At Rest with our Hubble view

Indeed.
My point has been made and backed up; "variable speeds of light" don't exist, and they would not produce what we see in nature. See my last post and the reference therein, which, unsurprisingly, you have once again not addressed.

After all is said and done, nature is always the final arbitrator; petty you crackpots don't seem to understand this. And this is precisely what you are, and what you have always been, Farsight : a crackpot. You are pushing just another personal aether "theory" ( it doesn't even deserve that name, really ), which is easily shown to bear no relation to physical reality, and which gives incorrect results in the case of light, and is devoid of any predictive power whatsoever in the case of massive particles. Your persistent refusal to acknowledge that fact does not alter it in the least. Along the way you employ the age-old tactics of obfuscation and dishonesty, to cover your own tracks and detract from the fact that you have been exposed as who you really are. The grandfather clock issue is a good example - you can fool yourself into believing that somehow you have "embarrassed" me or whatever you wish to call it, but the vast majority of readers will not be fooled that easily, because they understand that the argument was about the clock mechanism and its tick rate, and not about how that mechanism is powered. Replace the gravity driven pendulum by an electric motor to ensure all other factors are the same, and the clock mechanism will be gravitationally dilated just the same as any other type of clock. Which has nothing to do with variable light speeds. But fine points like this are lost on people like you; you prefer to intentionally distort the debate, as you have repeatedly demonstrated.

Yes. A lot of things have been laid bare on this thread, Farsight. Especially so with 8,989 visitors who read all the stuff you have written here. I dare say you have managed to further cement your already notorious reputation...

I am sure you would like that, but no. I'll be sticking around on this forum a little while longer. I just choose not to run in circles with you, but trust me, I'll be there every time you try to sell your nonsense as physical fact.
I am not done with you yet.
Not by a long shot.

Yes, I second that. Truest thing you have said on this thread

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And with that I'll leave you to your aether...

 

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Ha ha, good one Farsight. Sums up this thread pretty well

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Again you demonstrate your ignorance, Markus. Einstein's 1920 Leyden Address is entitled Ether and the Theory of Relativity. This is the final paragraph:

"Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. According to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense. But this ether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable media, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it."

It's quoted in the Wikipedia article on Aether Theories where you can read this:

Robert B. Laughlin, Nobel Laureate in Physics, endowed chair in physics, Stanford University, had this to say about ether in contemporary theoretical physics: "It is ironic that Einstein's most creative work, the general theory of relativity, should boil down to conceptualizing space as a medium when his original premise [in special relativity] was that no such medium existed [..] The word 'ether' has extremely negative connotations in theoretical physics because of its past association with opposition to relativity. This is unfortunate because, stripped of these connotations, it rather nicely captures the way most physicists actually think about the vacuum. . . . Relativity actually says nothing about the existence or nonexistence of matter pervading the universe, only that any such matter must have relativistic symmetry. [..] It turns out that such matter exists. About the time relativity was becoming accepted, studies of radioactivity began showing that the empty vacuum of space had spectroscopic structure similar to that of ordinary quantum solids and fluids. Subsequent studies with large particle accelerators have now led us to understand that space is more like a piece of window glass than ideal Newtonian emptiness. It is filled with 'stuff' that is normally transparent but can be made visible by hitting it sufficiently hard to knock out a part. The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo."

In addition you can find many papers on arXiv which refer to aether:

Supergauge theories in aether superspace
Four-dimensional aether-like Lorentz-breaking QED revisited and problem of ambiguities
From aether theory to Special Relativity
Generation of magnetic fields in Einstein-Aether gravity
Static Spherically Symmetric Solution of the Einstein-aether Theory
Stability of Einstein-Aether Cosmological Models
Towards thermodynamics of universal horizons in Einstein-æther theory
On the constraint equations in Einstein-aether theories and the weak gravitational field limit

..and so on. Also search on ether.

Edit: and take a look at this blog by Tom Whyntie talking about LHC physics. Note this:

"Perhaps the LHC has been a victim of its own media success, but if you’ve heard Frank Close or John Ellis talk about the Higgs field as a kind of “relativistic aether”, you’d know that it’s anything but “boring” when you stop and really try to think about it".

Frank Close and John Ellis aren't crackpots. Frank Close is Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford. John Ellis is Clerk Maxwell Professor of Theoretical Physics at King's College London.

Will we see an admission of error from you concerning aether? Like the one we saw about the grandfather clock? No. And so we can judge your integrity, and find it wanting.

 

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... or you could just put him on your ignore, crank, list. Makes sense if intellectual dishonesty and convoluted bullshit piss you off. Does me.

