Bendy light?

There's a lot of things we don't observe directly. But we still know they happen.

Irrelevant and incorrect.

I should probably have said velocity. Acceleration is the change in velocity with respect to time. Hence bending is a type of acceleration. This is also enshrined in quantum field theory where all paths other than a straight line cancel out.

Quote from: LiceFarm on January 27, 2010, 03:44:20 AM

There's a lot of things we don't observe directly. But we still know they happen.

Irrelevant and incorrect.

Still relevant and still correct. Much of what you're arguing for here is unobserved directly. Stop trying to fail so hard.

I should probably have said velocity. Acceleration is the change in velocity with respect to time. Hence bending is a type of acceleration. This is also enshrined in quantum field theory where all paths other than a straight line cancel out.

I know what acceleration is, and I am aware that bendy light would need to be accelerating. I concede that there may be things in relativity that I am not aware of which prevent the velocity of a photon being altered in a vacuum. However, suppose relativity is an incomplete theory? Suppose the "straight line" idea applies in a non-inertial frame of reference in the presence of Dark Energy? Should we throw away new ideas just because they conflict with old ones?

Still relevant and still correct. Much of what you're arguing for here is unobserved directly. Stop trying to fail so hard.

You have taken my earlier post out of context. It is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, regardless of whether or not it is correct.

You have taken my earlier post out of context. It is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, regardless of whether or not it is correct.

Fraid not. You said that since fusion from the sun (an object millions of miles away) was not "observed directly" then it should be dismissed out of hand (and presumable replaced with your half baked stories about bendy light?). Even if this were true it does not mean it can be dismissed. Observations of many effects can and are made indirectly.

I'm not sure what you think you should or shouldn't observe. You can't really coherently explain yourself.

Quote from: bowler on January 27, 2010, 03:55:15 AM

I should probably have said velocity. Acceleration is the change in velocity with respect to time. Hence bending is a type of acceleration. This is also enshrined in quantum field theory where all paths other than a straight line cancel out.

I know what acceleration is, and I am aware that bendy light would need to be accelerating. I concede that there may be things in relativity that I am not aware of which prevent the velocity of a photon being altered in a vacuum. However, suppose relativity is an incomplete theory? Suppose the "straight line" idea applies in a non-inertial frame of reference in the presence of Dark Energy? Should we throw away new ideas just because they conflict with old ones?

Ok thats a fair point lets play with the idea and see where it takes us. I'm going to ignore the penultimate sentence because I have no idea what it means and if the Earth is flat then we have no evidence for Dark Energy anyhoo as cosmology is obviously entirely bunkum. We don't need to explain how the universe is expanding if its only a few thousand miles across.

Well where would the problem in relativity lie. I suspect the problem would be with Einsteins second postulate. I that is wrong its very unlikely the theory would have got past the playing around in the office stage. In fact its quite possible that there would be a problem with Maxwells equations as that is where the second postulate comes from, if the look at Maxwells wave equation carefully, in hindsight you can see the where the spark of inspiration came from. But lets assume for the purposes of this there a more subtle second order effect. How can we see if light is bending. Well the obvious choice is a LASER, coherent light in a narrow, fairly parallel beam. I'm assuming that we could use mirrors to increase the effective baseline as a ship appears to go over the horizon the same way regardless of which way I look. Ideally we would need a tube a few miles long with a LASER at each end to see if the beam drifted downwards. Agreed? In true Blue Peter fashion, heres one I made earlier (by 'I', I do of course mean the LIGO collaboration).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIGO
Infact they built two a few hundred miles apart.

Not to be outdone their European colleagues also built one, not been runnign quite as long, only since 2007. Still though the light would probably have started do drift down the tube by now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgo_interferometer

This I would imagine puts a limit on the effect of maybe a few nanometers per mile. Im jsut extrapolating from the sensitivity they need to look for gravitational waves. I'm sure theres enough detail to piece it together. Of course they could be in on the conspiracy lalalalalala [fingers in ears].

You said that since fusion from the sun (an object millions of miles away) was not "observed directly" then it should be dismissed out of hand

If you can point out where I made any such statement, that would be great.

Ok thats a fair point lets play with the idea and see where it takes us. I'm going to ignore the penultimate sentence because I have no idea what it means and if the Earth is flat then we have no evidence for Dark Energy anyhoo as cosmology is obviously entirely bunkum. We don't need to explain how the universe is expanding if its only a few thousand miles across.

In FET, Dark Energy is the force which causes the Earth to accelerate upwards.

