profound, so now you speak of it as if it is fact? And you require that I accept it as fact? Dr. Who episodes can be profound, to whatever extent you're predisposed to believe in them. The connection to reality hasn't been demonstrated, which means that the "proof" is in the predisposition.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Fri Mar 28, 2014 10:18 am

  Sain84 wrote: I said GR is what was used to put a rover on Mars.

  Did they use GR to calculate ever so precisely how fast the smoke would dissipate when they burned up 193.1 million USD in the Martian atmosphere...

  On November 10, 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter Mishap Investigation Board released a Phase I report, detailing the suspected issues encountered with the loss of the spacecraft. Previously, on September 8, 1999, Trajectory Correction Maneuver-4 was computed and then executed on September 15, 1999. It was intended to place the spacecraft at an optimal position for an orbital insertion maneuver that would bring the spacecraft around Mars at an altitude of 226 kilometers on September 23, 1999. However, during the week between TCM-4 and the orbital insertion maneuver, the navigation team indicated the altitude may be much lower than intended at 150 to 170 kilometers. Twenty-four hours prior to orbital insertion, calculations placed the orbiter at an altitude of 110 kilometers; 80 kilometers is the minimum altitude that Mars Climate Orbiter was thought to be capable of surviving during this maneuver. Post-failure calculations showed that the spacecraft was on a trajectory that would have taken the orbiter within 57 kilometers of the surface, where the spacecraft likely disintegrated because of atmospheric stresses. The primary cause of this discrepancy was that one piece of ground software produced results in an Imperial unit, while a second system that used those results expected them to be in metric units. Software that calculated the total impulse produced by thruster firings calculated results in pound-seconds. The trajectory calculation used these results to correct the predicted position of the spacecraft for the effects of thruster firings. This software expected its inputs to be in newton-seconds. The discrepancy between calculated and measured position, resulting in the discrepancy between desired and actual orbit insertion altitude, had been noticed earlier by at least two navigators, whose concerns were dismissed. A meeting of trajectory software engineers, trajectory software operators (navigators), propulsion engineers, and managers, was convened to consider the possibility of executing Trajectory Correction Maneuver-5, which was in the schedule. Attendees of the meeting recall an agreement to conduct TCM-5, but it was ultimately not done.

  If I'm reading that correctly, they had already done 4 "Trajectory Correction Maneuvers". How did they do 4 burns with mismatched imperial/metric units, and still come within 116 km of the target, after following a 669 million km trajectory? Anyway, a discrepancy between the calculated and measured positions was noticed, but the concerns were dismissed. So they cancelled the last scheduled burn (?) and the satellite disintegrated in the Martian atmosphere. (Oops.) Forgive me for confessing that I don't fully understand how this could have happened the way they tell it. If I was smart enough to understand GR, would I be smart enough to believe NASA press reports like this?

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Fri Mar 28, 2014 3:18 pm

  Maol wrote: Charles example is the classic which implies the observer is in a static medium in which the sound travels.

  Yes.

  A-wal wrote: When your watching an object moving at half the speed of light relative to you you're seeing light moving away from them at half the speed of light.

  CharlesChandler wrote: And how was this demonstrated? By a thought experiment in the mind of Einstein?

  A-wal wrote: No, it was first demonstrated by measuring light from the sun I think. Einsteins thought experiments where based on that information, not the other way round.

  So you're talking about Earth-based measurements of the speed of light from the Sun. This means that the instrumentation was swimming in a static medium -- the Earth's atmosphere. So how was the effect of the medium ruled out?

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Sat Mar 29, 2014 12:03 pm

  A-wal wrote: Any relativity doubters have to come up with an different explanation of how light could have a the same velocity relative to all inertial observers. Good luck, there isn't one.

  You're assuming the conclusion, and insisting that we do the same, or we must be wrong. Can you demonstrate the proof that the speed of light is independent of the medium in which it is traveling? Somewhere in here, something just has to be said. I'm asked to accept relativity. I ask about the methods by which the conclusions were made. I'm accused of being stupid, or even that I'm giving the EU a bad name, because I don't understand relativity. How am I to understand the conclusions except in the terms by which they were derived? I tend to think that many people who claim to "understand" relativity don't understand it at all. My reason for saying that is that when questioned, they cannot provide the derivations. Without those, there isn't any understanding. There is only blind faith. Similarly, if you tell me that in a right triangle, a^2 + b^2 = c^2, I'll ask you to show me the proof, which I'll inspect, and if it sounds reasonable, now I'll understand it too. If you cannot produce the proof, you don't "understand" it -- somebody told it to you, and you blindly accepted it. That might be beautiful, and it might be profound. But it isn't understanding. And I'd rather question, and be thought a fool, than to keep my mouth shut, blindly accepting what I'm told, and BE a fool!!! So if you're going to insist that I accept relativity, first I'll have to understand it, and for that to happen, you have to show the derivations. So, how is the speed of light measured, and how was it determined that it is constant, regardless of the medium? I want to understand...

