Physical Axioms and Attractive Forces

TVF wrote: "As the speed of light is exceeded, all light beams would appear to come from the forward half of the sky. At even faster speeds, even light beams from directly behind the spacecraft would appear to come from in front as the spacecraft caught up to portions of the beam that had already passed by. Eventually as the speed of the craft rose further, the whole universe would appear to emit light only from a small spot directly ahead. And the light itself would change appearance from x-rays to gamma rays to cosmic rays, and end up in the form of Cherenkov radiation."

According to Lorentzian ether theory, the directions of the incoming light rays would all converge on a spot directly ahead of the traveler as he approached the speed of light, and the frequency and energy of that incoming light would approach infinity as the traveler approached the speed of light. Exactly the same formulas apply in special relativity, i.e., they predict the same aberration angles and frequency shifts for any given speed of travel. What you've described in your message is quite different, i.e., it directly conflicts with Lorentz's ether theory and special relativity (not to mention the abundant empirical confirmations of those theories). Can you quantify your dynamics? In other words, can you tell us quantitatively (according to whatever theory you espouse) the aberration angles and Doppler shifts and energy levels for various speeds of travel?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by nonneta</i>
<br />I think you've already performed this experiment, haven't you? A pool of water on the Earth is moving at about 65000 miles per hour relative to the Sun's rest frame, but if you drop a pebble into the pool, the ripples are concentric relative to the water's rest frame, not relative to the Sun's rest frame (let along the galactic center).<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">With no connection between the Sun and the rock or the water, there is no reason to expect what you propose.

We are discussing cases where the driving force produces a new frame of reference. In your example, the driving force for the ripples is still the rock, with no input from the Sun. -|Tom|-

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by nonneta</i>
<br />According to Lorentzian ether theory, the directions of the incoming light rays would all converge on a spot directly ahead of the traveler as he approached the speed of light, and the frequency and energy of that incoming light would approach infinity as the traveler approached the speed of light.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I'm not aware that the Lorentz Ether Theory ever addressed this issue. But Lorentzian relativity is clear that a spacecraft traveling at speed c would encounter light from the forward direction traveling at a relative speed of 2c, which would obviously transfer nowhere near infinite energy.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Exactly the same formulas apply in special relativity, i.e., they predict the same aberration angles and frequency shifts for any given speed of travel.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">The reason that happens in SR is because time slows down and ceases to pass at speed c, so any momentum transferred in zero time appears to represent infinite energy.

But because Lorentzian relativity has no effect whatever on time, none of that applies. If you are unfamiliar with Lorentzian relativity (LR), see for example our primer at metaresearch.org/cosmology/gravity/LR.asp

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">What you've described in your message is quite different, i.e., it directly conflicts with Lorentz's ether theory and special relativity (not to mention the abundant empirical confirmations of those theories).<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">You appear to be unfamiliar with the last decade of publications on relativity in the only journals that still cover topics critical of SR. In particular, SR is now falsified in favor of LR. See for example “Experimental Repeal of the Speed Limit for Gravitational, Electrodynamic, and Quantum Field Interactions”, T. Van Flandern and J.P. Vigier, Found.Phys. 32:1031-1068 (2002). This is also developed in a few articles on the parent web site to this Message Board, and on our "Gravity" CD.

Those "abundant empirical confirmations" you mention boil down to eleven independent experiments listed in metaresearch.org/cosmology/gps-relativity.asp But LR passes these same tests, yet has very different physical properties. So SR's conclusion of a universal speed limit is valid only if LR is falsified. But the six experiments testing the speed of gravity falsified SR and left LR standing. So c is not a universal speed limit. -|Tom|-

TVF wrote: "With no connection between the Sun and the rock or the water, there is no reason to expect what you propose."

I think you misread my message. I wrote that the ripples would obviously propagate at the characteristic speed of wave propagation relative to the water. I did not propose any expectation to the contrary, although I did note that your message implied that your expectation was that the ripples would remain concentric about the abstract point in absolute space where the rock passed through the surface of the water. Hopefully we're in agreement that any such expectation makes no sense.

TVF wrote: "We are discussing cases where the driving force produces a new frame of reference. In your example, the driving force for the ripples is still the rock, with no input from the Sun."

Now you're describing what amounts to a ballistic theory of wave propagation, e.g., you're suggesting that the music from an ice cream truck propagates through the air at a speed that depends on the speed of the truck, so the sound moves more rapidly in the forward direction than in the rearward direction. I'm afraid your idea is abundantly falsified by observation. As I said, waves propagate at the accoustic speed of the medium relative to the rest frame of the medium. It doesn't matter whether the air is motionless and the truck is moving, or vice versa. Your "vibrating mountain under water" is just like an ice cream truck. This subject is very well understood, so there's really no need to speculate about it.

