Re: Faster Than 'c' Communication.

From: The Ghost In The Machine (ewill_at_sirius.athghost7038suus.net)
Date: 01/09/05 

Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2005 00:00:08 GMT

In sci.physics.relativity, H@..(Henri Wilson)
<H@>
 wrote
on Sat, 08 Jan 2005 20:56:00 GMT
<5nh0u0pfi2cs6j0pb58apucu4ut93li39a@4ax.com>:
> On Sat, 08 Jan 2005 17:01:39 GMT, The Ghost In The Machine
> <ewill@sirius.athghost7038suus.net> wrote:
>
>>In sci.physics.relativity, H@..(Henri Wilson)
>><H@>
>> wrote
>>on Sat, 08 Jan 2005 08:42:54 GMT
>><ci6vt0hknau74bqa2m153t5upbi61v6u6f@4ax.com>:
>>> On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 04:01:36 GMT, The Ghost In The Machine
>>> <ewill@sirius.athghost7038suus.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>In sci.physics.relativity, H@..(Henri Wilson)
>>>><H@>
>>>> wrote
>>>>on Thu, 06 Jan 2005 20:35:09 GMT
>>>
>>>>>>Lying again, Henri?
>>>>>
>>>>> Paul, if I hit a golf ball at 100mph and it splits in half
>>>>> in mid air, what is the initial speed of the two halves?
>>>>
>>>>100 mph = 1.49 * 10^-7 c. Any relativistic effects from
>>>>the splitting of the ball are on the order of
>>>>1/2 (v^2/c^2) = 1.11*10^-14. If the ball is 4 cm (0.04m)
>>>>in diameter, that's far less than the diameter of
>>>>an atomic nucleus.
>>>
>>> Ghost why do you always introduce irrelevancies?
>>>
>>> If a pion moving at .98c splits in half, each half flies off at about .98c
>>>
>>> Why shouldn't it?
>>
>>Because the halves are photons, for starters.
>
> Even THAT is not certain. What is the difference between
> a gamma 'particle' and a cycle of microwave?

Frequency. Microwaves are in the 10^9 Hz range;
gammas are in the 10^20 Hz range.

>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>You also forgot to specify the energy of the explosion.
>>>>For a photon pair, that's not all that important (the energy
>>>>will manifest as frequency). For a golf ball, zero
>>>>energy will mean both halves will stay very close together
>>>>(neglecting such things as wind resistance); a large energy
>>>>means they will fly apart at high speed.
>>>
>>> The released energy when a pion decays has to be a VERY LARGE
>>> if it is to have much effect on the speed of the gammas,
>>> which is near c already. How much energy is neede to acelerate
>>> a gama particle frm .98c to .999998c.
>>
>>Sorry, that computation makes no sense as all gamma particles
>>travel at lightspeed. Did you mean pi_0 meson?
>
> No Ghost, I meant THE GAMMA.
> What makes you think it has to travel a c when it
> is created in this way?

Mostly because it is electromagnetic energy; in SR all EM energy
propagates at c.

>
> You are assuming the answer that the experiment is supposed
> to be providing. What's the good of that?

Experiments either confirm or disprove theoretical results.
I fail to understand your objection here.

>
>>
>>>
>>> One helluva lot... i'm sure the experiment couldn't measure the gamma
>>> velocities to anywhere near that accuracy.
>>
>>It doesn't have to. The original experiment, if I'm not mistaken,
>>accelerated pi_0 mesons to 0.2 c; it would merely have to
>>measure within 0.1 c to confirm or deny emission theory
>>and/or SR theory. Of course the more accuracy, the better.
>
> I thought the pions were moving at near c...about 0.98c in fact.

There might have been a variant with such; I'd have to look.
Given that, the gamma rays in emission theory would therefore
be moving at 1.98 c, and in SR would be moving at 1.00 c with
a frequency shift.

I for one can compute the following.

Emissive: We assume velocities add in the standard manner.
             If E_0 = 1/2 m_0 c^2, then E_v = 1/2 m_0 (1.98 c)^2
             = 3.92 E_0.

SR: E_v = E_0 * gamma. Gamma in this case = 1/sqrt(1 - 0.98^2)
    = 5.025 E_0.

Shouldn't be too hard to tell the difference.

If one uses 0.2 c, E_vE = 1.44 E_0 and E_vR = 1.02.

If one uses 0.001 c, E_vE = 1.002 E_0 and E_vR = 1.0000005 E_0.

If one uses 300 m/s = 10^-6 c, E_vE = 1.000002 E_0
and E_vR = 1.0000000000005 E_0.

If one uses 30 m/s = 10^-6 c, E_vE = 1.0000002 E_0
and E_vR = 1.000000000000005 E_0.

Note that the edge of a 5" platter of a disk drive rotating at
10,000 RPM is moving at 66.5 m/s, so this velocity is
relatively easy to achieve on a lab bench.

So here's an experiment that looks doable. Fire a tunable
dye laser at a rotating mirror arrangement, and let the
reflected ray impinge on a sensitized surface. A control
area of the same material would also be hit by a ray
that comes from a static mirror and perhaps an attenuator.
The surface would be in a vacuum and liberate electrons if
the photons have a certain energy, as predicted by QM (and
also discovered by Einstein, if memory serves).

