The speed of light: simple resolution of an age-old controversy

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

An article about the amazing paradox of modern physics: for more than a hundred years, the confrontation between supporters and opponents of the thesis about the constancy of the speed of light has been going on. In the heat of the dispute, the parties missed one "trifle".

The history of this controversy is interesting in many respects. Albert Einstein, who substantiated the postulate of the constancy of the speed of light, and Walter Ritz, who refutes this postulate in his "ballistic" theory, studied together at the Zurich Polytechnic. To summarize the essence of the issue, Einstein argued that the speed of light does not depend on the speed of movement of its source, and Ritz - that these speeds are summed up, which means that the speed of light in a vacuum can change. Einstein's point of view, it would seem, finally triumphed, but gradually accumulated data from space observations and space radar, which the main postulate of the SRT decisively refuted, and the camp of the supporters of Walter Ritz's point of view is gaining momentum.

If there is very convincing evidence from two opposing sides, then the suspicion arises that there is some methodological error. I became interested in this paradoxical situation and noticed one simple pattern. But before getting to the heart of the matter, let's define two simple concepts. First, we can observe light directly from a SOURCE of radiation, for example, when we look at the incandescent spiral of a light bulb. Second: we can see the luminous flux, which has changed its direction on the way from the source to the receiver. The phenomena of reflection, refraction, scattering are known; common in these phenomena - photons meet with a certain obstacle and change their direction. Let us conditionally unite these obstacles by the general concept - REFLECTOR.

There is a fundamental difference between a direct SOURCE of radiation and a REFLECTOR. The first creates two symmetric and opposite phases of the wave, and the second asymmetrically affects the already existing wave.

So, ABSOLUTELY ALL experimental data proving the constancy of the speed of light are based on the movement of the SOURCES of radiation directly. ABSOLUTELY ALL observational data proving the inconstancy of the speed of light are based on the movement of REFLECTORS.

This means that if the SOURCE itself moves, then the speed of its radiation does not depend on the movement of the latter and in vacuum always corresponds to a constant, but if the REFLECTOR moves, its speed is added to the speed of the reflected wave.

Some analogy to this situation can be seen in the following example. A tennis player training with a tennis cannon, bouncing the ball, can either stop it or, on the contrary, increase its speed even more. At the same time, the feed rate of the gun remains unchanged.

In order not to be unfounded, I will briefly cite the arguments of both warring parties. If we consider them all in detail, then the article would turn out to be too lengthy, but this is not necessary. This problem is very broadly and versatile presented on the website of Sergei Semikov "RITZ'S BALLISTIC THEORY (APC)"

The materials presented below are taken from this site.

EXPERIMENTAL DATA OF STO SUPPORTERS

Majorana's experiment consisted in measuring the shift of interference fringes in a Michelson interferometer with nonequilibrium arms when replacing a stationary light source with a moving one - the SOURCE of radiation moved directly, while the REFLECTORS were stationary.

In Bonch-Bruevich's experiment, the light sources were the opposite edges of the solar disk, the difference in speed of which, due to the rotation of the Sun, is about 3.5 km / sec. The difference between the measured times took both positive and negative values and was several times higher than the value indicated above, which was due to fluctuations in the atmosphere, shaking of mirrors, etc. Statistical processing of 1727 measurements gave an average difference (1, 4 ± 3, 5) · 10–12 sec, which, within the experimental error, confirms the independence of the speed of light from the speed of the source. Light in the upper layers of the Sun is scattered by charged particles of high energies, the speed of which is not comparable to the speed of rotation of the star - this experiment simply "drowned" in the statistical error.

The experiment of Babcock and Bergman - both the reflectors and the source remained stationary, and the thin glass windows had practically no effect on the light wave.

Nielson's experiment - measuring the flight time of γ-quanta emitted by excited mobile and stationary nuclei - moved directly SOURCE of healing.

