1

New Theories / Re: How physics came to wrongly discard the ether

« on: 04/05/2016 19:21:52 »

The aether has no detected properties. On the other hand dark matter was postulated to explain an observed effect. Namely the accelerated expansion of the universe so there is no dual standard.

There is a unique reference frame in which the microwave background monopole is zero. This is observable evidence of our Sun's velocity relative to the aether, approximately 368 km/s toward Leo.

In my model, the expansion of space is both the source and the destination of dark energy. I don't want to go into too much detail about that, here, except to say that the aether has a foamy structure below the Planck scale; more bubbles equal more space; expansion of the foam pops the bubbles and radiates dark-energy pressure waves; but all that takes place in backwards time in a smaller-scale universe whose cosmic foam is our aether foam. From our point of view, in this universe, dark energy pressure waves converge to a point where they cause an aether-foam bubble to un-pop, absorbing dark energy rather than emitting it.

2

New Theories / Re: How physics came to wrongly discard the ether

« on: 04/05/2016 18:38:44 »

The OP describes the demise of aether theories quite well. I have been thinking along those lines for a decade.  8D

The "problem" of no aether drag, is a problem with the "understanding" of matter which suggested that matter "should" drag the aether.

In addition to the "problem" of no aether drag, all the old aether models failed to account for the role of the yet-undiscovered dark energy. I believe all the forces between massive particles result from exchange of momentum between light energy (acoustic-like transverse shear waves in a solid medium) and dark energy (acoustic-like longitudinal pressure waves in that same medium). As far as I know, I am the only person to have ever even suggested that the aether may host both transverse and longitudinal waves. And my description of the nature of dark energy is, to my knowledge, the only description of the fundamental nature of dark energy.

I believe the light carrying medium, aka aether, is also the matter carrying medium. I have described my Fractal Foam Model of Universes, here before. I postulate that matter IS light, and light does not drag its own medium.

A force field is where integrating the dark-energy flux over 4pi steradians yields a non-zero vector. A photon receives more momentum from the direction where the dark-energy flux is stronger.

Fundamental particles of matter consist of orbiting pairs or groups of photons, held together by an as yet undiscovered non-linear force. That force is not radially symmetrical, being a function of both the phase relationship between the photons and the angle between their planes of polarity. The ratio of their energies and wavelengths also figures into the magnitude of the force.

A free photon (not part of a particle) perturbs the flux of dark energy in a pattern which is symmetrical relative to the photon's plane of polarity. Another photon passing close enough may be attracted or repelled by the other photon's perturbation of the dark energy, depending on the angle between the two photons' planes of polarity.

The force which holds a pair of photons together is closely associated with zero-point energy. When two photons enter orbit around one another, they fall into a zero-point energy well, which is similar to a black hole, but not based on gravity.

Einstein's relativity may be derived from the fact that the constituent photons that make up a particle are still moving at the speed of light, but in tiny circles. Accelerating the particle forward (in a given inertial reference frame) increases the energy and momentum of one photon and decreases that of the other photon. For both energy and momentum to be conserved, the particle's momentum must increase as ΔE/c; which is why two photons each having no proper mass may add up to one particle having a proper mass equal to E/c².

(I should mention that I no longer believe longitudinal aether waves to be billions of times faster than transverse aether waves. I always had an uneasy feeling about that claim, and I never worked out the math for how that would affect my model, anyway. So my model requires some rethinking, though I believe it is still viable in principle.)

3

New Theories / Re: What is the difference between scattering and reflection of photons ?

« on: 21/03/2016 02:24:17 »

The electron is present as a cloud.

Yes; that is a useful simplification of reality. Treating electrons as probability clouds results in simpler maths than models that dare to consider the paths of electrons around individual circuits of their orbits, even below the Planck time scale.

