9 Comments


  1. ·

    Sir, an interesting read, but I spotted a few errors. The first is this :- “The M&M experiment is of course critically important. It was the first time the speed of light, central in all of Einstein’s theories was measured to be a surprising constant. Contrary to the prior belief that an aether would be found, showing that the speed of light is a constant, falsified the existence of such an aether.”
    It did no such thing(s). The MMX was set up in air at normal atmospheric pressure, so the speed of light was measured in a medium where it’s speed is c/n, where n is the index of refraction of the atmosphere (at a given pressure), and c/n is with respect to that medium.
    Here is a second error :-
    “Now when you make a curve and don’t give gas then you will slow down to say 90 km/h at the end of the curve. In other words, you must accelerate by putting your foot down on the accelerator to maintain a constant speed over the distance traveled in the curve. Yet by doing that at a given same time as traveling in a straight line, the distance covered must be greater.”
    There was absolutely no way any scientist could figure out how this could be…”
    The answer is simple. As the car turns, it deviates from a straight line invoking a slight sideways force which increases road resistance. Hence slightly more power is needed.
    And a third:- “Even in our current daily lives when using satellite navigation on our smartphones. The signal sent from geostationary satellites must be corrected using the theory of general relativity of Einstein to be giving proven correct positioning of the phone.”
    The GPS does not use relativity. It quite simply triangulates the position of the (GPS) receiver. It does not matter whether the satellites’ clocks are running faster or slower than the clocks on Earth, it only requires that the satellites’ clocks are synchronised with each other.
    Another slight error which has no real bearing on your article but does show your lack of knowledge of the GPS is that the GPS satellites are not in synchronous orbit.

    Reply

    1. ·

      Hi Tom, Sorry for the late reaction. I’m just getting the hang of this and needed expert help to tell me why and how I could approve your comment.

      As such all comments, I thought would automatically be approved. That isn’t the case I just now learned.

      Certain words always trigger a block that I didn’t know how to lift. Now I do.

      I’ll react to your post tomorrow.

      Gerhard

      Reply

    2. ·

      Hi Tom,

      In reaction to your first point:

      “It did no such thing(s). The MMX was set up in air at normal atmospheric pressure, so the speed of light was measured in a medium where it’s speed is c/n, where n is the index of refraction of the atmosphere (at a given pressure), and c/n is with respect to that medium.”

      I agree with your point which is indeed more accurate than my quick and dirty explanation style for high school level. M&M came very close to indeed measuring c accurately. This was in the link I gave on Wikipedia and explained well enough for further reading.

      The also valid point of refraction as deflection I dealt with elsewhere in my short description.

      Reply

    3. ·

      The second error you state:

      “The answer is simple. As the car turns, it deviates from a straight line invoking a slight sideways force which increases road resistance. Hence slightly more power is needed.”

      Here as well I agree with your point. What I simply wanted to explain is that Einstein’s predictions came true based on a massless photon that due to the inexistence of a medium (aether) via the M&M experiment, would be observed to travel at a constant speed further in the same time without a ‘road’/ medium or another possibility like a rocket to accelerate. Assuming all that then dialing the clock back was indeed the only way left to deal with that in a consistent way.

      Reply

    4. ·

      On the third and fourth slight error: “The GPS does not use relativity. It quite simply triangulates the position of the (GPS) receiver. It does not matter whether the satellites’ clocks are running faster or slower than the clocks on Earth, it only requires that the satellites’ clocks are synchronized with each other.
      Another slight error that has no real bearing on your article but does show your lack of knowledge of the GPS is that the GPS satellites are not in synchronous orbit.”

      Well, according to NASA as I understand it, GPS is vital to GPS.

      https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/images/einstein-s-theory-of-relativity-critical-for-gps-seen-in-distant-stars.html

      I quote: “How does this connect with General Relativity and GPS? As predicted by Einstein’s theory, clocks under the force of gravity run at a slower rate than clocks viewed from a distant region experiencing weaker gravity. This means that clocks on Earth observed from orbiting satellites run at a slower rate. To have the high precision needed for GPS, this effect needs to be taken into account or there will be small differences in time that would add up quickly, calculating inaccurate positions.”

      Indeed triangulation is what is done: that I knew and thus took what someone else or another source stating this to indeed be correct. And contrary to what I thought GPS is indeed not in a geostationary orbit. Thanks for pointing that out. Indeed an error that is not central to my argument.

      Reply

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