Personal Topic

[marcospolo]

The common assumption at the time was that an aether existed, but that was not required.  They could have assumed absolute space, a la Newton, and they still would have expected to detect motion "through space," based on the Galilean transformation if nothing else. 

 

What they were travelling "through" is irrelevant.  It could have been molasses.  It was presumed they were travelling though something, whatever it was, at the rate of one full revolution per year (about 70,000 mph).

 

The LT were developed in response to the failure to detect motion, not the failure to detect an aether, as I have pointed out twice (and which you have ignored twice).

Still not convincing.

So what you are saying is that the reason why they detected no motion through "absolute space", (an absolute stationary frame of reference, also called the Aether) was because the arms shrunk in one direction.  And if the arms had not shrunk , the apparatus would have worked, and measured the motion, compared to absolute space.

 

However there is a flaw in this claim.

 

The solar system is hurtling through space, and 670,000 kph or something like that, yet we cant notice it because we are cocooned inside the earths atmosphere and experiencing local gravity.  It would be like sitting in a toilet cubicle, inside a 747 Jumbo jet, with a toy wind mill in hand, wonder why we cant get the thing to measure the speed of the aircraft which is about 900 kph.

 

However, the Aether was supposed to be totally different, in that as we know that light works in a vacuum and in our atmosphere, it must be propagating through some other medium, aka, the Lumniferous Aether which is supposed to be in everywhere in space, and equally here all around us, allowing light to wave through it.

 

So no, I cant accept you claim that they were measuring the motion of Earth through anything, it was specifically through the Aether, as that medium alone allows light to wave both in space and in our atmosphere, even in glass, there was supposed to be the very same Aether.

 

The correct statement is that they were expecting to measure Earths motion, and the pretext was that the Aether alone was supposed to allow them to do that very experiment.

The experiment would naturally failed, they would not even have tried to do such an experiment on earth, in the atmosphere, relative only to some absolute space or molasses. No Physicist would have suggested this, like no Physicist would measure the speed of an aircraft from in the toilet with a hand held toy windmill.

 

However, M&M weren't very good Physicists, because if they could have measured earth speed, relative to the absolute Aether, then the result would not have been 30 klm per second, as they expected, but many millions of Klm per second, as that's more like what the Earth, in this solar system, in this Galaxy is doing. (God knows how fast we are going, relative to absolute motionlessness.

[Moronium]

Here's an excerpt from the first paragraph of Michelson's summary of the experiment:

 

Assuming then that the ether is at rest, the earth moving through it, the time required for light to pass from one point to another on the earth’s surface, would depend on the direction in which it travels

.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Relative_Motion_of_the_Earth_and_the_Luminiferous_Ether

 

The crucial assumption is not that it was an "ether," but rather that it was "at rest."  It was that assumption that led them to believe that the speed of light "would depend on the direction in which it travels." 

 

The second assumption, as stated by Michelson, was that the earth itself is moving, relative to that "motionless" ether.

 

As I've already said, the LT were addressed to the failure to detect motion, not the failure to detect an aether. Whatever the extensive debate about the existence, or non-existence, of the aether may have been at the time, the development of the LT had nothing to do with it.  

 

This fact is often misperceived.  You frequently hear that the M-M experiment "failed to detect an aether" or that it "proved there is no aether."  Not even Einstein himself took this positon, as previously quotes I've posted show.  What the M-M experiment failed to detect was the earth's presumed motion, not the aether per se.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Moronium

[Moronium]

This fact is often misperceived.  You frequently hear that the M-M experiment "failed to detect an aether" or that it "proved there is no aether."  Not even Einstein himself took this positon, as previous quotes I've posted show.  What the M-M experiment failed to detect was the earth's presumed motion, not the aether per se.

 

 

As far as theories of relative motion go, the existence (or non-existence) of an ether is irrelevant to Lorentz's theory.  It is in no way dependent on the answer to that question.

