Naked Science Forum
On the Lighter Side => New Theories => Topic started by: Le Repteux on 26/09/2015 15:31:29
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Hi everybody,
Here is a drawing representing two light rays curved by the sun's mass: a blue ray coming from a star that brushes past the sun, and a red ray coming from the periphery of the sun itself.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi21.servimg.com%2Fu%2Ff21%2F18%2F00%2F15%2F08%2Fcourbu12.png&hash=23edf70b96625388279b48c03f5aa7a1)
The two rays are parallel when they begin to travel together at the sun's periphery (dotted red and blue arrows), and they thus hit the earth later at the same angle since, being very close to one another, they almost suffer the same curvature (plain red and blue arrows), what gives to the earth observers the impression that both rays come from the same spot in the sky (dotted red and blue lines that lead to the dotted star).
Einstein predicted that the ray coming from the star would get curved by the presence of the sun, but without noticing that the ray from the periphery of the sun itself should also get curved, so he did not realize either that the sun would look wider during this observation, and that he thus would have to shrink it on the mapping of the sky made when the sun was not there to curve the rays.
If he had shrunk his sun on the mapping made when the sun was on the other side of the earth, it would have hidden the same stars than the ones that were hidden during the eclipse, so he could not have concluded that light was effectively curved by gravitation as he had predicted, but instead, that the sun's presence was affecting the direction of the rays in such a way that a mapping made in it's presence kind of widened the sky compared with the one made when it wasn't there.
Notice that this reasoning does not contradict the observations, it only contradicts the explanation of the observations, reason why I placed it on a science forum, but if it's right, then there must be another explanation, and I did not find it yet, except that gravitation kind of widens the sky when our observations are made from a much less massive body than the one we are gravitating around, which means that it could be the real acceleration of the earth observers towards the sun at the microscopic level that would affect the direction of the rays. So far so good, but as I said, it doesn't seem to work, because moving at an angle through a light ray should bend it in the direction of the movement as for the aberration of star light, which would shrink the sky during an eclipse instead of widening it as the observations show, so I am still looking for an explanation.
Anybody finds the idea interesting? Anybody thinks that the rays coming from the sun should also be curved by the gravitation of the sun?
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One minor problem with this argument is that it assumes that a photon emitted near the limb of the solar disk could reliably reach the Earth. The light is emitted from the visible disk of the Sun because the temperature of the Sun is sufficiently high; but at these temperatures, the Sun's atmosphere is effectively opaque to visible light.
In practice, the observation of the bending of starlight near the Sun was conducted with stars that were outside the Sun's visible disk (which was hidden by the Moon's disk, at the time).
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What evan_au says is correct.
Although many textbooks and articles show light from a distant star grazing the sun, the perimeter of the sun was not used as a reference. The amount of bending is dependant on the distance from the centre of a mass ie the sun. Two photographs of stars were taken, one with the sun nearby (eclipsed) and one without. The 2 were compared and showed the predicted bending.
Having said that, light from the sun is affected by its gravity causing a slight redshift (this can be detected by looking at spectral lines). If the sun's atmosphere was transparent then you could detect an effect similar to that on earth where, due to refraction, we see the setting sun even though it has gone below the horizon. We would see light from a part of the sun's surface just beyond the perimeter, but to be fair the effect would be extremely small.
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The light gets refracted by plasma and you can replicate it in a lab... Gravity field has no effect on electromagnetic field of any kind...
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Thanks for answering guys, pleased to meet you! [:)]
Hi Mathew, do you mean that, to your opinion, light is not bent by gravitation?
Hi Collin, if you take another look at my drawing, you will see that the two light rays travel in the same direction once they start traveling nearby together at the sun's perimeter. Being independent from the body where they come from at this point in space and time, do you see any reason why they should experiment a different bending?
Hi Evan, if the light from the star on my drawing gets around the sun, its only because it can travel at that height without being absorbed by the atmosphere of the sun, thus a light emitted by the sun near that height can also travel there if it is tangent to its surface, so it can also reach the earth if it is bent the same. In other words, it cannot travel directly to earth since it would have to cross the sun's surface, but it can certainly reach the earth if it circles the sun for a while as on my drawing.
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Thanks for answering guys, pleased to meet you! [:)]
Hi Mathew, do you mean that, to your opinion, light is not bent by gravitation?
Yes, in my opinion, based on experimental evidence, gravity has no effect on electromagnetic waves, photons, magnetic fields and electric fields...
But it does affect the frequency of all oscillating structures including pendulum and atomic clocks...
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Hi Mathew, do you mean that, to your opinion, light is not bent by gravitation?
In this section of the forum it is convention, rules and good manners to discuss currently accepted physics theory. If Mathew works in this field and has experimental data that conflicts with accepted theory then I'm sure he will present it in the New Theories section.
....you will see that the two light rays travel in the same direction once they start traveling nearby together at the sun's perimeter. Being independent from the body where they come from at this point in space and time, do you see any reason why they should experiment a different bending?
