Einstein's Starting Point

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I kind of dumb so maybe you can tell me how it is useful.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">If this thought experiment inspired Einstein to formulate SR, maybe a second look at it can inspire us to formulate something better.

(1) Let’s call our light-speed reference frame “Frame C”. Let’s limit our discussion to Frame C and real inertial frames A & B. The x-axes of all three frames are parallel, and the relative motion of the three frames is parallel to the x-axes; the positive direction is to the right in all three frames. Let’s consider only physical motion and light propagation parallel to the x-axes—except as described in paragraph 3, below.

(2) Frames A & B are moving from right to left across Frame C at the speed of light. Frame B is moving from left to right in Frame A at half the speed of light. Right away, we have a problem defining the speed of light in frame C; it cannot be the same in both directions—unless we say that the physical universe is contained in frame C’s yz-plain. But since frame C is imaginary, let’s say light waves moving from left to right in Frames A & B are stationary in Frame C, and light waves moving from right to left in Frames A & B are moving from right to left across Frame C at twice the speed of light.

(3) A particular pulse from a distant pulsar (pulse rate 1 Hz in frame A) on the y-axis of frame A, will be used to synchronize all three frames at a time T-zero, when their origins will coincide by definition. (A jolly giant holding an immense red filter close to the pulsar will instantaneously turn all parts of the filter green for a start signal; okay?) Actually, there may be insurmountable difficulties to this synchronization process, due to the fact that the pulsar cannot logically be located on the three y-axes simultaneously. If light wave fronts from the pulsar are parallel to frame A’s x-axis, then I think they will be inclined at 45° to frame C’s x-axis; in frame B they are inclined at a different angle, which I don’t think I can compute in my head. Maybe this ain’t such a big problem; let’s think about it.

(4) Real optical clocks in Frames A & B send light pulses to the left and right at one second intervals. An imaginary clock at Frame C’s origin is slaved to light pulses coming from the right, emitted by a Frame A clock.

That’s as far as I’ve taken this though experiment, so far. I’m beginning to see why ol’ Alf threw up his hands and said, “Kein weg!” Please feel free to modify the parameters or proceed with them as they are.

This is very difficult stuff and that is why I asked you what is to be gained by getting an answer. My preference is the easy way is the best way. SR, GR, LR, what do any of these methods offer other than sweat, tears and puzzles? The photon is still a puzzle after a hundred years of those 3Rs. You must have something more in mind.

Come to think of it, the angle between pulsar wave fronts and the three x-axes might be a help, not a hinderance. It's just the tool we need to relate time in the three frames.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rodschmidt</i>
So my desire was to retrace Einstein's reasoning in light of the possibility that SR might be wrong and LR might be right. Einstein started by asking what would happen if you could follow a light wave at its speed (perfectly allowable under the Newtonian rules that he was assuming). Einstein said that the light wave would look like a dipole hanging in space. This is a violation of Maxwell's laws (I don't know the details, this is just what I have read.) Einstein realized that his Newtonian assumptions must have been wrong, and so he derived the SR rules which Thomas is assuming as axiomatic first principles.

So the question is: Under LORENTZIAN Relativity, can you follow a light wave at its speed, and if you do, do you see a dipole hanging in space, and is there a violation of Maxwell's laws?

Thomas kindly attempted to answer by referring me to Einstein's SR, which does not address the question at all.
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Lorentzian Relativity and SR are merely two different mis-interpretations of the null-result of the Michelson-Morley experiment. The only difference is that for Lorentz length contraction was a true physical change of an object whereas Einstein attributed it metaphysically to a contraction of space as such. The error in both theories is to assume that the concept of 'speed' can be applied to light as for ordinary physical objects i.e. it is assumed that a vectorial velocity addition (a Galilei transformation) holds. As the latter obviously contradicts the invariance of the speed of light, both Lorentz and Einstein had to use conceptual and logical somersaults in order make c formally invariant again. They should have noticed that it is not the concepts of time and space which have to be revised here, but the concept of 'speed' (for light) (as outlined on my page www.physicsmyths.org.uk/lightspeed.htm ).

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www.physicsmyths.org.uk
www.plasmaphysics.org.uk

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The thing is what is there to gain from knowing this fact? <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
One of two things: either a falsification of LR, or a failure to falsify LR.

Einstein used this thought-experiment to falsify Newtonian relativity. He followed this line of thought and it led him to SR.

Tom van Flandern suggests that gravitational (and electrical) forces propagate faster than c -- a position which is incompatible with SR because under SR, one man's FTL travel is another man's travel backward in time. (I point out parenthetically that travel backward in time is not necessarily impossible as long as there is some mechanism for avoiding causal loops. In quantum mechanics, all possible ways that something can happen are added together to produce the final outcome. It may be that causal loops can be added in together with everything else and they simply cancel out somehow.)

So he suggests that SR is incorrect and that some other relativity, such as LR, might be correct.

If the same thought experiment that falsified NR also falsifies LR, then we have learned something: LR cannot be right. If it doesn't, then we have learned something else: LR might be right.

Now we have 4 Rs being kicked around. What if they all are right in some way and wrong in other ways? Does it make any difference except for bragging rights? I don't see any reason to dwell on relativity at all. There are better details to focus on than this.