Natural Science Forum / Physics / Relativity / April 2007

No need for apology, just as long as we clear up that rather large
sticking point, it being the crux of the entire debate concerning
light's velocity.
We have aetherialists like Ken Seto and G.L. O'Barr, a wide spread
of relativists who have only learned the "Lorentz Transformations"
without understanding their derivation, and a very few others who say
that light's velocity, like a bullet, is its emission velocity.

There are only three choices:
1) source dependence.
2) medium dependence.
3) observer dependence.

It only takes one counter-example to blow a hole in any theory,
and Einstein provided his own.
"But the ray moves relatively to the initial point of k, when measured in
the stationary system, with the velocity c-v" ...
Reference: http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/ section 3.
That's it, observer dependence is killed by that single statement, relativity is
dead in the water.

The aetherialists refuse to accept Sagnac or MMX, but that's sheer
obstinacy and blind faith. Neither Seto nor O'Barr will produce any
mathematical argument, they just wave their hands and say its the same
math as relativity.  You cannot reason with either of them.

So all that is left is emission theory (or source dependence).  
Where do we go from here?
 http://www.androcles01.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Algol/Algol.htm
Astronomy may be the oldest science. It also has more dogma
and blind faith than any other.

"Any suggestions for improvements in this direction would be greatly
appreciated. The writer hopes that no such a defect will be of a “fatal”
nature."

I see no reason at this stage to call you an idiot, but I do take immediate
issue with: "Because time depends on location"

I shall not comment with my own voice, but that of Newton's.

"Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature
flows equably without regard to anything external, and by another name is
called duration: relative, apparent, and common time, is some sensible and
external (whether accurate or unequable) measure of duration by the means of
motion, which is commonly used instead of true time; such as an hour, a day,
a month, a year."

"Absolute time, in astronomy, is distinguished from relative, by the
equation or correlation of the vulgar time. For the natural days are truly
unequal, though they are commonly considered as equal and used for a measure
of time; astronomers correct this inequality for their more accurate
deducing of the celestial motions. It may be, that there is no such thing as
an equable motion, whereby time may be accurately measured. All motions may
be accelerated and retarded, but the true, or equable, progress of absolute
time is liable to no change. The duration or perseverance of the existence
of things remains the same, whether the motions are swift or slow, or none
at all: and therefore, it ought to be distinguished from what are only
sensible measures thereof; and out of which we collect it, by means of the
astronomical equation. The necessity of which equation, for determining the
times of a phænomenon, is evinced as well from the experiments of the
pendulum clock, as by eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter."

You have chosen to argue against the words of one of the greatest men of
science that there ever was, perhaps *the* greatest.

This is not a comment, it is an invitation to you to substantiate your
postulate.

Please produce the empirical evidence to support your assertion
"time depends on location".
In particular, show that the duration of the period of a Saturnian Moon
is different when seen near Saturn than seen from Earth, my two chosen
locations;
for I claim that should I take a (perfect) caesium or similar atomic clock
to
Saturn (aboard the Cassini probe)  it will remain synchronised with clocks
on Earth and measure the period of Titan to be exactly the same (within the
limits of experimental error and Doppler shift which I can obviate but
running
the experiment for as many orbits of the Earth about the Sun as necessary)
and that Newton was correct, using the finest clocks we have available.
"The second is the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation
corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the
ground state of the cesium 133 atom. "

http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/second.html

Androcles, that is a misunderstanding. Please, note, that my "postulate", ot
whatever you would call it, is: Time increases at a constant rate, which is
the same in all points which are stationary in relation to each other. It
shows, however, a "phase difference" which depends on location, and
eventually, on the presence of other fields (e.g. gravitational).
In your terms, I am saying nothing else, than Newton has said, the period of
a Saturnian moon is the same, when measured on Saturn, on Earth or on the
surface of a black hole, the second would have still the same definition..
And if the TIME (not its rate of lapsing) were not dependent on location (a
"shift of phase") then Roemer would not have been able to determine the
velocity of light. That the light from Sun travels to Earth for 8 minutes
is - I believe - fairly well known fact. Therefore, in my terms, there is a
time difference of 8 minutes between the Sun time and Earth time (According
to Einstein, there woul be no such difference).On the other hand, things
would look a little bit differently, if we would observe Sun clock and Earth
clock from Alpha Centauri (however, the period of a Sat. moon would be still
the same)
Satisfied?
!