Experimental Evidence for Special Relativity

On Sep 11, 7:02*am, Tom Roberts wrote in
sci.physics.relativity:
Sean2008 wrote:
What is the consensus of opinion in this discussion group about what
experiments might constitute the "cornerstone" experiments that
confirm Special Relativity? Or are there a set of such experiments?

In studying the results of various experiments there are, obviously,
many that repeat experimental designs, the only purpose of which is to
improve the accuracy of measurement. For my own education, I would be
interested in what set of experiments might be considered fundamental
and if that set was fairly small.

Hopefully, my question has not displayed too much ignorance regarding
the experimental evidence. This may, perhaps, be one of those
questions that is intrinsically unanswerable but I am too ignorant to
know!

* * * * [Asking for a "consensus" is silly -- science is not
* * * * *determined by voting! The contributors to this newsgroup
* * * * *are so varied in knowledge and experience that no "consensus"
* * * * *is possible. But no matter, you really want the opinions of
* * * * *knowledgeable people, not of crackpots and idiots.]

* * * * It can be difficult for a neophyte to distinguish cranks
* * * * from knowledgeable people. The best way I know is that the
* * * * latter often cite good textbooks, and the former do not. For
* * * * SR I recommend: Taylor and Wheeler, _Spacetime_Physics_.

There are several hundred experiments that test SR. See the FAQ page I
maintain at http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic...periments.html

I would not call any of these experiments truly definitive or
fundamental, because several experiments are needed. As is well known,
there are numerous theories that can explain any single experiment --
but a valid theory must not be refuted by ANY experiment, and that's
much more difficult. SR stands un-refuted, within its domain of
applicability (see the above link for what that means).

Honest Roberts special relativity is refuted by the Michelson-Morley
experiment alone:

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."

John Norton is correct when he says that "THE MICHELSON-MORLEY
EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT
CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT POSTULATE", but he is wrong (or lying) about
Einstein's intepretation of the Michelson-Morley experiment. In fact,
"later writers" just parroted what the Divine Liar had already
established:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstrac...66838A 639EDE
The New York Times, April 19, 1921
"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."

The negative result of the Michelson-Morley experiment CAN be
procrusteanized to fit Divine Albert's Divine Special Relativity but
only through the introduction of ad hoc idiocies - time dilation,
length contraction etc:

http://books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
p.92: "There are various remarks to be made about this second
principle. For instance, if it is so obvious, how could it turn out to
be part of a revolution - especially when the first principle is also
a natural one? 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. If it
was so obvious, though, why did he need to state it as a principle?
Because, having taken from the idea of light waves in the ether the
one aspect that he needed, he declared early in his paper, to quote
his own words, that "the introduction of a 'luminiferous ether' will
prove to be superfluous."

Pentcho Valev

On Sep 11, 3:45*am, Pentcho Valev wrote:
On Sep 11, 7:02*am, Tom Roberts wrote in
sci.physics.relativity:





Sean2008 wrote:
What is the consensus of opinion in this discussion group about what
experiments might constitute the "cornerstone" experiments that
confirm Special Relativity? Or are there a set of such experiments?

In studying the results of various experiments there are, obviously,
many that repeat experimental designs, the only purpose of which is to
improve the accuracy of measurement. For my own education, I would be
interested in what set of experiments might be considered fundamental
and if that set was fairly small.

Hopefully, my question has not displayed too much ignorance regarding
the experimental evidence. This may, perhaps, be one of those
questions that is intrinsically unanswerable but I am too ignorant to
know!

* * * * [Asking for a "consensus" is silly -- science is not
* * * * *determined by voting! The contributors to this newsgroup
* * * * *are so varied in knowledge and experience that no "consensus"
* * * * *is possible. But no matter, you really want the opinions of
* * * * *knowledgeable people, not of crackpots and idiots.]

* * * * It can be difficult for a neophyte to distinguish cranks
* * * * from knowledgeable people. The best way I know is that the
* * * * latter often cite good textbooks, and the former do not.. For
* * * * SR I recommend: Taylor and Wheeler, _Spacetime_Physics_..