 

But, here again, many unjustifiably presume otherwise.  They think that the abandonment of the aether somehow necessitates an abandonment of Lorentz's theory of relative motion.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Moronium

[Moronium]

They say there are only three fundamental laws of logic, the first being the law of identity, often formulated as "A = A," with A being anything you want to insert.  If you deny the law of identity, which you can if you want, then all logic is impossible.

 

To expand on this post (#324 in this thread) a little, the other two fundamental laws of logic are:

 

2.  The law of non-contradiction, commonly formulated as "Not both A and not-A"

 

3.  The law of excluded middle, commonly formulated as:  "Either A or not-A"

 

In spirit, SR rejects every single one of these laws, basically rendering all logic impossible in its realm.  It is not a rational scientific theory.  It is a mystical doctrine, when all is said and done.

[sluggo]

Marcospolo 344;

In the real world nobody ever uses any of Einsteins theories anyway,

 

[particle physics uses Relativity in the design of their accelerators.

SLAC which works primarily with electrons requires a tunnel a few miles long, to compensate for the effects of time dilation. Without it the tunnel could be a few feet long. Do your homework!]

[sluggo]

Moronium 341;

"Operationalism is based on the intuition that we do not know the meaning of a concept unless we have a method of measurement for it."

 

[science is philosophy augmented with measurment, its validation tool.]

 

Moronium 352;

"Measurement with light signals" is just based on Einstein synchronization in SR,

[You have it backwards. SR clock synch is established using light signals. Light is the most precise method of long distance measurements science has.]

In SR, each "concludes" that the other guy's clock is running slow on the basis of deduction from the following premises (which are mandatory in SR):

[As inertial frames, neither A nor B can measure any change in their velocity, which permits them to assume a pseudo rest frame if they choose. Eg. an anaut after launch, can consider himself moving away from earth or at rest in space. When the distance from earth eliminates any significant gravitational effects, (an SR environment), his onboard experiments function the same, regardless of his choice.

Even apart from the fact that their respective claims are mutually exclusive,

[They aren't. Would you object to each observing the same time on the other clock?]

Moronium 353;
Are you familiar with the theory which the GPS uses to achieve accurate results? Hint:  It aint SR

[Changing velocity (speed or direction) results in clocks getting out of synch, in the world of GR. This requires periodic updates.]

Moronium 355;
As I just said, they are confirmed by the LT, not SR per se. And of course that experiment did nothing to "test" how the muon "sees it," i.e, it did nothing to test the hypothesis of "reciprocal time dilation.

[There is no difference between predictions by Lorentz theory and SR theory. The only purpose of the experiment was a demonstration of time dilation]

[Moronium]

Well maybe I am wrong but your link seems to be the only reference to the term on the internet. The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy has no reference to it. Without further support I remain to be convinced that this distinction is generally recognised. 

 

The stanford encyclopedia does certainly recognize and refer to it, and discusses it in numerous articles, no doubt. It even calls the distinction "famous."  Here is an excerpt from it's article on the uncertainty principle, for example:

 

A more appropriate departing point for this issue is not the question of logical priority but rather Einstein’s distinction between “constructive theories” and “principle theories”.

 

Einstein proposed this famous classification in 1919. Constructive theories are theories which postulate the existence of simple entities behind the phenomena. They endeavour to reconstruct the phenomena by framing hypotheses about these entities....

 

The prime example of a theory of principle is thermodynamics. Here the role of the empirical principles is played by the statements of the impossibility of various kinds of perpetual motion....Now obviously, once the formal thermodynamic theory is built, one can also derive the impossibility of the various kinds of perpetual motion.

 

A similar example is provided by special relativity, another theory of principle, which Einstein deliberately designed after the ideal of thermodynamics. Here, the empirical principles are the light postulate and the relativity principle. Again, once we have built up the modern theoretical formalism of the theory (Minkowski space-time), it is straightforward to prove the validity of these principles.

 

 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-uncertainty/

 

Although this article refers to SR's postulates as "empirical principles" nobody, least of all Einstein, claims that they were derived from empirical observation.  That's not what's meant by "empirical principles" in this context.

