Very likely. Sadly communication is seldom as effective as we might wish.
I mean to say this as non-offensively as I can: this paragraph is painful to read. It’s literally a giant run-on sentence. Where are you placing these clocks? It’s not clear. Is one moving with the elderly person and the other with the car? Are they stationary relative to the disk? Am I on the disk? Or am I watching the disk from the lab frame? Am I in the car? Am I walking with the old guy?
Regardless, you’re arguing by appealing to non-relativistic intuition. According to the commonly accepted model, the photons (the guy and the car, I assume) both move at speed c in opposite directions. Having one move faster than the other is talking nonsense. They travel different space intervals and different time intervals. You can’t make an argument on based on intuition in a space with a Euclidean metric and expect to get meaningful results in space with a Lorenzian metric.
Let’s say I claim that I can draw a triangle on the surface of Earth with three right angles, and these interior angles sum up to 270 degrees. Obviously this is possible if one corner is at the North Pole, and the other two a suitable distance apart at the equator. You can’t tell me what I propose is impossible because a triangle always has 180 degrees, and at most one right angle, based on your intuition about triangles. I’m working in a different geometry.
By the way, regarding the time zone quip: I should make it clear that this isn’t a simple artefact of polar coordinates like the International Date Line. I’m talking about a discontinuity in physical time, not the coordinate system.
If you don’t know how much distance you’re covering, how are you measuring a speed?
I still don’t understand where these detectors are located. Apparently not symmetrically since there’s some notion of a “long way”. And I don’t understand this assumption you’re making about non-existent or instantaneous time.
I don’t understand how your detector at 4 o’clock isn’t a clock. An event happens at it, and it records a time. It just sends its time to another detector at 3 o’clock. It seems that you want to have both the clock at 3 o’clock and the whatchamacallit at 4 o’clock to be “synchronized”. I’m assuming this because you have the detector signal propagate from 4 o’clock to 3 o’clock at the speed of light. This is a synchronization scheme that is not Einsteinian. I’ve seen it called “central synchronization”, because one way to achieve it is to synchronize all of your clocks at the center of the disk, then send them out radially to their points on the periphery.
Using this synchronization scheme, you do in fact
– eliminate the time gap
– find that light has a faster one-way speed in one direction than the other
You’ve used a non-standard synchronization scheme, and so you get non-standard results. This shouldn’t be too surprising. Talking about the concept of velocity presupposes that you’ve defined beforehand what it means to be simultaneous at two different locations. Which method will you choose? Einsteinian synchronization leads to a time discontinuity. Central synchronization leads to non-universal one-way light speeds.
There are mathematical reasons why central synchronization is not used, but it can be. Just be aware that the one-way speed of light (which differs from c) is synchronization-dependent. The two-way speed is still c, just as SRT predicts, and it’s still just as weird and non-intuitive. My understanding–and someone who knows this topic better than I do can correct me–is the one-way speed is a consequence of the mathematics without any way to be physically detected. Now, you can claim that it doesn’t matter whether something can be physically detected or not, it just is what it is. However, this line of reasoning sure does sound like confusing mathematics with physical reality, something that, if I recall correctly, you’re not particularly fond of. Anyway, none of the preceding discussion has stopped people from trying to measure the one-way speed of light. Here’s a blog post about one such attempt in October that’s being scrutinized:
http://www.realclearscience.com/2013/10/16/one-way_speed_of_light_closing_the_loophole_255582.html
Regardless of what synchronization scheme you pick, the predictions are the same. If you’re in the central scheme, you can “re-sync” the clocks mathematically and regenerate Einstein’s theory.
Heck, you can check the wiki page: One-way speed of light - Wikipedia
Here’s the introduction, which summarizes what I’ve said. Note particularly the portion about Einstein choosing a convention.
