Proving einstein wrong in 2 simple steps

[phillip1882]

step 1:

proving light can travel faster than the speed of light with respect to another object.

 

take a light beam emitter and detector panel. now, put another light beam emiter on the opposite side of the light beam detector facing the detector, at the same distance away as the first.

fire one light beam emiter. measure the amount of time it takes to travel. fire the other one. measure its time. fire both simultaneously. the two light beam will travel at the same speed over the same distance in the same amount of time. q.e.d, the two light beams are approaching each other at twice light speed.

 

step2:

proving one light beam can travel faster than another light beam.

 

take a fast moving train. put a light beam emiter at the rear, and the detector at the front.

place a emiter on the ground and a detector the length of the train away.

first, using an observer on the train, measure the amount of time it takes the light beam on the train to reach the distant detector.

do the same with the ground detector, with a ground observer. you should find that they both take the same amount of time.

now, when the train is parallel with the ground emiter/detector, fire both light beams simultaneously. the light beam on the train should reach the position of the ground detector prior to the ground one. you have a light beam traveling toward a detector that's traveling toward it at the speed of the train, and another light beam that is traveling toward the same detector that's unmoving. q.e.d.

 

thus either einstein is wrong or the experiments are.

[Theory5]

step 1:

proving light can travel faster than the speed of light with respect to another object.

 

take a light beam emitter and detector panel. now, put another light beam emiter on the opposite side of the light beam detector facing the detector, at the same distance away as the first.

fire one light beam emiter. measure the amount of time it takes to travel. fire the other one. measure its time. fire both simultaneously. the two light beam will travel at the same speed over the same distance in the same amount of time. q.e.d, the two light beams are approaching each other at twice light speed.

Even if they hit and collide they were still moving at light speed. Just as if two cars hit head on and both were going 30 mph the impact is as if a car hits a stationary object at 60 mph but the cars were only moving 30 mph each.

step2:

proving one light beam can travel faster than another light beam.

 

take a fast moving train. put a light beam emiter at the rear, and the detector at the front.

place a emiter on the ground and a detector the length of the train away.

first, using an observer on the train, measure the amount of time it takes the light beam on the train to reach the distant detector.

do the same with the ground detector, with a ground observer. you should find that they both take the same amount of time.

now, when the train is parallel with the ground emiter/detector, fire both light beams simultaneously. the light beam on the train should reach the position of the ground detector prior to the ground one. you have a light beam traveling toward a detector that's traveling toward it at the speed of the train, and another light beam that is traveling toward the same detector that's unmoving. q.e.d.

 

thus either einstein is wrong or the experiments are.

have you tried either experiment? Lightspeed is a limit. Nothing can change that. Its not like firing a bullet while moving vs standing still. And even if your second experiment did manage to change it, the change would be so small you would need a sensor beond our technology we posses today.

[Slaihne]

Hi phillip1882,

 

I’ve got a similar thread going here too and thought i’d chip in with my two penneth worth.

 

Your first thought experiment mirrors one of my own. My disconnect with the concepts of relativity seems to be the notion of how things appear and what they are actually doing. In this experiment you can’t put an observer in any position to see something move faster than the speed of light. In the case of an observer hitching a lift on one of the photons it would appear to him/her that the photons coming from the opposite direction don’t actually move faster than the speed of light due to the Lorentz Transform. Actually, that is a bit of a fib i think since the transform actually breaks down at light speed giving a division by zero. But the general gist of it is that no velocity faster than the speed of light is observable while the experiment is taking place.

 

Rather, we can infer that a speed of 2c takes place between the two light beams but never directly observe that speed. I think of this as the reality of the situation but i think that the problem with this is explaining it in terms of a single frame of reference. I would have to say something like, “relative to the detectors one beam moves at 2c relative to the other”. I think it’s down to the ‘double dipping’ of the word relative that implies two frames of reference. I still don’t understand why that is invalid but from what i gather, it is?

 

The second experiment befuddles me i’m afraid. In terms of the movement of the train I think you would have to take into account time dilation and i’d be willing to bet that the maths would be horrible. Sorry i can’t be of much help with this one. :hihi:

 

Rgds

 

David

[Boerseun]

Hi there, Phil:

 

As to your first experiment, no can do.