There are several hundred experiments that test SR. See the FAQ page I
maintain athttp://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html

I would not call any of these experiments truly definitive or
fundamental, because several experiments are needed. As is well known,
there are numerous theories that can explain any single experiment --
but a valid theory must not be refuted by ANY experiment, and that's
much more difficult. SR stands un-refuted, within its domain of
applicability (see the above link for what that means).

Honest Roberts special relativity is refuted by the Michelson-Morley
experiment alone:

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."

John Norton is correct when he says that "THE MICHELSON-MORLEY
EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT
CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT POSTULATE", but he is wrong (or lying) about
Einstein's intepretation of the Michelson-Morley experiment. In fact,
"later writers" just parroted what the Divine Liar had already
established:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstrac...113FEE3ABC4152....
The New York Times, April 19, 1921
"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."

The negative result of the Michelson-Morley experiment CAN be
procrusteanized to fit Divine Albert's Divine Special Relativity but
only through the introduction of ad hoc idiocies - time dilation,
length contraction etc:

http://books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
p.92: "There are various remarks to be made about this second
principle. For instance, if it is so obvious, how could it turn out to
be part of a revolution - especially when the first principle is also
a natural one? 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. If it
was so obvious, though, why did he need to state it as a principle?
Because, having taken from the idea of light waves in the ether the
one aspect that he needed, he declared early in his paper, to quote
his own words, that "the introduction of a 'luminiferous ether' will
prove to be superfluous."

Pentcho Valev
- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yes, the emission theory of light is consistent with the MMX, but it
is not consistent with all we know about optics, such as interference,
diffraction and polarization.

So forget about it.

Uncle Ben

On Sep 11, 10:24*am, Uncle Ben wrote:
On Sep 11, 3:45*am, Pentcho Valev wrote:
Honest Roberts special relativity is refuted by the Michelson-Morley
experiment alone:

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."

John Norton is correct when he says that "THE MICHELSON-MORLEY
EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT
CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT POSTULATE", but he is wrong (or lying) about
Einstein's intepretation of the Michelson-Morley experiment. In fact,
"later writers" just parroted what the Divine Liar had already
established:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstrac...66838A 639EDE
The New York Times, April 19, 1921
"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."

The negative result of the Michelson-Morley experiment CAN be
procrusteanized to fit Divine Albert's Divine Special Relativity but
only through the introduction of ad hoc idiocies - time dilation,
length contraction etc:

http://books.google.com/books?id=JokgnS1JtmMC
"Relativity and Its Roots" By Banesh Hoffmann
p.92: "There are various remarks to be made about this second
principle. For instance, if it is so obvious, how could it turn out to
be part of a revolution - especially when the first principle is also
a natural one? 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. If it
was so obvious, though, why did he need to state it as a principle?
Because, having taken from the idea of light waves in the ether the
one aspect that he needed, he declared early in his paper, to quote
his own words, that "the introduction of a 'luminiferous ether' will
prove to be superfluous."

Yes, the emission theory of light is consistent with the MMX, but it
is not consistent with all we know about optics, such as interference,
diffraction and polarization.

So forget about it.

Why should I? Divine Albert never forgot it, and nowadays John Stachel
and Jean Eisenstaedt are desperately trying to reintroduce it:

http://www.astrofind.net/documents/t...radiation..php
The Development of Our Views on the Composition and Essence of
Radiation by Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein 1909: "A large body of facts shows undeniably that
light has certain fundamental properties that are better explained by
Newton's emission theory of light than by the oscillation theory. For
this reason, I believe that the next phase in the development of
theoretical physics will bring us a theory of light that can be
considered a fusion of the oscillation and emission theories. The
purpose of the following remarks is to justify this belief and to show
that a profound change in our views on the composition and essence of
light is imperative.....Then the electromagnetic fields that make up
light no longer appear as a state of a hypothetical medium, but rather
as independent entities that the light source gives off, just as in
Newton's emission theory of light......Relativity theory has changed
our views on light. Light is conceived not as a manifestation of the
state of some hypothetical medium, but rather as an independent entity
like matter. Moreover, this theory shares with the corpuscular theory
of light the unusual property that light carries inertial mass from
the emitting to the absorbing object."