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
When using the term ‘the speed of light’ it is sometimes necessary to make the distinction between its one-way speed and its two-way speed. The “one-way” speed of light from a source to a detector, cannot be measured independently of a convention as to how to synchronize the clocks at the source and the detector. What can however be experimentally measured is the round-trip speed (or “two-way” speed of light) from the source to the detector and back again. Albert Einstein chose a synchronization convention (see Einstein synchronization) that made the one-way speed equal to the two-way speed. The constancy of the one-way speed in any given inertial frame, is the basis of his special theory of relativity although all experimentally verifiable predictions of this theory do not depend on that convention.
[/QUOTE]
What it boils down to is that, in this latest experiment, you’ve started with a different assumption than what Einstein started with. The time lapses that you’re talking about aren’t the same as what Einstein was talking about. You can go from one point of view to the other with suitable mathematical transformations, but in doing so you change the interpretation of what’s going on. The physical results manage to be the same, however.
By the way, on that wiki page, there’s also a section on special relativity with alternate synchronization and different one-way speeds of light, if you’re interested.
I’m going to bring up the drawing-a-triangle-on-Earth analogy again.
[QUOTE=me]
Let’s say I claim that I can draw a triangle on the surface of Earth with three right angles, and these interior angles sum up to 270 degrees. Obviously this is possible if one corner is at the North Pole, and the other two a suitable distance apart at the equator. You can’t tell me what I propose is impossible because a triangle always has 180 degrees, and at most one right angle, based on your intuition about triangles. I’m working in a different geometry.
[/QUOTE]
I broadened the notion of what it means to be a triangle by considering a triangle on a spherical manifold and claiming that its angles don’t add up to 180 degrees. We could instead insist that all triangles everywhere have 180 degrees. This would require a severe reworking of our notions of length and angle, but perhaps it’s mathematically feasible. (Maybe it’s not.) Regardless of its feasibility, you have to sacrifice a sacred cow. Will it be the nature of triangles, or will it be the nature of length and angles? This is sort of like what choosing between the two synchronization schemes is like. In both, the two-way speed of light is constant. You get to choose whether you want discontinuous time, or non-universal one-way light speed (still keeping in mind the constancy of two-way speed). Both, from the point of view of a Newtonian, suck.
It is an analogy.
So if I am caught on camera murdering someone, I could just say it was my double from a mirror universe, and while that may sound impossible, judge, members of the jury, did you no you can draw a triangle on a sphere where each corner is 90 degrees?
However you know what, I bet some of them did know that (as I did), or would automatically work that out, it is obvious.
But that still has NOTHING related to a different puzzle which does not make any sense in any of your attempts to explain it.
I started to reply, but I think maybe you don’t understand how the Sagnac effect works.
You take a loop: O and if you enter a pair of photons at 12 (top), and each moves around the disk and pass at 6 and meet back up again at 12.
If the loop is rotating close to the speed of light clockwise then the part of the disk that was at 12 when the photons entered will be at almost 6 when they pass and it will follow the CW one around so that this photon makes almost no progress back at 12 as the photons pass again, while the other one passes repeatedly.
The speed over the entire loop from the perspective of the rotating loop is VERY asymmetric.
However the claim is that this can’t be detected (non C) over a segment, even a quarter should not be too much to extend this claim to.
That is how Special Relativity tries to pretend it’s not broken.
But if the difference is extreme as above where one photon passes by a detector many times and the other has almost no progress, then it becomes bizzare to question which is faster, the Elderly person limping or the Stig in a supercar?
The next argument is more rock solid and undeniable…
No, it does not record time, it is just a sensor that sends a signal to the actual single clock.
Since it is not a clock it is not synchronization, at any rate the results would have to be symmetrical for SR to be correct, and plainly they could’t be.
You can argue that there will be a small and direction ambiguous non-simultaneity, but that still does not create any problem as the result would still have to be asymmetric which is the point.
I was considering such a scheme for arguments involving larger disks with simultaneous photons launched at different points as that would make for smaller segments or lower speeds to get an obviously biased result.
It is important to note that the scheme is symmetrical!
It does not favour a particular direction.
If one direction is faster than C and one slower then that would be an accurate observation.
Central sounds very sane to me, and as I said if you found the light in one direction to be faster and you stopped and rotated it in the other direction, now the other is faster.
