🚀 go-pugleaf

Cross-posted from alt.sci.physics.new-theories
 
In article <1992Jul22.150401.15820@news.endg.convex.com> Steve Warren
writes:
 
>The biggest practical reason that FTL travel is impossible (unless new
>discoveries in physics are made - that are not anticipated right now)
>is because of the mass increase phenomenum.  This has been repeatedly
>verified experimentally, . . .
 
In 1908 Swiss physicist Walter Ritz proposed an emission theory of general
electrodynamics(1) in which the mass of charged bodies do not increase
toward, relativistically, but rather that their masses remain constant and
the electrodynamic acceleration forces approach zero.
 
His rationale was that charged bodies emit fluxes of emission particles
(which bear a resemblance to virtual photons).  The fluxes of emission
particles, traveling at the speed of light, constituted the (finite speed
of propagation) electrodynamic intermediate between charged bodies.
 
Suppose we have a test charge (an electron) that has just passed through
an opening in a metallic plate.  A negative charge applied to the plate
will accelerate the electron away from the plate.  Ritz's theory has it
that the strength of the accelerating force on the test charge, produced
by the emission particles comming from the negatively charged plate, is
directly proportional to their closure velocity with respect to the test
charge.
 
If the test charge is moving very slowly with respect to the plate, the
closure rate of the emission particles will be on the order of the speed
of light.  On the other hand, if the electron passed through the opening
at, say,  0.9 C, then the closure rate of the emission particles with
respect to the test charge, would be 0.1 C.  According to Ritz the slower
closure rate would result in a decreased accelerating force.
 
With a test charge travelling at .999999 C the overtaking emission
particles would essentially be "flying formation" on the test charge and
would cause negligible acceleration to the test charge.
 
This rambling has been rather one-sided and leaves a lot out, but comes
the question:
 
How do we unambiguously determine whether mass increases relativistically
or whether electromagnetic forces decrease relativistically?
 
 
(1) Ritz, W. "Recherches Critiques sur l'Electrodynamique Generale,"  Ann.
    Chim. et d. Chimie, Vol 13 (1908) p. 145
 
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             Robert S. (Bob) Fritzius  rsf1@Ra.MsState.edu
                    I have a slobber-proof keyboard!
      Low-Tec  P.O. Box 1327 Starkville, MS 39759   (601) 324-1284