http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/...relativity.htm
This reprints an essay written ca. 1983, "'What Song the Syrens Sang':
How Did Einstein Discover Special Relativity?" in John Stachel,
Einstein from "B" to "Z".
"This was itself a daring step, since these methods had been developed
to help understand the behavior of ordinary matter while Einstein was
applying them to the apparently quite different field of
electromagnetic radiation. The "revolutionary" conclusion to which he
came was that, in certain respects, electromagnetic radiation behaved
more like a collection of particles than like a wave. He announced
this result in a paper published in 1905, three months before his SRT
paper. The idea that a light beam consisted of a stream of particles
had been espoused by Newton and maintained its popularity into the
middle of the 19th century. It was called the "emission theory" of
light, a phrase I shall use.....Giving up the ether concept allowed
Einstein to envisage the possibility that a beam of light was "an
independent structure," as he put it a few years later, "which is
radiated by the light source, just as in Newton's emission theory of
light.".....An emission theory is perfectly compatible with the
relativity principle. Thus, the M-M experiment presented no problem;
nor is stellar abberration difficult to explain on this
basis......This does not imply that Lorentz's equations are adequate
to explain all the features of light, of course. Einstein already knew
they did not always correctly do so-in particular in the processes of
its emission, absorption and its behavior in black body radiation.
Indeed, his new velocity addition law is also compatible with an
emission theory of light, just because the speed of light compounded
with any lesser velocity still yields the same value. If we model a
beam of light as a stream of particles, the two principles can still
be obeyed. A few years later (1909), Einstein first publicly expressed
the view that an adequate future theory of light would have to be some
sort of fusion of the wave and emission theories......The resulting
theory did not force him to choose between wave and emission theories
of light, but rather led him to look forward to a synthesis of the
two."

http://www.mfo.de/programme/schedule...WR_2006_10.pdf
Jean Eisenstaedt: "At the end of the 18th century, a natural extension
of Newton's dynamics to light was developed but immediately forgotten.
A body of works completed the Principia with a relativistic optics of
moving bodies, the discovery of the Doppler-Fizeau effect some sixty
years before Doppler, and many other effects and ideas which represent
a fascinating preamble to Einstein relativities. It was simply
supposed that 'a body-light', as Newton named it, was subject to the
whole dynamics of the Principia in much the same way as were material
particles; thus it was subject to the Galilean relativity and its
velocity was supposed to be variable. Of course it was subject to the
short range 'refringent' force of the corpuscular theory of light --
which is part of the Principia-- but also to the long range force of
gravitation which induces Newton's theory of gravitation. The fact
that the 'mass' of a corpuscle of light was not known did not
constitute a problem since it does not appear in the Newtonian (or
Einsteinian) equations of motion. It was precisely what John Michell
(1724-1793), Robert Blair (1748-1828), Johann G. von Soldner
(1776-1833) and Fran¸cois Arago (1786-1853) were to do at the end of
the 18th century and the beginning the 19th century in the context of
Newton's dynamics. Actually this 'completed' Newtonian theory of light
and material corpuscle seems to have been implicitly accepted at the
time. In such a Newtonian context, not only Soldner's calculation of
the deviation of light in a gravitational field was understood, but
also dark bodies (cousins of black holes). A natural (Galilean and
thus relativistic) optics of moving bodies was also developed which
easily explained aberration and implied as well the essence of what we
call today the Doppler effect. Moreover, at the same time the
structure of -- but also the questions raised by-- the Michelson
experiment was understood. Most of this corpus has long been
forgotten. The Michell-Blair-Arago effect, prior to Doppler's effect,
is entirely unknown to physicists and historians. As to the influence
of gravitation on light, the story was very superficially known but
had never been studied in any detail. Moreover, the existence of a
theory dealing with light, relativity and gravitation, embedded in
Newton's Principia was completely ignored by physicists and by
historians as well. But it was a simple and natural way to deal with
the question of light, relativity (and gravitation) in a Newtonian
context. EINSTEIN HIMSELF DID NOT KNOW OF THIS NEWTONIAN THEORY OF
LIGHT AND HE DID NOT RELY ON IT IN HIS OWN RESEARCH."