Analogous models, i.e., models that are analogous to familiar mechanical systems, may offer a deeper and more psychologically satisfying reality. Some of us, who have not yet fully outgrown the "Why?" phase of our childhood development, are not fully satisfied with that electron cloud analogy. We need to know why the clouds is shaped as it is. Such quests for a deeper understanding, when not proven to have economic benefits, are considered frivolous, if not heretical, by all "serious" scientists. That has always been the case, hasn't it? Copernicus, Galileo, ....

Some such models are falsifiable by simulating the Planck-scale mechanics of virtual molecules. Then, integrating the locations of the virtual electrons should yield the known probability cloud for each Bohr orbital. Unfortunately, it may be necessary to renormalize a laundry list of parameters to yield the one combination that matches our universe. Come to think of it, my own model suffers from that malady. Too many unknown parameters; beginning with inertial density and hardness of the aether.

4

New Theories / Re: What is the difference between scattering and reflection of photons ?

« on: 20/03/2016 15:56:15 »

You are wrong sir, observation is limited to the eyes, I think you are referring to detection which is distinguishable from observation.

Observation is the active acquisition of information from a primary source. In living beings, observation employs the senses. In science, observation can also involve the recording of data via the use of instruments. The term may also refer to any data collected during the scientific activity. Observations can be qualitative, that is, only the absence or presence of a property is noted, or quantitative if a numerical value is attached to the observed phenomenon by counting or measuring.

5

New Theories / Re: What is the difference between scattering and reflection of photons ?

« on: 20/03/2016 14:09:26 »

Relatively no observer, observes the existence of a single photon, neither does the observer, observe such as photon packets. 

Human eyes may not be sensitive enough to observe a single photon, but our power of observation is not limited to our eyes.

Photo multiplier:
"For smaller photon fluxes, the photomultiplier can be operated in photon counting or Geiger mode (see also: single-photon avalanche diode). In Geiger mode the photomultiplier gain is set so high (using high voltage) that a single photo-electron resulting from a single photon incident on the primary surface generates a very large current at the output circuit."

6

New Theories / Re: What is the difference between scattering and reflection of photons ?

« on: 19/03/2016 03:08:35 »

A mirror's silver layer provides a constant-voltage surface. When a photon hits that surface, the outer electrons of the silver atoms move about in such a way that their combined electric fields together with the incoming photon add up to a constant-voltage surface. Subtracting the electric field of the incoming photon yields the electric field of a virtual photon continuing along the incoming photon's path and disappearing into the depths of the mirror's virtual image. When the electrons rebound to their equilibrium positions, they emit a real photon; and angle of incidence equals angle of reflection.

Total internal reflection, like in a glass prism, works on a different principle. I'll let you look that up, yourself.

The blue sky is caused by Rayleigh scattering. You can look that up, too.

7

New Theories / Re: What is the difference between scattering and reflection of photons ?

« on: 18/03/2016 18:28:52 »

Energy and momentum are conserved. If one photon enters one side of an atom and only one photon exits the other side, then either the exit photon has the same energy and momentum as the entry photon (including exactly the same direction), or some momentum and energy are left behind in the atom, perhaps in the form of lifting an electron to a higher orbital.

A photon's energy is E = hc/λ = hf. Its momentum is p = E/c.

A visible photon's energy is roughly 4 x 10^-19 J.
It's momentum is roughly 10^-27 Newton second. 

A photon reflecting perpendicularly off of a massive mirror surface reverses its direction. This imparts very slightly less than twice the photon's initial momentum to the mirror, and the photon rebounds with very slightly less momentum than it had.

If the mirror's mass is 1 kg, its velocity changes by Δv = Δp/M = 2 x 10^-27 Ns / kg = 2 x 10^-27 m/s. It's energy changes by 1 x 10^-54 J, which is 2.5 x 10^-34 times the photon's energy. The reflected photon's wavelength is increased by a factor of 1 + (2.5 x 10^-34). This is generally considered insignificant.

If the mirror's mass is 1 yoctogram, the factor becomes 1 + (2.5 x 10^-7), which is still negligible, unless your searching for gravity waves.
[A proton's mass is 1.67 yoctogram.]

