Geoengineering

Let's not introduce any red herrings. The aether is the light-carrying medium by definition. Electrons (such as those in the ionosphere) introduce a small, measurable effect that is completely irrelevent to this discussion. No other effects are comparably as large as the expected aether wind. GPS says that wind does not exist in the near-Earth environment.

Or do you have a hypothesis about how the aether wind can be cancelled for all light approaching Earth, but magically reappear once that light reaches the laboratory? -|Tom|-

I think your article on GPS is one of the best scientific articles I've ever read (I'm not finished with it!) on any subject. Thanks for recommending it! I'm also grateful that a scientist of your accomplishments takes the time and trouble to moderate this discussion board, taking on all comers on so many subjects. I think that this discussion board is a unique and important contribution to the advancement of science in the 21st century.

Michelson, Morley and Miller observed a tiny second-order (round trip) ether drift effect. There may well be a second-order ether drift effect on GPS, but it would be only a few cm, even assuming that the effect occurs in space as well as in the atmosphere.

The first-order (one-way) ether drift effect on GPS is masked by the extra, unaccounted-for, special-relativistic slowing of the satellite clocks, due to the cross term interaction of the ether and satellite speeds. According to your article, even the (2% maximum) orbital eccentricity of the satellites necessitates an additional special-relativistic correction to their clock speed, but no special-relativistic correction is made for the (much larger) 2vw cross term. This omission masks the ether drift effect on the signal travel time, to first order.

Likewise the ether drift effect on the accumulated phase, also is masked to first order. Using the variables defined above, the ether drift decreases the number of unit-size wavelengths between the upstream satellite and the observer, by v*d. Due to the extra time dilation from the unaccounted-for cross term, the satellite, while moving upstream, has emitted fewer waves than expected, by a number v*w * d/w = v*d. So the phase at the observer remains constant, to first order, while the satellite eats up some of the wave train.

Galaev observed one-way ether drifts, but only where the ether drift is nonuniform. According to Galaev's experiments, there is nonuniform ether velocity near Earth's surface and also, momentarily, between the inside and outside of a copper tube whose direction changes.

Cancellation of errors between up- and downstream satellites is inadequate to mask the ether drift effect. If one satellite is exactly upstream and overhead, and the other two or three are symmetrical about the line to the first, there is no inter-satellite cancellation of vertical GPS position error. If Earth rotates 5 degrees while the satellites are geostationary (or while, actually, the satellites revolve 10 degrees), roughly a tenth of the vertical error becomes applicable to the new horizontal plane. So, often even the horizontal GPS position could be off 1km/10=100m.

During passage through the ionosphere, a signal's group velocity can be 1-x. The phase velocity then typically is 1/(1-x), the reciprocal of the group velocity. The mean is approximately 1+x^2/2. As in solids, x<1 but not necessarily x<<1. In your article, the proportion of error remaining after correction by averaging the group-velocity-based and phase-velocity-based positions, is +x^2/2/x=+x/2.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Joe Keller</i>
<br />Michelson, Morley and Miller observed a tiny second-order (round trip) ether drift effect. There may well be a second-order ether drift effect on GPS, but it would be only a few cm, even assuming that the effect occurs in space as well as in the atmosphere.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">It would make little sense to look at a second-order effect when a first-order effect is accessible.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The first-order (one-way) ether drift effect on GPS is masked by the extra, unaccounted-for, special-relativistic slowing of the satellite clocks, due to the cross term interaction of the ether and satellite speeds. According to your article, even the (2% maximum) orbital eccentricity of the satellites necessitates an additional special-relativistic correction to their clock speed, but no special-relativistic correction is made for the (much larger) 2vw cross term. This omission masks the ether drift effect on the signal travel time, to first order.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">The "much larger" relativistic corrections are compensated before launch so that the satellite clocks, once in orbit, will always remain synchronized with ground clocks. So the GPS system works classically for satellites on circular orbits. (And eccentricity corrections are periodic and also too small to matter here.) For our purposes here, we can forget that relativity exists. But to the extent that you want to see what the compensated relativity corrections would have done (which is nothing at all to aether wind detection), see metaresearch.org/cosmology/gravity/gravity.asp and click on "Gravitational force versus gravitational potential" in the left column, unless you first need to download a free PowerPoint viewer first (see text).