I would say delusional and desperate of SR’s part honestly, I’m not spouting rhetoric.
Can you give a reason why central synchronization or my method would find light speed to be different and indeed above C in one direction and that not be valid?
These methods could be used in the spaceship analogy too.
Seriously, is this idea that the speed of light can be above and below C and that be a valid argument supported by Special Relativity something you can point me to?
Because if you say that SR can be superluminal in a sense in one direction, then I have few arguments to make, it is like SR has rolled onto it’s back and begged me to scratch it’s belly.
But, to me this is not the SR I was ever sold on and it sounds more like some kind of SR made with string and duct tape to keep it together despite evidence to the contrary. Suddenly my spaceship can accelerate and light is coming toward my eyes at over 1C, but a light speed test the other way shows less than C.
It might not be possible to move faster than light in this scheme, but it would be possible to have light move relative to you at more than C.
It can easily be detected in the manner you laid out, central synchronisation in a Sagnac experiment.
Not easy when one photon is being repeatedly lapped.
Indeed if the velocity became .9999999999999999 C one photon would be almost stopped hardly making any progress, that doesn’t sound hard to establish which is fastest if one really isn’t moving.
Thank you for an informative post, but the Axiom that Special relativity is based on however is that the speed of light is C, never seen to be faster…
Oh, unless you are moving relative to the light, sure then you can.
At this point Special Relativity seems to be 20 different things, mix and match the parts you want.
If SR is structured to only consider the 2 way speed of light obviously motion won’t do anything!
I am not even sure especially when concepts like frame dragging and space-time possibly moving away from us at the outer reaches of the universe to they can exceed C relative to us because what? A preferred reference frame?
It seems like a game of contradicting it’s self.
Preferred reference frame, no such thing… Well nothing detectable… Well ok in rotation only… Well ok in any arc it could… But you couldn’t measure the speed of light to be greater than C… Ok you can but only around the whole loop… Ok in a smaller portion too… But only if you measure the single direction velocity of light which you can’t do… Ok maybe you can, but you can’t exceed C… Unless you can by moving the preferred reference frame…
You can still learn that GR insists that there is a time dilation in acceleration just like gravity, even though it is not true.
No wonder it survives it just gets changed into a different form with exceptions and allowances.
I really do respect the time and knowledge you put into that, but to me it just made SR look like it stood for nothing, sure the speed of light being equal to all frames of just an average, it’s cool.
Seriously though great post, thanks.
Yes, the point of arguing by analogy is to present something that’s obvious, and then show how it’s similar to something that’s not so obvious in order to bridge a connection between the two.
An analysis of your most recent experiment can be summarized as follows:
You set up two clocks, one at 3 o’clock and one at 4 o’clock. Since you used a non-Einsteinian synchronization, you ended up theorizing that the one-way speed of light is greater than or less than c, depending on direction. There’s nothing wrong with this. However, the round-trip speed of light is still c. Special relativity can accommodate all of this.
An analysis of your hexagonal disk experiment can be summarized as follows:
The radius of the hexagonal disk does not contract. The circumference does. This would appear to be a paradox – you mention that the disk would break. The standard response to this is that the disk occupies a curved non-Euclidean space, and curved disks don’t obey C = 2πr. This curvature is a result of acceleration. I’ve seen other responses which question the physical reality of this curvature, one of which was in the review paper I linked to earlier. (In fact, the theories are conveniently categorized by whether or not the circumference experiences Lorentz contraction. I thought you would find it useful. I’m doing your research for you.) I actually find one of these responses more convincing, but you’d claim I was using mathematical obfuscation, so I’m sticking with the the standard. All theories predict that the radius does not change, and the hexagon never fits inside the cylinder.
With regard to the role of math in physics:
If special relativity is wrong, it is wrong in one of two ways.
(1) It is mathematically inconsistent.
(2) It fails to agree with physical reality.
If (1) is the case, please provide the proof. You don’t seem to think (1) is the case though.
