Alternative to Special Relativity

UniKEF Introduction

Members:

With permission from James R. I have posted the Introduction to UniKEF Theory under "Relativity" for your questions or comments.

 

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Canute,

In cases where there is only one gravitational field present, the strength of the gravitational field won't influence the speed of the photons. So whether the photons are moving towards the area where the gravitational field is stronger, or if they're moving towards the area where the gravitational field is weaker, their speed would remain c relative to that gravitational field.

Let me use an analogy to explain this in a better way:

Let's say that a photon is travelling through a gravitational field (the strength of the field doesn't matter). If the photon is travelling slower than c in the field, the gravitational field will push the photon to the speed of c. If a photon is travelling faster than c in a gravitational field, then the gravitational field will slow the photon down to c. The strength of the gravitational field may influence how fast the photon slows down, or speeds up, to c, but it won't effect the final speed of the photon (which is c).

Tom

 

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Tom - But you say that the photon 'uses' the field to propel itself. Does that not imply it will propel itself faster in the direction that the field is rotating, since it will take the speed of the field as the base reference for its own speed?

 

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Canute,

Yes. Relative to the aether (if it exists), the photon will be travelling faster than c if it is moving in the same direction as the motion, or rotation, of the local gravitational field.

Relative to the local gravitational field, the photon is always travelling at c regardless of the speed of the gravitational field's motion through the aether (or space).

Even though the omnidirectional speed of a photon can be larger or smaller than c relative to the aether, its omnidirectional speed will always be c relative to the local gravitational field in which it finds itself in at any given moment.

Tom

 

If the strength of the field does not affect the speed of the photon then I find it hard to envisage how the movement of the field would do so. It's hard to see what sort of mechanism might cause one effect without also causing the other.

In other words if it matters to the photon whether the field is there or not, if it behaves diferently in a field, then surely it must matter how dense the field is, since from the photons point of view the field 'being there' and 'having a detectable field strength' seem to be the same thing. Which seems to mean that the photon reacts to field strength.

 

Canute,

Look at it this way:

A gravitational field, no matter how weak or strong, will try to push, or pull, a photon so that the photon's speed will equal c in that field. It may be that a stronger field will accelerate, or decelerate the photon to the speed of c faster, but it won't effect the final speed of the photon.

Let me try to explain it using an analogy:

Let's say you are on a sailboat and the wind is blowing at 20 mph. The sailboat will accelerate until it reaches the speed of 20 mph. After that, it will stop accelerating, and it will continue moving at a constant speed of 20 mph.

Now, let's say you replace the air hitting the sails at 20 mph with a stream of water hitting the sail at 20 mph. Your sailboat will accelerate faster, and it will reach the speed of 20 mph faster. But once it reaches the speed of 20 mph, it will stop accelerating. As you see, the density of the material pushing the sailboat doesn't matter once the sailboat reaches a speed of 20 mph. You can even throw lead balls at the sailboat at 20 mph, and the boat will still only accelerate until it reaches 20 mph.

In summary: If a force is pushing an object, the object will accelerate until it reaches the speed of that force. The strength of the force will effect the acceleration of the object, but it will not effect the object's final velocity.

Tom

 

OK I see that. But doesn't this mean that a photon fired from the bottom of a gravity well to a higher point would accelerate faster than a photon fired downwards from the point in the opposite direction, and thus take less time to cover the distance?

 

Canute,

Yes, but because of the extremely small mass of the photon there would be a very, very small time difference between the two examples you illustrated. I'm not sure if the time difference would be large enough to be measurable.

Tom

 

There seems no reason that it should be in principle unmeasurable, which suggest your theory makes an interesting and testable prediction.

I have always thought that traditionally photons were assumed to reach c instantaneously. Is this wrong?

 

Canute,

Well, my theory is testable regardless of whether the acceleration of photons in various gravitational fields is measurable or not. All that has to be done is for an observer to measure the speed of light as he/she is moving through a gravitational field. If my theory is correct, the observer will measure a change in the speed of light. This change in the speed of light would also cause all reactions to slow down in the observer's frame of reference, making it appear that time is dilating.

It is traditionally believed that photons are created travelling at c. They don't accelerate because they don't have to. (Plus it would violate relativity if during some period in their existance photons are travelling at a speed lower than c)

Tom

 

The problem with that is that the experiment has been done: it's the Michaelson-Morley experiment and it showed that the speed of light does NOT change with motion (Yes, Michaelson and Morley didn't think of it as "moving through a gravitational field but they were, after all, moving through the sun's gravitational field).

