SR and one-way speed of light tests

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by wisp
The evidence against relativity is overwhelming and clearly the speed of light varies depending on the motion of the receiver.

Nope.

I'm still looking for evidence that proves special relativity is false...

Life would be a lot easier for you if instead you learned how the universe actually works.

 

[Nereid]

wisp wrote: I'm still looking for evidence that proves special relativity is false, and have found two more sources that make good reading.

For the interested reader, this site has an extensive compilation of experimental validation of SR (and a few experiments which produced contrary results):
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html#7. Other experiments

The Sagnac effect seems simple, but (IMHO) is very easily misunderstood. A couple of references for the interested reader:
http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s2-07/2-07.htm
http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2003-1/node2.html

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by wisp
I'm still looking for evidence that proves special relativity is false...

I let this go before, but this is a great big red flag, wisp. It implies that you are ONLY looking for evidence that disproves relativity, ie. you are not interested in looking at anything that doesn't support your opinion. That is directly contrary to the way science works. If you are really interested in "doing" science, you'll look at both.

Nereid, interesting looking link. I'll have to read it when I get a chance (just skimmed it).

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by wisp
Nereid

I've spent a lot of time and money developing wisp theory, which suggests SR will fail this simple test.
I posted ideas about a one-way test on several forums including the superstringtheory forum. I got a little bit of feedback from that forum - they gave me a link to the work of Roland De Witte, who did do a one-way electrical experiment and got a positive result. I expect any amateur working on similar one-way light experiments will get dismissed by mainstream science, as Roland's work was.
Universities have been teaching Einstein's theories for nearly one hundred years and there is a very real possibility that those theories are wrong. So they have a duty to do one-way tests to back their claims and prove to all that what they teach is correct.
A professional body carrying out this experiment will be taken seriously, amateurs doing this work will not.
I also posted ideas on wisp big bang on superstringtheory forum to get some feedback. But I'm not a cosmologist and I posted ideas just to see what happened.

Hi wisp,

I came across the following paragraph which seems to directly address your concern that no one-way tests of SR have been performed:

"Recent advances in atomic spectroscopy and atomic timekeeping have made it possible to test LLI by checking the isotropy of the speed of light using one-way propagation (as opposed to round-trip propagation, as in the Michelson-Morley experiment). In one experiment, for example, the relative phases of two hydrogen maser clocks at two stations of NASA's Deep Space Tracking Network were compared over five rotations of the Earth by propagating a light signal one-way along an ultrastable fiberoptic link connecting them (see Sec. 2.2.3). Although the bounds from these experiments are not as tight as those from mass-anisotropy experiments, they probe directly the fundamental postulates of special relativity, and thereby of LLI [local Lorentz invariance]"

This is taken from "The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment", section 2.1, at:
http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2001-4/

References to the all experiments are given in the article.

Unless I'm mistaken, these experiments are considerably more precise than the Roland de Witte work you cite, and address a similar (the same?) question.

I'm sure you've reviewed these experiments; why did you find them to be insufficient to disprove wisp?

 

[Michael F. Dmitriyev]

I think, that it is impossible to conceive and execute one-way experiment removing all questions concerning a light until we’ll not know precisely that there is “light”.

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by Michael F. Dmitriyev
I think, that it is impossible to conceive and execute one-way experiment removing all questions concerning a light until we’ll not know precisely that there is “light”.

Would you mind elaborating?

 

[Michael F. Dmitriyev]

Originally posted by Nereid
Would you mind elaborating?

Are you sure what know all about light?

 

[Nereid]

Only fools and horses ...

Originally posted by Michael F. Dmitriyev
Are you sure what know all about light?

I'm sure we - you, me, Tom, Ambitwistor, ... - do NOT know *all* about light! And never will.

What, in particular, concerns you about the one-way tests? [?]

 

[Michael F. Dmitriyev]

Originally posted by Nereid
I'm sure we - you, me, Tom, Ambitwistor, ... - do NOT know *all* about light! And never will.

What, in particular, concerns you about the one-way tests? [?]

May be, I know about this subject a little bit more, than someone in your list (excluding horses). Anyway, I have made such attempt. Look at mine topic, please.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7611

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Michael F. Dmitriyev
May be, I know about this subject a little bit more, than someone in your list (excluding horses). Anyway, I have made such attempt. Look at mine topic, please.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7611

In that thread you displayed that you misunderstand the fundamentals of what IS known about light. No, we do not know everything - but there is a lot that we do know. You'd do well to learn the things that we do know before trying to forulate your own theory or attack existing one.

