One way speed of light.

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olavisjo
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One way speed of light.

Post #1

Post by olavisjo »

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Many experiments claiming to test the one way speed of light have been performed, but on closer analysis they have been shown to measure the two way speed of light.

Is it possible to measure the one way speed of light?
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Re: One way speed of light.

Post #2

Post by A Troubled Man »

olavisjo wrote: .
Many experiments claiming to test the one way speed of light have been performed, but on closer analysis they have been shown to measure the two way speed of light.

Is it possible to measure the one way speed of light?
Done deal, null results. Next.

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Re: One way speed of light.

Post #3

Post by Bust Nak »

A Troubled Man wrote:
olavisjo wrote: .
Many experiments claiming to test the one way speed of light have been performed, but on closer analysis they have been shown to measure the two way speed of light.

Is it possible to measure the one way speed of light?
Done deal, null results. Next.
You need to clarify whether you mean according to general relativity, it is possible for measure the one way speed of light, scientists just haven't managed to confirm it yet; or simply that we may yet prove general relativity incomplete by measuring the one way speed of light?

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Re: One way speed of light.

Post #4

Post by A Troubled Man »

Bust Nak wrote:
You need to clarify whether you mean according to general relativity, it is possible for measure the one way speed of light, scientists just haven't managed to confirm it yet; or simply that we may yet prove general relativity incomplete by measuring the one way speed of light?
GR really has nothing to do with it. This is a postulate of SR, that the speed of light is invariant. The experiments showed null results in that they did not violate that postulate.

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Re: One way speed of light.

Post #5

Post by Bust Nak »

A Troubled Man wrote:
Bust Nak wrote:
You need to clarify whether you mean according to general relativity, it is possible for measure the one way speed of light, scientists just haven't managed to confirm it yet; or simply that we may yet prove general relativity incomplete by measuring the one way speed of light?
GR really has nothing to do with it. This is a postulate of SR, that the speed of light is invariant. The experiments showed null results in that they did not violate that postulate.
My mistake. I often get general and special confused.

What exactly do you think SR postulate with respect to one way speed of light, that these experiments don't violate?

It is my understanding that SR says the one way speed of light is a matter of convention, as such cannot be measured in principle.

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Re: One way speed of light.

Post #6

Post by Goat »

Bust Nak wrote:
A Troubled Man wrote:
Bust Nak wrote:
You need to clarify whether you mean according to general relativity, it is possible for measure the one way speed of light, scientists just haven't managed to confirm it yet; or simply that we may yet prove general relativity incomplete by measuring the one way speed of light?
GR really has nothing to do with it. This is a postulate of SR, that the speed of light is invariant. The experiments showed null results in that they did not violate that postulate.
My mistake. I often get general and special confused.

What exactly do you think SR postulate with respect to one way speed of light, that these experiments don't violate?

It is my understanding that SR says the one way speed of light is a matter of convention, as such cannot be measured in principle.
Well, the way that the speed of light was found to be consistent was when 1887 with the Michelson Morley experiment > it was trying to detect the 'aether'. ..
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Re: One way speed of light.

Post #7

Post by A Troubled Man »

Bust Nak wrote:
My mistake. I often get general and special confused.
No worries.
What exactly do you think SR postulate with respect to one way speed of light, that these experiments don't violate?
The postulate that the speed of light is invariant. If it is variant, the Lorentz transformations would be false.
It is my understanding that SR says the one way speed of light is a matter of convention, as such cannot be measured in principle.
It's not an easy thing to measure the speed of light on earth simply because of the requirements of the experiment, a very long distance between two points with only the vacuum of space between them.

Then, there is the problem of signalling each point as to when photons are released to travel to the other point. Sure, we have the technology to do such an experiment, but the costs would be ridiculous. Since we have a very good understanding of electromagnetic radiation already, such an expensive experiment would be drastic overkill and would serve no real purpose to validate.

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Re: One way speed of light.

Post #8

Post by A Troubled Man »

Bust Nak wrote:
My mistake. I often get general and special confused.

As an aside, SR only has two postulates, that the speed of light is invariant and the laws of physics are the same everywhere. The key to remember here is that any objects being measured MUST be from an inertial frame reference, in other words, both objects must be moving in relation to each other and cannot be accelerating in any way.

GR works from reference frames under acceleration and basically demonstrates that acceleration and gravity are indistinguishable from each other. Since that is the case, we can see that gravity is not a "pulling force" and that we are all literally in free fall and it is the earths surface that is accelerating up towards us, given that gravity and acceleration are indistinguishable.

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Re: One way speed of light.

Post #9

Post by Divine Insight »

A Troubled Man wrote: GR works from reference frames under acceleration and basically demonstrates that acceleration and gravity are indistinguishable from each other. Since that is the case, we can see that gravity is not a "pulling force" and that we are all literally in free fall and it is the earths surface that is accelerating up towards us, given that gravity and acceleration are indistinguishable.
I would agree that we are in a state of free fall.

I disagree that the Earth's surface is accelerating up toward us. That's actually an incorrect metaphor of what's actually happening. The surface of the Earth is better thought of as being fixed. It doesn't need to accelerate up toward us. We are in a state of free fall, and the Earth's surface is fixed, and thus we are actually exerting a downward push on the surface of the Earth due to our state of free fall. So in a sense, we are exerting a force on the Earth rather than the other way around.

Although, obviously the static surface of the earth is necessarily exerting an equal and opposite force against us. But this actually stems from the fact that it is indeed a static surface that is preventing our continued free fall.

So the surface of the Earth is not "accelerating up toward us". On the contrary, it's not moving at all. We're actually accelerating down toward it and this is what causes the effect of gravity.