Until now, I've been tacitly using the mirror's own coordinate system. In another system with significant velocity relative to the mirror, there is a Doppler shift. If the mirror's motion is parallel to that of the incoming photon, the reflected photon will be redshifted; anti-parallel, blueshifted.

8

New Theories / Re: Questions on photons and the CMBR during the Big Bang .

« on: 13/03/2016 14:50:03 »

an electron emitting blue light would emit roughly 580 x 10 10  photons a second,

Don't confuse the frequency of blue light with the frequency of emitting photons. One electron drops to a lower energy level and emits one photon with a wavelength of 1/580 x 10¹⁰ Hz. Before it can emit another photon, it has to be pushed back up to the higher orbital.

In the first 300,000 years after the big bang, we are told, the universe was opaque, so photons were reabsorbed before they could go anywhere. This fact makes the term "speed of light" meaningless during that epoch. To turn the clock back to the beginning, as Hawking is supposed to have done, one must invent different definitions of time and distance, not based upon light.

The blue photons that first managed to propagate more than a few microns thru the quark soup, are now redshifted due to the expansion of space. Consequently, we now see them as microwaves, with an average wavelength corresponding to 2.7K.

Longer wavelength corresponds to higher entropy.

If we assume there was enough energy for both entropy and expansion, that means we need extra energy for the needs of both.

That is the reason for postulating the existence of dark energy. Something is making space expand at an accelerating pace, against the drag of gravity trying to pull it all closer together.

In my model, that energy comes from a smaller-scale universe, about 60 orders of magnitude smaller, whose cosmic foam is our aether foam. The smaller-scale universe operates in reverse time; as we get older, it gets younger. As its cosmic foam bubbles expand, they pop; this converts two bubbles into one, and time reversal makes that into an increase in the number of our aether-foam bubbles, and thus one additional Planck volume of new space in our universe. It takes about 10⁸⁸ Planck volumes of new space per cubic meter per second to equal the Hubble parameter, about 2.5 x 10^-18/sec.

Since entropy needs energy for entropy to increase, the heat used for the initial expansion/inflation will quickly chill due to the high percent of that energy going into countless sub particle entropy. Why should the universe continue to expand, since it is now cool enough for gravity to take over? If we assume there was enough energy for both entropy and expansion, that means we need extra energy for the needs of both.

That smaller-scale universe gives us its entropy, and time reversal converts it to exergy, which keeps our universe interesting.

9

New Theories / Re: Is superluminal travel without relativistic effects possible?

« on: 07/02/2016 19:02:40 »

Just a comment about how near impossible it is, according to our current understanding, for anything with mass to travel 1M ly in 3 years:

That space ship calculator says the ship would have 4.86 x 10²³ Joule/kg of kinetic energy at Midway. Let's hope we don't run into any stray molecules out there! One proton would pack a milijoule; about equivalent to a gnat on your windshield at 60 mph. Get out the bug spray; make that proton spray.

If you had an ideal engine, converting matter and antimatter to a laser beam out the back end at 100% efficiency, you would need to leave earth with 4.86 x 10²³ kg of matter/antimatter fuel for each kg of ship and fuel that will reach Midway. And if you wish to decelerate to a stop at Planet X, you will need to burn another 4.86 x 10²³ kg of fuel for each kg of the ship that remains at touchdown.

Let's say your ship, crew, cargo, etc., on touchdown must have 100 t of mass.
Then your liftoff mass is going to be approximately (4.86 x 10²³)² = 2.36 x 10⁴⁷ kg.

No problem! All we have to do is pack 40,000 Milky Way Galaxies into our fuel tank, and hope we don't cause a gnaB giB in the process. I hope you're good at packing!

10

New Theories / Re: Is superluminal travel without relativistic effects possible?

« on: 06/02/2016 01:16:58 »

Sorry about that; I mistakenly plugged in 1,000,000 instead of 500,000. Those earlier numbers were correct, and not quite so close to the calculator's limits. The acceleration is 20.923425515 g. with a maximum speed of .999,999,999,999,982,9 c.