 

[wisp]

Nereid

Regarding Clifford Will's "Theory and experiment in gravitational physics" 1981 (2nd edition 1993)- The centrifuge, two-photon absorption (TPA) and JPL experiments test the isotropy of light speed using one-way propagation.

What I can say is that wisp theory fully supports Local Lorentz invariance (LLI)(see ch8). Without buying his book I cannot comment about the reasons why his work would suggest that the DeWitte results are false.
Do you know how long the fibre optic cable was?
What were the results and tolerances?

I believe wisp theory will challenge his work and show DeWitte's experiment to be true.

 

[Michael F. Dmitriyev]

Originally posted by russ_watters
In that thread you displayed that you misunderstand the fundamentals of what IS known about light. No, we do not know everything - but there is a lot that we do know. You'd do well to learn the things that we do know before trying to forulate your own theory or attack existing one.

I have learned it many years ago. Similar you, I have had feeling the puppy’s delight before all existing theories and a famous names. With the years it has passed. I can assure that it wait you in future too ( I suspect you are near 18 only).

 

[Brad_Ad23]

Regardless of what age he has, if he knows the mathematics and the physics behind it, he can deduce the basic theories do work and draw valid conclusions from them. russ is indeed able to perform such feats. You on the other hand have done nothing but exhibit the classic symptoms of a crackpot Posting intractable ideas all over the place with no mathematics or even wrong mathematics to try and support your ideas. It is very clear you have almost zero grasp of what is real physics and yet you attempt to continually demolish it. If and only if you present a real valid argument formulated in real physics will people begin to take any objections you have as valid. But so far, nobody can even guess where to begin to show how wrong your claims have been

As for wisp 'theory' it just isn't supported by an real, reproducible results. Nereid produced a perfect example of wisp falling flat down. In addition, if special relativity were wrong, then general relativity would also be incorrect at some basic level. Yet, it has also been proven to be a very extremely accurate tool for predicting observations to an astonishing degree.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Brad_Ad23
...if he knows the mathematics and the physics behind it, he can deduce the basic theories do work and draw valid conclusions from them. russ is indeed able to perform such feats.

Heck, no need to go even that far (I appreciate it though). I will freely admit to having only a conceptual (ie, not mathematical) understanding of high end concpets in physics such as the nature of light. But that is all that is required to see that some of his statements are directly contradictory to what is actually observed. Heck, the title of his other thread is itself an easy example.

 

[Nereid]

Hard copy only? Physical Review D

Originally posted by wisp
Nereid

Regarding Clifford Will's "Theory and experiment in gravitational physics" 1981 (2nd edition 1993)- The centrifuge, two-photon absorption (TPA) and JPL experiments test the isotropy of light speed using one-way propagation.

What I can say is that wisp theory fully supports Local Lorentz invariance (LLI)(see ch8). Without buying his book I cannot comment about the reasons why his work would suggest that the DeWitte results are false.
Do you know how long the fibre optic cable was?
What were the results and tolerances?

I believe wisp theory will challenge his work and show DeWitte's experiment to be true.

The two key papers are:

Will, C. M., "Clock synchronization and isotropy of the one-way speed of light'', Phys. Rev. D, 45, 403-411, (1992)

Timothy P. Krisher, Lute Maleki, George F. Lutes, Lori E. Primas, Ronald T. Logan, John D. Anderson, and Clifford M. Will, "Test of the Isotropy of the One-Way Speed of Light using Hydrogen Maser Frequency Standards", THE PHYSICAL REVIEW D (RAPID COMMUNICATIONS) 42, 731 (1990)

Unfortunately, these may not be available on the web. Do you have access to a university library? You may also find the Will book in such a library. Alternatively, many city libraries in the UK (AFAIK) can obtain a copy of a book such as Will's through inter-library loan; perhaps you could enquire?

 

[Brad_Ad23]

Originally posted by russ_watters
Heck, no need to go even that far (I appreciate it though). I will freely admit to having only a conceptual (ie, not mathematical) understanding of high end concpets in physics such as the nature of light. But that is all that is required to see that some of his statements are directly contradictory to what is actually observed. Heck, the title of his other thread is itself an easy example.

You got me there Once you learn about curl and divergence vectors and the like and you get to Maxwell's equations, you start to see the picture even brighter

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Brad_Ad23
Once you learn about curl and divergence vectors and the like and you get to Maxwell's equations, you start to see the picture even brighter

You mean bright like the flashes of light you see at the beginning of a migrane? Yeah, been there. Its called differential equations. Thank God for computers.

