Re: Is the speed of light really constant ?

From: Pax (pax1_at_whitesweb.com)
Date: 09/19/04 

Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 23:43:40 GMT

"Bill Hobba" <bhobba@rubbish.net.au> wrote in message
news:nLm3d.36395$D7.23823@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
> "Mich" <mich@efni.com> wrote in message
> news:10kqvt6hjnr0j70@corp.supernews.com...
> >
> > joseph levy <josephlevy1@compuserve.com> wrote in message
> > news:cii0t6$o1p$1@ngspool-d02.news.aol.com...
> > > We now know that the speed of light is not really
> > > constant.
> >
> > As a layman, my understanding is very shallow.My difficulty with the
> > invariable speed of light lies in the fact that an observer seeing a
> distant
> > light source(star), can immediately change the light's frequency of the
> > source by changing his/her frame of reference relative to it(star). I
fail
> > to see how this can change the light's frequency without claiming a
change
> > in the light's speed.
>
> That is because you do not understand the physics involved. However that
is
> easily corrected - many good books explaining it abound eg Taylor and
> Wheeler - Space-time Physics.

Why is everyone so certain that the length of a light wave times how many of
those waves passes a certain point in a given length of time is all there is
to determining the actual speed of light? All that actually determines is
the "color" of the detectable spectrum that will result. As speed increases,
the "colors" on the red end lengthen (flatten out) into undetectability as
more "colors" on the blue end, that were previously smashed into
undetectability, lengthen into our detectable range. That detectable range
is the teeter-totter of c.

In fact, what makes everyone so unrelentingly positive light HAS a "speed"?
Einstein said: nothing could travel faster than light, not: nothing can
travel faster than c. That mistatement by the majority of the scientific
community has resulted in some embarrassment as colliders push ions to all
but c without the need to use almost all the energy in the universe, as was
stated (with such pompous certainty) would be necessary prior to that
accomplishment. Hawking stated (in years prior to the collider
accomplishments) that it would take all the energy in the universe to push a
particle to c. It's now obvious, as it should have been all along, that any
SET velocity has a calcuable energy expenditure determined by the mass of
the object placed in motion.

However, no matter how fast or slow we go, there's light coming at us at c.
Examine what Einstein said and his reason for saying it, which reason was
that it would take all the energy in the universe for anything to travel as
fast as light. Why would he make such a statement? Does it really sound to
you as if he thought light HAD a set "speed"? Einstein even qualified it all
by stating we, our world/solar system/galaxy, are already traveling at an
undeterminable velocity, so everything we observe must be bounded with
respect to and qualilfied by our own unique frame of reference... and
Einstein set a lot of boundaries regarding just about everything BUT light.

What law states that our human limitations, both physically and
intellectually, are the criteria by which all the elements of the universe
must operate?

> Bill

Be well - Pax

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