Flawed thinking started from Universality of
light-speed (in vacuum)constancy
Roger J Anderton
[email protected]
Einstein sets many people off in flawed thinking starting from the
proposition of the universality of light-speed (in vacuum) constancy.
Many texts on relativity try subterfuge to divert attention from the
fact that their starting point makes no sense, because they don't want
to properly address the issue.
As example of a usual text on relativity: “A First Course in General Relativity” by
Bernard Schutz says:
“As we shall see, special relativity can be deduced from two fundamental postulates:
(1) Principle of relativity (Galileo): No experiment can measure the absolute velocity
of an observer; the results of any experiment performed by an observer do not depend
on his speed relative to other observers who are not involved in the experiment.
(2) Universality of the speed of light (Einstein): The speed of light relative to any
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unaccelerated observer is c = 3 x10 ms , regardless of the motion of the light’s
source relative to the observer. Let us be quite clear about this postulate’s meaning:
two different unaccelerated observers measuring the speed of the same photon will
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each find it to be moving at 3 x10 ms
relative to themselves, regardless of their
state of motion relative to each other.”
As far as I am concerned the first postulate means no absolute rest and constant
velocity motion is relative.
It’s the 2nd postulate that’s ambiguous.
In order to make sense of it we have to go back to those working on relativity before
Einstein, namely those like Lorentz and Poincare. From Poincare we then have the
link between Newtonian physics and special relativity (SR) as it being an issue of
convention as to whether light speed in vacuum is a constant or not. But because of
the promotion for the fame of Einstein, there has been diversion from these earlier
workers that make sense of the theory. That leaves the 2nd postulate as ambiguous to
most people and ends up as nonsense being taught to students.
So putting aside the issue that it is really convention, let us look at the nonsense that
the 2nd postulate with its ambiguity can generate:
The claim being made is that given two observers in frames O and O' then both will
measure light-speed (in vacuum) as c.
But – its not explaining what O will claim O' observes and vice versa.
Suppose - If observer measures c in his frame and sees a point moving with velocity v
in same direction as c, then does he say relative to the frame O’ which is moving with
velocity v that the speed of light is (c-v)?
In Newtonian physics: One observer measures c and claims the other has c-v.
And 2nd observer measures c and claims the other has c+v
The text is unclear what it means, if it means that both observers will claim that the
other observes light-speed (in vacuum) as being c, then it is just making a nonsense
claim, which amounts to saying c-v = c+v =c for c and v non-zero.
However, from the way the relativity text made its claim; it was just unclear and
ambiguous. It is just an example of how badly these texts are written. Science texts
should be clearly written in a way that they are not ambiguous.
I suspect the reason it is so badly written is so that it does not have to make explicitly
the nonsense claim of c+v =c-v = c for c and v non-zero. i.e. it wants to avoid facing
the issue that it is built on a nonsense claim.
Some relativity texts such as “General Relativity from A to B” by Geroch [1], do
admit that the claim of SR is nonsense, but then they do appeal to experiment and say
its what experiment has revealed. However, when we look at the supposed
experimental evidence we find it does not exist. (as dealt with in other articles)
So we have the general method of these Einstein believers – to try to hide the claims
that are nonsense, because they are too afraid of addressing these nonsense claims
with their readers. Also they don't want to address the issue that they are often
making false claims.
Next they try to confuse things with relativistic velocity addition:
2
(w+u)/(1+uw/c )
So if have w = v and u = c then this gives:
2
(v+c)/(1+ vc/c ) = c
The observer after measuring c and v is expected to add them this way instead of the
usual way of c+v. That is complete nonsense.
And the observer after going to all the trouble of measuring v and c is expected to add
them in an idiotic way.
And the Einstein believer continues in this way, of trying to compensate for lost
information because that is what c+v =c-v = c means, namely it is lost information.
They try to compensate for this lost information by making time dilation and other
effects.
Straightforward introduction of the idea of light-speed constancy (in vacuum) to the
existing set-up of Newtonian physics shows that it is nonsense, but that’s not
acceptable to the Einstein beleivers so the process then begins of changing everything
from normal velocity addition to relativistic velocity addition etc. That is just moving
goalposts, and it still does not make sense after the goalposts are moved so they have
to be moved again and yet again.
No wonder modern physics is a mess.
Before Einstein 1905 theory there was Poincare working on same type of maths.
Treating now that Einstein 1905 theory should have been Poincare's theory.
Wikipedia tells [2] us:
“In 1898 (in a philosophical paper) he argued that the postulate of light speed
constancy in all directions is useful to formulate physical laws in a simple way. He
also showed that the definition of simultaneity of events at different places is only a
convention. Based on those conventions, but within the framework of the now
superseded aether theory, Poincaré in 1900 proposed the following convention for
defining clock synchronisation: 2 observers A and B, which are moving in the aether,
synchronise their clocks by means of optical signals. Because of the relativity
principle they believe to be at rest in the aether and assume that the speed of light is
constant in all directions. Therefore they have to consider only the transmission time
of the signals and then crossing their observations to examine whether their clocks are
synchronous.”
On the aether issue: Einstein in 1905 abandoned aether, and later changed his mind so
in that context his opinion changed back to accepting Poincare's approach to aether.
Thus it was a change from the 1905 theory back to the earlier theory of Poincare for
the aether issue, and the way that aether dealt with is as per Poincare in the way that
he treats light-speed in vacuum.
The maths is now as follows:
In the context of Newtonian physics. A bullet in my frame with speed c when fired in
a frame moving at v would have speed c+v relative to my frame, all other factors
being negligible.
Now treat this as light instead of a bullet and it is still the same:
In the context of Newtonian physics. A light ray in my frame with speed c when fired
in a frame moving at v would have speed c+v relative to my frame, all other factors
being negligible.
So far so good, bullet motion and light motion is the same.
Then the way that special relativity wants to mess things up is have light go at c+v
then bounce off wall back at c-v multiply these two things together:
2
2
(c+v)(c-v) = c - v
2 2
then multiply by a time interval t' squared and equate to c t (of distance ct
multiplied by itself) then re-arrange so have:
t'
2
2 2 2 2
= (c /(c - v ))t
leading onto time dilation. However Newtonian physics would claim t=t' and
2 2
c' = sqrt(c - v )
So its just there in the maths of how they want to mess things up.
If go by the convention of light-speed in vacuum as a constant then to compensate for
this the maths (which would have otherwise given Newtonian physics) is manipulated
to give time dilation. Continuing this process means that the other concepts of
Newtonian physics have to be similarly manipulated and turned into something else in
the context of special relativity.
The fact that many Einstein supporters want to ignore how the theory was being
treated before Einstein 1905 dealt with it means they have a flawed understanding of
the postulate of the universality of light speed constancy and that flaw leads to a
persistence in continual thinking by them.
References
[1] see - Heart of the contradiction of Special Relativity, Roger
Andertonhttp://www.gsjournal.net/old/files/4525_anderton116.pdf
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_synchronisation at 18 May 2012
c.RJAnderton20May2012