 

[paultrr]

Reply on those equations

I second that statement.

 

[Brad_Ad23]

Originally posted by russ_watters
You mean bright like the flashes of light you see at the beginning of a migrane? Yeah, been there. Its called differential equations. Thank God for computers.

computers are overrated for that. Give me my own skills to solve it any ol' day. For large numbers and insanely long equations sure, computers. But nothin like actually knowing how it works

 

[paultrr]

Also different programs sometimes yield different outputs as reguards signs + or -, so to speak. One problem a friend of mine encountered while trying to run an output based upon an already published finding in an article.

 

[wisp]

Nereid

Thanks for the info. This is a challenge to wisp theory and maybe it will show SR is correct, and wisp theory wrong.
The experiment looks like it has professional credibility, and I hope the results are conclusive.
However, my bet is that the results are inconclusive due to large tolerances, and given doubt the experiment will bias towards SR being correct.
I know the DeWitte experiment used six atomic clock standards and ran over 178 days, and did detect a sidereal variation in frequency difference.
Both can't be right. It is likely that the one with the larger tolerance is wrong.
I will try and find the answer.
If anyone knows of any independent reviews on the JPL results I would welcome your input.

 

[Nereid]

centrifuge and TPA?

wisp, Will also mentions the centrifuge and TPA (two-photon absorbtion) experiments as being one-way tests. Have you looked into these too? Maybe they're not relevant to wisp.

From the same website as my earlier Will quote (Sect 2.2.3); the 'observed limit' refers to the JPL experiment:
"The observed limit on a diurnal variation in the relative phase resulted in the |c^-2 - 1 | < 3 X 10^-4. Tighter bounds were obtained from a ``two-photon absorption'' (TPA) experiment, and a 1960s series of ``Mössbauer-rotor'' experiments, which tested the isotropy of time dilation between a gamma ray emitter on the rim of a rotating disk and an absorber placed at the center"

 

[wisp]

Nereid
I don't think wisp theory has any issues with the centrifuge and TPA (two-photon absorption) experiments. Wisp theory covers the 1963 Kundig rotating turntable experiment and supports the predicted effects (Wisp theory - Section 9.2.3). I think the two-photon absorption relates to Local Lorentz Invariance, and this is also supported.


However, there is an issue with the T.P.Krisher et al “laser optic one way light experiment” 1990

I came across this info on the net written by D.J.Larson.
" 10.3 The Experiment of Krisher et al.
A recent experiment by Krisher et al. has tested for the anisotropy of the oneway speed of light by using two hydrogen maser standards separated by 21 km. The light from each maser is split, with one-half sent to a local detector and the other half used to modulate a laser carrier signal that is sent to a detector at the distant location. The light from the local maser and the distant maser are combined, and their relative frequency difference monitored. Since all light propagation is oneway in this experiment, the node enforcement hypothesis, Postulate DJL-II, is no longer easily motivated by an analogy with a pinned string, and it is possible that the Krisher et al. experiment could yield a non-null result. (There are no longer mirrors enforcing boundary conditions at both ends of a light path, so nodes may no longer be forced to move along with the apparatus in this case.) An analysis of the Krisher et al. result using the theory presented herein shows that experimental noise is too large at present to be able to detect the Earth’s motion through an ether at rest with respect to the 3 K microwave background radiation. However, further refinements in the experiment may detect such motion."

http://www.dipmat.unipg.it/~bartocci/fis/larson3.htm

It seems that the experiment was not accurate enough to detect the motion of the Earth through the ether, and the experiment only ran for 5 days. I believe the DeWitte experiment was more accurate because it ran for much longer and was able to extract the sidereal period variations from the data. Only modern one-way tests will resolve the issue.

 

[outandbeyond2004]

Wisp, the following quotation is from your website:

http://www.kevin.harkess.btinternet.co.uk/wisp_ch_5/wisp_ch_5.html


5.3.9 Bending light
The curvature of wisp space by matter or energy will affect the path of light. Light is a pattern of oscillating transverse wisp waves, which lack zero-state spheres. Because they do not possesses zero-state spheres they are unaffected by gravitational force. But their paths will undoubtedly follow the curvature of wisp space.


Shapiro travel-time delay experiments have been going on for some time now. See section 3.4.2 "The time delay of light" in this webpage: http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2001-4/index.html

Now if jiggle and the curvature of space in the solar system could be neglected as far as the trip time delay effect is concerned, then your theory only predicts a null result for Shapiro-type experiments. I would like to see some detailed calculations from your theory that does predict something like what Shapiro and other experimenters measured (see graphic http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2001-4/fig05.html (the purple lines and arrows))

Until you come up with an explanation, I am sorry to tell you that I will not spend any more time on wisp theory.

