Takin Out the Trash

On 26 Mar 2007 06:45:55 -0700, "PD" wrote:

On Mar 22, 2:39 pm, Lester Zick wrote:
On 22 Mar 2007 06:20:37 -0700, "PD" wrote:

On Mar 13, 12:52 pm, Lester Zick wrote:
Takin Out the Trash
~v~~

[. . .]

So Michelson-Morley did their experiment which only requires one
reference frame to perform in several different frames of reference
for verification of their results in any one frame of reference and
the calculation of results in different directions? That means what,
that the experiment itself requires two different frames of reference
to yield positive fringe shift results for any one frame of reference?
But even so I'm surprized you don't quite get it and even refuse to
spell out which two frames of reference are required to perform
Michelson-Morley just for any positive fringe shift results. And I'm
surprized you're an asshole. Check that I'm not surprized at all.

I've answered this already. Perhaps you are having your problem again
and are presuming that I must have to channel my answers through
someone else.

I'll spoon-feed it to you once again.

Lorentz explained the null results from any particular data run by
suggesting a material length transformation between the ether rest
frame and the frame in which the surface of the Earth at the location
of the apparatus is at rest. Those are the two reference frames in the
transformation.

Aha! So V-0=V? So tell us do, Herr Doktor Doktor, do you require all
your stu's to do alegbra in terms of V-0=V, X-0=X, Y-0=Y, and Z-0=Z?

Sorry? I don't have the foggiest idea how you extracted this
conclusion from anything I said.

I agree. You never do.

And you conclude that this is my problem, not yours.

Naturally. You don't even know how or what Michelson calculated prior
to his fringe shift experiment and just assume Lorentz had to do it
for him after the fact. So there's no special reason to conclude you
have any idea what you're talking about or that you ever did.

You do know that the v that appears in the Lorentz transformation is
the relative velocity between the *two* reference frames, do you not?

And here I thought it was just velocity.

Nope. Relative velocity. What you *thought* was both wrong and sprung
from ignorance, since the readings are pretty clear about it being
*relative* velocity.

Relative to what precisely? Zero? Like I said v-0=v.

But if you prefer to make things up out of thin air to form what you
"thought it was", then let's ask you to form this thought:
If it is *just* velocity, and there are two reference frames, which
frame has the velocity, and how can you tell?

Uh here we go again with the TWO reference frames. You seem to be a
one trick pony stuck and on stupid to boot. And precisely which TWO
reference frames did you have in mind this time?The numerous different
reference frames where Michelson performed the experiment or the frame
in which light travels relative to Michelson's experimental platform?
So now you have an opportunity to make up things out of thin ether.

Ah, perhaps not. After all, you didn't read the papers you're
commenting on.

I divine them just as you do. The difference is that you're a
professor of divinity whereas I read what they actually say.


Thusly (1-0-vv-00/cc-00) is the correct FLT transformation after all
is said and done and the second mystery frame of reference to which
you wish you had referred but didn't is v=0? Why didn't you just say
so? Then we could all have had a good laugh and put the matter to rest
per say.

In addition, Lorentz's transformation *also* explained why the result
was *still* null in the comparison of any two data runs hours apart or
months apart, when the apparatus had moved to being at rest in one
inertial reference frame to being at rest in an entirely different
reference frame. Note there are two reference frames in these
comparisons as well.

And two different reference frames in your brain as well since
Lorentz's transformation doesn't "explain" any null results at all
absent his material contraction hypothesis

But of course the material contraction hypothesis is the assumption
underlying Lorentz's derivation of his transforms between *two*
reference frames, isn't it?

No actually it isn't, sport. Lorentz's transforms have nothing to do
with his material contraction hypothesis. That was a subsequent
attempt to explain why the transforms didn't produce fringe shifts.
Jesus are you hard of thinking or what? You say you actually read?

You say it isn't? Would it be in your interest to read the paper to
see what he said?

Which paper did you have in mind? Do you imagine he spelled out his
material contraction hypothesis to explain the transforms Michelson
used to gauge the magnitude of the fringe shifts he anticipated? If
you're suggesting Lorentz published a paper using the transforms and
his material contraction hypothesis to explain the subsequent failure
of Michelson-Morley that might be and I may have read such a paper.

You may have, or you may not have. Let's see....


But if you're suggesting the transforms themselves anticipated the
general failure of such experiments then I have to question why
Michelson would have used the transforms to predict his fringe shifts?
Based on his papers clearly Michelson expected fringe shifts and just
as clearly he relied on the transforms to quantify that expectation.

Well, since it isn't clear to the average reader of his papers,
perhaps you could point out explicity (by quotation) where in
Michelson's papers he uses the Lorentz transforms to quantify his
expectation of fringe shifts?