Just to make sure we are talking about the same issues:
The effect of gravity on magnetic lines of force is negligible under normal circumstances, but is irrelevant to this discussion. Light - photons - have momentum and anything which has momentum is affected by gravity. As you will be aware there are 2 parts to this effect, one predicted by Newton and one we call spacetime curvature predicted by Einstein.
The light rays you show in your diagram would be affected differently because they spend different amounts of time in the gravity field. However, in principle it is possible to imagine 2 rays that do end up parallel but there are some issues to consider. On the sun the effect is exceedingly small and as Evan has pointed out there are atmospheric effects to consider.
Better to look at neutron stars where the diameter is in km and the atmosphere in cm.
The strength of a neutron star's gravity is so great that if does bend light from the far side and we see more than just the face side of the disc. This makes the observed diameter seem larger than it really is. However, the strength of the field also means that the bending is noticeable at a significant distance from the surface - remember the distance to use in bending calculations are from centre of mass rather than from the surface. This is also true of large gravity sources such as galaxies where light bending has been observed at considerable distance from the Galaxy (no atmosphere!).
So I think if you if you use a neutron star as your example it is much easier to consider that your diagram would be correct.
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in my opinion, based on experimental evidence, gravity has no effect on electromagnetic waves
OK! So you don't believe that a light ray from a star is bent by gravitation, but nevertheless, you still think that it is bent by the sun's atmosphere. If my OP is right about both rays being affected by the sun's presence, there would be no bending at the sun's periphery. Its only when the rays would hit the telescopes that they would change directions. So your hypothesis that the rays would be bent by refraction wouldn't work either, because the rays originating from the sun would also suffer refraction, and its diameter would also have to be shrunk on the mapping made when the sun is not there, thus hiding the same stars as when it is there.
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The light rays you show in your diagram would be affected differently because they spend different amounts of time in the gravity field.
Its true that the ray from the star spends twice more time around the sun than the one from the sun itself, but it also travels twice the distance, so its normal that it gets bended twice the angle if it has to hit the earth at the same place.
However, in principle it is possible to imagine 2 rays that do end up parallel but there are some issues to consider. On the sun the effect is exceedingly small
It seems obvious to me that any light ray must be deflected the same if it travels tangentially to the surface of the sun and at the same distance from its center, and its exactly what I show on my drawing.
if you use a neutron star as your example it is much easier to consider that your diagram would be correct
As an example, a neutron star would be more difficult to imagine than the sun, because it doesn't produce visible light and because it has no measurable diameter. When we observe the sun, we see its periphery and we know its because it produces light right there.
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Light refraction of plasma medium is a conventionally accepted physical phenomena...
Example: http://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.162.117
Or, is the San disobeying the low of refraction?
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... Anybody thinks that the rays coming from the sun should also be curved by the gravitation of the sun?
Sun will appear very slightly bigger because of gravitational-lensing ...
https://van.physics.illinois.edu/QA/listing.php?id=21717&t=gravitational-lensing-of-the-sun
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One minor problem with this argument is that it assumes that a photon emitted near the limb of the solar disk could reliably reach the Earth. The light is emitted from the visible disk of the Sun because the temperature of the Sun is sufficiently high; but at these temperatures, the Sun's atmosphere is effectively opaque to visible light.
Such things are of no consequence to the idea that the OP is trying to get at.
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if you use a neutron star as your example it is much easier to consider that your diagram would be correct
As an example, a neutron star would be more difficult to imagine than the sun, because it doesn't produce visible light and because it has no measurable diameter.
I think that this latter comment was referring to a black hole, rather than a neutron star.
A neutron star (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star#Structure) has a definite surface, and a very compressed atmosphere (perhaps μm thick).
They are very hot (at least initially), and will produce visible light as well as X-Rays.
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As an example, a neutron star would be more difficult to imagine than the sun, because it doesn't produce visible light and because it has no measurable diameter.
I think that this latter comment was referring to a black hole, rather than a neutron star.
A neutron star (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star#Structure) has a definite surface, and a very compressed atmosphere (perhaps μm thick).
They are very hot (at least initially), and will produce visible light as well as X-Rays.
Sorry, I didn't know that neutron stars had electrons, but what I meant by measurable diameter is that the optical angle cannot be observed directly, whereas the sun's one can. Its the sun's observed diameter that we need to compare the mappings, and if its light was bent, it would look larger than what it is for real, so it would have to be shrunk on the mapping made when it isn't there, and it would thus hide the same stars as when it was there.
Sun will appear very slightly bigger because of gravitational-lensing ...
https://van.physics.illinois.edu/QA/listing.php?id=21717&t=gravitational-lensing-of-the-sun
Thanks for the link RD, I could not find any myself.
Here is the answer:
"The curvature, however, will be only half as big since the first half of the curving path from another star isn't there.