I can understand your reasoning, and how you came towards that particular conclusion, but, no. It works like this:

 

You want to fire two light beams at each other. Right. Let's say you're a tiny photon-surfer, and you've got a ringside seat on a photon/wave emanating from light source A. You, as a massive entity, can't just fly off to light speed instantaneously, you have to accelerate. As you accelerate, and you look towards your buddy being a photon-surfer from light source B, barreling towards you, he'll become blueshifted as his velocity towards you increase. The light reaching you from him, however, will still reach your eyeball at c, but the waves will get piled up, increasing the frequency. Time will dilate for you. When you reach the speed of light, however, a magical thing happens. Time have dilated so far, that it actually comes to a complete and utter stop. A photon travels at 300,000 km per second, but only from an observer's point of view. From the photon's point of view, it's not travelling at all, there is no concept as the passage of time anymore, and the Big Bang and the final end of the entire universe is one and the same moment. For a simple thing as a photon shot from the torch you're holding in your hand, there is no such thing as time. Therefore, you being on photon A careening at c towards your buddy riding the wave on photon B towards you at c, you're not approaching each other at twice the speed of light. You're not even approaching each other at all. "Approach" involves the passage of time, and that simply does not exist for photons travelling at c.

 

So, ultimately, it's a good thing that massed objects, like yourself and your buddy, can't ever, ever, travel at the speed of light. It's just not on. So don't bother yourself about the logical cock-ups in your first example. The speed of light is a limit, not only theoretical in nature, but in actual cold fact, it's a law of nature. And there are no penalties for breaking any Laws of Nature, it's simply arranged in such a way as that you can't.

 

Your second example is perfectly explained by redshift, blueshift, and time dilation. Nowhere in your train set-up will anybody witness a change in the speed of light. They will, however, see light frequencies dip in one direction and rise in another. But the speed of light will stay rock-solid for everybody and in all directions.

 

Hit Wiki and look it up.

[phillip1882]

in the first experiment i am not necessarily saying you see either light beam travel faster than the speed of light with respect to their ground emiters, however from the point of view of a stationary observer, he would see two light beams each approaching the other at the speed of light and therefore conclude that the two light beams are approaching at twice light speed.

in the second experiment, i'll try to explain further what i am saying.

let's say that the train is traveling at a speed of 0.1*c with respect to the ground.

according to the first assumption of the theory of relativity, the laws of physics are the same from any inertial frame of reference. that is, the train observer would not notice any length, time, or speed dilation. when he fires his light beam, he sees it's speed travel away from him at the speed of light. he sees it travel the same distance as the ground observer sees his light beam travel. he measures the same amount of time for it to hit his receiver as the ground observer would for his receiver. he would also conclude that the light beam is traveling toward the stationary receiver at a speed of 1.1*c, as he sees it approaching at 0.1*c.

the ground observer would see the train travel away for him at 0.1*c. he would also see his light beam travel at c away from him. he would conclude that his light beam is traveling at a speed of 0.9*c toward the train.

here's where it gets weird though. according to the second law of relativity, the train observer would see the ground light beam travel at the same speed as his light beam, and the ground observer would see the train light beam traveling away from him at c.

this is the part i have trouble accepting.

the reason being is that it seems to me a least the only way that's possible if length is severely dilated. i mean it would have to be not squareroot(1-v^2/c^2), but even more drastic.

let me explain why. based on this second assumption, the ground observer sees his light beam reach the position of the stationary receiver in the same amount of time the train observer sees his light beam reach the position of the ground receiver.

yeah, even though the ground observer sees his light beam travel at the speed of 0.9 with respect to the train and the train observer sees his light beam traveling at 1.1*c with respect to the ground receiver. i mean, i'm no mathematician, but something doesn't add up here.

[Jay-qu]

That is your problem, you are no mathematician. But you can at least listen to what the others are saying, they are correct.

 

In your first experiment you as an outside observer try to measure the relative velocity of two photons, you are correct they approach each other at 2c in your frame - but you are wrong in saying this is in conflict with relativity. At no time does an object travel greater than c in this situation and if you try to go to the frame of one of the moving photons, you will (as Boerseun said) end up getting infinitely time dilated - this makes any attempt at a measurement of velocity meaningless as time does not exist.

 

As for your second experiment - I implore you to try it. Two guys did a modified version of this experiment over 100 years ago, Michelson and Morely. They found that no matter what you cant add to the velocity of light. You can take a run up or 'throw' light at a faster velocity it is always travelling at c (in free space I should add).

 

The trouble you are having with envisioning this is that you keep trying to infer the relative velocity of light from different frames of reference simultaneously. It is wrong to do this - each frame of reference, travelling at a different velocity, has to be considered differently. This is due to the effects of time dilation and length contraction.

 

These two phenomenon's are real. They have been experimentally observed and the maths in special relativity handles them very well.

[phillip1882]

"As for your second experiment - I implore you to try it. Two guys did a modified version of this experiment over 100 years ago, Michelson and Morely. They found that no matter what you cant add to the velocity of light. You can take a run up or 'throw' light at a faster velocity it is always travelling at c (in free space I should add)."