Indeed, since the gravitational field becomes weaker and weaker as we move away from a massive object, I don't see how one could distinguish between "moving through a gravitational field" and "not moving through a gravitational field".

 

True. (But what I meant was a prediction that would contradict the predictions of other current theories). if this is true then would it mean that the speed of time is a constant. and thus in all the mathematics one would fix t and change c instead of the other way around? Or is that a damn fool question?

But... you did say above that in your hypothesised world their rate of acceleration could vary. Still, if they accelerate instantly then you're right, there wouldn't be a time difference between incoming and outgoing photons as I suggested.

 

HallsofIvy,

True, but the Earth's gravitational field is 1650 times stronger than the Sun's gravitational field on the surface of the Earth (where the Michelson-Morley experiment was done). The weak gravitational field of the Sun would still influence the light in the M-M experiment, but the influence is so small that the Michelson-Morley inferometer was not accurate enough to measure it. (Remember, the M-M inferometer was made to measure the speed of the Earth around the Sun, which is 30,000 m/s. The actual effects of the Sun's gravitational field on the light in the M-M inferometer would be around 18 m/s as a result of the much stronger gravitational field of the Earth. The small speed of 18 m/s is not detectable with the M-M inferometer).

If your distance to a mass remains constant, and your orbit around the mass matches the mass's rotation, then you are stationairy in the mass's gravitational field.

So if I'm in orbit around the Earth, and my distance to the Earth remains constant, and my orbit is synchronized, then I am not moving in the Earth's gravitational field. If my distance to the Earth changes, or my orbit is no longer synchronized, then I am moving through the Earth's gravitational field.

Tom

 

Canute,

You're correct. When c changes, it would cause reactions to slow down making it seem like time is slowing down. But, as you pointed out, the speed of time would always remain constant, it's the speed of reactions that would change.

Tom

 

That might have been true of the original experiment but the Michelson-Morley experiment has been repeated many times with more and more accurate equipment. Even as long ago as the sixties, the experiment had been done with lasers deep in a salt mine (to reduce vibration), confirming the null result to (vague memory here) 10^-50 accuracy. That's far more accurate than would be needed to reflect any influence of the sun's gravitational field.

 

HallsofIvy,

Yes, the Michelson-Morley experiment has become more accurate over the years, but it still is attempting to measure the speed of the Earth around the Sun (which is 30,000 m/s). Even if scientists detected a speed of 18 m/s, or even less in a deep salt mine, they would consider it an anomaly (remember, they're looking for a speed of 30,000 m/s, not a speed of less than 18 m/s).

I think I remember of an experiment that was performed to measure the speed of the Earth through aether (it wasn't the M-M inforemeter, it was another kind of inferometer), and a small speed was detected. But since it was much smaller then 30,000 m/s, it was dismissed.

Tom

 

Re-read Hall-of-Ivy's post. It said the the null result was confirmed to within 10^-50 accuracy. That means no deviation was found greater than that. 18 m/s falls much higher than. If they were ignoring a variation that large, they would not give the accuracy value as stated.

Also, your 18m/s value is too small by a factor of about 13, according to your own theory.
The sun rotates with a period of 25.5 days. This means the Earth's motion with respect to its field (by your theory), would be 394925 m/s . With the relative Earth/Sun gravity ratio this works out to 239 m/s

Third, your hypothesis is just basically the "Aether dragging" hypothesis revisited. That hypothesis was discarded because it was conflict with the observation of stellar aberration. Yours suffers from the same flaw.

 

Janus58,

"Michelson-Morley Experiments Revisited: Systematic Errors, Consistency Among Different Experiments, and Compatibility with Absolute Space

Héctor A. Múnera
Centro Internacional de Física
A.A. 251955, Bogotá D.C., Colombia"

Excerpt:

"Despite the null interpretation of their experiment by Michelson and Morley, it is quantitatively shown that the outcomes of the original experiment, and all subsequent repetitions, never were null. Additionally, due to an incorrect inter-session averaging, the non-null results are even larger than reported. Contrary to the received view, Illingworth's and other repetitions of the experiment were consistent with Miller's positive results. On the theoretical side, a new systematic error is uncovered: the angle between the projection of earth's velocity on the plane of the interferometer and the reference arm of the apparatus has been practically ignored. This phase angle produces a noticeable change in the position of the peaks from one turn to the next of
the interferometer."

Here's the PDF if your interested:

http://nov55.com/mmor.pdf

Tom

 

James,

It was published in a journal called Apeiron. Apeiron has a downloadable archive at this link:

http://redshift.vif.com/journal_archives.htm

Tom