Re: Speed of Light: A universal Constant?

From: The Ghost In The Machine (ewill_at_sirius.athghost7038suus.net)
Date: 03/23/05 

Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2005 05:00:12 GMT

In sci.physics, PDraper
<pdraper@yahoo.com>
 wrote
on Tue, 22 Mar 2005 11:37:19 -0500
<BE65B3EF.3114%pdraper@yahoo.com>:
> On 3/22/05 8:21 AM, in article oZU%d.6488$rL3.5018@fe2.columbus.rr.com,
> "kenseto" <kenseto@erinet.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> "Mark Fergerson" <nunya@biz.ness> wrote in message
>> news:LaF%d.149857$FM3.86220@fed1read02...
>>> kenseto wrote:
>>>> SR says that the speed of light is a universal constant.
>>>>
>>>> Questions:
>>>> Why a clock second used to define the speed of light is
>>>> not an interval of universal time??
>>>
>>> Nobody else even uses the term "universal time".
>>
>> So what?? Everybody knows what the term universal time means.
>>
>> Ken Seto
>>
>>
>
> I don't.

I for one would think that a "universal second" is a clock
tick of 1 second duration from the natural absolute origin
of the Universe, as measured in one's own reference frame.

The catch is: there is no such natural origin. Oh, one can
create an artificial one (I hereby decree the origin to be
at Greenwich, England! So there! :-) ), but SR never needed
one, and Newton can be rewritten to function without one,
leading to a variant of ballistic/emissive light theory.

Also, AFAICT, Kenseto's error is in not recognizing that
a 1-second tick in the "absolute" reference frame
may differ in length from a 1-second tick in the
observer's. He is not the only one to err in that fashion.

Local time is the only time one can really count on. :-)
(Granted, "local" is in the eye of the beholder; the
entire globe ticks to a single second as defined by
an international tribunal of timekeepers, who, among
other things, have to contend with Boulder, Colorado,
ticking a bit fast relative to everyone else, and
the GPS SR/GR corrective factor of approximately 460 parts
per trillion. However, Martian and Venusian time won't
sync up to Terran time, if we ever get around to
placing atomic clocks there.)

>
> PD
> 

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

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