| Author | Message | ||
     Sami |
Aesquire, what doesn't make sense is to define the speed of light as a constant when it clearly isn't. The speed of light varies significantly as can be demonstrated with GPS satellites. GPS satellites are programmed with variable speed of light, not with constant speed of light. The speed of light slows down or speeds up depending on altitude, acceleration and other factors. To define the meter and the second and the kilogram in terms of the speed of light is not only based on circular reasoning, but also based on a faulty assumption. The faulty assumption is that the speed of light is fixed. Hootowl told me earlier that I shouldn't trust the evidence that the speed of light is variable, but I have no reason not to trust the GPS evidence. | ||
| Aesquire |
How does GPS show the speed of light is variable? Consensus has zero to do with science. That's politics. You are on to the Truth that Science is based on discarding untruths. Engineering is the application of lessons learned. Recipes, so to speak. There can be inspiration and change based on the foundations established by the physics behind engineering, there are a variety of burritos and bridges. Some better than others, and taste is taste. A bridge is a failure if it doesn't support it's design load. Ditto burritos. The Meter used to be based on light of a certain frequency. That made sense. The light source and measuring gear fixed in space to each other. To avoid red shift. Color equals length and time. If circular, that's at least tied together properly. | ||
| Sami |
Aasquire, Science has always been political, consensus is inevitable whether we like it or not. Science is often funded by politics, the two are intertwined. The constancy of the speed of light is an example of scientific consensus. Yes, science is political https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/19/14258474/trump- inauguration-science-politics-climate-change-vacci nes GPS shows that the speed of light is variable, because light sources from different GPS satellites have different speeds. Ronald Hatch's papers deal with GPS satellites and the variability of the speed of light. https://www.gps.gov/governance/advisory/members/ha tch/ | ||
| Aesquire |
I've been comfortable ignoring the speed of light technique for measuring distance, since the wavelength way works, and you should get identical answers. I can explain... Using the whole planet as a scale made sense at the time. It's pretty big on human scales so the error in measurement isn't very big as you are creating a tiny fraction of our planet's size as your standard. It's not exact, however. ( consider you are measuring by stretching a chain between 2 sticks, repeatedly, to establish a base distance, then using shadow lengths of sticks based on the 2 sticks you measured the distance between with the chains. ) The resulting Meter bar reference is a platinum alloy that must be referenced at a particular temperature, ( because it changes size with that variable ) AND a list of other conditions, to get a "good" reading. ( like air pressure, orientation to the gravity field, etc. Etc. Etc. ) But it's based on that previous chain...AND it's a human made imperfect physical object. And it slowly changes length as atoms sputter off the metal bar like they do a light bulb filament. Just slower. And... Using frequency is far more precise. The wavelength is color. A noble gas laser will put out a single color of light. ( inside the limited space time of a human scale lab. But the relative color should be identical in any given individual human scale lab on the planet, or too close to measure. ( aka impossible to tell the difference ) Until we reproduce that on a ship outside our frame of reference, we just assume it is universal. ( I suspect it's ok to use inside the Heliopause, but you may need to go outside the Oort cloud, or even past the gravitational equal distance to Proxima Centauri to be able to determine that. ) I figure the experiment could be done for less than the money the Governor of New York budgeted to run a Global Conning project, 33 billion$ ( instead of preparing for pandemics, which are real ) but would take years. ( just for transit times with our best Ion drives ) For further reading I suggest. https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/temperat ures/ https://www.jerrypournelle.com | ||
| Blake |
There is circular reasoning and then there is viciously circular reasoning. If our "fixed" standard for measuring distance is directly dependent upon the speed of light, which it is, then we cannot measure the speed of light to an objectively fixed (unchanging) standard. The standard varies relative to the speed of light. We only assume that the speed of light is an objectively fixed standard. But is that a good assumption, or is it provably false? Isn't the relationship between the meter and the speed of light taking to saying that a meter is defined by the height of Fred; where we declare Fred's height constant. But what if Fred is growing, or shrinking? How then, having defined our unit of measure by Fred's height would we then discern any change in Fred's height? If the speed of light is not fixed. We literally have no fixed standard for measuring anything. Well, how inconvenient. Let's just declare the the speed of light is eternally unchanging. But is it? Inflation? Do we know anything for certain in the physical realm Heisenberg anyone? There is one and only one unchanging fixed standard. | ||
