# Reply Ronald Raygun from closed thread: Why Special Relativity is wrong and the speed of light **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 28, 2014, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505 "2014-02-28T09:50:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505/21 "2014-02-28T16:31:07Z")
Are all the mods on vacation? Why is this glurge being allowed to proliferate? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505/22 "2014-02-28T17:01:07Z")
> [@mythoughts](#): > > I don’t trust math because it is very possible to do something in math that is absurd if you could see physically what you were saying. OTOH, any physical event can accurately be **described** mathematically. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505/23 "2014-02-28T17:08:34Z")
I used to play bass for Blue Rabbit Seltzer. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505/24 "2014-02-28T17:25:43Z")
[Relevant xkcd toon.](https://xkcd.com/675/) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505/25 "2014-02-28T17:39:20Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Relevant xkcd toon.](https://xkcd.com/675/) I thought it was going to be the one that points out how GPS would be useless if relativity was wrong. Here is a more serious source: [http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html](http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html) > [@](#): > > Because an observer on the ground sees the satellites in motion relative to them, Special Relativity predicts that we should see their clocks ticking more slowly (see the Special Relativity lecture). Special Relativity predicts that the on-board atomic clocks on the satellites should fall behind clocks on the ground by about 7 microseconds per day because of the slower ticking rate due to the time dilation effect of their relative motion. > > Further, the satellites are in orbits high above the Earth, where the curvature of spacetime due to the Earth’s mass is less than it is at the Earth’s surface. A prediction of General Relativity is that clocks closer to a massive object will seem to tick more slowly than those located further away (see the Black Holes lecture). As such, when viewed from the surface of the Earth, the clocks on the satellites appear to be ticking faster than identical clocks on the ground. A calculation using General Relativity predicts that the clocks in each GPS satellite should get ahead of ground-based clocks by 45 microseconds per day. > > The combination of these two relativitic effects means that the clocks on-board each satellite should tick faster than identical clocks on the ground by about 38 microseconds per day (45-7=38)! This sounds small, but the high-precision required of the GPS system requires nanosecond accuracy, and 38 microseconds is 38,000 nanoseconds. If these effects were not properly taken into account, a navigational fix based on the GPS constellation would be false after only 2 minutes, and errors in global positions would continue to accumulate at a rate of about 10 kilometers each day! The whole system would be utterly worthless for navigation in a very short time. This kind of accumulated error is akin to measuring my location while standing on my front porch in Columbus, Ohio one day, and then making the same measurement a week later and having my GPS receiver tell me that my porch and I are currently about 5000 meters in the air somewhere over Detroit. > > The engineers who designed the GPS system included these relativistic effects when they designed and deployed the system. For example, to counteract the General Relativistic effect once on orbit, they slowed down the ticking frequency of the atomic clocks before they were launched so that once they were in their proper orbit stations their clocks would appear to tick at the correct rate as compared to the reference atomic clocks at the GPS ground stations. Further, each GPS receiver has built into it a microcomputer that (among other things) performs the necessary relativistic calculations when determining the user’s location. > > Relativity is not just some abstract mathematical theory: understanding it is absolutely essential for our global navigation system to work properly! ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505/26 "2014-02-28T17:40:07Z")
> [@andros](#): > > I used to play bass for Blue Rabbit Seltzer. How fast were you playing? Did you rotate? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505/27 "2014-02-28T17:53:11Z")
The GPS argument has already been tried as well. Apparently, according to our resident physics guru here, “someone” has looked at that data and decided it wasn’t reliable. So, you know, there’s that argument conclusively blown out of the water. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505/28 "2014-02-28T18:43:09Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > How fast were you playing? Did you rotate? Let’s just say the ladies really dug my big red photon’s axis of rotation, if you get what I’m saying.\* [sub]\* And if you do, please explain it to me[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505/29 "2014-02-28T18:58:15Z")