If (2) is the case, please provide data that disproves relativity. You made the objection that you don’t have the money. Do you think scientists pay for experiments out of pocket?* Write a grant proposal! Seriously. As other people have stated, you’d get the Nobel if you succeed, and your PhD even if you don’t. You’ve made claims that mathematics is not equivalent to physical reality – and then you resort to thought experiments. Mathematics is a thought experiment. Concepts such as symmetry, locality, synchronization, conservation, velocity and acceleration; notions of short, fast, small; these are all ultimately mathematical.
*Physicists don’t become physicists for the money. If they wanted to be rich, they’d go into mathematical finance.
One last thing. Suppose you’re on the edge of rotating disk, say a merry-go-round. I happen to be 180-degrees away from you on the other side of the merry-go-round, also rotating with it. You are not moving in my reference frame. I am not moving in your reference frame. Period. We are both moving in opposite directions in the lab frame, and have accelerations pointed towards the center of the merry-go-round. Your failure to grasp this is maddening.
You didn’t answer any of my questions asking for clarification, so I assume we’re done.
Are we in the Pit now? Good.
Holy Mother Of God. mythoughts, until you can understand BASIC MATH and simple equations, please shut the fuck up. Trying to argue physics without math is like trying to sketch a picture without any paper, pencil, paint, or any equipment at all. You can’t have a coherent discussion about a subject that you lack even the most basic tools to understand.
But he can see the image perfectly clearly in his mind!
I’d actually be happy to deal with it on a descriptive basis, if he would stick to simple experiments. Crazyhorse parodied his hyper-complex and over-elaborate set-ups.
For instance, in his Sagnac Effect experiment, he insists on the light “lapping” the circle. This is pointless and stupid. He also wants the light to leave the 12 o’clock position of the circle, move to the 6 o’clock position – and then move back to the 12 o’clock position again. Unnecessary! The interference fringes will be seen where the two beams meet at the 6 o’clock position. Further “laps” add nothing.
His clocks are always “transparent.” His mirrors are always “rotating.” He can’t describe an experiment without nonsensical bells and whistles.
Hey, let’s make it out of chocolate! Then it’ll go faster than c!
If I might quote Harlan Ellison
I’m going to bow out of this thread. I haven’t had any formal training in relativity beyond 4 weeks I took as a requisite class for my BS. I had since forgotten everything, and began from scratch a little over a week ago. Many of the papers I’m reading support different viewpoints, and I’d rather work through them and firm up what I think before I potentially dig myself into a deep hole on a message board.
Regardless, my understanding is that theories with anisotropic one-way speeds of light arise simply from an alternate convention on how we shift clocks. This one-way speed is not detectable, and cannot transmit information. It is analogous (in a loose way) to doing arithmetic in base-60 rather than base-10. They both yield the same results, just the math is different.
I’d recommend Spacetime Physics, by Taylor and Wheeler, for a general treatment of SRT at the undergraduate level. (This is what I used as a freshman.)
I’m currently going through Tramparlis’s Special Relativity, An Introduction with 200 Problems and Solutions. The first chapter covers group theory, tensors, and so on – not in a particularly clear way for me (having never been exposed to any of this previously), but there are plenty of resources online that I’ve been looking at simultaneously to get me through the math. At least I now know what all those g’s with the funny subscripts I see everywhere are.
There is a problem that I still don’t understand about the Sagnac effect. TA Weber puts it rather clearly. “So if one starts at clock A and synchronizes clocks along a closed path back to A one may fine that clock A must be adjusted to be synchronized with itself, which is of course nonsense.” Weber does claim to resolve this in the paper – Am. J. Phys. 65(10), Oct 1997 – I just haven’t had time to read it. I bring this up this paper mainly to address the offensive claim that mythoughts has made, that the scientific establishment is somehow engaged in a conspiracy to cover up challenges to a perceived relativistic orthodoxy. Here’s a quote from the abstract:
[QUOTE=Weber]
Pellegrini and Swift have recently suggested that the use of special relativity in the calculation of the electric dipole moment of a moving magnetic dipole cannot be applied to the classic experiment of Wilson and Wilson, which used rotational motion. This paper contests that view.