 

This article notes that "Now obviously, once the formal thermodynamic theory is built, one can also derive the impossibility of the various kinds of perpetual motion." 

 

Sure it can, but only by resort to logically fallacious circular reasoning, also called "begging the question," or, more formally, "petitio principii."  The gist of this fallacy is to reassert your premise as a conclusion.  For example:  "The speed of light is constant, therefore the speed of light is constant."  This "proves" nothing.  It is a mere tautology, devoid of any substance.

 

Unfortunately, the article ignores this when it makes this potentially misleading statement:   "Again, once we have built up the modern theoretical formalism of the theory (Minkowski space-time), it is straightforward to prove the validity of these principles."

 

Logical fallacy cannot be used to "prove" the postulates of a theory.  For that matter, nothing can.  The word "prove" is inappropriately used here.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Eg. an anaut after launch, can consider himself moving away from earth or at rest in space. 

 

 

Sorry, Sluggo, but this is just wrong (under the requirements of SR at least).  I have made a couple of posts on this already.  In SR there is a strict prohibition against EVER treating your own frame as moving if you are in an inertial frame.  I have stated the reasons for this elsewhere.  See post #392 in this thread, for example, which itself refers back to post #387.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Me:  Even apart from the fact that their respective claims are mutually exclusive,

You:  [They aren't. Would you object to each observing the same time on the other clock?]

 

You miss the point, Sluggo.  Of course they are not mutually exclusive as a matter of subjective conclusions.  That's not what I am saying.

 

I'm saying they are mutually exclusive as a matter of objective fact. Each claims that he is at rest.  Yet each also claims that they are moving relative to each other.  They can't both be right.  One must be mistaken (perhaps both).  SR claims that both are "right." 

 

As a matter of psychology, that claim could arguably be "true" in a strictly subjective sense.  But it can't be true in a physical sense.  That's one reason I say that SR is not even a scientific physical theory.  It is, at best, a psychological theory.  Physics deals with matter in motion in the objective world, not subjective thoughts in the minds of "observers."

 

Edited February 9, 2019 by Moronium

[Moronium]

Moronium 352;

"Measurement with light signals" is just based on Einstein synchronization in SR,

[You have it backwards. SR clock synch is established using light signals. Light is the most precise method of long distance measurements science has.]

 

 

I don't necessarily disagree with what you're saying here, it's just not relevant to the issue we were discussing.  What do you think I supposedly "have backwards?"

 

To refresh your memory:  You had originally claimed that each concluded the other's clock was running slow "on the basis of light signals."  I don't agree about the basis, but that's another issue.  In response to your claim, I said:

 

"Measurement with light signals" is just based on Einstein synchronization in SR, which PRESUPPOSES (not proves) it's postulates.

 

What's "backwards?"  Are you actually claiming the the method arbitrarily chosen (and Einstein himself emphatically noted that it was an arbitrary choice, not one dictated by "observation") to synchonize clocks PROVES the postulates?

Edited February 9, 2019 by Moronium

[marcospolo]

Here's an excerpt from the first paragraph of Michelson's summary of the experiment:

 

.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Relative_Motion_of_the_Earth_and_the_Luminiferous_Ether

 

The crucial assumption is not that it was an "ether," but rather that it was "at rest."  It was that assumption that led them to believe that the speed of light "would depend on the direction in which it travels." 

 

The second assumption, as stated by Michelson, was that the earth itself is moving, relative to that "motionless" ether.

 

As I've already said, the LT were addressed to the failure to detect motion, not the failure to detect an aether. Whatever the extensive debate about the existence, or non-existence, of the aether may have been at the time, the development of the LT had nothing to do with it.  

 

This fact is often misperceived.  You frequently hear that the M-M experiment "failed to detect an aether" or that it "proved there is no aether."  Not even Einstein himself took this positon, as previously quotes I've posted show.  What the M-M experiment failed to detect was the earth's presumed motion, not the aether per se.

So everyone believed in the motionless Aether, even after the experiment, yet no one had any evidence for it.