There is, however, another effect. Maybe by the "real" size you mean the distance across the sun, as measured by some local ruler. (Ok, let's not worry too much about the practicality.) That distance is bigger than you would think from the apparent area or circumference, because of the way gravity warps space-time inside the sun. This effect on the apparent size is less than from the light curvature by a factor of about R/L, where R is the sun's radius and L is the distance from us to the sun. So it's pretty small compared to the light curvature effect.
Mike W."
On my drawing, the curvature is also half the one from the star, which is normal since it wouldn't follow the other ray if it was bent more. So I think that this part of the answer might be wrong, and as Mike himself points out, it is by far the important one. Maybe he answered without bothering to make a drawing?
Light refraction of plasma medium is a conventionally accepted physical phenomena...
Example: http://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.162.117
Or, is the San disobeying the low of refraction?
The way I understand it, during an eclipse, the gravitation from the sun is affecting the position of all the stars that we observe at that moment, and most of them appear far away from the sun's perimeter, so their light doesn't have to go through the sun's atmosphere to reach us. If it is so, then refraction wouldn't affect those rays, so how would you explain their bending?
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Light refraction of plasma medium is a conventionally accepted physical phenomena...
True, but that is a long way from providing an alternative theory to explain gravitational bending of light. Not only would you have to explain how this works for the sun, but also for all the other experiments and observations. As I say, if you have experimental evidence to support your assertions the best place to post it is in New Theories.
The way I understand it, gravitation from the sun during an eclipse is affecting the position of all the stars that we observe at that moment, which means that most of them appear far away from the sun's perimeter, so that their light doesn't have to go through the sun's atmosphere to be bent. If it is so, then refraction wouldn't affect those rays, so how would you explain their bending?
Yes, the stars measured were away from the sun's perimeter.
Also the refractive index of a plasma is frequency dependant, but observations show the bending to be frequency independant.
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...the refractive index of a plasma is frequency dependent, but observations show the bending to be frequency independent.
Good observation Collin! If bending was due to refraction, the observed bended rays would not carry all the colors that the star emits when the sun is not there.
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Good observation Collin!
Sorry, I can't claim the observation. It came from early work on radio astronomy where it is easier to observe radio sources without waiting for an eclipse.
It's a fascinating universe we live in [:)]
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You mean that you observed a refraction phenomenon when the source was near the sun? That some of the frequencies vanished?
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You mean that you observed a refraction phenomenon when the source was near the sun? That some of the frequencies vanished?
No, I was reporting earlier work with radio sources passing through a plasma, the degree of bend was dependant on frequency as is predicted by theory.
With gravitational bending there is no frequency dependency. However, when observing radio sources close to the sun, you need to make allowance for this additional frequency dependant bending.
Frequency is very important with plasmas. The plasma can be transparent, reflective or absorbent dependant on the frequency of the source.
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Rainbow effect is internal to planets atmosphere just like we see at sunset...
Also, where are the pictures of assumed gravitational lensing of Sun or any other eclipse?
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In theory, the sun is not massive enough and too close to earth to produce gravitational lensing. But if my OP is right, we would have to fin another explanation than bending to justify those observations too, and the only one that comes to my mind is again the gravitational acceleration of the earth towards these massive bodies, and more precisely, towards the larger gravitational system to which those distant bodies belong.
I see that you are interested by refraction Mathew, but I would like to know if you understood my OP, and if so, if you agree with the proposition that the rays from the sun should also be bent if bending is right.
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Yes, by logical assumption...
But again, there is no credible evidence to support claim of gravity influence on EM propagation...
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And what about my proposition that the rays might get curved the same way aberration curves them, but by the acceleration of the earth towards the sun instead of its inertial motion around it?
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Rainbow effect is internal to planets atmosphere just like we see at sunset...
No, the effect we are discussing is external.
The OP is a question on the effect of gravitational field deflecting light. This is well documented in numerous textbooks and taught as accepted theory, so it is not necessary for this forum to review or reproduce that information.
You have challenged that theory, but as yet, have chosen not to support your claims with any detail or evidence, so it is you who are considered by forum members to lack credibility. You can reverse that opinion by posting details in New Theories, but until you provide that substance there is no point discussing it in this thread.
And what about my proposition that the rays might get curved the same way aberration curves them, but by the acceleration of the earth towards the sun instead of its inertial motion around it?
Are you suggesting the component of earth's motion towards the sun might be responsible? How might that work?
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To better understand what I mean by that, you may refer to my thread on inertial motion:
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=53171.msg467891#msg467891
In that thread, I show how the inertial motion of a molecule could be produced by the small steps between its atoms, thus how a macroscopic body made of molecules would be moving at the microscopic scale. But if bodies really move like that when no force is acting on them, it follows that they also move like that when they accelerate in a gravitation field, because no direct force is acting on them either.
When the earth circles the sun, its centrifugal motion away from the sun is compensated by its accelerated one towards the sun, and since these two motions are normal one to the other, they do not interfere. Each time a step is made tangentially from the sun by one atom, thus a bit away from it, a step is made by the same atom directly towards the sun and compensates exactly the motion away from it, and it is the vectorial addition of the steps from all the atoms of a body that give the macroscopic motion that we observe.
