🚀 go-pugleaf

Pentcho Valev wrote:
>On Jun 7, 12:15�pm, John Kennaugh <J...@notworking.freeserve.co.uk>
>wrote:
>> Pentcho Valev wrote:
>> >On Jun 6, 1:36�pm, John Kennaugh <J...@notworking.freeserve.co.uk>
>> >wrote:
>> >> Tom Roberts wrote:
>>
>> >> >> [... remainder displays utter ignorance of modern physics]
>>
>> >> No I reject the mysticism of modern physics. A photon is a perfectly
>> >> ordinary particle not some mystical mathematical object. A photon has
>> >> mass and therefore shows that SR is wrong because SR says it cannot
>> >> travel at c if it has mass - and it does.
>>
>> >> A photon has mass because:
>>
>> >> 1/ Its direction is affected by gravity as with any projectile with
>> >> mass.
>> >> 2/ Its energy increases if it falls under gravity just like any other
>> >> object with mass.
>> >> 3/ Its energy is reduced when it escapes from a gravity field just like
>> >> any other projectile.
>> >> 4/ If photons hit a surface they produce pressure just as any other
>> >> particles with mass will.
>> >> 5/ It is hard to show that if you stop a photon it has rest mass but If
>> >> you take a very high energy photon (massive) and near stop it you end up
>> >> with an electron and a positron - which have mass - and a low energy
>> >> photon to take away any excess mass.
>> >> 6/ If you combine an electron and a positron then you get two photons
>> >> each of who's mass is equal to that of an electron (or a positron)
>>
>> >> The equations Waldron produces show that a photon with a given energy
>> >> has a given mass and that one value gives the correct answer in all the
>> >> above. The mass equations all balance.
>>
>> >Tom Roberts and his superior brothers Jean-Marc L�vy-Leblond and Jong-
>> >Ping Hsu have already solved this problem: Divine Albert's Divine
>> >Special Relativity "would be unaffected" even if "it is ultimately
>> >discovered that the photon has a nonzero mass (i.e. light in vacuum
>> >does not travel at the invariant speed of the Lorentz transform)":
>>
>> > http://o.castera.free.fr/pdf/chronogeometrie.pdf
>> >Jean-Marc L�vy-Leblond "De la relativit� � la chronog�om�trie ou: Pour
>> >en finir avec le "second postulat" et autres fossiles": "D'autre part,
>> >nous savons aujourd'hui que l'invariance de la vitesse de la lumi�re
>> >est une cons�quence de la nullit� de la masse du photon. Mais,
>> >empiriquement, cette masse, aussi faible soit son actuelle borne
>> >sup�rieure exp�rimentale, ne peut et ne pourra jamais �tre consid�r�e
>> >avec certitude comme rigoureusement nulle. Il se pourrait m�me que de
>> >futures mesures mettent en�vidence une masse infime, mais non-nulle,
>> >du photon ; la lumi�re alors n'irait plus � la "vitesse de la
>> >lumi�re", ou, plus pr�cis�ment, la vitesse de la lumi�re, d�sormais
>> >variable, ne s'identifierait plus � la vitesse limite invariante. Les
>> >procedures operationnelles mises en jeu par le "second postulat"
>> >deviendraient caduques ipso facto. La theorie elle-meme en serait-elle
>> >invalidee ? Heureusement, il n'en est rien ; mais, pour s'en assurer,
>> >il convient de la refonder sur des bases plus solides, et d'ailleurs
>> >plus economiques. En verite, le "premier postulat" suffit, a la
>> >condition de l'exploiter a fond."
>>
>> > http://o.castera.free.fr/pdf/onemorederivation.pdf
>> >Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond: "This is the point of view from wich I intend
>> >to criticize the overemphasized role of the speed of light in the
>> >foundations of the special relativity, and to propose an approach to
>> >these foundations that dispenses with the hypothesis of the invariance
>> >of c....We believe that special relativity at the present time stands
>> >as a universal theory discribing the structure of a common space-time
>> >arena in which all fundamental processes take place....The evidence of
>> >the nonzero mass of the photon would not, as such, shake in any way
>> >the validity of the special relativity. It would, however, nullify all
>> >its derivations which are based on the invariance of the photon
>> >velocity."
>>
>> > http://www.amazon.com/Einsteins-Relativity-Beyond-Approaches-
>> >Theoretical/dp/9810238886
>> >Jong-Ping Hsu: "The fundamentally new ideas of the first purpose are
>> >developed on the basis of the term paper of a Harvard physics
>> >undergraduate. They lead to an unexpected affirmative answer to the
>> >long-standing question of whether it is possible to construct a
>> >relativity theory without postulating the constancy of the speed of
>> >light and retaining only the first postulate of special relativity.
>> >This question was discussed in the early years following the discovery
>> >of special relativity by many physicists, including Ritz, Tolman,
>> >Kunz, Comstock and Pauli, all of whom obtained negative answers."
>>
>> > http://groups.google.ca/group/sci.physics.relativity/msg/dc1ebdf49c012de2
>> >Tom Roberts: "If it is ultimately discovered that the photon has a
>> >nonzero mass (i.e. light in vacuum does not travel at the invariant
>> >speed of the Lorentz transform), SR would be unaffected but both
>> >Maxwell's equations and QED would be refuted (or rather, their domains
>> >of applicability would be reduced)."
>>
>> >Pentcho Valev
>> >pva...@yahoo.com
>>
>> I believe that what you quote is saying a different thing to what I am
>> talking about. What is being discussed in your quote is I think a case
>> of hedging their bets and saying that if instead of having zero mass a
>> photon had a minute mass, all it would mean is that the theoretical
>> constant c would not be the speed of light and that photons would have
>> to travel at very slightly less than c.
>
>There is a second message in the quotes (designed to confuse mainly
>zombies, not clever Einsteinians). Tom Roberts, Jean-Marc L�vy-Leblond
>and Jong-Ping Hsu suggest that Einstein's 1905 light postulate is
>obsolete and therefore even if the speed of light is variable, not
>constant, special relativity "would be unaffected". Note that,
>logically, this suggestion has nothing to do with the problem of the
>mass of the photon.