And your claim that the existence that the Aether really existed had nothing whatsoever to do with his experiment.

But everyone believed that the Earth was moving, everybody who was a scientist that is.

 

So IF he had detected that the "earth was moving", (a known fact) relative to the Aether (a belief with no evidence) then you say he would have made a big deal about showing that the Earth moved, which was common knowledge anyway, and just ignored the little fact that he had just proved that the Aether was real!

 

Additionally, as you say it was not about the Aether, and its relationship with light, then the nul result actually PROVED beyond doubt that the Earth was MOTIONLESS.  (as you say) "What the M-M experiment failed to detect was the earth's presumed motion, not the aether per se."

 

So the M&M experiment PROVED that the Earth is NOT MOVING!

[Moronium]

So the M&M experiment PROVED that the Earth is NOT MOVING!

 

 

Re-read my original response to you on this.

 

That's one possible conclusion, but it can virtually be rejected out of hand.  Hence the "puzzle."

 

And your claim that the existence that the Aether really existed had nothing whatsoever to do with his experiment.

 

 

My claims are what they are, as stated in my posts, not what you state them to be.

 

I had hoped to dispel some of the common confusion and conflation which is displayed regarding this experiment, but I can see that I was unsuccessful, in your case, at least.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Moronium

[Moronium]

I've posted this excerpt before, in other threads, but it may be of some interest here, too:

 

Robert B. Laughlin, Nobel Laureate in Physics, endowed chair in physics, Stanford University, had this to say about ether in contemporary theoretical physics:

 

It is ironic that Einstein's most creative work, the general theory of relativity, should boil down to conceptualizing space as a medium when his original premise [in special relativity] was that no such medium existed [..] The word 'ether' has extremely negative connotations in theoretical physics because of its past association with opposition to relativity. This is unfortunate because, stripped of these connotations, it rather nicely captures the way most physicists actually think about the vacuum. . . . Relativity actually says nothing about the existence or nonexistence of matter pervading the universe, only that any such matter must have relativistic symmetry. [..] It turns out that such matter exists. About the time relativity was becoming accepted, studies of radioactivity began showing that the empty vacuum of space had spectroscopic structure similar to that of ordinary quantum solids and fluids. Subsequent studies with large particle accelerators have now led us to understand that space is more like a piece of window glass than ideal Newtonian emptiness. It is filled with 'stuff' that is normally transparent but can be made visible by hitting it sufficiently hard to knock out a part. The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo.

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_theories#cite_note-17

 

Actually, Einstein did not say at the time that the ether "did not exist."  He merely said that it was "superfluous" to the type of analysis he was undertaking regarding SR.

 

He latter said that GR would be "unthinkable" without an ether.

 

Laughlin says it's "taboo" because, for generations, physicists have taught physics students to snort, snicker, and/or bellow with laughter at the very mention of the word "ether." A failure to do that would stigmatize you as "ignorant and naive." Such is the nature of indoctrination and propaganda when it comes to SR.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Moronium

[Moronium]

My claims are what they are, as stated in my posts, not what you state them to be.

 

Marco, I get the impression that you do not really consider, read carefully, or try to understand many of the posts you respond to.  You appear to merely skim them for some word or sentence that "triggers" you and use the post as a platform from which to launch another of your scoffing anti-science tirades.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Moronium

[marcospolo]

As far as theories of relative motion go, the existence (or non-existence) of an ether is irrelevant to Lorentz's theory.  It is in no way dependent on the answer to that question.

 

But, here again, many unjustifiably presume otherwise.  They think that the abandonment of the aether somehow necessitates an abandonment of Lorentz's theory of relative motion.

Granted, but this detail is not really what I'm on about. Here's a better statement outlining my problem with LT.

 

Michelson-Morley experiment, an attempt to detect the velocity of the Earth with respect to the hypothetical luminiferous ether, a medium in space proposed to carry light waves.

It was reasoned that, if the speed of light were constant with respect to the proposed ether through which the Earth was moving, that motion could be detected by comparing the speed of light in the direction of the Earth’s motion and the speed of light at right angles to the Earth’s motion.