Well where would the problem in relativity lie. I suspect the problem would be with Einsteins second postulate. I that is wrong its very unlikely the theory would have got past the playing around in the office stage. In fact its quite possible that there would be a problem with Maxwells equations as that is where the second postulate comes from, if the look at Maxwells wave equation carefully, in hindsight you can see the where the spark of inspiration came from. But lets assume for the purposes of this there a more subtle second order effect. How can we see if light is bending. Well the obvious choice is a LASER, coherent light in a narrow, fairly parallel beam. I'm assuming that we could use mirrors to increase the effective baseline as a ship appears to go over the horizon the same way regardless of which way I look. Ideally we would need a tube a few miles long with a LASER at each end to see if the beam drifted downwards. Agreed? In true Blue Peter fashion, heres one I made earlier (by 'I', I do of course mean the LIGO collaboration).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIGO
Infact they built two a few hundred miles apart.

Not to be outdone their European colleagues also built one, not been runnign quite as long, only since 2007. Still though the light would probably have started do drift down the tube by now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgo_interferometer

This I would imagine puts a limit on the effect of maybe a few nanometers per mile. Im jsut extrapolating from the sensitivity they need to look for gravitational waves. I'm sure theres enough detail to piece it together. Of course they could be in on the conspiracy lalalalalala [fingers in ears].

How do they ensure that the mirrors are perfectly parallel in such interferometers, without using the surface of the Earth or the laser itself as a guide? Furthermore, nanometres per mile are not units of curvature.

I don't know their exact calibration scheme i'm a particle guy not a gravitational guy. Though what makes sense to me is that the kept perpendicular to the ground and then parallel to each other as the ground is flat. I'm sure they have a paper somewhere on it. Either way we're talking about a systematic effect so small differences in the calibration wouldn't make any difference. The effect we're measuring here is huge compared to what they're designed to measure. They have an effective baseline of hundreds of miles. Even on a clear day you couldn't see a ship that far away. Their LASER beam would be very quickly hitting the bottom of the tube. Also the two distance can easily be converted to a curvature for taking the ratio and applying which ever trig function gives you the angle you want (tan in this case).

To be honest event a bench top LASER tube about 1 m long probably completes thousands of reflections. Giving it a baseline of a few km and there its on a coupld of cm to the bottom of the tube.

Furthermore, nanometres per mile are not units of curvature.

You are confusing nanometres with millimetres, which are derived from dimensional measurements in post-Euclidean space and therefore the curve is inherent.

Quote from: LiceFarm on January 27, 2010, 04:44:08 AM

You said that since fusion from the sun (an object millions of miles away) was not "observed directly" then it should be dismissed out of hand

If you can point out where I made any such statement, that would be great.

I can only assume you have some kind of disability that prevents you from being able to read the text at the top of a page. Sucks to be you.

We don't observe radiation from solar fusion directly according to RET, so this is irrelevant.

Since the light isn't coming directly from the fusion, how can you say it is consistent with the fusion model if you discredit my hypothesis that light reaching us indirectly is consistent with my quark-gluon plasma model?

Quote from: cwolfe on January 25, 2010, 06:47:23 PM

Honestly, have you actually taken a single physics course?  Classical newtonian mechanics does a fine job of explaining motion under normal circumstances.  Statements like that is exactly why people laugh at you guys.  Would you have fully general relativistic mechanics taught to a freshman physics class in order to explain basic kinematics?  Good luck with that.

I would rather have anybody and everybody being taught the truth than taught what literally amounts to lies. The fact that you don't see the inherent problem with students being taught content which has been thoroughly disproved demonstrates the cognitive dissonance endemic to your globularist mentality.

I know Newtonian Physics is so useless and has clearly been demonstrated false in every instance.  Its so faulty that they've only been using it in artilery range calculations for centuries and it can only help put a bullet through someone's face from a mile and a half away.

Predictive power ≠ truth.

Newtonian Physics is not wrong. Gallilean Principle of Relativity is.

True, but then nor does wild guesses and conspiracy theories. Broadly speaking predictive power is a good indicator of truth. Thats why Newtons laws have prevailed, they were ooooh so close. Also they are definitions, they can't be right or wrong, with the possible exception of the first law. He defines a quantity called force as the product of the mass and the acceleration. You can argue its not a useful definition, but it can't be wrong. Infact, over the years momentum has turned out to be the more useful quantity. The problem lay with Galilean relativity.

Also a quick note about truth. Its becoming increasingly apparent that the truth is not something we are going to understand. We have 5 senses none of which are particularly attuned to higher dimensional spaces or a probabilistic nature of reality. When we find a model that is so close to the truth that we can't tell the difference we're not going to really understand whats going on. We think of electrons as some mixture of a wave and particle. Which is it? Neither, its something that follows similar maths to a particle or a wave under certain conditions. What it actually is we certainly don't have words for.  In Physics we model, conception is difficult because we can't see or hear its like trying to describe green to a blind man, or a Beethovens 5th to a deaf man.