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Sat Mar 29, 2014 3:40 pm

  A-wal wrote: I never said the that the speed of light is idependent of the medium though which it's moving. It isn't. That's not the point. The constistancy of the speed of light regarless of the relative velocity of both the sourse and of the observer has been varified many times. One of the ways is by measuring light coming from moons as they're moving away from and towards us. Guess what, the directly and velocity of the moon relative to us doesn't alter the speed of light that's coming it relative to us, imagine that.

  If two pebbles are tossed into a pond, and hit the surface at points equidistant from an observer, with one pebble traveling away from the observer, and the other traveling towards the observer, and both make waves in the pond, do the waves 1) reach the observer at the same time, 2) reach the observer at different times, depending on the relative velocity of the pebbles? Try to make your explanation of this as simple as possible, so even stupid people can understand.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Sat Mar 29, 2014 6:21 pm

  A-wal wrote: Do you think you've just managed to refute the most profound and beautiful theory ever conceived with an analogy of ripples on a bloody pond?

  I'm not trying to refute anything -- I'm trying to determine the derivations of the conclusions. Is there anything to understand here, or do you have to take it all on faith? If so, it isn't science -- it's a religion. And as religions go, relativity sucks. No hymns, or choirs, or bake sales -- just priests who talk nonsense and deride people for not understanding nonsense. No thanks.

  A-wal wrote: If two pebbles are tossed into a pond, and hit the surface at points equidistant from an observer, with the observer traveling towards one of the stones at half the speed of the waves, does the observer; 1, measure the waves coming from the stone they're heading towards passing them at the same velocity as the waves coming from the stone they're heading away from, or 2, measure the relative velocities of the waves coming from the stone they're heading towards and of the stone they're heading away from passing at different relative velocities, depending on the relative velocity of the observer?

  That's a poorly formulated question. Wave transmission speed is a function of the medium, not the thing that caused the waves, nor the thing that measures them. If the measuring instrument is moving relative to the medium, it will detect faster/slower frequencies of waves. But that isn't wave transmission speed.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Sun Mar 30, 2014 4:43 am

  A-wal wrote: If the measuring equipment is moving relative to light it will NOT detect faster or slower relative velocities of the light waves! Do you understand the difference now?

  Perhaps I'm almost there... I can understand waves traveling at a constant speed in an homogenous medium. I can understand waves traveling at different speeds in different mediums. And I can understand waves getting refracted when crossing the boundary between two different mediums. All of these behaviors have been demonstrated, for p-waves, s-waves, and for light. That, of course, is why people started thinking of light as waves. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light#In_a_medium. The sticking point here is that I "think" that you're saying that the speed of a light wave is constant, even if the observer is moving through the medium, and I'm questioning how that was determined.

  Back to the analogy of ripples on a pond: suppose the wave speed relative to the water is 1 m/s, but suppose you're moving through the water at .5 m/s. This will cause the frequency of the waves to be shifted, by 1/2 or by 3/2, depending on whether you're moving with the waves, or against them. And we observe such a shift in light waves, which is known as the Doppler effect. (Relative velocity might not be the only thing that can shift frequencies, but it is certainly one of them.) But I "think" that you're saying that the wave transmission speed is the same, regardless of motion of the observer through the medium, and regardless of frequency shifting due to that motion. And that's where I'm getting confused. I need to know how the speed of light is measured, and how the speed of the medium is factored out. You said earlier that it wasn't.

  A-wal wrote:

  CharlesChandler wrote: So you're talking about Earth-based measurements of the speed of light from the Sun. This means that the instrumentation was swimming in a static medium -- the Earth's atmosphere. So how was the effect of the medium ruled out?

  It wasn't. The point is that relative the velocity of the source of the light has no influence on the relative velocity of the light...