From this viewpoint, the step made towards the sun by one atom is a real step, and that step indicates the direction of the acceleration, thus the direction of the center of the sun, but if we observe a different part of the sun, the direction of those rays will be affected by that real acceleration towards the center of the sun. As I said though, this acceleration should bend the rays towards the center of the sun, and we observe the contrary, so this explanation might be wrong, but the way gravitation should bend the rays from the sun still holds, and if its right, it means that the bending explanation is wrong too.
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To better understand what I mean by that, you may refer to my thread on inertial motion:
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=53171.msg467891#msg467891
Ok, I'll have a look at that.
Probably better if we continue this post over there as it has now moved very much into new theories territory.
Interesting idea though.
However, I think you'll find that the rays should be bent towards the centre, but the effect is so small that they still reach us here on earth causing the sun to appear infinitesimally larger.
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And what about my proposition that the rays might get curved the same way aberration curves them, but by the acceleration of the earth towards the sun instead of its inertial motion around it?
I will not speculate on a nonexistent property which was only invented for the SR theory...
If gravitation lensing would exist then any light going towards the center of Sun would break its own C speed and become FTL...
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Interesting idea though.
Thanks Mathew! I hope you will also find my other thread interesting. [:)]
However, I think you'll find that the rays should be bent towards the center, but the effect is so small that they still reach us here on earth causing the sun to appear infinitesimally larger.
If the steps of a constant acceleration work like those of a constant motion, they should cause the same kind of aberration, so the rays should appear to come from the direction of motion, like snow flakes against a windshield, what would shrink the real diameter of the sun and the real optical angle of the star, but unfortunately, the observations show that the optical angle of the star is enlarged. If both were enlarged by the acceleration, this idea would fit the observations, but the small steps would not explain the phenomenon, and bending neither.
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Mathew,
What means FTL?
PS. OK, I found it: Faster Than Light.
But the observations show that only the frequency is affected, not the speed. The only real parameters that we can observe from light is direction and frequency, its speed is unobservable one way because it would take something faster than light to measure it, and if we try to measure it two ways, no matter the speed of the source or the observer, we always get the same result.
Incidentally, the small steps that I am talking about work the same way, an observer on one of them could not measure the speed of the information that drives them, so the only parameters available is frequency for directional motion, and aberration for tangential motion.
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I think I found a way to test my point!
If the sun's light was really curved by its own gravity, it follows that a spiral galaxy light would also be, which means that its apparent diameter would also look larger than it really is. In the case of galaxies, the measure of their rotational speed made at different heights would thus be attributed to larger heights than the real ones, which could explain the lack of gravitational pull that we attribute to Black Matter. Anybody wants to help me with the maths?
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I think I found a way to test my point!
If the sun's light was really curved by its own gravity, it follows that a spiral galaxy light would also be, which means that its apparent diameter would also look larger than it really is. In the case of galaxies, the measure of their rotational speed made at different heights would thus be attributed to larger heights than the real ones, which could explain the lack of gravitational pull that we attribute to Black Matter. Anybody wants to help me with the maths?
Before you reach for the calculator, see this thread ...
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=57242.0
[ particularly reply #4]
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I think your idea has merit to a certain degree. If light travels a straight path it would simply slow down due to gravity and then speed back up to light speed as it travels farther away from the greatest source of gravity. If there is any deviation whatsoever to the left or right in the photon, then yes, I believe it would be altered. Good question!
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Hi Wade,
A mod named Janus had this answer to the same question about galaxies on thescienceforum.com:
let's work out an example and see if this is even feasible. We'll assume a galaxy 100,000 light years across with a mass of 100,000,000,000 solar masses which is 1 billion light years away.
The light from a source behind this galaxy and just skimming its edge, would by gravitational lensing be deflected by 0.258 sec of arc. Since 1/2 of this deflection occurs on the inbound path, the most we can expect light coming from a star at the edge to be bent on its outward path to us is 0.129 sec of arc.
At a distance of 1 billion light years, this equates to an apparent displacement of ~625 light years ( meaning the galaxy would appear to be 50,625 light years in radius instead of 50,000.)
Calculating the difference in orbital speed at 50,000 vs. 50625 light years produces orbital velocities of 167 km/sec vs. 168 km/sec.
If we work out how much extra mass it would take to make that 1 km/sec difference at a fixed radius of 50625 light years, it works out to a difference of ~1.2%, or far short of the amount of dark matter needed to make up for the missing mass according to the actual orbital velocities we measure.
In addition, gravitational lensing in fact gives us additional evidence for dark matter. Because of the extra mass due to DM, the light passing galaxies bends more than and differently from what we would expect from just the matter we see.
On top of that, we have the case of the Bullet Cluster, in which dark matter has been "knocked loose" from the visible matter in a collision between galaxy clusters. In this situation we see gravitational lensing of objects behind the cluster where there is no visible matter to cause it.