[/QUOTE]
The paper also comes with a response. Here’s the first paragraph:
[QUOTE=Klauber]
In a recent paper on relativistically rotating disks, Weber presents the prevailing view and appears to content that one need simply apply traditional relativistic concepts directly to all problems and paradoxes disappear. After cordial and protracted communication with Prof. Weber, the present writer remains convinced that the issue is, in fact, far from settled, and that the following inconsistencies remain unresolved by the standard “solution”.
[/QUOTE]
followed by a rebuttal
[QUOTE=Weber]
A full discussion of the many issues raised by Robert Klauber is not possible in this short response. But I hope the following comments give some insight into the problem of the rotating disk and allow the reader to judge where and how we agree or disagree.
[/QUOTE]
I grasp that, and because there is relative motion between them I would argue that there should be mutual time dilation.
But since this would only be true is SR applied to rotating frames (And Sagnac indicates otherwise) which is equivalent to a curved path, then time dilation in a mutual manner would disappear in all but empty universe theoretical situations as far as I can see.
Except a method to detect the one way speed of light would be required, and to be honest if SR is cool with the speed of light not being C under perfectly reasonable schemes I am no longer sure what would constitute a means of measuring the speed of light that SR would not just say is only valid outside of Einsteinian space-time.
I am not sure how to explain them any clearer, I think that the first one had flaws (and the other one may too if time dilation was considered), and I like the center symmetrical synchronization method you suggested better anyway.
I lack the mathematical skills to dispute that SR is broken by central synchronization, though it seems like it to me.
And all I have left is to argue that one photon could be essentially stopped and according to you, it would still be measured as just as fast as the one exceeding the speed of light with Einsteinian methods.
I no longer know what proving SR is wrong should look like, because I am no longer clear what it stands for anymore is Relativity is not one of those things.
Or Do I? Anti SR obfuscation scheme.
My strongest argument would be that central synchronization is not biased directionally (reverse the rotation and the opposite direction registers as faster), and as such this scheme could even be employed on a space ship if clocks were positioned to assume locations on an arc that would be a portion of a much larger circle, then as this spaceship moves especially if it moved in an arc according to it’s sync scheme. (rotating around the pulsar of another equally distant location).
Ok, now this is getting more promising, if the sync scheme were a distant pulsar, then the timing in the clocks would seem very sensible to those in the ship (they would seem to keep the same time as he degree of arc would be vanishingly small).
If the ship now orbited that very distant point the same distance as the pulsar the speed of light would now be faster moving fore to aft (front to rear) and slower aft to fore (rear to front) assuming the ship is moving forwards of course…
It would now be identical to a tiny portion of the Sagnac experiment on a galactic scale.
If other clocks synchronized by other schemes in the ship while ‘stationary’ were compared, no vaguely sane scheme of synchronization would have a difference large enough to disagree with the results of the pulsar sync scheme.
If SR only applies to bizarre schemes of synchronization and perfectly linear motion not actually achievable it is not sounding good.
Missed sentence fragment:
then as this spaceship moves especially if it moved in an arc according to it’s sync scheme** a difference in the velocity of the speed of light would become apparent**. (rotating around the pulsar OR another equally distant point location).
Sorta-about Sagnac: This is how I was thinking of the Michelson-Gale (-Pearson) experiment.
The whole experimental setup is moving at about 390 m/s thanks to the earth’s spin and the latitude of southwest Chicago.
The north pipe is closer to the earth’s axis than the south pipe by the distance between pipes on earth’s surface times the sine of the experiment’s latitude. I got 226 meters for that answer.
Multiply that by 2pi and divide by the sidereal day’s length to find how much faster the south pipe is moving – I got 16.5 mm/s.
Therefore, for similar reasons to the Coriolis effect, the counterclockwise loop takes … (goes to Wolfram|Alpha) … 225 attoseconds (2.25e-16 seconds) longer than the clockwise loop.
My questions should be apparent:
- Is my math right, or at least not obviously wrong?
- Is that enough of a difference to be observable with interferometer equipment?