I wanted to edit that last post to strike out the wrong part. Apparently, there ain't much you can do to edit a post, is there?

The "time on earth" part of the calculator says, "500,000.092622 years, which is just 33.8 days longer than it took for the light pulse which left at the same time as the ship to reach Midway in Earth coordinates. That represents the time it takes for the ship to reach Midway (500,000 ly from Earth) in Earth coordinates.

For an Earth-based observer 500,000 years after launch, the ship is just 33.8 light-days behind the light flash that left Earth at launch time. So the next light flash from Earth must now be 0.907378 ly, or 331 light days, behind the ship, in Earth coordinates. In other words, the ship crosses Midway long before the next flash from Earth is seen from the ship. The light flashes from Earth are redshifted and stretched farther apart, but not uniformly so. The distance between flashes from Earth, in ship's coordinates, varies because Earth clocks (and the Earth year) gradually got slower as the ship accelerated. As Earth clocks got slower, the flashes were emitted less often, in ship's coordinates.

No light flashes from Earth pass the ship before Midway; only two flashes pass the ship after it Midway; the third flash just catches up at Planet X. That third flash from Earth tells Planet-Xians to celebrate the year 1,000,003. (They set their clocks at 0, not 3000, at liftoff from Earth.) In Planet X coordinates, same as Earth coordinates, Earthians are celebrating the year 1,003,000; I guess there was a slight delay from the original launch schedule.

The flashes passing the ship from Planet X are blueshifted and pancaked together, from the ship's perspective, as the relative speed increases. This is the inverse of the redshift behind the ship. At Midway, the ship has passed 500,000 light flashes from Planet X. Flash #500,001 is just milliseconds ahead. For a while, flashes from Planet X pass the ship in rapid succession. Deceleration gradually stretches the flashes farther apart, so the ship passes them less often. They arrive just as the 1,000,003rd flash is being sent.

What I'm looking for is, what is the time on Earth and on Planet X in ship's coordinates when the ship crosses Midway?

11

New Theories / Re: Is superluminal travel without relativistic effects possible?

« on: 05/02/2016 23:26:44 »

Gave my brain a rest, smoked a different brand of legal-in-my-state substance, took another look at that relativistic space ship calculator. Too bad I can't just plug in the desired trip distance and duration, so I could tell Scottie how many warps I need from the engines. Instead, I have to zero in on 1.5 years "time on board" by the ship's clock by adjusting the acceleration up or down. 22, 21, 21.5,....

Instead of 20.923 g, today I'm getting 21.866 g. This is right at the limit of the calculator's capacity; the maximum speed for the journey is .999,999,999,999,996 c, and that last digit is not significant. Still, I wonder if it is no coincidence that .866 = sin(60°).

I've had trouble attempting these calculations on Wolfram|Alpha. I used to be able to do such problems before they initiated the subscription service. If you have the subscription service, you should be able to get dozens of digits of precision.

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New Theories / Re: What year did the world start to think that a clock was time itself?

« on: 05/02/2016 18:17:26 »

Time is change. Some changes are cyclical. Is a cycle a piece of time? Or is it a measure of time? Let's not get all upset over such a trivial question.

The "second", since Babylonian times, was defined as 1/84,600 of an average solar day. If a day is a piece of time, then a second is, or was, a smaller piece of time.

Attempts to measure such small pieces of time involved a long succession of inventions, intended to count those pieces of time more accurately and repeatably. Sometime in the early 20th Century, the most accurate and repeatable measurements of seconds came from clocks which agree with each other to a greater degree than they agree with the rotation of the our planet. It turns out that our initial choice of a standard clock had its own idiosyncrasies. For science to progress in both particle physics and astronomy, we need a more stable standard of time than the rotation of Mother Earth... beg you pardon, ma'am.

The new standard had to be something that can be, theoretically, duplicated anywhere in the universe, and preferably anytime in the universe, and preferably not too difficult or expensive to reproduce in a low-budget lab, or even on a person's wrist.