| Sami |
Aesquire, if length is defined in terms of the speed of light, then we are dealing with circular reasoning. What is a wavelength if not the length of a wave? The length of a wave, i.e. wavelength, is defined in terms of the speed of light being fixed. Therein lies the problem. | ||
| Sami |
Blake: ''Isn't the relationship between the meter and the speed of light taking to saying that a meter is defined by the height of Fred; where we declare Fred's height constant. But what if Fred is growing, or shrinking? How then, having defined our unit of measure by Fred's height would we then discern any change in Fred's height?'' Excellent example. This shows the problem with assuming a fixed speed of light. If the speed of light is not constant, but changing just as Fred's height, then we cannot use that as our measuring standard. | ||
| Aesquire |
Exactly! But wavelength isn't necessarily tied to speed that way. The older, pre 1983 method works in any reference frame. As long as the laser and measuring device are physically tied together, they don't change. You could be in a deep mine, or in orbit around Mercury going like stink, and length is the same. Speed, though... Relativity. I suspect they were trying to make it MORE universal, but I think they messed up. Sami, the GPS thing??? | ||
| Hootowl |
GPS satellites compensate for time, not the speed of light. Time is the variable. The mass of the earth warps space-time. Speed warps space-time. Time changes with speed. The speed of light remains constant. Don’t take my word for it. | ||
| Hootowl |
https://www.einstein-online.info/en/category/eleme ntary/special-relativity-elementary/ Please, refer me to a scholarly article that claims the speed of light is a variable. | ||
| Aesquire |
The GPS receiver reads the clock transmissions from the satellites. Then by taking the differences, gets the distance from each. It assumes the speed of light is constant. The clocks are synched before launch, and can be updated. Scholarly article? Hasn't been written yet. We just got probes out past the Heliopause. Every experiment we've ever done is in curved space. Assumptions are made based on our warped perspective. It might not be a constant, but for local use, we can use that assumption. | ||
| Hootowl |
“synched before launch, and can be updated.” And they must be. Because the mass of the earth and the velocity of the satellites warp space time. Time is not constant. The satellites experience time differently than the receivers on the surface of the earth. Time is the variable because the speed of light is a constant. | ||
| Aesquire |
That is the theory. And when your receiver reads the satellites they all give a different time. | ||
| Blake |
Jeff, The assumption is that the speed of light is constant. Yet... Inflation, and... Dark Matter? ...when the theologian says... | ||
| Hootowl |
Dark matter is bull shit. Doesn’t exist. It’s matter that they think should be there but isn’t. Space expanding, or contracting, doesn’t affect the speed of light. Time is the variable, remember. | ||
| Aesquire |
I'm skeptical about Dark Make The Math Fit The Theory By Inventing Invisible Entities And Forces We Can't Detect, myself. Otoh, the experimental results in local space seem to deny the existence of Aether, ( no relation  ) which seems to be the logical alternative theory. ( Michelson-Morley experiment ) I suspect frame dragging defeats the experiment, but it's not easy to disprove. We may need much bigger baselines, or redo the experiment out past the Oort cloud. It's one of the big, if semi-forbidden, questions. Scientific Orthodoxy is nearly as bad ( or maybe worse ) than Sami complains. | ||
| Sami |
Aesquire, wavelength (emphasis on *length*) is tied to the speed of light, because *length* is currently defined in terms of the speed of light being fixed. Hence, circularity. Regarding ''dark matter'', that's ad hoc speculation and there is no evidence for its existence. Hootowl, time is not the variable, the speed of light is the variable. Time doesn't change with speed. The scientific consensus is wrong on this one, just as the scientific consensus is wrong on man-made climate change. Even Einstein had to admit that ''According to the general theory of relativity space without aether is unthinkable.'' Blake is on spot, the speed of light is not a constant as scientists even admit when it comes to inflation. Here is a quote where it is admitted that the speed of light can assume any value: If gravitational fields are present the velocities of either material bodies or of light can assume any numerical value depending on the strength of the gravitational field. If one considers the rotating roundabout as being at rest, the centrifugal gravitational field assumes enormous values at large distances, and it is consistent with the theory of General Relativity for the velocities of distant bodies to exceed 3 × 10 8 m/sec under these conditions. An Introduction to the Theory of Relativity, William G. V. Rosser, 1964, p.460 | ||
| Sami |
Richard Lewontin spills the beans on scientific orthodoxy: Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that m iracles may happen. https://www.drjbloom.com/Public%20files/Lewontin_R eview.htm | ||