Galaxy rotation curves may have set us on the road to dark matter, but there has been a great deal of other supporting evidence uncovered since the first step on that path.
http://www.thescienceforum.com/astronomy-cosmology/49499-can-dark-matter-optical-illusion-caused-gravitational-lensing.html#post636400 (http://www.thescienceforum.com/astronomy-cosmology/49499-can-dark-matter-optical-illusion-caused-gravitational-lensing.html#post636400)
So maybe that bending cannot account for dark matter, but it still could increase the apparent sun's diameter in the same proportion it curves starlight, which means that all the drawings showing the sun hiding the stars during an eclipse would be wrong. Amazing, no?
To me, it means that light might not be affected during its journey, but that its apparent direction would depend on the real acceleration of the observer towards all the stars at the time, the acceleration to the center of the sun thus changing the direction of the rays that point to more distant stars, or even the direction of its own rays providing they do not point to its center.
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Yes, in my opinion, based on experimental evidence, gravity has no effect on electromagnetic waves, photons, magnetic fields and electric fields...
But it does affect the frequency of all oscillating structures including pendulum and atomic clocks...
What?
Electromagnetic waves ARE an oscillation. A photon is comprised of an electric component and a magnetic component, both of which oscillate. Magnetic and electric fields are actually comprised of photons.
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Yes, in my opinion, based on experimental evidence, gravity has no effect on electromagnetic waves, photons, magnetic fields and electric fields...
But it does affect the frequency of all oscillating structures including pendulum and atomic clocks...
What?
Electromagnetic waves ARE an oscillation. A photon is comprised of an electric component and a magnetic component, both of which oscillate. Magnetic and electric fields are actually comprised of photons.
don't worry, he's said all sorts of illogical things. Doesn't beleive in neutrons!
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Hi everybody,
After having integrated David Cooper's simulation of MMx (http://www.magicschoolbook.com/science/relativity.html), I need to apply my new learning to acceleration, so I will try to figure out what would be happening to our observations in Einstein's elevator. If the elevator was on constant motion, a beam inside a laser would have to follow the direction the elevator has with regard to ether to be reflected at its ends, so it would also follow this direction upon leaving the laser, and it would thus move at an angle towards the future position of the detector, but if we would use a telescope to detect it, the same way the laser wouldn't show the direction of its light if we were traveling with it, it would look as if the light had been sent directly to it even if it is not the case, and it would thus be impossible to know its real direction, which is the case for anything that doesn't accelerate. Now lets analyze acceleration.
With the elevator accelerating and the laser still pointing directly to the other wall, the light would also be sent at an angle, but since the telescope is accelerating while light is traveling, the beam would hit the wall lower than the telescope, so let's put it there and observe how the beam would follow it. We know light would follow a curve through the elevator, and if we draw that curve, we know the angle the telescope would need to have just before the light comes in, but the more the speed increases, the more the trajectory is curved, so it is less curved where it enters the telescope than where it leaves the laser, which means that it couldn't follow the telescope even if it had the right angle at the beginning: it would hit the walls before getting to our eyes, and it would also hit the walls of the laser before getting out of it. If so, with light being curved by gravitational acceleration, lasers should work better in space than on earth, but I never heard about that.
That was an introduction to a mind experiment I presented on another forum which is about three atoms at right angle representing the interferometer of Michelson-Morley. I wanted to analyze what would happen if we would accelerate the interferometer. First, here is what I was saying about the two inline atoms of the horizontal arm:
If we accelerate a first atom which is part of a two atoms' molecule, it necessarily moves before the information from that acceleration has the time to reach the second atom, so the distance between them contracts, and if we are still accelerating that first atom while the information from the motion of the second atom is back, that information will simply pull the first atom forward a bit while it accelerates, so the distance between the two atoms will contract a bit more than previously, and it will go on contracting more and more until the acceleration ceases. At that moment, the information about the speed of the two atoms will be contained between them in the form of doppler effect: the rear atom will perceive redshift from the front one, which will pull it forward, and the front one will perceive blueshift from the rear one, which will push it forward. Contrary to my original small steps, during the motion of the molecule, the two time shifted motions of the atoms would thus happen at the same time, but those motions would still be due to the accumulated doppler effect between the two accelerated atoms. Here is the diagram and the explanations that come with it:
(https://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/642753Diagrammereptation.png)
We have two atoms A and B that are part of the same molecule. The time interval represents the time the information takes between the two atoms at t0. I did not account for the time dilation of particle A since it moves before particle B, but I think we should. We accelerate A for a while and observe what happens to the system from t0 to t7. The blue arrows represent the blueshifted information that travels from A to B, and the red arrows represent the redshifted information that travels from B to A. The acceleration of A begins at t0 and ends at t4, so because of the time gap, the acceleration of B begins at t1 and ends at t5. After t5, the two atoms travel at the same speed, but we can easily see that the distance between them has contracted, and we can follow its progression during the acceleration. At that moment, the information on the future speed of each atom with regard to aether is situated between them in the form of doppler effect. The main idea is that, without doppler effect, there would be no motion between bonded particles, so there would be no motion either at our scale. I insist on the fact that we have to exert a force to introduce that doppler effect between them, and that this force represents mass. So with the same principle, we explain mass, motion and contraction.