OK. It is understandable why they would want that to be the case. Any
relativist who isn't acutely embarrassed by the origins of relativity
obviously hasn't studied and understood the history. Einstein's starting
point was unashamedly Lorentz's Aether Theory - a modification to
Maxwell's Aether Theory. Now to do the maths of LET one transforms to
and from the 'aether FoR'. Unfortunately the aether FoR is
indistinguishable from every other FoR. Fortunately that doesn't matter
because if you select any FoR as the aether frame and get the same
answer. There is nothing therefore to prevent you from always selecting
the observer's FoR as the aether frame and if you do that you get
something indistinguishable from SR. In other words one way of looking
at SR is that it is simply a mathematical approach to doing LET maths.
The theory is still that of Lorentz.
        Another way of viewing it is that the followers of Maxwell -
Einstein and Lorentz included - interpreted the MMX as showing that for
some reason the observer always appears to be stationary w.r.t Maxwell's
aether. Lorentz had put forward an explanation as to why that is the
case - LET says that it is an illusion brought about by distortion of
measurement - Einstein didn't like that explanation so took a completely
empirical approach and said in effect "lets just accept that every
observer IS stationary w.r.t the aether, for whatever reason". The
second postulate simply describes exactly what an observer stationary
w.r.t the aether would experience.
        Another way to look at it is that Einstein objected to the
asymmetry in the theoretical structure of LET and came up with a
'theory' (same maths) without a theoretical structure. To be fair to
Albert he tried to come up with something - his aether without the
immobility of Lorentz's - but failed. In essence (1920 lecture) he
argued in favour of the aether but against the accepted assumption that
an aether had to imply a unique FoR stationary w.r.t it. Put simply he
was suggesting, in deliberately vague terms, that there could be an
aether which every observer naturally finds himself stationary w.r.t. as
per the second postulate. The aether is of course central to his
thinking because it is the aether which controls the speed of light
which is why its speed is assumed to be not source dependent.
         Physics was taken over by mathematicians who were enjoying the
new mathematical challenge and who casually ditched the aether without
realising the decision to accept Einstein's version of Lorentz's version
of Maxwell's aether theory look somewhat dodgy without it. Decades later
the "aether" has become a taboo word and the origins of relativity
remain the skeleton in the cupboard which anyone can discover if they
care to look under the mountains of spin which have been added in 100
years. Despite the fact that Maxwell's wave in aether theory was
disproved firstly by the MMX and then by the discovery that light isn't
waves but particles SR is based upon the assumption that Maxwell's
theory is impeccable. One would not accept the ditching of 3 long
accepted and apparently sensible axioms of physics in order to retain a
theory unless one considered that theory to be anything less than
impeccable would one?

Now there are attempts to distance physics from the embarrassing 2nd
postulate by using mathematical wizardry to show that the Lorentz
transforms can be derived only from the first postulate. It is possible
that it can be done - I'll deal with the implications later - but
certainly one example I have seen involves mathematical 'slight of
hand'. That is the treatment I found in an on-line Harvard university
text book. One must understand that Lorentz transforms and Galilean
transforms are not 2 from a set of many transforms they are the only two
options. The Lorentz transforms use up all possible degrees of freedom.
The text I mentioned seemed overly complex considering what it was
trying to show and at one point imported an equation from one of the
Appendices. The average student being lazy would probably not bother to
check but I did. It had a constant in it x, (I think) and when I tracked
back I found that x=1 corresponded to the Galilean transform and that
having imported the equation into the main text he divided by x-1. The
result is of course then invalid for Galilean transforms so he was left
only with Lorentz transforms.

It is possible that is a bad example and I admit that others I have seen
are beyond my mathematical capabilities but the bottom line is that
ballistic theory is completely consistent with the first postulate. It
differs only w.r.t the second postulate so if what is claimed is true SR
and Ballistic theory must be mathematically identical. This isn't as far
fetched as it seems. If you look at my thread "Does SR transform to
Ballistic theory1" I show that in several quite widely different
experiments both theories give the same result and I suggest that just
as the geocentric theory of the solar system managed to transform the
maths to give the right answer that what Lorentz transforms do is
transform a wrongly based theory in order to give the same answer as the
correctly based ballistic theory. In both cases the problem is incorrect
but unshakeable belief. In one case a belief that everything goes around
the earth and in the second that Maxwell's wave in aether theory is
impeccable despite it having been experimentally disproved.

-- 
John Kennaugh