 

[wisp]

Outandbeyond2004

I would like to see some detailed calculations from your theory that does predict something like what Shapiro and other experimenters measured

Wisp theory matches SR predictions completely and produces a model of gravity that is different to the GR model.
I did match inertial and gravitational mass as being the same to an order of 1 part in 10^21 and produced a model that shows how time dilation works from a mechanical perspective. I don't think the theory will have any problems predicting gravitational effects on clock speeds. But I haven't gone into this.
I'm waiting for someone to do one-way light speed tests before I consider taking wisp theory into the GR domain.
Much of the work on wisp theory was spent building its foundations.

 

[outandbeyond2004]

"matches SR predictions completely" - (incredulous chuckle) well, I guess that was rather loose wording or carelessness, I will assume that. However, if SR or GR predicts a null result and wisp theory predicts a non-null result, I will not consider that a match.

Also, if you wind up with a theory that matches everything that GR and QM has predicted, you have not really accomplished anything except to give us another way to make predictions and give us another way to picture how the universe works. Perhaps that will be the ultimate benefit of wisp theory -- no more than that. If the math is much harder to do or it's harder to picture the universe, people will continue to use GR/standard QM or one of these other newfangled theories people are busy hammering out.

Why wait? It seems to show a lack of confidence in your theory -- perhaps justifiably. You should realize that GR has to be used instead of SR, unless the frame is inertial or the experimental arena is sufficiently limited temporally and spatially. You will eventually have to venture into the jungle.

 

[wisp]

Outandbeyond2004

loose wording

Yes, a bit loose. However, wisp theory does produce all the SR doppler equations in terms of an ether model. And it explains the cause of time dilation ...

 

[wisp]

Why wait? It seems to show a lack of confidence in your theory -- perhaps justifiably. You should realize that GR has to be used instead of SR, unless the frame is inertial or the experimental arena is sufficiently limited temporally and spatially. You will eventually have to venture into the jungle.

From the idea of the concept of wisp theory to placing on the web was 10 years. Includes -
1 year draft theory, 6 years doing physics degree, and 1 year off work writing/developing theory/publishing.
The fundamental structure of the theory is as good as any ether theory can get and I hope others find it a useful tool.
I will wait until SR starts cracking up before considering developing it. But when SR fails many physicists will change course and begin to take the ether seriously and the development of an ether theory into the GR domain will happen quickly.

wisp

"particles of nothingness"

 

[Hurkyl]

The problem I have with wisp theory is that nothing is ever derived, and no methods are presented. Not even the simplest toy problem is presented that let's the reader actually work with the fundamental ideas!

I opted to skim through some of the chapters again, and it seems not to have changed: not a single fact is derived from wisps. Instead the MO seems to be to present equations, then give a vague suggestion how this might be consistent with wisps.

Thus, I don't give wisp theory any serious consideration because I can't really see any theory to consider.

 

[Hurkyl]

And another thing: how does one conclude that you can't accelerate something faster than light simply because force carrier particles move at light speed?

(a) an object can accelerate itself by ejecting mass in the direction opposite to travel.

But, and I'm just guessing becuase no explanation is given, it seems that they are implying that this cannot happen because it doesn't work classically... but this is absurd as this simple example shows:


Suppose I have a frictionless environment, and a ball rolling north at 10 MPH. (think of this as your object)

I'm sitting someplace northeast of the ball, and I have a second ball which I roll northwest at 5 MPH. (think of this as your force carrier particle)

If my second ball connects with the first ball, it will accelerate the first ball so it has a greater northernly speed (and some westerly speed as well).


In fact, if I can arragne a similar situation with inelastic collisions, the momentum gained by the object from the force carrier particle is identical whether the object is stationary, going 10 MPH, or going light speed! (remember I'm talking classically)

 

[wisp]

Hurky

The speed of light through the ether is c. If an object travels at close to light-speed it feels the effects of force and time dilation. The result is that it cannot eject matter forwards passed the speed of light, as the push force is dilated to almost zero. Similarly ejecting matter backwards will have the same weakened force. At the speed of light the forces needed to eject matter are zero.

I've had some good feedback on wisp theory. One saying it's one of the best alternative theories they have come across, but had reservations about the wisp binding force being called the nuclear force. I'm not sure whether I should call it by a different name!