After a period of competition among various types of clocks, the Cesium standard was chosen as the new definition of the second. As of 1960, Mother Earth's daily pirouette was in exact lock step with the official world clock. Several times since then, the world clock has been skip-stepped ahead by a second, acknowledging that a certain year contained 84,601 seconds, by the new definition of second.

By the way, the meter was also redefined by the Cesium standard. It used to be 1/40,000 of the polar circumference of Mother Earth at sea level. So what happens to the meter when sea level rises?

The speed of light, measured in meters/second, is the number of meters that light travels in one second. The most accurate measures of the speed of light by the old standard were applied to the new standard, so they were in agreement in 1960.

So to answer the title question, the year was 1960, but I believe you are misrepresenting the meaning of the cesium standard. It redefined meters, seconds and the speed of light. If you measure anything in meters and seconds, you are counting cycles of a cesium clock; if you are not using a cesium clock, then you may not get the correct number of meters and seconds.

We should try not to argue in terms that have universally accepted definitions which we either don't know or choose to ignore. If I don't accept the universally accepted definitions of certain terms, then I should introduce my own original terms; those I may define as I please.

13

New Theories / Re: Is superluminal travel without relativistic effects possible?

« on: 03/02/2016 16:55:09 »

Suppose we set up a kind of light clock between Earth and Planet X. Every year, a brilliant flash of light is beamed from Earth toward Planet X. Each time a flash from Earth is observed on Planet X, a similar flash is immediately beamed back toward earth. (This has been going on for millions of years.) The space between Earth and Planet X contains 1M nodes where the flashes from opposite directions pass one another. Once every year, a stationary observer at any of those 1M nodes would observe simultaneous light flashes from both planets every half year. A moving observer can only observe the flashes simultaneously if he is on one of those 1M nodes at the right instant. Passing successive nodes, the moving observer will see the interval between the Earth flash and the Planet X flash increase and return to zero. Thus, we have created a mega-light-year meter stick against which the traveler may track his progress in Earth coordinates.

The 500,000th node is Midway between the two planets in inertial coordinates, regardless of velocity. I don't believe it is midway for an accelerating observer. So without GR, we must postulate that observations are made only during brief periods of coasting. If you accelerate for Δt and coast for Δt/c, c sufficiently large, I believe the limit as Δt approaches 0 is a kind of General Relativity. I doubt if it is equivalent to Einstein's GR, but it should yield equivalent results, after using up a lot more computer time than Einstein's GR.
 
Try this online relativistic star ship calculator . Plug in 500,000 ly and 1 g; it says the max speed will be 0.9999999999924886 c, and the trip to the halfway turn-around point would take 500,001.94 years by Earth clocks and 25.5 years by the ship's clock. To get halfway to Planet X in 1.5 years by the ship's clock, you would need to accelerate at 20.923 g. I think the simplest way to reconcile these numbers with those mentioned previously in this discussion would be to say the ship accelerates at 20.923 g, instead of 1 g.
 
For 20.923 g, the length contraction and time dilation factor (gamma) at the midway point is 5,399,000. So in the ship's coordinates, the distance to each planet from midway in ship's coordinates is 34 light days.

This is where I get confused: How many flashes from Earth passed the traveler from each direction before he reached Midway? Does he pass Midway at the right instant to see light flashes from both directions simultaneously? By measuring the interval between flashes, he can interpolate between nodes of the mega-light-year stick, to pinpoint his location in Earth coordinates.

Edit to cross out "half" and insert lines after paragraphs.

14

New Theories / Re: Does photons have a mass?

« on: 29/01/2016 18:20:52 »

If photonic molecules exists, could we extract zero point energy from quantum fluctuation in space?

"Photonic molecule" refers to something that exist only inside a dense light medium. Perhaps they are analogous to the orbiting photons of my model, but in a different medium and at a different scale.

The orbiting photons of my model exist in a vacuum in the medium the aether. They are the most fundamental particles with proper mass. All other particles with proper mass consist of combinations of orbiting pairs (or perhaps larger groups) of photons.