What causes our acceleration? That's the real question. And the answer in General Relativity is that this is caused because the time field in which we reside is not homogeneous.

Time is passing by slower at our feet than it is for our heads. It is this non-uniform time field that causes our bodies to accelerate downward. The surface of the Earth would actually accelerate downward too if it could. but it can't do that because there are atoms of matter beneath it holding it up preventing it from also falling along with us. This is mostly due to the Pauli exclusion principle of the atoms that make up the bulk of the Earth as well as the electric repulsion between the electrons and protons of the atoms.

So the surface of the Earth is basically in the same predicament we're in. It's trying to accelerate to the center of the Earth too, but it is being prevented from doing this by the atoms that make up the solid ball of the Earth itself.

So the Surface of the Earth is actually in precisely the same state we're in.

Having said this, technically, because the Earth's surface resides in a non-uniform time field it is indistinguishable from an object that would be accelerating in a uniform time field. So in this sense it's in an equivalent predicament of sorts.

But still it's different.

An object that is accelerating through a uniform time field is actually moving, faster and faster.

An object like the Earth's surface is not moving at all. It's simply stilling still relative to a non-uniform time field.

In other words, the true explanation of gravity is that we exist in a non-uniform time field. It's technically incorrect to say that the Earth's surface is accelerating up toward us. That would imply that the Earth is becoming constantly larger at an accelerating rate which simply isn't true.

That's not what's happening. That's a misleading description that can be extremely confusing if a person tried to make sense of that scenario intuitively. The only way that would make sense intuitively is if the Earth was indeed rapidly expanding to become larger and larger at an accelerated pace, which isn't what's happening.

What's really happening is that time is passing by more slowly for our feet than for our heads. That may be difficult to intuit as well, but it's a far more accurate description of what's actually going on.

The funny thing is that this means that your head is actually older than your feet. By a very miniscule amount to be sure. But that's all it takes to create gravity.

Gravity is caused by a warping of time. Gravity is simply a property of a non-uniform time field. That's a more accurate way to think of it. Imagining the Earth's surface accelerating upward toward us is actually the wrong picture. Earth's surface is actually trying to accelerate downward toward the center of the Earth just like we are. But it can't do that due to the atoms holding it up, and so it remains static, thus preventing our natural state of free fall.

So it's our natural state of free fall that is causing us to stick to the surface of the Earth. Our bodies are desperately trying to get to the center of the Earth and the static surface of the Earth is merely preventing our bodies from making that free fall journey.

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Re: One way speed of light.

Post #10

Post by A Troubled Man »

Divine Insight wrote: We are in a state of free fall, and the Earth's surface is fixed, and thus we are actually exerting a downward push on the surface of the Earth due to our state of free fall. So in a sense, we are exerting a force on the Earth rather than the other way around.

Although, obviously the static surface of the earth is necessarily exerting an equal and opposite force against us. But this actually stems from the fact that it is indeed a static surface that is preventing our continued free fall.

So the surface of the Earth is not "accelerating up toward us". On the contrary, it's not moving at all. We're actually accelerating down toward it and this is what causes the effect of gravity.

What causes our acceleration? That's the real question. And the answer in General Relativity is that this is caused because the time field in which we reside is not homogeneous.

Time is passing by slower at our feet than it is for our heads. It is this non-uniform time field that causes our bodies to accelerate downward. The surface of the Earth would actually accelerate downward too if it could. but it can't do that because there are atoms of matter beneath it holding it up preventing it from also falling along with us. This is mostly due to the Pauli exclusion principle of the atoms that make up the bulk of the Earth as well as the electric repulsion between the electrons and protons of the atoms.

So the surface of the Earth is basically in the same predicament we're in. It's trying to accelerate to the center of the Earth too, but it is being prevented from doing this by the atoms that make up the solid ball of the Earth itself.

So the Surface of the Earth is actually in precisely the same state we're in.

Having said this, technically, because the Earth's surface resides in a non-uniform time field it is indistinguishable from an object that would be accelerating in a uniform time field. So in this sense it's in an equivalent predicament of sorts.

But still it's different.

An object that is accelerating through a uniform time field is actually moving, faster and faster.

An object like the Earth's surface is not moving at all. It's simply stilling still relative to a non-uniform time field.

In other words, the true explanation of gravity is that we exist in a non-uniform time field. It's technically incorrect to say that the Earth's surface is accelerating up toward us. That would imply that the Earth is becoming constantly larger at an accelerating rate which simply isn't true.

That's not what's happening. That's a misleading description that can be extremely confusing if a person tried to make sense of that scenario intuitively. The only way that would make sense intuitively is if the Earth was indeed rapidly expanding to become larger and larger at an accelerated pace, which isn't what's happening.

What's really happening is that time is passing by more slowly for our feet than for our heads. That may be difficult to intuit as well, but it's a far more accurate description of what's actually going on.

The funny thing is that this means that your head is actually older than your feet. By a very miniscule amount to be sure. But that's all it takes to create gravity.

Gravity is caused by a warping of time. Gravity is simply a property of a non-uniform time field. That's a more accurate way to think of it. Imagining the Earth's surface accelerating upward toward us is actually the wrong picture. Earth's surface is actually trying to accelerate downward toward the center of the Earth just like we are. But it can't do that due to the atoms holding it up, and so it remains static, thus preventing our natural state of free fall.

So it's our natural state of free fall that is causing us to stick to the surface of the Earth. Our bodies are desperately trying to get to the center of the Earth and the static surface of the Earth is merely preventing our bodies from making that free fall journey.
That's an interesting theory you have there, but I don't see what it has to do with GR?

Perhaps, you can show me some of your equations? Do you use any existing ones to support your theory?

Thanks in advance.

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