You're seriously suggesting Michelson used no transforms to calculate
his anticipated fringe shifts? I mean this is beyond stupid. I don't
know what they may have been called whether Fitzgerald's transforms or
whatever but they existed and are documented in Michelson's work.
That's one reason I refer to them as FLT because various people over
the years have referred to them various ways for different purposes. I
don't really care how they originated because the transforms are the
same transforms Michelson used to calculate his anticipated results
and the same Lorentz used to calculate his material contraction. And
the same Einstein used to calculate his geometric contraction. And if
this is the best you have to go on at this juncture just forget it.

or Einstein's geometric
contraction hypothesis which are neither part of FLT.

In this case, you're right. In Einstein's version it is the postulate
of the invariance of the speed of light that allows him to derive
transforms for both space and time between *two* reference frames.

Once again I have no idea what you mean by TWO reference frames.

Gee, and I just got done explaining this to you. Are you dense,
Lester?

Yes, princess. Just not so dense as you. I'm not the one trying to
turn Michelson's physics experiment into a philological debate.

The
only reference frame Einstein was concerned with was that moving at
some constant velocity.

Why, no, Lester, that's incorrect. Perhaps you would like to point out
explicitly in Einstein's writings where he made clear he was talking
about only one reference frame. In virtually anything he wrote about
the subject, he's pretty clear in referring to two reference frames.

"He's pretty clear . . ."? That means you have no explicit reference
to support what you consider "pretty clear" at all. As I recollect he
uses one "v" to calculate geometric contraction as a second order
function of velocity. Perhaps you'd care to point out v1 and v2?

Einstein's geometric contraction and Lorentz's
material contraction apply to that one reference frame and both used
identical numbers based on one velocity not TWO.

Two reference frames, one relative velocity. Is that too hard a
concept for you, Lester?

Not so much when one of the v's used to calculate relative velocity
equals zero. Which minus all the frame of reference subterfuge you
employed with Michelson's multiple repetitions of one experiment
leaves you pretty much where you started and with what we expected:
nothing at all.

They only differ on
that to which contraction is supposed to apply and the degree of
contraction is calculated strictly in terms of a second order function
in that one velocity. (As I recall Einstein divides the second order
function in the one velocity in longitudinal and transverse directions
to obtain a net contraction factor in the direction of motion but that
is grist for another windmill to tilt at.)

Now, would it hurt so much to read the original papers, so that you
would run less risk of misguessing completely what they did?

You mean I have to read them again for the umpteenth time? Tell us,
Herr Doktor Doktor, do you spend your evenings around the dinner table
having your family address you as Dr. Draper?

Actually, no, they address me either by name or "Dad", whichever is
appropriate. Tell me, Lester, does your family address you as Lester
Zick? Who is pretending here?

Just curious. I've known many non medical doctors who insist on their
honorifics. That has always struck me as pretentious in the extreme.

I agree. Tell me, Lester, does your family address you as Lester Zick
at the dinner table?

No but then I've known many more pretentious non medical Doctors than
Misters. It just seems that Doctors can't quite get over the fact the
only thing they can cite in their curricula vitae are the sacred cows
they've worshiped and those who honor them for it.

I mean else we wouldn't
know you're a physicist which I'm beginning to suspect no one else
quite knows either apart from your fondness for the physics community
about which you seem to know nothing at all.

I gather, Lester, that you claim to know more about the physics
community than I.

Hardly. I do more science and leave the community work to others.

Ah, so your comment about my seeming to know nothing about the
physicis community is one you made from a position of ignorance.
Thanks for that, Lester.

Well to do you justice I daresay you know considerably more about the
physics community than you do about physics.

Tell me, Lester (or however you would prefer to be
called at the dinner table), what's the basis of your experience and
familiarity with the physics community? I mean, besides a coffee-table
book.

What experience? You're the one who claimed to be a member of the
physics community in good standing.

I did? When did I claim that?

You didn't claim that? You mean the success or failure of my revisions
to the Michelson-Morley experiment depend on whether you consider
yourself a member in good standing of the physics community? Gee I'll
have to look it up some time when I have nothing better to do than
assuage your childish ego. Now if you'd care to turn your attention to
experiments for a change . . .

I consider your arguments not your
social standing.

Gee, and physicists recognize that arguments are a dime a dozen, and
that confrontation with data is what's valuable.

Well arguments may be a dime a dozen whereas you consider your
arguments with social standing more valuable than arguments with
experiments of which you seem to have none.

And when it comes to physics I consider proposed
experiments and supporting mechanical rationale. Apparently you don't.


What proposed experiments are you considering, Lester? And have you
considered experiments already proposed and *performed*?

Look, sport. I've been over this already twice at your request and
have no intention of thrice. Either you get your ass in gear and shape
up or ship out. No interest in historical philology with you.

~v~~