Each species of fundamental particle is a strange attractor in the chaotic mix of dark energy and light energy.

I think that zero-point energy is exchanged whenever, photon pairs are formed or split. Probably orders of magnitude less ZPE is exchanged when photon pairs combine with or break away from one another. Conceivably, there may be several layers of complexity between photon pairs and quarks.

Each free photon is an aethereal shear wave, wiggling the aether perpendicular to the direction of propagation. Dark energy is aethereal pressure waves, wiggling the aether parallel to the direction of propagation. (I previously believed that the pressure waves were billions of times faster than the shear waves. I now have doubts about the proof which I have been relying on.)

A small percentage of momentum is exchanged in collisions between shear waves and pressure waves. The magnitude and direction of the exchange depends on the pressure wave's path relative to the photon's path and plane of polarity. Therefor, the dark-energy flux is perturbed in a pattern which has mirror symmetry (or perhaps antimirror symmetry) relative to the photon's plane of polarity. 

When photons orbit one another, that perturbation of the dark-energy flux gets spun into a spiral, expanding outward at the speed of dark energy. Pairs of these precessing spirals can mesh like gears to form larger particles.

I think a quantum fluctuation is what happens when God rolls His dice. We mortals will be evicted from the casino if we try to rig God's dice.

15

New Theories / Re: Does photons have a mass?

« on: 29/01/2016 03:08:25 »

Since energy is equivalent to mass, what is the correlation between zero point energy and its relativistic mass ?

In my model, there is an asymmetric force between every pair of photons. Under different circumstances, the force may either attract or repel; its usually quite week. If it attracts strongly enough to cause the pair of photons to orbit one another, they may fall into an energy well, below the so called zero point. I believe that is where zero-point energy comes from. When a massive particle is formed in this way, there must be byproducts to balance the energy and momentum equation and carry away some of the zero-point energy.

By "asymmetric", I mean that the force is not spherically symmetric. Instead, the strength of the force depends on the angle between the planes of polarity of the two photons. The force only becomes significant when photons of compatible energies and polarities meet at the right distance; and even then, something else may be needed, such as perhaps a Higgs particle (not that I really understand what that is).

The sum of energies of the formerly free photons, give or take some zero-point energy, is the proper mass of the particle which consists of the two photons.

When an external force accelerates the particle, it increases momentum of the photon which, at any given instant, is moving in the direction of the force; and it decreases momentum of the photon on the opposite side. But the increase on one side is more than the decrease on the other side, so the momentum of the particle is changed by the amount dictated by relativity. (I realize I'm oversimplifying a bit; you have to integrate over the entire precessing, spiraling orbits of the two photons.) So that's where relativistic mass and proper mass come from.

In case you're wondering, the force between photons results from an exchange of momentum between the photon and the flux of dark energy. Each photon perturbs the dark-energy flux in a pattern which has mirror symmetry relative to the photon's plane of polarity.

16

New Theories / Re: Is science becoming a religion?

« on: 13/01/2016 15:24:37 »

Science is a method designed to eliminate false religious beliefs. Unfortunately, we still have high priests masquerading as scientists and persuading Congress that what they are establishing is not religion, which it is.

Where is the scientific method in the Big Bang liturgy? It's all based on extrapolating physical "laws", which cannot be tested beyond the scale of the solar system and which are assumed to be valid at all times and places.

Scientists discover physical laws which are valid wherever and whenever they have been tested. Priests declare that they are valid everywhere and for all time. Logic, not scientific method, is applied to those laws to derive a history of creation and destruction.

17

New Theories / Re: Do we see the Sun where it was 8.3 minutes ago?

« on: 09/01/2016 15:44:50 »

GoC,

Again I suggest that you watch some videos which explain special relativity. There are plenty of good ones on YouTube. Watch out, though; some people are good at making videos about stuff they don't understand.

Lecture 3 Simultaneity and Causality explains it pretty clearly. If you still don't get it, watch another video and another....