TVF wrote: "I'm not aware that the Lorentz Ether Theory ever addressed this issue."

Yes, it did. In fact, the reason Lorentzian Relativity passes all the same empirical tests as special relativity is that the two theories (or rather, the two interpretations of the same theory) predict the same results. For example, Lorentzian Relativity predicts how much energy must be put into a particle to accelerate it to near the speed of light... and this is also the amount of energy that is manifest in any subsequent collisions or interactions of that particle with other objects or fields. So this is real tangible energy. Lorentzian relativity predicts the correct amount of energy, and it is the same prediction as predicted by special relativity... which is fortunate, because otherwise it would be empirically refuted on a daily basis. What both LR and SR predict is that the energy needed to accelerate a particle of rest mass m to a speed v is mc^2[1/sqrt[1 - (v^2/c^2)] - mc^2. This has been experimentally confirmed to extraordinary accuracy up to values of v equal to 0.99999999 c. So could you tell us how much energy YOU think it takes to accelerate a particle of rest mass m to a speed v? I think this may be difficult for you to answer, because if your answer agrees with LR and SR, then you acknowledge that c cannot be exceeded, but if your answers disagrees with LR and SR you are falsified by countless observations.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by nonneta</i>
<br />your message implied that your expectation was that the ripples would remain concentric about the abstract point in absolute space where the rock passed through the surface of the water. Hopefully we're in agreement that any such expectation makes no sense.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">First, there is no such thing as "absolute space". But assuming you only meant the spot (fixed relative to the shore and river bottom) where the rock set off the wave, then I originally argued as you just did that the wave must propagate relative to the medium. But I changed my mind about what that means. The wave cannot influence the speed of the water, so why should the speed of the water be able to influence the wave? I now think that a float in a flowing stream will keep its place relative to the water in the stream, meaning it will flow with the stream. But that means the float will flow right up one side of an approaching wave crest and down the other. And that means the water in the stream is doing the same. So what would require the the wave to participate in the stream flow?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">you're describing what amounts to a ballistic theory of wave propagation, e.g., you're suggesting that the music from an ice cream truck propagates through the air at a speed that depends on the speed of the truck, so the sound moves more rapidly in the forward direction than in the rearward direction.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Definitely not. I'm talking about a force or pressure applied to a medium, and waves in the pressure rather than the medium itself. Expectations are no longer obvious. But we know that light is a wave that does not change its propagation speed with changes in the flow of its medium. And we are trying to come up with the simplest physics to understand that behavior.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">[tvf]: TVF wrote: I'm not aware that the Lorentz Ether Theory ever addressed this issue.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Yes, it did. In fact, the reason Lorentzian Relativity passes all the same empirical tests as special relativity is that the two theories (or rather, the two interpretations of the same theory) predict the same results.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">We have a mild confusion here. LR is not the same as LET. LR definitely didn't address aberration at speeds over lightspeed, and I strongly doubt that LET did either because the speed of light was not a limit for anything except electromagnetic phenomena when Lorentz wrote about it, which was a year before Einstein first wrote about SR.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">For example, Lorentzian Relativity predicts how much energy must be put into a particle to accelerate it to near the speed of light... and this is also the amount of energy that is manifest in any subsequent collisions or interactions of that particle with other objects or fields.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Those who learned only SR learned only one physical interpretation of that result. Those who also learned LR learned another way to understand the physics: The fields used to accelerate particles are composed of elysium. Because elysium cannot go faster than c, it is limited in how much force it can apply to any particle. That is why particles cannot be made to go faster than c using electromagnetic forces. Using gravitational forces, there is no problem at all to develop ballistic speeds exceeding c by any amount.

The mass of elysium applied to the particle in attempts to accelerate it remains active if the particle hits something else. So all that energy is still available for other applications. But nothing special is happening here any more than a propeller plane using propellers alone to try to exceed the speed of sound. More and more energy is required to get less and less momentum as one approaches the limiting speed of that medium. One must simply use a force not limited by the speed of sound (such as gravity) to break the sound barrier.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">So could you tell us how much energy YOU think it takes to accelerate a particle of rest mass m to a speed v?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">It doesn't require energy, it requires momentum transfers. Those are unavailable from things that cannot go faster than c, but are readily available from gravitons. (The mean speed of gravitons is experimentally at least 20 billion c.)

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I think this may be difficult for you to answer, because if your answer agrees with LR and SR, then you acknowledge that c cannot be exceeded, but if your answers disagrees with LR and SR you are falsified by countless observations.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">You are apparently unfamiliar with a major body of work developed by hundreds over the last decade, but shunned by mainstream relativists. The new physical understandings have already been compared to all existing observations and experiments and found to explain them in easier-to-understand, classical physics terms. You might want to hold your predictions until you get a little further along on this particular learning curve. -|Tom|-