Re: Syncronized atomic clocks

From: The Ghost In The Machine (ewill_at_aurigae.athghost7038suus.net)
Date: 06/10/04 

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 08:00:31 GMT

In sci.physics, Sam Wormley
<swormley1@mchsi.com>
 wrote
on Wed, 09 Jun 2004 17:37:39 GMT
<40C74AD3.35BA686A@mchsi.com>:
> The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
>>
>> It is also worth considering that, if there is a difference in
>> the speed of light in vacuo because of things moving...
>
> Whoa Ghost--The speed of light is constant!
> http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/SpeedofLight.html

That's the theory, yes...I agree with it in general but
would be curious as to how one can verify that c in deep
space is the same as c on the Earth. (Presumably one can
locate a binary star on the edge of a dust cloud, perhaps.)

The Pioneer anomaly is interesting but doesn't substantially
disprove the theory (AFAIK) that c is constant; it merely
requires some adjustment factor. "Dark matter" and "dark energy"
sounds a bit suspicious to me, though -- although "dark matter"
could be construed to be merely dust in the way. I don't know
at this point -- and "I don't know" is a valid, if somewhat
useless from an engineering standpoint, scientific response.

As for c changing because of something moving -- satellites move
at about 8 km/s. This is about 3 * 10^-5 c, resulting in a
gamma of about 1 - 4.5 * 10^-10 c, which shouldn't be that
hard to detect. (Indeed, the GPS satellites had to be designed
with an anomaly of about 4.46 * 10^-12 built in.)

And of course the discussions relating to planes, trains, and
automobiles involve speeds of around 10^-7 c (30 m/s), which,
if one's lucky, might involve anomalies about the width of
an atomic nucleus -- more philosophical than useful, but I
for one would think still detectable, with some work.

>
> Motion does NOT change the speed of light!
> http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/DopplerEffect.html
> http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/SpecialRelativity.html

It had better not, or we're in deep ***. :-) (Along with the muons.)

>
> You have been participating in news:sci.physics to have picked
> up on these facts.

I probably should have used the subjunctive. As it is, one can
still hypothesize -- the whole idea of a constant c might have
been started because the hypothesis driving the construction of
MMX turned out to be false, leading to many physicists scurrying
to formulate new variants regarding light. Einstein et al,
of course, happened to be closest to right -- and barring some
extraordinary observation that can't be ignored, is considered
the current theory. As for things being squished in the direction
of motion -- not much I can do about it. :-) 

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