[jeffreyH]

If you are with the clock on its journey out of a gravity well the frequency never changes.

[timey]

But Jeff, according to GR the frequency of your clock 'is' changing.

Let's place 10 cesium atomic clocks, 20 metres apart in elevation.  Before you start your journey to 200 metres elevation, (where you will stop at each 20 metres elevation and compare your personal cesium atomic clock to the clock that is situated there), you will, from this lower potential, observe that each clock at each elevation is ticking faster than the clock below.  When you arrive at each elevation with your personal clock, your clock will be ticking at the same rate as the clock that is at that elevation.  This being because your personal clock has also increased it's tick rate.  Any measuring device that you take into the higher potential will be thus affected.  From the lower potential you are measuring a faster tick rate in the higher potential because your clock is ticking slower.  When you take your clock into the higher potential, it will be ticking faster.

You will think that your personal clock is ticking at the same rate at each elevation because the frequency that your clock is ticking at will be the same at each elevation, this being 9,192,631,770 Hz.  But the reason why it will always be 9,192,631,770 Hz is because you are measuring via the tick rate of the clock at that elevation that is ticking faster, as is your personal clock.

Go to the clock at the elevation below, and measure the clock above with your personal clock, and it will be ticking faster than 9,192,631,770 Hz.  Measure the clock at the elevation below with your personal clock, and it will be ticking slower than 9,192,631,770 Hz.  *Repeat this procedure at each elevation and the higher clock will always be ticking the same amount faster than 9,192,631,770 Hz, and the lower clock will always be ticking the same amount slower than 9,192,631,770 Hz.
(*I think this is the case, if not then I'd appreciate someone telling me because it would be of interest to me if I am wrong)

Furthermore, this being the most interesting point, you will at each elevation measure the speed of light as being 299 792 458 m/s, but the length of a second is NOT the same at each elevation!
So how does the Shapiro effect testing of GR manage to be consistent with SR?

[jeffreyH]

Ok. So is your reference frame inertial or non inertial? Or is it the magic pixie frame of reference. "where is my mind, where is my mind ... "

[timey]

Yes indeed - where is your mind?

http://www.newenglandphysics.org/physics_world/gr/c_in_gfield.htm

:link
This is exactly the result obtained by Einstein in 1907 [2]. The speed of light in Eq. (5) is known as the coordinate speed of light. Eq. (4) states that as light rises in a uniform gravitational the coordinate speed will increase. If the light travels in the opposite direction the coordinate speed of light will decrease.

[jeffreyH]

... Way out in the water, see it swimmin' ...

Oh yes the coordinate speed of light. What IS the one way speed?

[jeffreyH]

Ok so your clock is ticking faster so it now detects the frequency of light as lower. The light could be thought of as being exactly the same frequency and it is your comparison rate that has changed. However this is not the correct way to view things.

[timey]

... Way out in the water, see it swimmin' ...

Oh yes the coordinate speed of light. What IS the one way speed?

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/421603/the-one-way-speed-of-light-conundrum/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-way_speed_of_light

:wiki
The "one-way" speed of light from a source to a detector, cannot be measured independently of a convention as to how to synchronize the clocks at the source and the detector.

...where light that is shifting frequency in the different gravity potentials, and clocks that are shifting frequency in the different gravity potentials will complicate matters even more.

But you know this already Jeff, don't you?

[timey]

Ok so your clock is ticking faster so it now detects the frequency of light as lower. The light could be thought of as being exactly the same frequency and it is your comparison rate that has changed. However this is not the correct way to view things.

http://www.geocities.ws/physics_world/gr/grav_red_shift.htm

This is the link that Pete posted.  Didn't you read it?

[jeffreyH]

I've read it before. I have also read relativity texts and understood the mathematics. So I'm not exactly a newbie. There are reasons why precision of language matters. If the brain surgeon said to the nurse pass me the doo dah whatsit, it wouldn't exactly inspire confidence. Just because incorrect terminology in physics doesn't result in physical harm shouldn't be an excuse for abusing it.

[timey]

I did not abuse any physics terminology.  I simply described a scenario with 11 clocks.  It is you who started asking what the frames should be called, in a most derogatory fashion I might add.  Magic pixie frame indeed!!!  Since you are the moderator, and you are so well read, why don't you simply name all 11 of them, and while you're at it, you might consider NOT asking questions that do not have an answer.  What IS the one way speed of light, indeed!!!

If you do not wish to talk about the fact that GR states that clocks at elevation DO tick faster, then don't.  Simple as that really Jeff, but don't be thinking that you will be making posts that are clearly trying to give the impression that my understanding is at fault.  I didn't think it relevant to the conversation to name any reference frame as inertial or non-inertial.  If you did then the ball was in 'your' court to define these frames and state 'why' it was relevant, not mine.

[alancalverd]

This being because your personal clock has also increased it's tick rate.

No, it's because you are now at the same gravitational potential as the clock you are looking at. If you bring your mossbauer receiver with you, you will find that photons emitted at your present level are not blue shifted, though they appeared to be when you were at a lower level. But the mossbauer detector has no "moving parts" - it simply absorbs photons of a specific energy.