18

New Theories / Re: What is the mechanism behind Gravity?

« on: 03/01/2016 17:31:34 »

Matt, do not get wrapped up into space time, space time only exists has a concept, it only exists between two points of mass, it is a virtual navigation system to represent journeys that have not been taken. XYZ only exists of matter and time only exists of matter, space time is a n-dimensional  5th dimension solution to a problem, no more no less.

X, Y, Z & T are names that we give to dimensions of the space and time that exist in our imaginations. We can carve those names into physical objects, like graph paper, in the real space-time that hosts the atoms we're made of; or we may type the names of coordinate axes into a computer program, where they control how data are stored in a microprocessor's transistors, as well as how the data are presented on a screen or in a VR helmet.

Now, if you had a VR helmet and a haptic feedback suit, you could make a pretty good match between the virtual space-time in the computer and the real space-time in which your body exists. You could even take that to the extreme and be absorbed into the Matrix. But the two space-times would still not be identical.

So we have this virtual space-time programmed into a computer, complete with Einstein's relativity, occupied by low-res digital imitations of whatever galaxies SDSS has mapped in 3D. We can zoom out to view our virtual observable universe as seen by a hypothetical viewer anywhere in the mapped region (bearing in mind that our view of distant galaxies may be a few billion years old, and an observer there would be seeing our galaxy as it was billions of years ago). We look thru our virtual Hubble space-telescope into our virtual universe; then we compare what we see there to what the real HST sees in the real universe . If we see discrepancies, we can tweak our virtual universe.

We can also zoom in on a virtual atomic nucleus in our virtual universe. But the picture in there is a blur because we can't resolve time or space that closely in the real universe. We are free to invent models which can be resolved arbitrarily small in both space and time. But we can only predict real world outcomes statistically. If the model predicts probable outcomes which are not a good statistical match to what the LHC detects, the model needs to be tweaked.

19

New Theories / Re: Do we see the Sun where it was 8.3 minutes ago?

« on: 25/12/2015 02:55:23 »

Consider the light from an object takes the same time to reach an observer as the observers light to reach the object being observed, there is no time discrepancy. The position is fixed to each other .

That is true for inertial reference frames. If one observer accelerates, time will pass more slowly for him.

20

New Theories / Re: Do we see the Sun where it was 8.3 minutes ago?

« on: 24/12/2015 17:30:42 »

I'm sure you've all had this experience: You hear a high-flying jet overhead; you look up in the direction from which the sound is coming. You don't see the jet there; instead, you see it maybe 30° to 45° ahead of where the sound is coming from.

If the jet is flying in a circle with you at its center, you still hear it coming from its "retarded position", 30° to 45° behind where you see it. I'm not sure if that's exactly the case. Can that be proven? Try simplifying the problem by assuming the speed of sound is the same everywhere, regardless of altitude, and there is no wind.

Let's say that jet passes 10 km directly above us; the sound takes 30 seconds to reach us. To simplify the problem, let's say the speed of light is infinite, so we see the jet exactly where it is now, as opposed to where it was when the sound we hear was emitted. (This is analogous to the assumption that the speed of gravity is infinite, compared to the speed of light.)

A though experiment:

[In round numbers] Your ultra-quiet maglev train is eastbound in a straight line at 33 m/s; sound travels 1 km in 3 sec. Kids at ground zero, one km north of the track, are setting off M80 fireworks at one second intervals. Do you hear the bangs coming from the direction where you now see ground zero, from the direction where ground zero is, or some other direction?

Now, let's switch tracks; the new track is circular, centered on ground zero, with a radius of 1 km. I think the sound would seem to come from approximately (or exactly) the direction where we see ground zero. What say you? Anyone bold enough to present a proof?


What makes sunlight behave different rules? Or does it?

A bit of philosophizing:

The question of where the Sun IS NOW is an existential question. Can we really know where something has gone to since it emitted the signal that we are now perceiving? "IS NOW" is merely a snapshot of a model that we have conceived to make sense of what we perceive.