Re: The Emission Theory of Androcles

"Jonah Thomas" <jethomas5@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:20090912204327.00ade286.jethomas5@xxxxxxxxxxxx
"Inertial" <relatively@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Jonah Thomas" <jethomas5@xxxxxxxxx> wrote

> Well, if wavelength is the distance between wave fronts, then in
> emission theories it is absolute and frame independent. It doesn't
> matter what frame you look at it from, you get concentric circles
> with even spacing. Your frame decides how fast the center of that
> circle is moving.

It depends on whether light is moving intrinsic oscillators, in which
case wavelength varies (Dopler) for each observer, and frequency
remains the same. Or if light is a wave, in which case frequency
varies (Dopler) for each observer, and the wavelength remains the
same.

With emission theory wavelength remains the same.

If light is a wave .. yes. If it is a moving intrinsic oscillator (as Henry claims) then no. Henry is not consistent between what his theory says about frequency and wavelength and what a photon is. Its probably best to just ignore his ideas of the nature of a photon and just look at a ballistic theory whose waves always leave the source at c wrt the source. In that case, wavelength is the same

Say the source is traveling at speed v in direction V.

Yeup

Emit light in direction D at speed c at time 0 and location (0,0,0)

Yeup

Then at time t, the light will be at t*(vV+cD)

OK .. so the overall velocity of the light, in the observers frame of reference, is the vector sum of the velocity of light relative to the source (cD) and the velocity of the source (vV)

Imagine a spherical wavecrest leaving the source at time 0 and location
(0,0,0).

Yeup

At time t that wavecrest will be in a circle with center tvV and radius
ct.

Yeup

And without relativity, other inertial observers will also find the
circle to have radius ct. They will only disagree about whare the center
is.

They'll all say it is centered on the source.

The same will be true for any other wavecrests, they will all have the
same center, tvV in the frame that says the velocity is vV. They will be
concentric and if they are created at regular intervals the distance
between wavecrests will be the same for everybody.

Yeup

Am I wrong?

Nope .. that's just fine (assuming ballistic theory and Galilean transforms and Newtonian physics etc). All observers would see concentric spherical wave-crests, centered at the source moving outward from the source at speed c. So the whole arrangement of expanding concentric spherical wave-front 'shells' moves with the source.


.

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