It's all to do with relativity - the relative gravitational potential, or acceleration, or velocity, of the source and observer.

[timey]

If you bring your mossbauer receiver with you, you will find that photons emitted at your present level are not blue shifted, though they appeared to be when you were at a lower level.

Firstly - when you observed the photons emitted 'at' the higher level 'from' the lower level, those photons emitted at the higher level cannot be observed until they reach the lower level.  In travelling 'from' the higher level 'to' the lower level, those photons will be blueshifted by the change in potential between the higher level and the lower level.

Secondly - when you are 'in' the higher level measuring the frequency of the light being emitted 'in' the higher level, you will be measuring via the tick rate of the clock 'in' the higher level.  If your light source emitter is emitting photons at the same frequency 'in' the higher level as it did when it was 'in' the lower level, then measuring via the clock 'in' the higher level will result in those photons emitted 'in' the higher level being measured as a lower frequency.
This does not occur.  Which strongly suggests that the photon source itself is emitting higher energy photons 'in' the higher level and that the mossbauer detector 'in' the higher level is absorbing at a higher energy level.

Because the photon emitter and the mossbauer detector 'in' the higher level will be subject to a higher gravity potential energy, and the link below where Marsh and Nissim-Sabat are specifically adding a gravity potential consideration to the maths - where we are all more than aware of the fact that General Relativity and Quantum are not compatible theories, surely you can see why this is interesting?

http://www.geocities.ws/physics_world/gr/grav_red_shift.htm

[jeffreyH]

You cannot escape locality. That is the only place a measurement can be made. You are comparing two separate frames. One local and the other remote. Yet other forces could be affecting the remote frame. You would never know. Since you aren't there to make measurements. You only ever get data at the point of measurement. Everything else is speculation. You can however have multiple observers comparing results.

[timey]

This is why mathematical frameworks such as GR and Quantum are of import.  Both are speculations that have been tested by experiment to be relevant.  Any further speculation as to how GR and Quantum may be unified would also have to be tested by experiment.  Note that speculation comes before experiment.  On the basis that GR has passed every test so far, we can use the premise of GR with some degree of confidence in order to further speculate.  It is by using the premise of GR that I have further speculated.

[puppypower]

Huh?

Can I just check with you - in the statement "any wavelength can be transformed into another one with the right choice of reference frame", what do you think is meant by "the right choice of reference frame'?

My interpretation was this: Imagine a beam of monochromatic light (EM radiation) of Frequency F₀ when observed by a someone at rest with respect to the source. If our observer approaches the source at velocity (0 < v < c), the observed frequency will be higher with greater velocity, and arbitrarily high as v approaches c. Similarly, if the observe moves away from the source, the observed frequency will decrease to arbitrarily low values as v approaches c.

This is only one way to change the reference frame. One can also imagine different gravitational potentials etc.

The problem with this is connected to energy conservation. Say we started with energy coming from a specific hydrogen electron transition. This defines our energy balance, which we have added to the universe. Although we can see red and blue shifted energy this does not mean we can subtract or add energy to the universe and still maintain the energy balance.  Relative reference can create an energy illusion.

For example, from a distance we may see what appears to be more an energetic photon due to the blue shift. However, when the photon hits the original hydrogen again, the original transition happens. This make it appear like we now have a speical form of hydrogen that does not exist.

My biggest problem with relativity is although we will see tangible affects in space and time (d,t) many of these violate energy conservation (m). Relativity explains what we see and measure, but not necessarily energy conservation.

For example, the sun rotates allowing us to see a red shift on the side that moves away and blue shift on the side that moves toward us. However, the sun is emitting relatively uniformly in terms of atomic absorption and emissions. From great distances this may not appear to be the case even though it is. 

In terms of general relativity the driving force is mass. Mass is an invariant and therefore controls space-time, in an absolute so it too is invariant. This allows an energy balance. Relative reference, which only looks at space and time and not mass, directly, can out variant; relative, since you lead with a variant. The question i have is can we directly measure relativistic mass so we can absolutely map the universe; energy balance?

[timey]

Puppypower - What you are saying comes under the remit of the cosmological constant problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant_problem

[guest4091]

Another phrasing: Perceived time is constant, as if there is a universal time.

[guest4091]

After all the exchanges, the clock rate is up or down, the potential is high or low, etc...
for me, the time invested isn't worth the returns.
I am still sympathetic to Timey's quest for a believable theory for gravitational fields.
 

[jeffreyH]

Another phrasing: Perceived time is constant, as if there is a universal time.

I have no idea what you are replying to since you sipped the quote.

[jeffreyH]

This is why mathematical frameworks such as GR and Quantum are of import.  Both are speculations that have been tested by experiment to be relevant.  Any further speculation as to how GR and Quantum may be unified would also have to be tested by experiment.  Note that speculation comes before experiment.  On the basis that GR has passed every test so far, we can use the premise of GR with some degree of confidence in order to further speculate.  It is by using the premise of GR that I have further speculated.

Theory is more often driven by observation than by speculation. When scientists do speculate it is from a position of knowledge of theoretical frameworks. The what ifs are informed.