Einstein's Second Postulate Violates His First.

On Dec 12, 4:49*pm, Tom Roberts wrote in
sci.physics.relativity:
John Kennaugh wrote:
1/ The MMX was intended to measure the speed of an observer (on earth)
relative to the aether.
2/ The result was that no motion w.r.t the aether was detected.
3/ The second postulate describes what an observer with no motion w.r.t
the aether would experience.

Hmmm. Your 1 and 2 are essentially correct. Your 3 is correct within
itself, but is patently ridiculous IN THE CONTEXT OF THE DAY. The aether
was thought to be a rigid medium permeating all of space and defining an
absolute frame. So the earth cannot possibly have "no motion w.r.t. the
aether" -- it orbits the sun, and the MMX was sensitive enough to
measure the 30 km/s orbital velocity. Indeed, Michelson and Morley
stated their result (an upper limit) in terms of the earth's orbital
velocity.

As I have said many times, TODAY the "origin" of Einstein's second
postulate is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT. SR can be derived from other, far
more defensible postulates, and that one deduced from them. And in any
case, physics is not a logical deduction system, and there is no need
for postulates to be "true", they merely need to be VALID -- Einstein's
second postulate is OBSERVED to be valid in the world we inhabit. That
is what is needed in science, regardless of whatever it is you are
trying to do.

I say that is where the second postulate comes from.

But Einstein himself said otherwise. Somehow I believe him more than
you. In particular, he mentioned several other experiments that failed
to find motion w.r.t. the aether; decades later when he was asked
specifically about the MMX and SR he could not remember whether he was
aware of the MMX in 1905 or not...

Yet in 1921 Divine Albert was fiercely developing the myth according
to which the Michelson-Morley experiment had CONFIRMED his 1905 false
light postulate:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstrac...66838A 639EDE
The New York Times, April 19, 1921
"Professor Albert Einstein delivered the first of a series of four
lectures at the College of the City of New York yesterday before the
Faculty and their guests.....Michelson showed that relative to the
moving co-ordinate system K1, the light traveled with the same
velocity as relative to K, which is contrary to the above observation.
How could this be reconciled? Professor Einstein asked."

Then "later writers" (see below) converted the myth into one of the
absolute truths in Einstein zombie world, equivalent to the absolute
truth 2+2=5 established in Big Brother's world:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/arch.../02/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "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......THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE
WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."

Pentcho Valev

On Dec 13, 12:01*am, (richardhachel) wrote in
fr.sci.astrophysique:
Pentcho Valev a écrit:

THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE
WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE.'

*Ta phrase est biaiseuse.

*Je veux bien que l'expérience de Michelson-Morlay
*soit davantage compatible avec une théorie balistique
*qu'avec une théorie ondulatoire.

*Mais le problème, c'est que la théorie balistique
*se trouve en défaut par le phénomène d'aberration
de la lumière des étoiles.

http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s2-10/2-10.htm
"Thus, according to emission theories, if the source is moving
directly toward or away from us with a speed v, then the light from
that source is approaching us with a speed c+v or c-v respectively.
Naturally this class of theories is compatible with experiments such
as the one performed by Michelson and Morley, since the source of the
light is moving along with the rest of the apparatus, so we wouldn't
expect to find any directional variation in the speed of light in such
experiments. Also, an emission theory of light is compatible with
stellar aberration, at least up to the limits of observational
resolution. In fact, James Bradley (the discoverer of aberration)
originally explained it on this very basis."

Pentcho Valev