Sade's experiment - the production of γ-quanta by annihilation of a positron with an electron on the fly - was moved directly by the SOURCE of radiation.

The experiment of Leway and Weil - electrons emitting bremsstrahlung had a speed comparable to the speed of light - the SOURCE of radiation moved directly.

OBSERVATION DATA OF STO Opponents

First of all, I would like to note that observing space objects, we are practically deprived of the opportunity to see light directly from SOURCES of radiation. Before reaching us, each photon went through a long process of scattering by charged particles. So, a photon, born in the bowels of our star, in order to leave its borders and fly to "freedom", it takes about a million years. That is why the above experiment of Bonch-Bruyevich can hardly be called correct.

It is known that the location method consists in emitting a probing signal and receiving it reflected from the target. Anomalies against SRT have been repeatedly recorded during space radar of Venus and laser ranging of the Moon.

Astronomers observe contrary to all theories exotic galaxies with warped edges, which in reality cannot exist.

Since light flies at different speeds, lagging from some areas and arriving earlier from others, a star or galaxy looks blurry along its flight path. A similar case - light simultaneously comes from different moments and points of the orbit, and at the same time, the "ghosts" of the galaxy are visible, as if the photograph were re-exposed.

High-resolution telescopes-interferometers reveal anomalous elongation of stars, which cannot be explained even by a large centrifugal force. Such a star, according to astronomers' calculations, is unstable and should immediately burst.

Discovered very controversial elongated orbits of exoplanets close to their star (planet HD 80606b). But an elongated ellipse is not all: for many exoplanets, the radial velocity graph does not accurately correspond to an elliptical orbit! Astronomer E. Freundlich predicted this from Ritz's theory back in 1913.

For planets such as WASP-18b, WASP-33b, HAT-P-23b, HAT-P-33b, HAT-P-36b, which are so close to their stars that their orbits should be perfectly round, they turned out to be elongated towards the Earth … Astronomers have recognized that the Doppler velocity plots used to calculate the orbits are distorted by some effect, such as tidal. A century ago, these and other distortions were predicted in Ritz's ballistic theory, taking into account the effect of the speed of stars on the speed of light.

As you can see, some move only SOURCES, while others - only REFLECTORS. But Ritz's supporters could finally prove their, albeit incomplete, rightness by conducting a simple experiment in which a rotating mirror curved in the form of a logarithmic spiral could be used as a moving reflector.

One of the important obstacles preventing the scientific community from recognizing the "ballistic" theory, in my opinion, is the anomalous refractive index of photons refuting SRT, which, as you know, is directly related to the speed of light in an optically dense medium, in this case in glass. In an ordinary telescope, we will be able to see light, the speed of which is only slightly different from a constant, and the rest of the rays simply will not fall into the field of view. For faster or slower, therefore, you need special telescopes - "for the farsighted" and "for the nearsighted."

The Italian scientist Ruggiero Santilli did not show "myopia" in scientific research and made a telescope with concave lenses, in which, according to the laws of optics, it is impossible in principle to see something definite. And yet he was able to detect strange moving objects, invisible through ordinary Galileo telescopes with convex lenses.

Most curiously, the images taken by Santilli have similarities with some photographs of galaxies taken through a conventional telescope. These pictures contain "ghosts", that is, overlapping images of the same object at different points. Due to the differences in the speed of light, we can observe the same object at the same time in different positions. The image obtained by Ruggiero Santilli also resembles a chain of such "ghosts".

It is even easy to calculate the speed of these mysterious objects from the angle of refraction of anomalous light. In radio astronomy, unfortunately, it will be more difficult to separate the superluminal signals. On the whole, there is hope that even a new direction in observational astronomy will appear in the foreseeable future.

But what about the service station? Hand over to junk? No, but theorists must understand that the field of application of this theory is much narrower than they imagined - many aspects will have to be revised and much to be abandoned. Although in the foreseeable future?