 

Well, we are done here for now. My main goal in entering into discussions with him was always to show his true intentions, for the benefit of the casual reader; on here he has now and finally been exposed as the "aether" crank he really is, which is all I ever wanted. I care nothing about his personal ideas and theories, and neither will I bother with "aether" discussions; in the future all that needs to be done is provide a link to this thread, and readers can form their own opinions. In that sense this thread was very successful indeed.

 

In other words, spacetime is endowed with certain properties in GR, as any physicist already knows and will readily tell you, and Einstein and some other authors felt like calling that "ether".

I can understand that this might appeal to you since it gives you something to grasp and talk about, without having to invest the time and effort developing mathematical literacy. For the rest of us, general relativity already has a much more detailed definition that we can take and play around with, and calling things "ether" doesn't add anything useful.

You should be wary of giving undue attention to wording and labels. Giving names to things you don't understand doesn't mean you understand them better. It's a placebo.

 

Some came with a personal agenda, but there was another less vindictive and disparaging agenda. The Hubble view offers us evidence of a "background" containing a coordinated set observables, the redshift and the cosmic microwave background.

I started by asking:

To me the "agenda" was a civil and open discussion of GR and alternative cosmology, and I proceeded to address important historic developments that have occurred since GR was theorized. Any reader who comes along now will see the disparagement and personal attitude of the supposedly educated and professional level members, as well as the opinion that the history of developments since GR was first introduced have lead to a wider cosmological consensus, Big Bang Theory, consisting of not only General Relativity, but also including Inflationary Theory, the cosmological principle, the CMBR, and the raw redshift data confirming expansion, not to mention the indications of accelerating expansion.

It is up to those who survey the evidence to pass judgement on who is open to discussion and who is interested in attacking those who dare to discuss alternatives.

There is either curved spacetime to account for the observed effects, or there is some physical mechanism to effect action at a distance. If you close the door to any answer other than Big Bang Theory, you are ignorant of the nature of science and the way the scientific method and tentativeness must be held up together to maintain the health of the scientific community.

 

Even if he did, it would not be near the demonstration of ignorance as you give every time you lie about answering all questions. You have yet to answer how your theory produces the perihelion shift of Mercury or the rotation curves of galaxies, among other technical claims that you have made about specific physical phenomena.

You seem even too scared to answer the question of how waggling your fingers demonstrates motion.

You have demonstrated your ignorance of physics and that you will lie in order to continue to peddle your post-modern textual revision of Einstein.

 

BBT is consistent with the observations and the developments since 1915. But there is a "but" ... Does energy density curve spacetime or does energy density slow the functioning of particles and light?

My understanding is that any particular volume of space will have its individual curvature. Unlike classical equations, the EFEs focus on energy density of space which can contain energy density in the form of both matter and energy occupying space.

A description of the nature of that "energy density" of space, i.e. the energy contained in matter and surrounding matter in any particular volume of space, is what this question is about. Is "energy density" a reference to the characteristics of space as defined by Maxwell? Does permittivity and permeability of space, equate to the energy density of the "medium" of space?

 

I agree. There are in fact a number of very interesting proposals to extend ( and, to some extent, replace ) General Relativity while still being in accordance with experiment and observation. Farsight's aether, however, is not one of them.

 

I think it was in this thread that someone asked about why light is slower in glass, water, etc. Here is an answer.

[video=youtube;CiHN0ZWE5bk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiHN0ZWE5bk[/video]

 

That's the first time I've heard that specific QM description of the photon passing through a medium. The one where the photon becomes a different particle with some invariant mass. The classical explanation works fine for solving problems related to the path of light through a medium. It's a classical description which knows nothing about quantum phenomena. They've done experiments where they send the laser beam through a BEC and stopped the light. If I remember correctly this phenomena is visible to the human eye.

This is a article on it.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/15-11/st_alphageek

This is a thesis by Zachary Dutton, on this science, whose thesis advisor is Professor Lene Vestergaard Hau.
http://www.physics.harvard.edu/Thesespdfs/dutton.pdf

If you search the archive with the Professors name you get some papers on the subject of the laser and BEC experiments.

Thanks for the video discussion.

 

What proposals? What would make such a proposal preferable to GR if it makes the same predictions as GR? The only thing I can think of is the folks making the proposals think it's easier to use.

 

Thanks Cheezle. I wish you had posted this in my Alternative Theories thread, but you refuse to go there. Nevertheless, at 11:38 to 13:13 in the video he says the interference patterns seem to show that the photons are going through both slits, and answers how that could be. He said that you can think of it as if the photon is taking all possible paths from point A to point B. He confirms that if the photon follows every possible path then light does take an infinite number of paths. He concludes that that is the way the universe works.