- Did any of that make sense from a physics standpoint?
2a) … or from an English standpoint? - Where’s a good starting point for brushing up on the optics I learned for about a week in physics, passed the test for, and promptly forgot?
Thanks!
It depends on the frame of reference.
You can take the frame of reference of a guy on a carousel, sitting on a horse at the 12 o’clock position, and fix his position as the center. He would then see the other guy (at the 6 o’clock position) “moving” around him, and he would see that guy experiencing time dilation.
The same is true of the guy at the 6 o’clock position, if you consider his position as fixed and view the first guy as moving around him.
You can’t do both at once. You can’t superimpose frames of reference on top of each other. Either one guy is stationary, and the other guy moves…or the other guy is stationary and the first guy moves.
Or you can take a viewpoint outside the carousel entirely, and watch both guys move, in which case they will both be seen to have time (and length) contraction, to an equal degree.
This is nothing more than a complicated example of the very simple and straightforward case of two people moving past each other in linear motion. If the first guy is considered at rest, the other guy is moving and has time and length contraction. If, however, you consider the second guy to be at rest, then the first guy has time and length contraction.
The rotation is extraneous to the effect. You aren’t gaining anything.
Let’s put 'em on a Merry Go Round, so the horses move up and down, too. More complicated…but it adds nothing.
You’ve brought nothing to this discussion. You “feel in your gut” that relativity is wrong. In this case, your gut is wrong.
Yes, but we need to be careful not to confuse view and motion.
If you and I are motionless and I hold a light clock, if you turn your eyes so it appears to be moving, time has not slowed.
I think the easiest thing to do is to ensure that as we observe the motion we do not change our direction of vision relative to the non-rotating world.
Now this would indeed create precisely the view you propose and it seems valid.
Yep, all good so far.
Yes, but superimposing frames of reference is precisely what SR does, until there is a curve, but as I argue how slight of a curve? Any! So hence if SR’s mutual time dilation can’t handle anything other than perfectly straight line motion it does not relate to reality in almost any way.
SR holds that relative motion creates time dilation mutually, so why not here?
Yes, but since both guys on the carousel see the other as moving, both see the other as time dilated, more so than they are. Despite that, they are RIGHT THERE opposite and never need move from view or even appear to be moving.
Odd, we agreed on so much…
I’m not sure what your point is, that the relative motion between them doesn’t really count because it is slightly curved?
I think you have explained nothing, so I guess we are even, I guess that part really is relative.
I am glad you are questioning the evidence.
When all is considered with aether being partly entrained, and if then measurement is a 2 way one, I really do not understand why the speed of light would be expected to be measured very far from C in most conditions without SR.
That the speed of light is found to be close to C mostly should be expected.
Inline with the thought that Special Relativity can happily twist till it no longer resembles it’s self…
Physicists extend special relativity beyond the speed of light
Physicists continue work to abolish time as fourth dimension of space
The introduction of 4D Minkowski spacetime has created a century-long misunderstanding of time as the fourth dimension of space that lacks any experimental support.
That’s not what I’m doing. I’m questioning my understanding.
When I first started the calculations, I used a value of 6368.69 meters (significant figures (and units) be damned) for the earth’s radius at Chicago. The second time, Wolfram|Alpha gave me the same values for one leg of a triangle and its hypotenuse. The third time, W|A burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp.* But the fourth time, using pure numbers instead of numbers + units, I got an answer. My optics intuition, as indicated by my questions, is very rusty.
*By which I mean it returned an answer of 0.
Ah yes, the Great Aether Void of Southwest Chicago theory. (I think there’s a Stargate buried there.) That’s why Chicago Midway (MDW, né Chicago Air Park) was established there – it wasn’t until after WW2 that planes could handle the aether and O’Hare could be built.
That’s all the response your Grand Woo-nified Theory deserves.
It’s one thing to say “The math is too hard.” It’s another to scream to the heavens “LALALALALALALALALALAL NO MATH NO MATH NO MATH NO MATH”.
You do realize that none of this supports your case? Although it’s pretty hard to tell just what your case is.