Pentcho Valev

In fact, in 1954 Divine Albert confessed that, without Newton's
emission theory of light, "nothing will remain of my whole castle in
the air, including the theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the
rest of contemporary physics". For the moment John Stachel is not
taking this confession of Divine Albert's very seriously:

http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/ind...ecture_id=3576
John Stachel: "Einstein discussed the other side of the particle-field
dualism - get rid of fields and just have particles."
Albert Einstein: "I consider it entirely possible that physics cannot
be based upon the field concept, that is on continuous structures.
Then nothing will remain of my whole castle in the air, including the
theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the rest of contemporary
physics."
John Stachel's comment: "If I go down, everything goes down, ha ha,
hm, ha ha ha."

Pentcho Valev

On Sep 11, 5:01*am, Pentcho Valev wrote:
In fact, in 1954 Divine Albert confessed that, without Newton's
emission theory of light, "nothing will remain of my whole castle in
the air, including the theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the
rest of contemporary physics". For the moment John Stachel is not
taking this confession of Divine Albert's very seriously:

http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/ind...ontent&task=vi....
John Stachel: "Einstein discussed the other side of the particle-field
dualism - get rid of fields and just have particles."
Albert Einstein: "I consider it entirely possible that physics cannot
be based upon the field concept, that is on continuous structures.
Then nothing will remain of my whole castle in the air, including the
theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the rest of contemporary
physics."
John Stachel's comment: "If I go down, everything goes down, ha ha,
hm, ha ha ha."

Pentcho Valev


Pentcho, it has already been done and the Nobel prizes awarded. It is
called Quantum Electrodynamics. Predicts physical constants out to
impressive precision.

Uncle Ben

On Sep 11, 10:30*am, Uncle Ben wrote:
Pentcho, it has already been done and the Nobel prizes awarded. *It is
called Quantum Electrodynamics. *Predicts physical constants out to
impressive precision.

Uncle Ben-

Care to explain the fundamental basis of renormalization?

Master Strich

Uncle Ben wrote:
Yes, the emission theory of light is consistent with the MMX, but it
is not consistent with all we know about optics, such as interference,
diffraction and polarization.

Moreover, there are multiple experiments that specifically test for
dependence on source velocity, and find rather tight limits on it (parts
per billion). See the section "Test of Light Speed from Moving Sources"
in http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic...periments.html

[There's no point in responding to Valev -- he is a write-
only spammer who ignores the content of anything that anybody
else writes. He just copies words without understanding.]


So forget about it.

Hmmm. It's worth knowing, if only so one can understand silly claims
like Valev's. But it's useless as the basis of a VALID physical theory.


Tom Roberts

On Sep 12, 4:57*pm, Tom Roberts wrote:
Uncle Ben wrote:
Yes, the emission theory of light is consistent with the MMX, but it
is not consistent with all we know about optics, such as interference,
diffraction and polarization.

Moreover, there are multiple experiments that specifically test for
dependence on source velocity, and find rather tight limits on it (parts
per billion). See the section "Test of Light Speed from Moving Sources"
in http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic...periments.html

Honest Roberts your "work" should have a subtitle:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic...periments.html
What is the experimental basis of Special Relativity?
(FAQ for silly zombies)

Your descriptions are so blatantly fraudulent that no clever
Einsteinian would find them useful. For instance:

Tom Roberts: "The Michelson-Morley experiment (MMX) was intended to
measure the velocity of the Earth relative to the “lumeniferous æther”
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 æther 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)."