  That's true of all waves, even in classical mechanics. That's why I conjured up the analogy of pebbles hitting a pond, and I stipulated that they had relative velocities, while noting that this doesn't affect the wave transmission speeds.

  A-wal wrote: ...and is also unaffected by the relative velocity of the observer.

  Unaffected in what sense? Light travels at different speeds in different mediums. You're saying that this is true, regardless of the velocity of the observer. Well, that's true is classical mechanics as well. Ripples on a pond travel at the same speed relative to the pond, regardless of the motion of the observer. The frequency is shifted by relative velocity of the observer, but not the wave transmission speed of the water. But I "think" that you're saying that the wave transmission speed is always the same, to every observer, regardless of motion through a medium. I just don't see how the measuring instrument wasn't inside the medium, and thus got the same number every time, since the speed of light in a given medium is always the same, fully matching classical expectations.

  For example, the speed of light in air (given that the wavelength being measured is 589 nanometers, temperature is 0 °C, and the pressure is 1 atm) is about 299,704,644.53915 m/s. This is true regardless of whether the light source is moving toward us, or away from us. Well of course it is -- that's the classical expectation, just like the ripples in the pond moving at the same rate, regardless of the relative velocities of the pebbles. So that doesn't prove Einstein -- it proves Newton. The real question here is do we get 299,704,644.53915 m/s, plus or minus the speed of the measuring instrument through the air? So I want to know how speed of light is measured, such that a difference is detected between classical and relativistic expectations. This means that relative velocities through the medium have to be measured, and the different expectations have to be noted.

  If you're going to bother to respond, don't just produce another knee-jerk reflex, sensing that I still don't "understand", and going straight into the repetition of relativistic assertions, as if saying it enough times will finally get the point through. I have already heard the assertions many times -- I'm not questioning whether or not you can repeat yourself over and over. I'm searching for the derivations. In all other disciplines, the presentation of a principle starts with a description of the way the effect was measured. For example, the laws of EM induction are typically explained by describing (or even re-creating) Ørsted's experiment in which a compass needle was deflected by current in a nearby wire. Then you do the math, and consider the practical applications. So the understanding of the principle is in terms of how its effects are observed. As concerns relativity, it all seems to trace back not to a physical experiment, but rather, to things that Einstein thought, as he was imagining what it would be like to ride on a beam of light. But I'm having difficulty figuring out where that intersects with the physical world.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Sun Mar 30, 2014 7:38 am

  A-wal wrote:

  CharlesChandler wrote: The sticking point here is that I "think" that you're saying that the speed of a light wave is constant, even if the observer is moving through the medium, and I'm questioning how that was determined.

  Yes that's exactly what I'm saying, and there's absolutely no distinction between the observed object moving in relation to a static observer and a a moving observer measure the velocity of light from a static source because all inertial motion is relative.

  No, I'm not asking about the relative motion between the source and the observer. I'm asking if the observer is moving through the medium.

  A-wal wrote: This relative motion has no affect on the velocity that light passes both of them, and if both are measuring the same thing passing them at the same relative velocity despite their velocity relative to each then they have to be in disgreement over the lengths in time and space that the light is traversing.

  Or both instruments were bathed in a medium which forced the consistency of the speed of the waves.

  A-wal wrote: Doppler shift doesn't effect the velocity of light though, it affects the frequency of the waves only.

  Correct. But if you manipulate distance and time to get the same speed of light, despite relative motion between the source and the observer (and irrespective of the issue about the speed of light in a medium), why doesn't this also manipulate the distance between wave crests, eliminating the Doppler effect? I'm so confused...

  A-wal wrote: I meant that the medium that light the light is moving through does have an affect on it's relative velocity. It moves slower through air than it does through a near vacuum for example. It's speed isn't constant in that sense, but that's nothing to do with what's meant by the constant speed of light. It's talking purely about the fact that the velocity of the source and the observer relative to each other has no affect on the velocity of an energy wave relative to either.

  That isn't relativity -- that's classical mechanics.

  A-wal wrote: Actually in reality light isn't slowed at all through any medium, it's just that the refraction gives it a longer path to follow in order to traverse the same distance, so it only appears to be slowed.

  What does refraction have to do with it? For example, when Armand Fizeau measured the speed of light in 1849 using a rotating wheel with slots in it, the light might have followed a straight path, or a curved one. In order to accurately measure the distance, they would have strung tape measures along the line of sight, which could have been just as straight, or just as curved. Either way, the distance was measured along the path traveled by the light. So refraction has nothing to do with it.

