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More examples of scientific illiteracy: Einsteinians John Stachel and
Jean Eisenstaedt somehow like Newton's emission theory of light and
hope that some day it may prove compatible with Einstein's relativity.
Jean Eisenstaedt says Einstein did not know about the emission theory
whereas John Stachel never says so:

http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/essay-einstein-relativity.htm
This reprints an essay written ca. 1983, "'What Song the Syrens Sang':
How Did Einstein Discover Special Relativity?" in John Stachel,
Einstein from "B" to "Z".
"This was itself a daring step, since these methods had been developed
to help understand the behavior of ordinary matter while Einstein was
applying them to the apparently quite different field of
electromagnetic radiation. The "revolutionary" conclusion to which he
came was that, in certain respects, electromagnetic radiation behaved
more like a collection of particles than like a wave. He announced
this result in a paper published in 1905, three months before his SRT
paper. The idea that a light beam consisted of a stream of particles
had been espoused by Newton and maintained its popularity into the
middle of the 19th century. It was called the "emission theory" of
light, a phrase I shall use.....Giving up the ether concept allowed
Einstein to envisage the possibility that a beam of light was "an
independent structure," as he put it a few years later, "which is
radiated by the light source, just as in Newton's emission theory of
light.".....An emission theory is perfectly compatible with the
relativity principle. Thus, the M-M experiment presented no problem;
nor is stellar abberration difficult to explain on this
basis......This does not imply that Lorentz's equations are adequate
to explain all the features of light, of course. Einstein already knew
they did not always correctly do so-in particular in the processes of
its emission, absorption and its behavior in black body radiation.
Indeed, his new velocity addition law is also compatible with an
emission theory of light, just because the speed of light compounded
with any lesser velocity still yields the same value. If we model a
beam of light as a stream of particles, the two principles can still
be obeyed. A few years later (1909), Einstein first publicly expressed
the view that an adequate future theory of light would have to be some
sort of fusion of the wave and emission theories......The resulting
theory did not force him to choose between wave and emission theories
of light, but rather led him to look forward to a synthesis of the
two."

http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i6272.html
John Stachel: "Not only is the theory [of relativity] compatible with
an emission theory of radiation, since it implies that the velocity of
light is always the same relative to its source; the theory also
requires that radiation transfer mass between an emitter and an
absorber, reinforcing Einstein's light quantum hypothesis that
radiation manifests a particulate structure under certain
circumstances."

http://www.mfo.de/programme/schedule/2006/08c/OWR_2006_10.pdf
Jean Eisenstaedt: "At the end of the 18th century, a natural extension
of Newton's dynamics to light was developed but immediately forgotten.
A body of works completed the Principia with a relativistic optics of
moving bodies, the discovery of the Doppler-Fizeau effect some sixty
years before Doppler, and many other effects and ideas which represent
a fascinating preamble to Einstein relativities. It was simply
supposed that 'a body-light', as Newton named it, was subject to the
whole dynamics of the Principia in much the same way as were material
particles; thus it was subject to the Galilean relativity and its
velocity was supposed to be variable. Of course it was subject to the
short range 'refringent' force of the corpuscular theory of light --
which is part of the Principia-- but also to the long range force of
gravitation which induces Newton's theory of gravitation. The fact
that the 'mass' of a corpuscle of light was not known did not
constitute a problem since it does not appear in the Newtonian (or
Einsteinian) equations of motion. It was precisely what John Michell
(1724-1793), Robert Blair (1748-1828), Johann G. von Soldner
(1776-1833) and Fran¸cois Arago (1786-1853) were to do at the end of
the 18th century and the beginning the 19th century in the context of
Newton's dynamics. Actually this 'completed' Newtonian theory of light
and material corpuscle seems to have been implicitly accepted at the
time. In such a Newtonian context, not only Soldner's calculation of
the deviation of light in a gravitational field was understood, but
also dark bodies (cousins of black holes). A natural (Galilean and
thus relativistic) optics of moving bodies was also developed which
easily explained aberration and implied as well the essence of what we
call today the Doppler effect. Moreover, at the same time the
structure of -- but also the questions raised by-- the Michelson
experiment was understood. Most of this corpus has long been
forgotten. The Michell-Blair-Arago effect, prior to Doppler's effect,
is entirely unknown to physicists and historians. As to the influence
of gravitation on light, the story was very superficially known but
had never been studied in any detail. Moreover, the existence of a
theory dealing with light, relativity and gravitation, embedded in
Newton's Principia was completely ignored by physicists and by
historians as well. But it was a simple and natural way to deal with
the question of light, relativity (and gravitation) in a Newtonian
context. EINSTEIN HIMSELF DID NOT KNOW OF THIS NEWTONIAN THEORY OF
LIGHT AND HE DID NOT RELY ON IT IN HIS OWN RESEARCH."

http://ustl1.univ-lille1.fr/culture/publication/lna/detail/lna40/pgs/4_5.pdf
Jean Eisenstaedt: "Il n'y a alors aucune raison théorique à ce que la
vitesse de la lumière ne dépende pas de la vitesse de sa source ainsi
que de celle de l'observateur terrestre ; plus clairement encore, il
n'y a pas de raison, dans le cadre de la logique des Principia de
Newton, pour que la lumière se comporte autrement quant à sa
trajectoire qu'une particule matérielle. Il n'y a pas non plus de
raison pour que la lumière ne soit pas sensible à la gravitation.
Bref, pourquoi ne pas appliquer à la lumière toute la théorie
newtonienne ? C'est en fait ce que font plusieurs astronomes,
opticiens, philosophes de la nature à la fin du XVIIIème siècle. Les
résultats sont étonnants... et aujourd'hui nouveaux. Il se passe fort
peu de choses avant John Michell, pasteur, philosophe de la nature et
fervent newtonien, qui ouvre à la lumière les portes de la
gravitation. En 1784, il publie un article aussi remarquable que peu
remarqué sur le sujet. Un corpuscule lumineux est soumis à la force
gravitationnelle de l'étoile qui l'a émis : il voit donc sa vitesse
peu à peu diminuée. Appliquant les Principia, Michell fait le calcul
et s'avise que si létoile est très très ! massive alors le corpuscule
lumineux est tellement freiné que sa vitesse est bientôt nulle et,
comme une fusée, comme une pierre lancée du sol vers le ciel, il
retombe vers l'étoile qui l'a émis. Toutes les particules lumineuses
retombent donc sur l'étoile qui ne sera plus visible de loin. À ces
étoiles étranges, cousines de nos trous noirs, Laplace donnera, une
douzaine d'année plus tard, le nom de « corps obscurs »....La méthode
de Michell est basée sur la théorie corpusculaire de la lumière qui,
sous le nom de « théorie de l'émission », avait alors beaucoup de
succès....Pourtant, au plan des structures physiques, l'optique
relativiste des corps en mouvement de cette fin du XVIIIème est
infiniment plus intéressante et plus utile pédagogiquement que le long
cheminement qu'a imposé l'éther."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com