This "Einstein's approach (via symmetry) was more elegant and
parsimonious of assumptions than were other approaches" was difficult
to devise wasn't it Honest Roberts.

* * * * [There's no point in responding to Valev -- he is a write-
* * * * *only spammer who ignores the content of anything that anybody
* * * * *else writes. He just copies words without understanding.]

But, Honest Roberts, I asked you so many times to elaborate on your
greatest discovery - that even if "light in vacuum does not travel at
the invariant speed of the Lorentz transform", special relativity
"would be unaffected":

http://groups.google.ca/group/sci.ph...1ebdf49c012de2
Tom Roberts: "If it is ultimately discovered that the photon has a
nonzero mass (i.e. light in vacuum does not travel at the invariant
speed of the Lorentz transform), SR would be unaffected but both
Maxwell's equations and QED would be refuted (or rather, their domains
of applicability would be reduced)."

So I don't ignore the content of your discovery, Honest Roberts. I am
only asking you to elaborate on it - it is so great that even brothers
Einsteinians find it a bit strange. Why should I be "write-only
spammer" in this case, Honest Roberts?

So forget about it.

Hmmm. It's worth knowing, if only so one can understand silly claims
like Valev's. But it's useless as the basis of a VALID physical theory.

http://www.astrofind.net/documents/t...radiation..php
The Development of Our Views on the Composition and Essence of
Radiation by Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein 1909: "A large body of facts shows undeniably that
light has certain fundamental properties that are better explained by
Newton's emission theory of light than by the oscillation theory. For
this reason, I believe that the next phase in the development of
theoretical physics will bring us a theory of light that can be
considered a fusion of the oscillation and emission theories. The
purpose of the following remarks is to justify this belief and to show
that a profound change in our views on the composition and essence of
light is imperative.....Then the electromagnetic fields that make up
light no longer appear as a state of a hypothetical medium, but rather
as independent entities that the light source gives off, just as in
Newton's emission theory of light......Relativity theory has changed
our views on light. Light is conceived not as a manifestation of the
state of some hypothetical medium, but rather as an independent entity
like matter. Moreover, this theory shares with the corpuscular theory
of light the unusual property that light carries inertial mass from
the emitting to the absorbing object."

http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/pdf...09145525ca.pdf
Albert Einstein 1954: "I consider it entirely possible that physics
cannot be based upon the field concept, that is on continuous
structures. Then nothing will remain of my whole castle in the air,
including the theory of gravitation, but also nothing of the rest of
contemporary physics."

Pentcho Valev

wrote in message
...
On Sep 11, 10:30 am, Uncle Ben wrote:
Pentcho, it has already been done and the Nobel prizes awarded. It is
called Quantum Electrodynamics. Predicts physical constants out to
impressive precision.

Uncle Ben-

Care to explain the fundamental basis of renormalization?

**************
What this has got to do with SR or even Albert Einstein, I have no idea. The
mathematical underpinnings of much of QM are somewhat shaky, but that is
definitely not true of SR.

SR is an observational fact. Not believing in it is as quaint as not
believing the earth is nearly a sphere.

"Peter Webb" wrote in message
u...

wrote in message
...
On Sep 11, 10:30 am, Uncle Ben wrote:
Pentcho, it has already been done and the Nobel prizes awarded. It is
called Quantum Electrodynamics. Predicts physical constants out to
impressive precision.

Uncle Ben-

Care to explain the fundamental basis of renormalization?

**************
What this has got to do with SR or even Albert Einstein, I have no idea.
The mathematical underpinnings of much of QM are somewhat shaky, but that
is definitely not true of SR.

SR is an observational fact. Not believing in it is as quaint as not
believing the earth is nearly a sphere.


You are an observational lying ****head who doesn't know fact from fiction.
Ref: http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einst...ures/img22.gif

Why did Einstein say
the speed of light from A to B is c-v,
the speed of light from B to A is c+v,
the "time" each way is the same, you ****ing cretinous troll?