 

yes i've heard of that experiment. in my opinion though, it doesn't prove light can't be increased no matter what, it just proves at most that the rotation of the earth doesn't increase it's speed. also its been proven that adding additional light, magnetic or electrical energy doesn't increase the speed of light.

i however have yet to hear of an experiment that proves adding velocity directly to light won't increase its speed. the primary problem with any such attempt is that you need something that can detect a light beam moving faster than the speed of light.

[freeztar]

i however have yet to hear of an experiment that proves adding velocity directly to light won't increase its speed.

 

And you likely will never hear of such an experiment because nobody knows how to add velocity to light. In fact, it's currently, and most likely forever, an impossibility.

 

the primary problem with any such attempt is that you need something that can detect a light beam moving faster than the speed of light.

 

I don't think that's the problem. We would be able to detect light traveling faster than c. It's not a limitation imposed by our instruments.

[Jay-qu]

yes i've heard of that experiment. in my opinion though, it doesn't prove light can't be increased no matter what, it just proves at most that the rotation of the earth doesn't increase it's speed.

 

Why should the movement of the Earths rotation be an different than your method of adding velocity to light? It is the same situation.

[stereologist]

Why do you think light has velocity? Have you ever measured the speed of light? Does light travel instantly or does it take time to travel a given distance?

 

Experimentation shows that light speed is the same for all observers. So if you suppose an experimental situation in which light appears to have a speed other than the often measured fixed value, then your thought experiment does not reflect reality.

 

Your thought experiment does not prove Einstein wrong in 2 simple steps. Your writing simply suggests that you are unaware of what has been verified experimentally.

 

So now the issue is why do all observers see the same speed for light? Why don't observers see varying speeds for light? Maybe you should read a little about the subject and you can learn why things aren't as you suppose they are.

 

It's a fascinating subject and I'm certain you'll enjoy learning about it.

[phillip1882]

Why do you think light has velocity?

light has velocity for the same reason anything has velocity. it takes a certain amount of time to cover a distance.

 

Have you ever measured the speed of light?

me personally, no. i wouldn't really know how, as light travels fairly fast.

 

Does light travel instantly or does it take time to travel a given distance?

it takes time.

[stereologist]

At one time it was supposed that light traveled instantaneously. You suppose that it takes time for light to travel. You suggest that "light has velocity for the same reason anything has velocity". That is a testable question.

 

What I am driving at here is that we can all make suppositions about the behavior of things. Experiments are used to test our suppositions. You might want to look up how the speed of light is measured. I measured the speed of light in a physics class many moons ago. That was a fun experiment. Having done this experiment doesn't make me any more of an expert in the field, but it does give me a better idea of how this work is done.

 

The interesting issue with light is that light comes in at the same speed no matter what the source. Even the light from distance and speedily receding galaxies arrives at the same speed as light from your computer screen. That's fascinating. Light does not work like moving objects. It has a different behavior.

 

The rules of how light works are different from the rules of how matter works, because they have different behaviors.

 

I can't recall the title of the book, but the author was Einstein himself. He explains his theory in simple and eloquent terms. Try the library and read the book. I'm sure you can quickly learn why Einstein came up with the theories he did, what he was trying to solve, and some of the interesting predictions that are made and were verified.

[buddyzen]

...... and the Lemmings babble to each other *sigh*

[Tachyon!]

According to Einsteins theory no information can be transmitted faster than the speed of light and special relativity only forbids things that have ever traveled slower than light speed from crossing the speed-of-light barrier. Therefor no violation has occured.

But I think in your example it's just a matter of relative motion and different perspectives.

[lenvanzanten]

Philip is correct, Michelson and Morley proved light riding dependent on the media, Therefore light from a star coming from behind the direction of Earth's movement travels with the velocity of the speed of light plus the velocity of the Earth, relevant to space as a fixed reference.

Its very simple light moving at c as it entered upon our solar system, became dependant on it and its movement wherefore Michelson and Morly read the two opposing velocities the same.

The experiment proved conclusively that; Relevant to space lights velocity can be greater as well as less to the constant of the velocity of light. Does not this make good sense?

[lenvanzanten]

Simple logic

Look up online dictionary of light through a prism, it states that: "Light refracts due to the different velocities of light" How then do we say light has a constant velocity everywhere? And does not the prism concludes light to vary in velocity by passing through densities, as it did by our atmosphere in the Michelson Morley experiment?

Who now will tell us that these reduction in velocities are real or apperent, and why?

[stereologist]

Sorry lenvanzanten but you are wrong on several accounts.

 

1. Michelson and Morley did not see any differences in the speed of light regardless of the orientations they measured.

2. The speed of light is dependent on the medium through which it passes. C is the speed of light in a vacuum, a particular medium.