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Likewise the ether drift effect on the accumulated phase, also is masked to first order. Using the variables defined above, the ether drift decreases the number of unit-size wavelengths between the upstream satellite and the observer, by v*d. Due to the extra time dilation from the unaccounted-for cross term, the satellite, while moving upstream, has emitted fewer waves than expected, by a number v*w * d/w = v*d. So the phase at the observer remains constant, to first order, while the satellite eats up some of the wave train.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Among the several things wrong with this paragraph, the satellite speed is mostly horizontal and the wave train is mostly vertical, so in an ideal case this would be a non-effect even if the math were correct.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">According to Galaev's experiments, there is nonuniform ether velocity near Earth's surface and also, momentarily, between the inside and outside of a copper tube whose direction changes.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Those experiments and opinions are not relevant to the discussion here. Nothing known can disguise the simple speeding up or slowing down of GPS signals if there is an aether wind. It is a first-order effect, and a visible one, not a hidden one.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">If one satellite is exactly upstream and overhead, and the other two or three are symmetrical about the line to the first, there is no inter-satellite cancellation of vertical GPS position error.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">This appears to be a description of how a cheap GPS receiver operates, using multiple satellites. Forget that here. Such receivers do not even have their own clocks. I was speaking of direct, clock-to-clock, single-satellite "pseudo-ranges" which must contain the full, undisguised, undiluted aether wind effect. The reason is elementary: Aether is the light-carrying medium. If aether moves at speed v relative to Earth's surface, then the speed of light must also change by speed v relative to Earth's surface. That makes the satellite signals get to the ground faster or slower, depending on whether they are going with or against the wind. And that speed difference is a big effect in GPS.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">If Earth rotates 5 degrees while the satellites are geostationary (or while, actually, the satellites revolve 10 degrees), roughly a tenth of the vertical error becomes applicable to the new horizontal plane.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">That might concern ordinary receivers lacking clocks, but is not relevant to this discussion.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">During passage through the ionosphere, a signal's group velocity can be 1-x. The phase velocity then typically is 1/(1-x), the reciprocal of the group velocity.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">This is another tiny effect, not relevant to the huge effect in this discussion.

Once you understand how GPS works, you will easily see that there is no escape hatch here. I recommend you try to get to that level of understanding before throwing out more psuudo-theories. You will then have less back-tracking to do. -|Tom|-

quote (Dr. Van Flandern): It would make little sense to look at a second-order effect when a first-order effect is accessible.

response: True, but in a uniform ether drift, the first-order effect is usually inaccessible, because clock synchronization is difficult.

quote: The "much larger" [sic] relativistic corrections are compensated before launch so that the satellite clocks, once in orbit, will always remain synchronized with ground clocks.

response: In the presence of an ether drift, the clocks still don't remain synchronized. This is due to the unaccounted-for quadratic interaction between the satellite and ether velocities. Let u be the satellite speed; assume a circular orbit. Let v be the ether drift speed. For simplicity consider an instant when the satellite is moving directly upstream in the ether. Earth clocks are slowed by a proportion 0.5*v^2. The satellite clock is slowed by a proportion 0.5*(v+u)^2. The difference between the Earth clock rate and the satellite clock rate is v*u+0.5*u^2. The "compensation before launch" is only 0.5*u^2, so there remains an uncompensated discrepancy, v*u. When the satellite is moving directly downstream, this discrepancy is -v*u. While the satellite moves upstream, its clock gets farther and farther behind, vs. what you, with your present theory, think the clock says. When the satellite is upstream in the ether, it's emitting its signal later than you think it is, but this is cancelled by the ether drift, which causes the signal to travel faster than you think it does. While the satellite moves downstream, its clock gets farther and farther ahead, vs. what you think it says. This discrepancy is periodic, just like the ether drift discrepancy. Its correction cancels the ether drift correction, to first order. What you're doing is omitting both corrections. Since they cancel, you still get the right distances.

quote: Among the several things wrong with this paragraph, the satellite speed is mostly horizontal and the wave train is mostly vertical, so in an ideal case this would be a non-effect even if the math were correct.

response: The math is correct. It's not a Doppler effect. It's a clock speed effect. When the satellite moves upstream, its clock is slower (by the unaccounted-for v*w), and radio signals emitted by it have lower frequency, i.e., fewer wavecrests per unit time. Due to the ether drift, there also are fewer and fewer wavecrests between the satellite and the Earth, as the satellite moves upstream. These two effects, both of them unaccounted-for, cancel to first order. So your distances are accurate, and you think there can't be a large unaccounted-for term in your formula. You're half right; there are TWO large unaccounted-for terms, both due to the ether drift, which cancel to first order.

quote (from Keller):

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If Earth rotates 5 degrees while the satellites are geostationary (or while, actually, the satellites revolve 10 degrees), roughly a tenth of the vertical error becomes applicable to the new horizontal plane.

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Clarification: By "geostationary", I meant, "stationary in Earth's NONrotating frame of reference", not "geosynchronous".

Correction: The Chernobyl accident occurred a day and a half past the full moon, not at the full moon.

Three Mile Island occurred on the day of a new moon, near the spring equinox, and when the moon's line of nodes also was in the position described above. It was about 46 hrs. after the moon's apogee, however, so this criterion was only borderline. Also, for the Dec. 2005 splash accident, I considered the moon's minor axis to be where the rate of change of Earth-moon distance was greatest.