  A-wal wrote: Think of the pebbles moving through the water releasing periodic ripples as they travel. Their motion in the water does affect the speed that the waves move away from them. It makes the waves slower relative to them in the direction they're traveling in and faster in the opposite direction. The light waves coming from them are unaffected by their motion relative to anything.

  How is this measured?

  A-wal wrote: No, the speed of the source of the ripples relative to the water affects the speed of the ripples relative to that observer, but the light from that observer is unaffected by the velocity of the emitter and the observer relative to each other.

  Again, I'm not asking about the relative motion between the source and the observer. I'm asking if the observer is moving through the medium, and if that affects the measured speed of light.

  A-wal wrote: The speed of the observer of the light has no affect on the velocity of the light relative to that observer.

  How is that determined?

  A-wal wrote: No, like I said, the velocity of the source and the observer relative to each other has no affect in any situation.

  And I agreed. That isn't the question.

  Re: Relativity

  by CharlesChandler » Sun Mar 30, 2014 11:10 am

  A-wal wrote:

  CharlesChandler wrote: No, I'm not asking about the relative motion between the source and the observer. I'm asking if the observer is moving through the medium.

  That question has no meaning in space. The only velocity that exists between the source and the observer is their velocity relative to each other. If the medium was moving then the speed of light wouldn't be the same regardless of the velocity and the source relative to each other. It would speed up if it was moving with the medium and slow down if it was moving against it. This isn't what happens, ever.

  Prove it. And no, I'm not going to Google it. The onus is not on me to search for the evidence in support of your assertions. You support your assertions.

  A-wal wrote: Doppler shift doesn't effect the velocity of light though, it affects the frequency of the waves only. [...] If the object emitting the light is moving towards the observer the light waves gets squashed together because they're not as far apart from the perspective of the observer and the wave crests will be passing the observer more frequently, and if the object emitting the light is moving away from the observer the light waves get stretched apart because they're further apart from the perspective of the observer and the wave crests will be passing the observer less frequently.

  But you're also saying that velocity is distance over time, and for the measured velocity to be the same at all observers, distance and/or time have to vary. Yet varying the distance and/or the time to get this effect would also affect the distance between the wave crests, canceling the Doppler effect. The speed of light is the distance traveled over the time taken. The frequency is the distance between wave crests. If you vary the units for the distance traveled, you vary the units for the wavelengths.

  A-wal wrote: The light bounces around in the air at the speed of light creating a path that isn't straight which makes appear to slow down, but it doesn't.

  Really?

  A-wal wrote: The light waves coming from them are unaffected by their motion relative to anything.

  CharlesChandler wrote: How is this measured?

  A-wal wrote: With some kind of light detection device I'd imagine.

  You apparently accepted this without inspecting the derivation. That is not something that I am willing to do. Perhaps you'd understand my questioning if I quote something that my father wrote, and which had a lot to do with how I was raised. He thought that it was a reasonable position, and so do I.

  Challenge what you hear, not to disagree, but to understand, and not out of arrogance, but out of humility. You have the right to demand understanding, and if something doesn't make sense to you, you have the right to say, "I am too stupid to understand what you just tried to explain to me. Can you please explain it in terms that even I can understand?" And if you still don't understand, you have the right to ask someone else. And if you still don't understand, you have the right to search the whole world for what you're missing. Just remember that sometimes, it is easier to derive understanding from what you already know. We all have more knowledge than we need, and new understanding is rarely the product of new knowledge — it's more commonly the product of a new appreciation of something that we have always known. But you must never give up trying to understand. When you understand something, you possess the object of that understanding, in a way that the legal owner might not. You know how to appreciate it, how to take care of it, how to replace it, and when to simply get out of its way. If you understand the whole world, then everything in it belongs to you. And understanding is that which one can possess, and one can share, and one can possess all the more. Physical ownership must be mutually exclusive, because each thing in this world must be the responsibility of one individual. Accountability doesn't distribute well. But the ownership of understanding is not like that. We can all appreciate everything in this world, and all the more so if we share our appreciation. If everyone thought like this, the only thing that we would not be able to understand is how anyone could have ever been any other way. The part of the world that you care to survey is yours. Go possess it in the only meaningful way possible, with your mind, at first with your humble curiosity, and then completely with your proud generosity. — Roger M. Chandler, Sr. (1925~2004)