 No difference was found. This null result seriously discredited the ether theories and ultimately led to the proposal by Albert Einstein in 1905 that the speed of light is a universal constant.

However, there are other possible conclusions that should have been noted.

1. The experiment and apparatus was incapable of detecting the expected difference in light speed.
2. The Earth is stationary in the Aether.
3. Light speed is relative to the source, not the absolute Aether.

 

If any one of these alternative conclusions were correct, then the Aether theory has not been proven incorrect.

 

But, the experiment was firmly based on one undoubted fact of Physics, and a couple of Postulates.

 

The known fact was:

The Earth is certainly moving.

 

The postulates are:

Light speed is constant (no proof)

A moving observer will measure light speed plus or minus his own speed

Light propagates through a medium called Aether

Aether is static, everywhere and motionless

The interferometer is able to measure changes in light speed. (not proven)

 

We all know that the earth is moving, so what is the main reason to conduct the experiment?

It was to prove that the motion of Earth can be measured relative to the Aether, which up till that point was without experimental verification. IF they got a positive result, they would have announced that they have proved that the Aether exists.

 

So they did not detect any motion. But WHY did they not detect that the Earth is moving? It surely is moving, but why could they not measure it?

 

Some or all of the postulates MUST be incorrect, or there are other factors that were not even postulated.

 

1. The first possible problem is with the interferometer. Its possible that it can’t be used to detect speed. The interference rings may not be caused by what is claimed. Light is one of the least understood fundamental things in Physics.

1. The Aether is not motionless, it may be locally associated with the Earth, and moving with it.

1. There may be no Aether. Maybe light needs no medium in which to do its waving. As mentioned before, we know little about how light works.

1. It’s reasonable to assume that Light speed is constant in a particular medium. It is reasonable to assume that its speed is NOT dependant on the speed of the source, BUT that a measurement of light speed WILL BE dependant on the speed of the observer.

 

If any of these postulates are incorrect, then this would cause the NULL result obtained.

 

So what need is there for Lorentz to develop his transformation equation?

How does LT explain the NULL result?It says that the only issue was with the measurement, because the rulers and time shrunk in one direction, nothing else was wrong.If you apply his fudge to the measurements, you will get the corrected values.

 

The Lorentz transformation means that ALL of the M&M postulates are correct!

And that the Aether or something equivalent is an absolute medium through which light travels.

But more importantly, LT only explains the NULL result of M&M if you keep their postulate that a moving observer will measure light speed + or – his own speed.

 

 

So Lorentz Transform must support M&M’s essential postulate that a moving observer MUST measure light speed plus or minus his own speed, relative to ABSOLUTENESS.

 

This is opposite to Einstein’s conclusion that light will be measured as the same speed regardless of the motion of the one measuring. LT requires that its "c" + or - the observers speed.

 

This is what I’ve been trying to say.

[marcospolo]

 

Marcospolo 344;

In the real world nobody ever uses any of Einsteins theories anyway,

 

[particle physics uses Relativity in the design of their accelerators.

SLAC which works primarily with electrons requires a tunnel a few miles long, to compensate for the effects of time dilation. Without it the tunnel could be a few feet long. Do your homework!]

 

I specifically said the REAL world,  Particle Physicists are living in fantasy land. They have no idea what day it is.

[marcospolo]

Marco, I get the impression that you do not really consider, read carefully, or try to understand many of the posts you respond to.  You appear to merely skim them for some word or sentence that "triggers" you and use the post as a platform from which to launch another of your scoffing anti-science tirades.

Sorry, I do get hasty sometimes.  My distrust of the Scientific world is due to the many inconsistencies I see. One thing hangs on another, and many assumptions of Physics are still based on prior errors.  Its the reality that Physics has very real and quite huge problems that few seem to care about that gets me going.  Einstein's theories is one part of the problem, but Quantum and Particle Physics and cosmology are also full of problems, due totally to old assumptions.