🚀 go-pugleaf

On Jan 25, 6:31 am, Tom Roberts <tjroberts...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in
sci.physics.relativity:
> On 1/24/12 1/24/12   8:01 PM, train wrote:
>
> > [...]
>
> The question is not whether Dingle was wrong, but rather, whether SR is valid.
> For an incredibly wide domain we know that SR is indeed valid, because of the
> literally hundreds of experimental tests it has passed:
>
>  http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html
>
> Of course knowing that SR is valid implies that Dingle was wrong.
>
> Tom Roberts

"Hundreds of experimental tests" are impossible to deal with in a
debate, Honest Roberts. Let us concentrate on the crucial one:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html
Tom Honest Roberts: "The Michelson-Morley experiment (MMX) was
intended to measure the velocity of the Earth relative to the
“lumeniferous aether” which was at the time presumed to carry
electromagnetic phenomena. The failure of it and the other early
experiments to actually observe the Earth's motion through the aether
became significant in promoting the acceptance of Einstein's theory of
Special Relativity, as it was appreciated from early on that
Einstein's approach (via symmetry) was more elegant and parsimonious
of assumptions than were other approaches (e.g. those of Maxwell,
Hertz, Stokes, Fresnel, Lorentz, Ritz, and Abraham)."

Now the truth: In 1887 the Michelson-Morley experiment UNEQUIVOCALLY
confirmed the assumption that the speed of light of light does vary
with the speed of the light source, as predicted by Newton's emission
theory of light, and refuted the assumption that the speed of light is
independent of the speed of the light source, which was to become
Einstein's second postulate (the light postulate) in 1905. Einstein's
"elegant and parsimonious of assumptions" approach involved, as Banesh
Hoffmann put it, "recourse to contracting lengths, local time, or
Lorentz transformations":

http://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Its-Roots-Banesh-Hoffmann/dp/0486406768
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann: "Moreover, if light
consists of particles, as Einstein had suggested in his paper
submitted just thirteen weeks before this one, the second principle
seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding train can do far more
damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the speed of the particle
is not independent of the motion of the object emitting it. And if we
take light to consist of particles and assume that these particles
obey Newton's laws, they will conform to Newtonian relativity and thus
automatically account for the null result of the Michelson-Morley
experiment without recourse to contracting lengths, local time, or
Lorentz transformations. Yet, as we have seen, Einstein resisted the
temptation to account for the null result in terms of particles of
light and simple, familiar Newtonian ideas, and introduced as his
second postulate something that was more or less obvious when thought
of in terms of waves in an ether."

http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/companion.doc
John Norton: "These efforts were long misled by an exaggeration of the
importance of one experiment, the Michelson-Morley experiment, even
though Einstein later had trouble recalling if he even knew of the
experiment prior to his 1905 paper. This one experiment, in isolation,
has little force. Its null result happened to be fully compatible with
Newton's own emission theory of light. Located in the context of late
19th century electrodynamics when ether-based, wave theories of light
predominated, however, it presented a serious problem that exercised
the greatest theoretician of the day."

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/1743/2/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "In addition to his work as editor of the Einstein papers
in finding source material, Stachel assembled the many small clues
that reveal Einstein's serious consideration of an emission theory of
light; and he gave us the crucial insight that Einstein regarded the
Michelson-Morley experiment as evidence for the principle of
relativity, whereas later writers almost universally use it as support
for the light postulate of special relativity. Even today, this point
needs emphasis. The Michelson-Morley experiment is fully compatible
with an emission theory of light that CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."

http://www.amazon.fr/James-Smith-Introduction-relativit%C3%A9-EIntroduction/dp/B0014P9USI
James H. Smith "Introduction à la relativité": "Si la lumière était un
flot de particules mécaniques obéissant aux lois de la mécanique, il
n'y aurait aucune difficulté à comprendre les résultats de
l'expérience de Michelson-Morley.... Supposons, par exemple, qu'une
fusée se déplace avec une vitesse (1/2)c par rapport à un observateur
et qu'un rayon de lumière parte de son nez. Si la vitesse de la
lumière signifiait vitesse des "particules" de la lumière par rapport
à leur source, alors ces "particules" de lumière se déplaceraient à la
vitesse c/2+c=(3/2)c par rapport à l'observateur. Mais ce comportement
ne ressemble pas du tout à celui d'une onde, car les ondes se
propagent à une certaine vitesse par rapport au milieu dans lequel
elles se développent et non pas à une certaine vitesse par rapport à
leur source..... Il nous faut insister sur le fait suivant: QUAND
EINSTEIN PROPOSA QUE LA VITESSE DE LA LUMIERE SOIT INDEPENDANTE DE
CELLE DE LA SOURCE, IL N'EN EXISTAIT AUCUNE PREUVE EXPERIMENTALE."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com