Quote from: cwolfe on January 25, 2010, 06:47:23 PM

Quote from: James on January 25, 2010, 04:31:29 PM

Quote from: cwolfe on January 25, 2010, 02:59:40 PM

Exactly.  Newtonian mechanics is correct under normal circumstances.  Newton wasn't wrong, he just didn't have the complete picture.

I like the cow analogy... that explains it very nicely.

No, Newtonian mechanics is literally incorrect, under any and every actual circumstance. A system which offers rough approximation rather than accurate prediction is not in correspondance with the actual facts. For a system of cosmology which is fully derived from empirical data rather than ad hoc armchair fantasy, I recommend the Ptolemic epicycle model, which bases its explanatory power wholly on pre-hypothetical observation.

Honestly, have you actually taken a single physics course?  Classical newtonian mechanics does a fine job of explaining motion under normal circumstances.  Statements like that is exactly why people laugh at you guys.  Would you have fully general relativistic mechanics taught to a freshman physics class in order to explain basic kinematics?  Good luck with that.

I would rather have anybody and everybody being taught the truth than taught what literally amounts to lies. The fact that you don't see the inherent problem with students being taught content which has been thoroughly disproved demonstrates the cognitive dissonance endemic to your globularist mentality.

I love your posting style... you write like an ancient mystic.  So you're admitting you haven't taken a single physics course then?  What then makes you qualified to speak on behalf of it's truth or falsehood?

So you say Newtonian dynamics amount to outright lies and has been thoroughly disproven.  By whom has it been disproven?  
Why is it then that when I observe a falling ball with a strobe camera that the ball's vertical position as a function of time fits Newton's predictions perfectly?  Why is it that Newtonian physics predicts the natural frequency of pendulum perfectly?

What other areas of physics are lies?  Should I abandon my Ph.D. research right now, as I'm basing my work on lies?
 

Predictive power ? truth.

Actually, if a theory correctly predicts natural phenomenon, that's as close as one can get in science to truth.


You people are mistaking an incomplete theory with an incorrect one.   Newtonian physics is absolutely correct in the limited view of nature that Newton had access to in the time he lived.  When we had access to the atomic realm, it was found that his equations did not accurately describe nature at that level.  Thus quantum physics was developed.  However, because Newtonian mechanics works so well in the classical regime, quantum physics has to agree with classical physics in the non-quantum regime, which it does.  In addition, at high relative speeds, newton's equations break down as well, for the reason Parsec pointed out.  Galilean transformations, which is a part of classical dynamics, do not work at high relative speeds.  Thus we use special relativity.  But just like quantum physics, relativistic dynamics HAS to agree with non-relativistic physics in the non-relativistic regime, WHICH IT DOES.

This is how science works.  The more we gain access to the inner workings of nature, the more we must refine and expand upon our interpretations of it.  Is any of this getting through to you guys?

This is how science works.  The more we gain access to the inner workings of nature, the more we must refine and expand upon our interpretations of it.  Is any of this getting through to you guys?

Don't count on it.

the ground is flat.

Thanks for that.

You are confusing nanometres with millimetres, which are derived from dimensional measurements in post-Euclidean space and therefore the curve is inherent.

Nanometres and millimetres differ only by magnitude, not by dimension.

Quote from: Parsifal on January 27, 2010, 05:19:08 AM

Quote from: LiceFarm on January 27, 2010, 04:44:08 AM

You said that since fusion from the sun (an object millions of miles away) was not "observed directly" then it should be dismissed out of hand

If you can point out where I made any such statement, that would be great.

I can only assume you have some kind of disability that prevents you from being able to read the text at the top of a page. Sucks to be you.

Quote from: Parsifal on January 26, 2010, 07:30:29 PM

We don't observe radiation from solar fusion directly according to RET, so this is irrelevant.

Quote from: Parsifal on January 26, 2010, 11:29:39 PM

Since the light isn't coming directly from the fusion, how can you say it is consistent with the fusion model if you discredit my hypothesis that light reaching us indirectly is consistent with my quark-gluon plasma model?

Could you please bold the specific part where I said that "fusion from the sun ... should be dismissed out of hand"?

We can see the neutrinos from the sun. We know its fusion. We know laser beams with effective path lengths of hundreds of miles don't wander. Now can we just get back to the bit where its all a conspiracy, thats the part where I think i've won and it makes me feel all warm inside.

We can see the neutrinos from the sun. We know its fusion. We know laser beams with effective path lengths of hundreds of miles don't wander. Now can we just get back to the bit where its all a conspiracy, thats the part where I think i've won and it makes me feel all warm inside.

Sure. Just go post in one of the many conspiracy threads floating around. This thread is for the discussion of bendy light, though it does seem to have become sidetracked somewhat.

