CAN SPECIAL RELATIVITY BE SAVED ?

On Tuesday, August 27, 2013 3:30:51 AM UTC-7, Pentcho Valev wrote:
http://rockpile.phys.virginia.edu/mod04/mod34.pdf

Paul Fendley: "Now let's see what this does to the frequency of the light. We know that even without special relativity, observers moving at different velocities measure different frequencies. (This is the reason the pitch of an ambulance changes as it passes you it doesn't change if you're on the ambulance). This is called the Doppler shift, and for small relative velocity v it is easy to show that the frequency shifts from f to f(1+v/c) (it goes up heading toward you, down away from you). There are relativistic corrections, but these are negligible here."



That is, if the frequency measured by the stationary observer is f=c/L (L is the wavelength), the frequency measured by an observer moving towards the light source with speed v is:



f' = f(1+v/c) = (c/L)(1+v/c) = (c+v)/L = c'/L



where c'=c+v is the speed of the light waves relative to the moving observer. Clearly special relativity is violated.



The only way to save special relativity is to assume that the motion of the observer somehow changes the wavelength of the incoming light so that, in the frame of the moving observer, the product (frequency)(wavelength), which is equal to the speed of light, remains constant (independent of the speed of the observer). This wavelength change is usually implicit in Einsteiniana's texts but silly Einsteinians sometimes produce explicit explanations similar to this one:



According to special relativity, the speed of light is the same for any observer so if for the moving observer the frequency shifts from f to f'=f(1+v/c), then, for the same observer, the wavelength shifts from L to L'=L/(1+v/c), and the product f'L', which is the speed of light relative to that observer, remains constant, Divine Einstein, yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity.



Clever Einsteinians know that the motion of the observer can change nothing in the incoming light - the idea is too silly even for Divine Albert's world. Tom Roberts explicitly admits this but then proposes an even sillier explanation of the wavelength behaviour: the wavelength of light, in Tom Roberts' imagination, is not an intrinsic property of light; rather, it is a function of mysterious "measuring instruments" possessed by the observer, and the state of those "measuring instruments" is a function of the speed of the observer. To put it simply, as the observer changes his speed, his "measuring instruments" react accordingly and give the precious value of the wavelength guaranteeing constancy of the speed of light and allowing Tom Roberts to safely sing "Divine Einstein" and "Yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity":



https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sci....0/1rvrcjF4JlMJ

Tom Roberts: "Wavelength is not an intrinsic property of light, so it cannot be discussed independent of how it is measured. But it is clear that in vacuum the light ray itself is unchanged as it propagates. Differently moving observers will measure different wavelengths for a given light ray, because their MEASURING INSTRUMENTS are oriented differently in spacetime, and such a measurement inherently PROJECTS the light ray onto the measuring instrument."



Pentcho Valev

Is it objectively proven that an individual photon wave and its phantom/quantum particle actually move?