\*\*mythoughts: \*\*Trying to impart your genius on these morons is casting pearls before swine. They, like most of the world, are incapable of comprehension. There are a few others with your intellect. Unfortunately most of them are members of the Illuminati, and they will do their best to quash your theories through ridicule. Failing that, they will resort to murder. Save yourself! ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505/30 "2014-02-28T18:58:51Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Are all the mods on vacation? Why is this glurge being allowed to proliferate? I’m not speaking for the forum mods, but sometimes we allow the TM to have a cat toy for a while.😉 ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505/31 "2014-02-28T19:04:23Z")
mythoughts, you should perhaps design an actual physical experiment proving the Special Theory of Relativity is incorrect. When you have done that please show us the results. Until then, the truth is nothing you say is terribly relevant. You must prove it with physical evidence. ---
**Author:** ![mythoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7993a0/32.png) [@mythoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mythoughts)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505/32 "2014-02-28T19:08:09Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > As **Gyrate** points out, this is gibberish. Ignoring an experiment because you can’t explain the results is gibberish. the though experiments could be performed, but none of the results SR would want to see harmonize with each other. > [@](#): > > These kinds of “thought experiments” have been tried. Yes and no, thought experiment that are easily shown to be flawed by you or me do exist. There is no solution to my thought experiments possible. > [@](#): > > The speed of light is an observed constant. Under the same logic, so is the speed, you measure it as the earth turns and moves in space, no change, measure with cars moving toward and away from you, no change, measure it in a vehicle, no change as it takes the air with it. And I disagree entirely that it hasn’t been measured. See: [Michelson–Gale–Pearson experiment - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Gale%E2%80%93Pearson_experiment) This experiment found that the speed of light is not constant! But it decided to interpret that since the inconsistency was considered to be due to rotation and rotation is relative. That is total nonsense! If movement causes the speed of light to change, then it is no longer at C, it is faster and slower! In fact, if the spinning of the earth is detectable because rotation is absolute motion, then so is orbiting around the sun! You can’t say the speed of light is always constant, unless maybe we are talking about rotation on some scale from an atom to a galaxy or larger! And if the speed of light can be said to vary as long as the motion is absolute not relative, then there is almost zero motion that is perfect straight line perfect that could not be seen to describe a portion of a very large circle, regardless of it’s past has or future agrees with that, laws of physics can’t change based on what you will or won’t do in the future. But instead that experiment is considered a disproof of a perfectly dragged with the earth aether. Which it is, at the hight and location it was tested at which I am predicting isn’t deep under ground. So all it tells us about a dragged aether is that it isn’t dragged with the earth rotation in the atmosphere at a great height apparently. > [@](#): > > If you shine a light from a stationary source onto a spot, and measure the speed, it will be 186,282 miles per second or thereabouts. But if you put the light source on the top of a car, and drive the car towards the spot at 100 miles per second, and measure the speed of the light, it will still be 186,282 mps - it will **not** be 186,382 mps. Special relativity was created to try to explain that. If you put a speaker on top of your car and drive at a spot at 50% of the speed of sound, you will still only measure the velocity of that sound to be the expected speed of sound! This clearly disproves the existence of air and that the speed of sound is also a constant! Sheesh, stop reading Relativities sales brochure as arguments for it without putting some thought into it. > [@](#): > > It doesn’t matter if the light source is rotating, or red, or blue, or a neon sign reading “Eat At Joe’s” - the speed of light in a vacuum is 3 x10[sup]5[/sup] kilometers per second. That’s an observed fact - it has been demonstrated many times over. Yes, as has the speed of sound being constant under a wide range of conditions. And then you know what, under other conditions the speed of light is not constant as above, and SR is far quieter about those. Funny that. > [@](#): > > Now, if you or anyone else can show some circumstance where light travels faster than that, I will be the first to congratulate him on his Nobel prize. There are plenty of cases where that has happened. BUT, if something is illogical and can be proven so, then another answer that fits with the evidence must be looked for. Even if that theory is not clear, it doesn’t matter. Now I can think of 3 alternatives, though I reject one of them. 1: Lorentz Aether theory, SR is an out growth of Lorentz, but most of my arguments don’t disprove Lorentz, though there is no way that i can see for the speed of light to always be C. 2: My favourite and personally I’m sold, an entrained aether. This would include some Lorentzian effects when matter travels through aether. 