Now, here is what I was saying about the two atoms of the vertical arm:
Of course, that arm will move towards the other atom before the information from that motion has the time to move that atom away, so the distance between the arm and the third atom will contract, but the information also takes time between the atoms that form the vertical arm, and if we accelerate its two atoms at the same time, because of the beaming phenomenon, the light from the accelerated atoms would be sent towards the position they would have if the acceleration would immediately stop, so only the light that would be sent at the end of the acceleration would point in the direction of the other atom, which means that this arm would also lose its synchronism during acceleration, which means that Ivanhov might be right about the contraction of the standing wave happening to both arms of the interferometer (http://www.rhythmodynamics.com/rd_2007en.htm#2.05), a data that he obtained with sound exchanged between two emitters, and with winds of different speeds and from different directions. The information that tells the atoms how to move would then be conserved in the form of aberration between them, and it would also belong to their standing wave. This way, after acceleration would have stopped, a signal sent from the middle atom to the two other atoms would take the same time to do the roundtrip because light would already be synchronized both ways with regard to the same middle atom.
This last analysis overlaps the one about the accelerating elevator, they both mean that acceleration would produce observable effects on light whether it would be for us or for atoms. But it also explains differently the null result of the MM experiment. David thinks that Ivanhof did not account for the time dilation phenomenon, because he had a faster than light device to control his sound frequency, and he might be right, but what about my mind experiment? Do you think that contraction (and time dilation of course) could occur right at acceleration? And if so, doesn't it change the way you consider reference frames?
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Well yes, light follows geodesics. That is what gravity introduce, and they have a momentum, although no mass. Could you in a 'very' simple way explain what differs your thoughts from what Einstein predicted? I tried to read you but got lost.
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Hi Yor,
I'm trying to understand what would happen to light during inertial acceleration (not gravitational), considering that whatever bonds two atoms travels like light. Before knowing David Cooper (http://www.magicschoolbook.com/science/relativity.html), I already thought that doppler effect between them could cause mass and motion (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=53171.msg446148#msg446148), and having been convinced about contraction, I saw that it could happen at acceleration (my drawing), so I added it to mass and motion. Now that I understand the beaming phenomenon, I'm also trying to analyze what would happen to the bond between my two atoms if they were accelerated both at a time while their bond would be oriented sideways to the acceleration. First, we can immediately consider that mass and motion would then be caused by the doppler effect between the bonded components of each of the atoms, but the bond between the two atoms must also keep functioning, and since we consider that it is made out of some kind of light, we know it will suffer some beaming and aberration.
My analysis shows that mass could be due to the synchronism being broken between the two inline atoms during acceleration, so it is easy to see that it would be the same for the inline components, but it also shows that something similar would be happening to the two vertical atoms, which means that they would also lose their synchronism during acceleration, and recover it after the acceleration has stopped. Recovering synchronism for inline atoms means that they would then follow the direction and the speed acceleration has given them, because the doppler effect that acceleration would have produced between them during acceleration would still be between them, so their individual motion would be due to the delay light takes between them. But what does it mean for sideways atoms? Would the aberration produced while they are forced out of sync still be there after the acceleration has stopped? If so, then it means that the way light travels in the transverse arm of the MM interferometer would be affected by a transverse phenomenon that would be observable only at acceleration, the same way doppler effect between my inline atoms would be observable only at acceleration.
If we synchronize two cars with sound waves and accelerate only one of them, that first car would immediately observe doppler effect on the waves coming from the other car, so it would resist the acceleration to try staying on sync with the second car, but the second car would not have to resist if it would accelerate at the instant it would observe the doppler effect produced by the first car, and it would thus stay synchronized with the first car even during acceleration. The way synchronization would be broken between the atoms of the vertical arm is different since the two atoms would be accelerated at the same time, but nevertheless, acceleration would force the light to be sent at an angle to the motion to reach the other atom, so we can consider that it would have to travel more distance if the bond would not contract a bit, but if it does even if it takes time, then the two atoms could always be synchronized after the acceleration has stopped. If so, both arms would automatically be synchronized during inertial motion providing contraction would have happened to both of them. I'm thinking while I'm writing, because it's the very first time that I add aberration to the vertical arm, so you might find a better answer.
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Hi everybody,
Here is a drawing representing two light rays curved by the sun's mass: a blue ray coming from a star that brushes past the sun, and a red ray coming from the periphery of the sun itself.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi21.servimg.com%2Fu%2Ff21%2F18%2F00%2F15%2F08%2Fcourbu12.png&hash=23edf70b96625388279b48c03f5aa7a1)
The two rays are parallel when they begin to travel together at the sun's periphery (dotted red and blue arrows), and they thus hit the earth later at the same angle since, being very close to one another, they almost suffer the same curvature (plain red and blue arrows), what gives to the earth observers the impression that both rays come from the same spot in the sky (dotted red and blue lines that lead to the dotted star).