| Hootowl |
Time being relative to the observer, as postulated by Einstein, has been the subject of many experiments over the last hundred years. Far from proving him wrong, they have done nothing but confirm him. The aforementioned adjustments of the clocks on GPS satellites is a good example of the existence of relativity. Mass and velocity (an object’s mass changes with it’s speed) warp space time. Once again, I’ll ask for a link to a paper or study claiming that the speed of light isn’t constant. If you’re just telling us your opinion, that’s one thing, but you appear to be presenting it as fact. | ||
| Hootowl |
“ The scientific consensus is wrong on this one, just as the scientific consensus is wrong on man-made climate change.“ The theory of man made co2 driving climate change has been falsified many times. It is no longer a theory, it is religious doctrine. The theory of relativity, on the other hand, has yet to be falsified. Not for lack of trying. | ||
| Blake |
How does the theory of relativity require that the speed of light is be eternal constant? What about inflation? | ||
| Hootowl |
Space expanding is irrelevant. Objects are not moving through space time with the expansion, expanding space time carries objects with it, like dots on an inflating balloon. Light similarly expands with space time. Its actual velocity does not change. It’s a difficult concept to visualize. Our brains like to operate in a Newtonian universe. | ||
| Tpehak |
Space basically stretches us and our bodies. Basically people now are bigger that 100 years ago and significantly bigger than 1000 years ago. | ||
| Hootowl |
You’re right, Blake; he makes me laugh. | ||
| Sami |
Jeff, time is not relative to the observer. Einstein was wrong, so is the scientific community. Relativity has been disconfirmed by experiments such as Michelson-Morley. Mass and velocity do not warp ''space time''. Speed of light is not constant, see the quote by William Rosser and the programming of GPS satellites. The theory of relativity has been falsified by Michelson-Morley and Gale experiments showing interference patters, as well as GPS satellites. Relativity is a religious doctrine of the scientific consensus, no more credible than man-made climate change. Space is not expanding and the speed of light is not constant. We aren't dots on an inflating balloon. These are relativistic thought experiments having no correspondence to reality. Light's actual velocity changes as evidenced by GPS satellites. There is nothing to visualise that will prove that the speed of light is constant. Tpehak, space doesn't stretch us or our bodies. People are bigger now than 100 or 1000 years ago, but not because of space expanding, but because of eating more. | ||
| Sami |
''Spacetime'' is meaningless in Quantum Mechanics. The uncertainty principle thus deprives one of any way whatsoever to predict, or even to give meaning to, “the deterministic classical history of space evolving in time.” No prediction of spacetime, therefore no meaning for spacetime, is the verdict of the quantum principle. That object which is central to all of classical general relativity, the four-dimensional spacetime geometry, simply does not exist, except in a classical approximation. Gravitation, 1973, 25th print, pp. 1182-83. (Message edited by Sami on April 10, 2020) | ||
| Sami |
GPS Shows Flaws in Relativity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1Pe8y74Avg | ||
| Sami |
Consensus in Science is Wrong by David de Hilster https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT8GcDhmADY | ||
| Blake |
Jeff: It seems we're arguing two different points really. You're saying the speed of light, c, is constant in a vacuum. We're saying that you don't know that, and cannot know that since by defining the meter in terms of c, we've no way to verify it. To verify that the speed of light remains constant requires a unit of length that is independent of the speed of light. Yes? With the length of the meter being defined by the speed of light, and the speed of light being determined with the unit of a meter, we end up with units for measuring the speed of light in terms of the speed of light. The meter is defined as the length (dm of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second, which is just to say the one meter is defined as the product of speed of light in a vacuum (c) times 1/299,792,458 seconds 1m = the distance equal to c / 299,792,458 and the speed of light, c, itself is measured using a known distance in meters, dc, divided by the time interval, td required for light to travel said distance, dc. c = dc(meters)/td Substituting we get... c = dc(c/299,792,458)/td The speed of light, c, determined and expressed in terms of itself. Is that basic outline of the situation not accurate? As to what scientific papers talk about a changing speed of light, how about any about the plausibility of the early rapid inflationary expansion of the universe? Apparently, the speed of light is only constant unless it's inconvenient that it be so. | ||
| Hootowl |
I don’t know what else to say, Sami. We have very different views of what research tells us. Science is never settled, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore everything we learn in the interim. |
