View Single Post
  #1  
Old October 17th 11, 01:06 PM posted to sci.astro,sci.math
Pentcho Valev
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 8,078
Default Faster-than-Light Neutrino Puzzle Claimed Solved by Special Relativity

On Oct 16, 7:10 am, Tom Roberts wrote in
sci.physics.relativity:
SolomonW wrote:
Sounds plausible and if so Einstein not wrong.
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27260/


That article is wrong.

The author obviously does not understand how the GPS actually works. The
satellites are NOT moving "West to East in a plane inclined at 55 degrees to the
equator" -- SOME of them may well do so, but there are three different orbits,
and two others are at quite different inclinations. Moreover, the clocks are all
synchronized in the ECI frame the GPS uses, which is not rotating, and in which
the center of the earth is at rest. That is, each satellite's clock displays the
coordinate time of the ECI frame at its current location -- all effects due to
the satellites' altitude and motion relative to the ECI are fully accounted for.

Moreover, the presence of the atomic clocks at the two locations are used to
reduce systematic errors, but they are synchronized via the GPS, so it is the
GPS synchronization that matters. That is known to be accurate to 2-3 ns (with a
suitable integration time, which they have).

The OPERA result of superluminal neutrinos will be extremely interesting, IF IT
HOLDS UP. At present, many/most physics do not believe it will hold up. But
then, I have not seen any plausible description of an error....

Tom Roberts


Bravo, Honest Roberts! But you still believe, don't you, that the
Michelslon-Morley experiment, helped by the absurd "length
contraction" hypothesis advanced by Fitzgerald and Lorentz, correctly
promoted the acceptance of Divine Albert's Divine Special Relativity
instead of promoting the resurrection of Newton's (Ritz's) emission
theory of light:

http://www.phys.ncku.edu.tw/mirrors/...periments.html
Tom Roberts: "The Michelson-Morley experiment (MMX) was intended to
measure the velocity of the Earth relative to the lumeniferous ether
which was at the time presumed to carry electromagnetic phenomena. The
failure of it and the other early experiments to actually observe the
Earth's motion through the ether became significant in promoting the
acceptance of Einstein's theory of Special Relativity, as it was
appreciated from early on that Einstein's approach (via symmetry) was
more elegant and parsimonious of assumptions than were other
approaches (e.g. those of Maxwell, Hertz, Stokes, Fresnel, Lorentz,
Ritz, and Abraham)."

http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/companion.doc
John Norton: "These efforts were long misled by an exaggeration of the
importance of one experiment, the Michelson-Morley experiment, even
though Einstein later had trouble recalling if he even knew of the
experiment prior to his 1905 paper. This one experiment, in isolation,
has little force. Its null result happened to be fully compatible with
Newton's own emission theory of light. Located in the context of late
19th century electrodynamics when ether-based, wave theories of light
predominated, however, it presented a serious problem that exercised
the greatest theoretician of the day."

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/1743/2/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "In addition to his work as editor of the Einstein papers
in finding source material, Stachel assembled the many small clues
that reveal Einstein's serious consideration of an emission theory of
light; and he gave us the crucial insight that Einstein regarded the
Michelson-Morley experiment as evidence for the principle of
relativity, whereas later writers almost universally use it as support
for the light postulate of special relativity. Even today, this point
needs emphasis. The Michelson-Morley experiment is fully compatible
with an emission theory of light that CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."

http://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Its.../dp/0486406768
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
"Moreover, if light consists of particles, as Einstein had suggested
in his paper submitted just thirteen weeks before this one, the second
principle seems absurd: A stone thrown from a speeding train can do
far more damage than one thrown from a train at rest; the speed of the
particle is not independent of the motion of the object emitting it.
And if we take light to consist of particles and assume that these
particles obey Newton's laws, they will conform to Newtonian
relativity and thus automatically account for the null result of the
Michelson-Morley experiment without recourse to contracting lengths,
local time, or Lorentz transformations. Yet, as we have seen, Einstein
resisted the temptation to account for the null result in terms of
particles of light and simple, familiar Newtonian ideas, and
introduced as his second postulate something that was more or less
obvious when thought of in terms of waves in an ether."

Pentcho Valev