Re: threat to one's worldview
- From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2007 13:45:42 -0000
In article <MSGID_2=3A240=2F2199.13=40fidonet_4e0085f3@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
Tina_Hall@xxxxxxxxxxx says...
Gerry Quinn <gerryq@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tina_Hall@xxxxxxxxxxx says...
Gerry Quinn <gerryq@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Okay... I've pointed you towards a key experiment which has been
carried out, with variations, by numerous researchers, and told you
what happens when its done.
Actually, no. You've just repeated the claim and threw in some
unexplained words to confuse the issue.
Unless I do the experiment in front of you, which is impractical, you
can just keep insisting that I am just repeating the claim. So there
seems no point going further.
The experiment has been done, in numerous variations, along with other
experiments. The results hang togedther. Machines built on principles
that use them work.
I've suggested that your local public library will have some books
describing it.
I've already replied to that.
By saying that you would just treat those as repeated claims too.
Descartes was there before you.
I've pointed out that the experimental protocols and the peer-reviewed
status of the primary publications on which this scientific consensus
is based, along with the fact that the scientific theories
incorporating special relativity are used all the time in day-to-day
technology, give reasonable grounds for accepting that while the
consensus might not be correct, it is not a result of self-deception
or inadequate testing (which many here think belief in dowsing might
be).
I don't see the difference. They see what they want to see.
Why don't you read the reports? If you can credibly interpret the
results differently you will become as famous as Einstein!
What should I do, come to visit you with a a large weighing scales,
and run around the pan at half the speed of light carrying a clock?
Explain what's going on.
I did explain it.
The observation that needs explanation is that when you measure the
speed of light, the answer you get is always the same, i.e. it is
independent of your speed relative to the light source. (By contrast,
if the source was emitting bullets rather than light, their measured
speed as you moved towards it would be greater, and as you moved away
from it would be less.)
There are two viable explanations (a third possibility involving
aether-dragging by massive objects such as the Earth was ruled out by
other experiments and observations). One is aether theory, which goes
approximately as follows:
All physical systems consist of vibrations in a matrix known as the
aether (a region of aether without vibrations is just ordinary vacuum).
Systems of vibrations become shorter, and time as measured by them
slows down, when they are moving through the aether. The mathematics
of this was worked out by Lorentz and Poincare, and it turns out that
the aether is undetectable (due to certain effects cancelling out
before they can be measured), and measured effects are as predicted (or
postdicted, because this theory came first) by special relativity.
If you want a dynamic explanation of how it works, you have a chance
with this model, because if all matter is ultimately composed of
massless particles (i.e. some basic types of aether vibrations) moving
to and fro at lightspeed, the shortening and time slowing effects are
actually comprehensible.
However, aether theory has been superseded by special relativity, which
does not have any dynamic explanations.
Einstein's theory of special relativity says that there is no preferred
reference frame, i.e. physics as observed by any observer who is in
inertial motion (i.e. moving in a straight line without being
accelerated) is identical. It further states that physics as so
defined includes electrodynamics; or, equivalently, that the observed
speed of light is a universal constant.
So the cancellation of measurable effects from motion relative to the
aether (as calculated by Lorentz and Poincare) is replaced by a
symmetry principle (the so-called Principle of Relativity which states
that there is no preferred inertial reference frame). And a universal
constant is added, but no explanation is proposed for it. However it
can be seen that it takes the place of the speed of fundamental
vibrations in the aether which could be used to give a dynamic
explanations of how things work in an aether-based theory.
At this point you may be wondering why special relativity was
considered an improvement! It could be argued that it's mathematically
simpler, but that doesn't really wash because you could still derive it
from aether theory and use it when you wanted to do maths referring
only to measurements. The main reason it won out is probably because
quantum theory became so successful. Quantum theory asserts (and
experiments back it up) that nothing exists unless it's measured. If
you can't measure your speed relative to the aether, then you don't
have one, or if you prefer you are in a superposition of all possible
speeds. Physics became more dependent on principles and symmetries,
more dependent on abstract math and less interested in mechanisms. Too
much so, in fact, but the tide will doubtless turn somewhat. [A second
reason it won out is that the mechanical behaviour of the aether is
extrordinarily linear, irrespective of vibration type and intensity.