Independent circuits would measure the current flow; if any
electrons are liberated at all from the surface, they
migrate to a collector maintained at a certain positive
voltage, much like a vacuum tube. If there is any current
flow at all, that means electrons are being liberated
by the light beam. The collector can also be negatively
charged, which means electrons must have a certain energy
to reach the collector. A photon knocking into an electron
must expend a certain amount of energy to liberate the
electron from the binding energy of its shell; the rest of
the energy will go into moving the electron.

If we assume the mirrors can move at 120 m/s = 4 * 10^-6 c,
E_vE = 1.0000008 E_0 and E_vR = 1.000000000008 E_0.
Or, E_vE - E_0 = 8 * 10^-7 E_0 and E_vR = 8 * 10^-12 E_0.

I'd be surprised if someone hasn't already tried this.

(Eric Gisse's experiment was vaguely similar.)

>
>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>As for believing the experiment, you are welcome to repeat it.
>>>>That is, after all, the nature of experiments, to be able to,
>>>>with sufficient funding, energy, and time, take the measurements
>>>>oneself and compare them with the publication's data.
>>>>
>>>>Of course disputing them here sans such experimentation yields
>>>>little more than useless, as Isaac Asimov put it, comet gas.
>>>>
>>>>The same of course applies to my piffle; make of it what
>>>>you will. Since I lack funds, time, and energy -- in the
>>>>sense of elan or willingness -- to do the experiment, I
>>>>take the results of peer-reviewed scientists as a reasonable
>>>>approximation of truth.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>I'm assuming the peers caught the more obvious errors (if any).
>>>
>>> Peer-reviewing is just part of the inbreeding malaise that is
>>> afflicting the whole of physics
>>
>>Ah yes. Of course, without peer review one would have to
>>of course accept results such as the following.
>>
>>[1] A liquid piston engine that can get over 500 mpg
>> at 60 mph in a contemporary automobile. (If you
>> like I can reprise the calculations showing precisely
>> why this is ridiculous.)
>>[2] FTL travel, FTL cable communications, FTL just about anything.
>>[3] Doughnut-shaped oxygen molecules. (This is an S. Enterprize
>> special. Caveat emptor.)
>>[4] The possibility of engineering a stripoff of Venus's atmosphere.
>>[5] Dowsing.
>>[6] Homeopathy. (Drink lots of water before attempting this one.
>> See [5] if you need to find some.)
>>[7] Scientology.
>>[8] ESP, otherwise known as "how does a 10W omnidirection
>> random noise generator get its signals reliably picked
>> up by another 10W omnidirectional random noise generator?".
>>[9] Space elevators.
>>[10] Chemical-hydrogen-powered economics.
>
> Please don't accuse me of anything like these ghost.

I'm not accusing you specifically, merely pointing out that
peer review can reject the ridiculous. These are, of course,
ridiculous.

Most of the peers, of course, accept SR, although perhaps
grudgingly in some cases. A lot of criticism was written
shortly after Einstein's theory that cannot be considered
crankish -- however, more results came in later,
substantiating SR and GR.

It's still a field of active research -- witness for
example Gravity Probe B. I'm not quite as sure about
Eotvos, as the results are more esoteric; I'd have to
let Uncle Al drop pearls of wisdom into the Usenet
aether thereof, as it's his experiment.

Either way, we learn something.

>
>>
>>Not that all of these are crankish, mind you -- hydrogen power
>>in particular looks vaguely doable, but has many difficulties,
>>most of them having to do with the brittleness of materials
>>after exposure to hydrogen and the fact that the current regime,
>>namely hydrocarbon-powered economics, has higher energy density.
>
> Plus the fact that it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen that it
> releases on burning....just a small hitch.

I'd need to compute the specifics on that. My guess is that
we'd produce hydrogen using solar power; ideally we'd
build a large solar collector somewhere relatively useless,
electrolyze sea water, and pipe the hydrogen to where
it's needed, like methane. However, methane's easier
to handle.

>
>>
>>>
>>>>In any event, another experiment involves combining electrons
>>>>and positrons in such a fashion as to allow the combination
>>>>to proceed at a substantial fraction of the speed of light.
>>>>It turns out the gamma rays from the recombinations is c as well,
>>>>within experimental error (and there's a lot of error, although
>>>>not so much as to invalidate the results; all one needs is to have
>>>>error less than about half of the recombination speed).
>>>
>>> Ghost you are free to believe these things, I am free to disbelieve.
>>>
>>
>>Yes, you are. That's why physical experiment/observation
>>is so important; it introduces objective evidence
>>(if conducted properly).
>
> ..and when I am presented with direct, repeatable and irrefutable
> evidence that the second postulate is correct, I will believe it.

There is no direct, repeatable, and irrefutable evidence of
the second postulate. There is only indirect evidence -- e.g.,
the energy shift I computed earlier in this post, or the
frequency shifting of clocks in orbit. You may recall, for
example, Old Man's calculation of the NST-2 offset, given
the parameters of GPS orbits, some time back.

Even your hypothesized "moon light race" experiment would show
nothing really definite (mostly because SR says the delta time is 0).

There was one crank who insisted that he could extract more
energy from an inductor than pumped in. He built a car
prototype and ran it around a track for 10 minutes -- which
was about the time a standard battery-powered vehicle might
have lasted, given the parameters he had. He insisted the
failure was because of some sort of bearing burnout, if
memory serves.

[.sigsnip] 

-- 
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net
It's still legal to go .sigless.

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