Medium entrainment considered as flow

Bart,

I've been re-reading the posts of our recent discussion, and I think I have found a detail ommission on my part that led you astray.

When I set up my analogy and mentioned that there was a wind blowing through the valley (that you did not know about), I failed to mention which direction it was blowing.

You have probably figured this out by now, but just in case, I meant to say that it was blowing from left to right, from the perspective of your hill top. (I'm pretty sure astronomers are used to thinking in terms of right to left motion. Since I did not say, it would have been a natural assumption for you to make.)

The sound of my firecracker would have difted to your right as it crossed the valley, and you would have been sure it originated on the right most hill top since you could not detect the medium flow.

LB

Hi Larry (and everyone else of course),

In my original idea, that what flows into mass is "the fabric of space". Since we tend to measure distances in terms of traveling lightbeams, I assumed that this "fabric of space" is equivalent to the light-carrying medium.
Once again, you raise a crucial point. But let's take a step back, and look at the Michelson-Morley experiment (MMX).

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The interpretation of the result of the original MMX makes a rather bold leap:

The earth's velocity in its orbit around the sun is 30 km/s.
The measured drift is "only" 8 km/s.
8 km/s is significantly smaller than 30 km/s , so the result must be ... null.

Mighty strange! First of all, it places the sun at the centre of the universe. And secondly, it concludes that if one theory is proven incorrect, "the other" theory must be true.

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An important question is: was the model used to interpret the data from MMX correct? If MMX had been done in a vacuum, would the up-wind drift have cancelled out the down-wind drift? In other words: Is the measured drift actually caused by an asymmetry, introduced by the refractive index of the medium (air, in the case of MMX)? If so, the result of 8 km/s would have to be multiplied by a large factor.

That question keeps burning, trying to digest the links (among others) over at www.orgonelab.org/energyinspace.htm
Ultimately, only experimentation will give us meaningful answers.

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Possible setup for an experiment:

- Create a device with two perpendicular arms (using mirrors, glass fibre or coax).
- Let the device rotate relatively fast, around the axis perpendicular to both arms.
- Try to detect harmonics of the rotation-frequency, in the interference of both arms.
- If a signal is detected, try to change the axis of rotation, until no signal is detected.

Now the axis of rotation will point to the direction of the drift (if any), but it won't say anything about the magnitude.

- Do this continuously for a couple of years, at various locations simultaneously.

By then, it's time to do some serious number-crunching.
To get a good reading on the magnitude, this experimental setup clearly needs refining.

Let's introduce another analogy: the balloon/airplane encounter

A helium balloon is travelling in the midst of the jet stream.
An airplane is approaching the jet stream in a direction that is perpendicular to the flow of the jet stream.

Before entering the jet stream, the pilot was convinced that he would pass right behind the balloon.
But while entering the jet stream, the airplane changed direction thereby going in a straight path towards the balloon. Ultimately the airplane hit the balloon from a direction slightly behind the initial perpendicular perspective.

What can we tell from this analogy:
- the path of the airplane changed direction when entering the jet stream to continue a straight path thereafter.
- the angle between the initial direction and the new direction of the airplane is proportional to the speed of the airplane and the speed of the jetstream.
- a passenger in the balloon observes the airplane approaching the balloon from slightly behind the perpendicator direction of relative to the motion of the balloon (although the airplane had been travelling perpendicular to the path of the balloon before entering the jetstream).
- if velocity of the wind in the jetstream would gradually build up from the side to the middle, then we would observe the direction of the airplane to adjust gradually as well. But the ultimate direction at the moment of reaching the center (and hitting the balloon) is only determined by the strength of the wind in the center.

If we observe a star that is opposite to the position of the Sun, we observe this star with 20.5 arcsec away from the true direction. This 20.5 arcsec is only determined by the speed of the light relative to the speed of the Earth (and the surrounding medium). Similar to the balloon analogy, the magnitude and direction of this deflection as observed on Earth does not depend on the length of the path and how velocity of the medium in between the border of the Solar System and the Earth has been evolving.

But ... there is 1 big difference between the Balloon/Airplane analogy and the observed star.
We observe the star 20.5 arcsec AHEAD of the direction the Earth is moving towards.
The airplane was observed to be BEHIND of the direction the balloon was moving towards.

The two examples are different enough that they are not apples to apples (also, in the star example there is at least one major unknown; in the balloon example there are none). But a few minutes reflecion seems to resolve them.

<b>[Bart] "We observe the star 20.5 arcsec AHEAD of the direction the Earth is moving towards."</b>

As you know, aberation as a result of our motion ought to displace the star ahead of us.

The light might also have (but we cannot know this for sure) passed through a drifting medium, causing the light to be displaced still more.

In this case aberration seems to be the primary contributor to the observed "course change".

<b>[Bart] "The airplane was observed to be BEHIND of the direction the balloon was moving towards."</b>

Because the balloon was difting with the medium and the plane was not, the plane was going to miss it. As soon as the plane entered the medium it also began drifting (in the same direcion as the medium and the balloon), causing it to no longer miss the balloon.

In this case the "course change" is clearly caused by (a change in) meduim drift.

Michiel,

We suspect that there are two particle fields that are the physical embodiment of the fabric of space, or the space-time continum,.or space-time. One of them is (most of the time) more or less stationary (locally) with respect to each mass, and the other one is always flowing into and out of and between each mass.

The observed properties of EM waves suggest that they are associated with the first, mostly stationary field of particles.

The observed properties of gravitational force suggest that it is associated with the second, always flowing field of particles.

Also, the hypothesized properties of gravitational waves suggest that they are also associated with the first, mostly stationary field. They will most likely turn out to be very long wavelength EM waves.

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So, you are partly correct. The light carrying medium is one part of the fabric of space.

Are there more than two physical parts? Probably not. At least, not in terms of things that will be important to us. But the future is fairly dim from here. Stay tuned.

Through observation of stars over the course of a year, we know that the displacement can be calculated as exactly 20.5 arcsec
times the adjustment for the angle relative to the perpendicular direction. This excludes an 'extra significant' drift component ...

The 20.5 arcsec displacement = the speed of the Earth / the speed of light

On the other hand, when we can observe a star for which we know:
- the observed displacement to be 20.5 arcsec (because direction is perpendicular to the motion of the Earth)
- the actual direction is behind the border of the Moon (in other words: would have been invisible without the 20.5 displacement)

Then we can logically deduct:
- the observed displacement of 20.5 arcsec cannot have occured near the observer
- the observed displacement must be occuring in a medium
- this medium must have the same speed as the Earth

The similarity between the balloon/plane analogy and light is that the "course change" is the result of a change in medium drift.

The fact that the 20.5 arcsec displacement is 'naturally' attributed to our own motion is derived from the fact that it can be nicely calculated by just taking into account the speed of the Earth and the speed of light.

On the other hand, the course changes that are the consequence of changes in medium drift result into exactly the same 20.5 arcsec.

The observation of the Jupiter occultation in 2004 (referenced before) whereby the displacement of Jupiter exceeds the displacement as observed for a star showing in the same direction provides evidence for this. The displacement as observed for Jupiter (from the Earth) can be calculated as the "vector substraction" of the displacement for the star as seen from the Earth minus the displacement for the same star as observed from Jupiter.

As a last note on MMX :
Taking the balloon analogy: the expirement failed because it attempted to measure the speed of the balloon by measuring the speed of the wind as felt in the balloon.