But that could be just a result of quantum effects; in quantunm theory
total linearity is taken for granted.]
Anyway, if you don't like either of those explanations, too bad. They
are the best physicists have come up with, but you are welcome to find
a third. The apparatus and results of Michelson and Morley is
available in your local library, and you can start your search there.
This is not like claiming the sky is blue. I can look outside and see
it, and assume the colour I see is blue. An explanation can come after
the fact.
This is like saying the inside of the sun is blue. I can't see that. If
you have a proper explanation on how it comes to be blue, fine. But all
people keep saying is "it's blue because it's blue, and everyone else
believes it's blue".
No they aren't saying anything like that at all. They are saying
something like "The Solar Colourimetric Probe that was dropped into the
Sun in January 2017 transmitted spectrographic data with a peak at 470
nm in the visible range, which would be seen as blue if a person could
see it. Some people think it's due to unexpectly high Argon
concentrations, and some think it's due to electrons recombining with
ions."
And you are just repeating "All I see is claims, how do you know there
was a probe, they just see what they want to see, show me the
explanation".
All we can tell you to do is read up on the observations and theories
if you want to know more.
Most of all it's not fancy because experiments like that of Michelson
and Morley are *reality* - the results astonished some at the time,
but are now well enough tested that we know the speed of light as
measured does not depend on the relative velocity of its source,
almost as well as we know that apples fall to the ground.
I don't know what the speed of actual light, rather than as a speed, has
to do with this.
It's the speed actual light goes at. Actual light is the only thing
that goes at that speed that we can easily manipulate. It was
incorporated by name in special relativity for that reason. You are
right: it should be referred to as "the speed of a massless particle".
Special relativity is not the only way of building a physics that is
compatible with this reality, but it's one of only two that is
compatible with most other observations.
'Most' tells me it isn't actually accurate.
What I meant is that it is a lower bound. Special relativity fits all
known observations, and if you tweak your interpretations of quantum
theory a bit you can make a case for aether theory. No other theories
come close enough to observation to be worth looking at.
(The other one makes essentially the same predictions and could
conceivably make a comeback in some form, but you wouldn't like it
either!)
What's that?
That is aether theory.
And this is the point I made at the start. Special relativity
*doesn't* say that you can make a time machine. It says you can make
a time machine IF you can go faster than light. But it doesn't say
anything about whether you can go faster than light.
Then it's not what we're talking about.
(Except that in the sphere in which it operates, that of dynamics, it
says that it would take infinite energy to accelerate a massive object
even to light speed.
That's what we're talking about.
Well, then. That's what it says. And experiments back it up. We can
accelerate particles to very nearly the speed of light, and as they get
closer and closer to it, they become harder to accelerate and time
seems to slow down for them because unstable ones last many times
longer than normal. But we have never been able to make a massive
particle go at lightspeed or faster, or seen evidence for time being
reversed.
That said, there are a few alternative schemes for FTL travel or
communication that don't depend on accelerating particles past light
speed. All that has been said is that IF special relativity holds, and
IF one of these schemes works, it ought to be possible to make a time
machine.
I told you where the evidence is. I've read widely about experiments
conducted that support the theory.
And other people have experience with dowsers. You're still just saying
'it is so'.
Yes, but they *don't* seem to be able to do replicable experiments.
People who can throw high numbers using three dice can demonstrate
their powers. Michelson and Morley were able to demonstrate that the
Earth's motion through the aether was undetectable. Dowsers don't seem
to be able to manage this, for some reason.
- Gerry Quinn
.
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