As far a he went he got it right in my opinion, and that is also the quantum answer. However, he didn't describe the nature of a photon or say how it can seem to follow all possible paths. My answer belongs in the Alternative Theories sub-forum, and as I privately requested earlier, and I again request that the thread be moved to Alternative Theories.

One alternative description of a photon that is consistent with "the way he says the universe is", is that the photon is a particle, and the presence of all particles is maintained by inflowing and out flowing wave energy. Since the photon particle is unique in that it travels at the speed of light in any given medium, it gets all of its inflowing wave energy from the direction of motion, while the out flowing wave energy constantly expands spherically out from the photon particle equally in all directions.

That spherical outflow does take every possible direction, but that is not why there is an interference pattern in the two slit experiment. The emanation of wave energy is always "behind" the path of the photon particle, so unless there is some other cause of interference, the photon particle would still only go through one slit in a straight path.

But there is another source of interference and that is the particles that make up the material in which the slits are cut. They too have outflowing wave energy and the photon particle encounters that out flowing wave energy before it reaches the slit. It receives inflowing wave energy from the outflow of the material around the slit just before it gets to the slit, and the direction of the photon is altered.

The direction that the photon particle moves is determined by the highest net directional wave energy inflow, and since the inflow is all from the direction of motion, the tiny angular difference in the out flow from the material surrounding the slit alters the direction of the photon in a random way, causing the photon particle to take one of any number of the available paths. Thus the single photon beam can result in individual photons going through either slit, and causing the light that passes through the slits to display the pinhole effect as described by Huygens. That pinhole effect causes the light to emerge from the slit and emanate spherically on the other side, thus allowing the interference pattern to show up.

 

This is precisely why your posts belong in Alternative Theories: no scientific basis whatsoever, you simply make up "stuff".

 

Did you mess up and suggest Alternative Theories, or did you mean the cesspool? Anyway, perhaps if you report my post then if a moderator happens to pay a visit we can get the thread moved to where it belongs.

 

Either is appropriate for your "theories"

 

It is correct to put theories in quotes, because I am clear that my so called model is not theory, it is various hypotheses. But I would prefer Alternative Theories as the final destination of this particular thread.

 

No pryzk. Look carefully: "Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether". My little disagreement with Markus was that space is not the same as spacetime. As per the Baez article, it's important not to confuse the two. Unfortunately a lot of people do. Yourself included.

I don't use the word myself. I prefer to just call it space.

I am. Talking of labels, the moot point is that Einstein used the word "aether", and others including Frank Close and John Ellis. It is not something one should use to try to label somebody as a crackpot just because you've lost the argument. Now, might I suggest we get on with quantum-wave's discussion?

 

Yes, hopefully we've covered that adequately. IMHO the best analogy is the raisins-in-the-cake. The expanding balloon suggests a "higher dimensionality" that isn't actually supported.

I'd say relativistic motion can be quantified relative to the universe as a whole, and that we have no basis for asserting that the universe is infinite. So if we say the universe is finite, we could then propose that it has a centre, and that the motion of galaxies could be represented as relative to it.

It's a pity that differences of opinion lead to animosity.

Agreed.

Can I reiterate that from my understanding of general relativity, IMHO the "wider cosmological consensus" is largely correct. The universe has to expand because of the nature of space. For example I think inflation did occur, but not quite the way it's usually described.

The latter. It's quite clear that this is the case because optical clocks go slower when they're lower. Only when you plot measured clock rates as a "metric" do you derive curved spacetime. Remember that spacetime is an "all times" static mathematical model. There is no motion in spacetime or through spacetime.

With respect, I'm afraid that's wrong. When talking of gravity we say spacetime is curved, not space is curved. Again see the Baez article:

"Similarly, in general relativity gravity is not really a `force', but just a manifestation of the curvature of spacetime. Note: not the curvature of space, but of spacetime. The distinction is crucial".

Agreed. And they include pressure and shear stress.

Yes. In his treatise he described an electromagnetic field in terms of a stressed medium.

I'd say relate rather than equate. You can find examples of the same general idea elsewhere. See for example http://arxiv.org/abs/0912.2678. That's New Physics at Low Accelerations (MOND): an Alternative to Dark Matter by Mordehai Milgrom. I don't think he's got it quite right, but I do think he's barking up the right tree, because Einstein talked about matter-energy "conditioning" the surrounding space. Look at page 5 and pay attention to this: "We see that the modification of GR entailed by MOND does not enter here by modifying the ‘elasticity’ of spacetime (except perhaps its strength), as is done in f (R) theories and the like." Sadly the word spacetime is used rather than space, but such is life.