Einstein predicted that the ray coming from the star would get curved by the presence of the sun, but without noticing that the ray from the periphery of the sun itself should also get curved, so he did not realize either that the sun would look wider during this observation, and that he thus would have to shrink it on the mapping of the sky made when the sun was not there to curve the rays.
If he had shrunk his sun on the mapping made when the sun was on the other side of the earth, it would have hidden the same stars than the ones that were hidden during the eclipse, so he could not have concluded that light was effectively curved by gravitation as he had predicted, but instead, that the sun's presence was affecting the direction of the rays in such a way that a mapping made in it's presence kind of widened the sky compared with the one made when it wasn't there.
Notice that this reasoning does not contradict the observations, it only contradicts the explanation of the observations, reason why I placed it on a science forum, but if it's right, then there must be another explanation, and I did not find it yet, except that gravitation kind of widens the sky when our observations are made from a much less massive body than the one we are gravitating around, which means that it could be the real acceleration of the earth observers towards the sun at the microscopic level that would affect the direction of the rays. So far so good, but as I said, it doesn't seem to work, because moving at an angle through a light ray should bend it in the direction of the movement as for the aberration of star light, which would shrink the sky during an eclipse instead of widening it as the observations show, so I am still looking for an explanation.
Anybody finds the idea interesting? Anybody thinks that the rays coming from the sun should also be curved by the gravitation of the sun?
I thinks if you was change your thinking slightly and relate your diagram to Faraday's electromotive force, you would have space-time curvature. The light is a linearity always in my opinion and isotropic in all directions. I have thought about your diagram myself in the past because ''light'' does oppose a force but I found it hard to find the torque. My thoughts switch to Faraday and the Coulomb's law of charge. If your diagram represented a charged field then the field would almost certainly spiral a galaxy or body.
I consider space-time curvature is Faraday's electro-motive force caused by the charged field. Now I might be a bit confused here about what you actually mean by the lights rays, I presume you mean the electromagnetic radiation (EMR) , which is in affect a charged field.
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The earth has no acceleration, neither has any other planet, galaxy etc. So I'm not sure what you're thinking of in the MM experiment. That was a setup to measure a presumed aether wind. And light doesn't accelerate, it's more of a state than a speed.
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Here is an improved drawing, it's more straightforward. It's about the bending of starlight by the sun, and it shows that the sun's light would also be bent, which means that it's apparent diameter would look larger than what it really is, which means that the star would not be hidden by the sun since we would have to shrink it on the mapping of the stars made at night when the sun is on the other side of the earth six months later (smaller sun in the middle of the larger one). On that drawing, I added the direction the light from the star would have if the sun wasn't there (black arrow), and I added the sun at the dimension it would have if that dimension was not enlarged by the curved space, and it shows that the star wouldn't be hidden by the sun anymore. The only explanation I find is that the light wouldn't be curved, that it is only the dimensions of the objects that would look enlarged, as if the presence of the sun would expand the whole space around it. Do you have another explanation?
(https://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/296627Sunbending.png) (https://www.hostingpics.net/viewer.php?id=296627Sunbending.png)
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The earth has no acceleration, neither has any other planet, galaxy etc. So I'm not sure what you're thinking of in the MM experiment. That was a setup to measure a presumed aether wind. And light doesn't accelerate, it's more of a state than a speed.
I'm actually studying inertial acceleration, the one a ball suffers when we throw it, not gravitational one. I've put it here on my thread on curved light since inertial acceleration also curves light.
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I'm actually studying inertial acceleration, the one a ball suffers when we throw it, not gravitational one.
I am confused by this terminology - please clarify.
- I thought that in an "inertial frame of reference", an object is in microgravity, and cannot tell if it is being accelerated.
- The ISS is in an inertial frame of reference; the astronauts inside cannot tell that they are being accelerated - but if they look out the window, they can see that they are at a constant distance from the Earth, so gravity is accelerating them, and bending their path into an orbit.
When you throw a ball, there are three phases:
- An initial acceleration, when you throw it
- An inertial period, in microgravity, where it follows a parabolic path
- A final deceleration, when it gets caught, embeds itself in the sand (or whatever)
- Only the middle period is "inertial", and it is clearly being affected by gravity
This sounds contradictory to me. :o
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Ok, inertia versus geodesics (gravity). "Einstein used the fact that gravitational and inertial mass were equal to begin his Theory of General Relativity in which he postulated that gravitational mass was the same as inertial mass."
And it's equivalent as far as I see, then again. Think of a spaceship following a geodesic in uniform motion, somewhere far from any 'proper mass' aka suns planets etc. Then let it make a turn. To do so it will expend energy and so accelerate. Anything breaking a geodesic must accelerate.
Will you feel a inertial force acting on you? Sure.
Did you accelerate? Yep
But there was no 'gravity'?
Well, did you follow a geodesic?