So then lasers with large path lengths >100 miles. They don't drift noticeably in an experiment looking for micron level contractions and expansions of space. Go. That an some kind of idea of where Einstein was wrong would be nice because I gotta say I'm pretty convinced by his working and the plethora of explained phenomena since.

So then lasers with large path lengths >100 miles. They don't drift noticeably in an experiment looking for micron level contractions and expansions of space. Go. That an some kind of idea of where Einstein was wrong would be nice because I gotta say I'm pretty convinced by his working and the plethora of explained phenomena since.

Your suggestion as to how the mirrors were aligned was with reference to the surface of the Earth:

Though what makes sense to me is that the kept perpendicular to the ground and then parallel to each other as the ground is flat.

If this is true, then setting the mirrors perpendicular to the ground and observing no change in the position of the laser would confirm that light does not bend, but it would also confirm that the Earth is flat. If compensation was made for the curvature of the Earth, then if the Earth is flat this compensation would cause the mirrors to not be perfectly parallel and observing no change in the position of the laser would confirm that light does indeed bend.

Thats what I thought at first but thats the beauty of using mirrors. Over a few miles the Earth is to a good approximation flat. But at each reflection the light would not quite hit the mirror at normal incidence. Of course in the event there was some combination of angles that did provide near perfect compensation, which im not convinced there are but lets assume there is, then the divergence of the beam would be highly asymmetric. It would go from a circle to a teardrop shape pretty quickly.

Thats what I thought at first but thats the beauty of using mirrors. Over a few miles the Earth is to a good approximation flat. But at each reflection the light would not quite hit the mirror at normal incidence. Of course in the event there was some combination of angles that did provide near perfect compensation, which im not convinced there are but lets assume there is, then the divergence of the beam would be highly asymmetric. It would go from a circle to a teardrop shape pretty quickly.

I can't make any sense of this at all.

Steve, let's try it like this.  Regardless of the shape of the earth, the mirrors must be exactly parallel to each other otherwise you can not get the many reflections required for the experiment to work.  If light does bend as you propose, then it would be impossible to arrange the mirrors so that you could get many reflections as is commonly observed.

Nobody has yet responded to my speed of light measurement argument.  Foucault measured the speed of light by bouncing a beam of light off of a mirror placed 30 miles away.  The curvature of light should have been extremely noticeable at this distance, and yet he didn't have to account for it.  In addition, if the path of the light is curved, the distance he used in his calculations would have been incorrect by a fairly large margin.  However, he was able to measure the speed of light with an error of only 5% relative to the currently accepted value.

Nobody has yet responded to my speed of light measurement argument.  Foucault measured the speed of light by bouncing a beam of light off of a mirror placed 30 miles away.  The curvature of light should have been extremely noticeable at this distance, and yet he didn't have to account for it.  In addition, if the path of the light is curved, the distance he used in his calculations would have been incorrect by a fairly large margin.  However, he was able to measure the speed of light with an error of only 5% relative to the currently accepted value.

How would one notice the curvature of light if they have two mirrors aligned so that light bounces back and forth between them?

Could you please bold the specific part where I said that "fusion from the sun ... should be dismissed out of hand"?

No problem. Clearly you have that crippling disability that stops you being able to read your own posts. You can get money off the government for that you know.

Here:

this is irrelevant.

Quote from: cwolfe on January 28, 2010, 08:40:53 AM

Nobody has yet responded to my speed of light measurement argument.  Foucault measured the speed of light by bouncing a beam of light off of a mirror placed 30 miles away.  The curvature of light should have been extremely noticeable at this distance, and yet he didn't have to account for it.  In addition, if the path of the light is curved, the distance he used in his calculations would have been incorrect by a fairly large margin.  However, he was able to measure the speed of light with an error of only 5% relative to the currently accepted value.

How would one notice the curvature of light if they have two mirrors aligned so that light bounces back and forth between them?

They're not aligned to light bounces back and forth, they are aligned to be parallel. It just happens that light moves in a straight line, so it WOULD bounce back and forth.

Quote from: parsec on January 28, 2010, 09:44:34 AM

Quote from: cwolfe on January 28, 2010, 08:40:53 AM

Nobody has yet responded to my speed of light measurement argument.  Foucault measured the speed of light by bouncing a beam of light off of a mirror placed 30 miles away.  The curvature of light should have been extremely noticeable at this distance, and yet he didn't have to account for it.  In addition, if the path of the light is curved, the distance he used in his calculations would have been incorrect by a fairly large margin.  However, he was able to measure the speed of light with an error of only 5% relative to the currently accepted value.

How would one notice the curvature of light if they have two mirrors aligned so that light bounces back and forth between them?

They're not aligned to light bounces back and forth, they are aligned to be parallel. It just happens that light moves in a straight line, so it WOULD bounce back and forth.

I guess the question Parsifal asked to everyone was, how do they allign mirrors to be perfectly parallel?