3: A concept that a photon travels at C in each possible reference frame of relative motion, but not that it travels at C relative to the sources frame. This would mean that the location of a photon at any moment is in differing locations dependant on which frame you are in. Additionally if you measure the speed of light with 2 sensors the speed of light will be measured to be C unless you change velocity between the photon hitting one sensor then the next. I would note that SR can’t answer this one either. > [@](#): > > But he will actually have to show that. You are not showing that at all. Your posts are not thought experiments - you are simply making up nonsense and pretending that it would do something in the real world that it doesn’t, hasn’t, and won’t. > > Regards, > Shodan They are thought experiments. And they could be done in reality. Only the problem is SR can’t model these cases and come to any coherent view of reality ---
**Author:** ![Itself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d07c76/32.png) [@Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Itself)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505/33 "2014-02-28T19:08:35Z")
So, I’m a lawyer. I haven’t passed the bar, I’ve never gone to law school, and I’ve never been a practicing attorney— but I’m pretty sure I know what I’m doing. I can’t read any legal documents, but you don’t need that to understand law; I have a common-sense, intuitive understand of how the law works, and that’s better than any fancy booklearning. I’m an expert in the subject despite not knowing anything about it. Chief Justice John Marshall once said, “I don’t know anything at all about law, and I don’t really believe in all this talk about ‘judicial review’ or ‘Constitution’ or ‘judges’.” He would agree with me on all my points. I also have a judge in Canada who said that I’m a brilliant lawyer, and that trumps all of your arguments. I’ve figured out a way to make it perfectly legal to not pay income taxes, based on the fact that if you put a train on a rotating treadmill, then flags in US courtroom don’t have the right fringe and therefore taxes are illegal. This argument has appeared hundreds of times on the Internet and is covered in every first-term class in law school, but I’m sure none of you—especially those of you who are, like me, actual laywers— have ever heard of it. I insist that you all refute my long argument word by word, but without using any fancy law talk: no precedents, no laws, and none of this fancy ‘legal system’ nonsense, which is just a made-up fantasy that doesn’t match reality. Until you all acknowledge what a brilliant, special snowflake I am, I’ll just keep opening threads on the topic. But I know you all will continue to ignore me because you can’t _handle_ my air-tight arguments. You’re just a bunch of unthinking, orthodoxy-preserving zealots. Take that, establishment! ---
**Author:** ![mythoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7993a0/32.png) [@mythoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mythoughts)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505/34 "2014-02-28T19:15:26Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > mythoughts, you should perhaps design an actual physical experiment proving the Special Theory of Relativity is incorrect. When you have done that please show us the results. Until then, the truth is nothing you say is terribly relevant. You must prove it with physical evidence. What a good idea RickJay! Now firstly I wonder if anyone will pay attention then, I doubt it. But before I do the experiment, it would be foolish of me not to know what Special Relativity predicts will happen, so I can either verify it or disprove it! If SR isn’t falsifiable , it is not a scientific theory, so please help me so that I know when it is broken, and when not! If I envision that result A will disprove SR, and if SR has not placed it’s ‘bets’ until after I show my results, then obviously SR can cheat and just say it would have predicted the winner and get some story about how he had to take his wife to the hospital because she was suddenly sick etc… What kind of bookie do you think I am!? Nope, SR needs to place it’s bets BEFORE the game starts! [/bookie alter ego] ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2014, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505/35 "2014-02-28T19:16:41Z")
Enough [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reply-ronald-raygun-from-closed-thread-why-special-relativity-is-wrong-and-the-speed-of-light/682505.md?page=1)