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Hi Evan and Yor,
Of course gravity is everywhere, but when studying SR, we can observe only SR issues. SR is about relative speed, it necessitates contraction and dilation, but when we accelerate an object, it starts moving at the beginning of the acceleration, so contraction and dilation must begin right there. My hypothesis is that contraction would be due to atomic bonding taking time to bond atoms, so that if we accelerate one of the atoms of a two atoms' molecule, the molecule will have time to contract before the other atom is pushed away by whatever the bond is mediated by. That's what this drawing was about: (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=60307.msg519543#msg519543)
(https://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/642753Diagrammereptation.png)
I did not make the drawing of the two atoms accelerating sideways to their bond when I described it, but I guess I'll make it now so that we can better figure out what happens.
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Here is a first attempt. A molecule made of two atoms (one red one blue), representing the vertical arm of the MM interferometer, is traveling to the right at constant speed from T0 to T2 (the timing period is the time light takes between the two atoms at that moment), it is accelerated from T2 to T5 (the distance doubles during the time light takes between the atoms), and it travels at constant speed from T5 to T7. Before and after acceleration, let's consider that the two atoms are synchronized. The red and blue arrows represent the direction the light from an atom has to have to reach the other atom. During constant motion, the atoms do not observe any aberration or doppler effect even if there is some because the speed and direction of the emitting atom is the same as for the detecting one, but as soon as they are accelerated, they do. In fact, the speed of the emitting atom will always be lower than the one of the detecting one, so the light, which strikes the detecting atom at an angle, will be redshifted at detection, and the direction of that light will be affected by aberration as if the two atoms were traveling at the same speed since they are, thus it will point to the actual position of the atoms even if they are accelerating. In my model, the atoms would then move in order to stay synchronized, and they would move in the direction of the light they detect, so I figured that they would move towards one another until the acceleration stops since that way, they would reduce the redshift they detect.
(https://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/639531Contractionbrasvertical.png) (https://www.hostingpics.net/viewer.php?id=639531Contractionbrasvertical.png)
That's what my drawing shows: the distance between the two atoms contracts from T2 to T5, and I managed to keep the timing constant while keeping constant the distance light has to travel (red and blue arrows). As for the acceleration of the horizontal arm, the synchronism between the atoms is broken during acceleration even if the atoms try to keep up, but since they do, as soon as the acceleration stops, that synchronism is rapidly recovered. The recovery period happens between T5 and T6, where the atoms have stopped accelerating while the blueshift from the other atom's speed is still increasing: it is increasing, but it is not yet equal to the redshift produced by the speed of the atom that has already accelerated, so as the drawing shows, the contraction should go on until T6, where both the speed of an atom is constant and the frequency from the other atom looks constant. I didn't talk about that recovery period for the atoms of the horizontal arm since I didn't notice there had to be one. In that former drawing, the acceleration of atom A stops at T4, but since it takes time for atom B to notice it, it's own acceleration stops only at T5. Think twice before making a move, because all your atoms are working so hard to stay synchronized when you do! :0)
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What those two drawings show is that there could be a hidden information carried by the light exchanged between the atoms of moving bodies, an information that would be introduced during acceleration and that would tell the atoms which way to go not to get out of sync once the acceleration would have stopped. It is easier to figure how it works with LET than with SR though, because SR says that there is no doppler effect nor aberration between bodies that are in the same reference frame, as if there was no motion at all, whereas with LET, those bodies can still be traveling with regard to aether, and we can then observe the way light would behave between them. If my two inline atoms were really traveling with regard to aether, there would be doppler effect at emission, which would be completely absorbed at detection later on. But this kind of doppler effect cannot produce the actual motion of the other atom because it takes time to make an effect. It is only if we observe what happens at acceleration that we can understand the one that could produce motion, because we can observe that it accumulates between the atoms during the time light takes to move the other atom away. We can also observe the way the distance between the atoms would contract, the way they would get out of sync, and the way they would recover their synchronism after the acceleration would have stopped.
What about time dilation then? Would we still need it to explain that kind of observation? Would light take more time between my two inline atoms once they would have been accelerated for instance? Let's observe what would happen if the first atom would accelerate to almost the speed of light and then stop accelerating just before hitting the second one. The distance between the atoms would almost get to zero before the second atom would begin to get away, and as soon as it would, the first atom would almost immediately move in its wake while the light from the moment it was accelerated would still continue to accelerate the second one. After a short while, the two atoms would then be moving at almost the speed of light in the same direction, because the redshift produced by the leading atom would equal the blueshift produced by the lagging one, but would light take more time to make the roundtrip between them? It would take almost no time for the light from the leading atom to reach the lagging one, so we can rely on the time it would take in the other direction. David's simulation of MMx (http://www.magicschoolbook.com/science/relativity.html) shows that light would take twice the time if contraction was half the distance, but what if it would be more than that, what if contraction had nothing to do with the synchronization of the arms, and everything to do with the timing between the atoms wether they would travel vertically or horizontally to the motion? What if atoms from both arms would act separately to stay synchronized. Wouldn't that be more logical?