Light Speed: Fixed... or Relative? Exploring Einstein's Relativity

reply to post by Arbitrageur


OK. Velocity is distance/time.

So you can show an experiment that records distance and records time for an incoming charged particle and thus calculates the velocity.

I am not playing games with you here. Your experiment has nothing to do with velocity.

dragonridr
Sounds to me your confusing science and business. Scientists dont steal other science they may replicate the experiment. But cant really steal it since in order to do that it would have to be published meaning everyone knows its not your work. and physics can be disproven anywhere just takes math and some observation. Do you realize how many physics papers are shown to be wrong? As far as physics i dont think there is some big political plot because we have to any scientists all over the world. And they can research what ever they want.

To conduct an experiment, you need to construct the instruments. Your work will be published only if you can first construct instruments and then conduct your experiment.

It is not always possible to conduct an experiment with pre-existing instruments.

Anyway let us keep this experience aside as it is interfering with the main discussion.

Back to measuring velocity of a charged particle. You can provide a link to an experiment instrumented to measure velocity of an incoming charged particle, which you feel correctly does the job.

GargIndia
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

OK. Velocity is distance/time.

So you can show an experiment that records distance and records time for an incoming charged particle and thus calculates the velocity.

I am not playing games with you here. Your experiment has nothing to do with velocity.

Ok how do you measure the speed of a car? Simple isnt it you look at the distance travelled and the time it took it to do so. Any time you want the velocity of any object you have to measure the distance it traveled and the time it took it to do so no matter if its a car a plane or a particle. There is no other definition for velocity.Just so you know this is how we know how fast light moves in the first place we measured its velocity.

reply to post by dragonridr


Things are not so easy in the world of very very tiny charged particles.

Your car example does not cut here.

Back to the logic I offered earlier, errors in measurement become quite significant when you are measuring something very small or very big.

We shall see that when you discuss a real experiment.

The light example also does not cut, as light can be reflected by a mirror thus increasing distance is easy for increasing time period (delta t).

GargIndia
reply to post by dragonridr

 

Things are not so easy in the world of very very tiny charged particles.

Your car example does not cut here.

Back to the logic I offered earlier, errors in measurement become quite significant when you are measuring something very small or very big.

We shall see that when you discuss a real experiment.

The light example also does not cut, as light can be reflected by a mirror thus increasing distance is easy for increasing time period (delta t).

Yes they can thats why you need extremely accurate clocks and thats what we use i have one in my lab well actually 3.

GargIndia
I am not playing games with you here. Your experiment has nothing to do with velocity.

I thought you wanted to just throw relativity out the window and start all over. Now it seems you want to throw out virtually all science and all scientific experiments done ever and start all over?

I can prove the experiment has something to do with velocity. I can vary the voltage used to accelerate the electron and show that with more voltage the accelerated electron has a higher velocity because it is deflected less in the same magnetic field. How can you say this has nothing to do with velocity?

If changing the voltage used to accelerate the electron is not changing the electron's velocity, how do you explain the changing deflection when the accelerating voltage is changed? More importantly you have to explain this in the context of thousands of other experiments that validate that's what is happening.

If we have to go through every experiment ever made on the electron to determine its charge, mass, charge to mass ratio and other properties we know about the electron, this could take a long time, but I can assure you those properties such as charge to mass ratio have been measured much more accurately by researchers than the crude experiment I showed you which is provided to high school seniors and college freshmen so they can measure some properties of the electron somewhat crudely just so they can understand and see fundamental physics for themselves.

Dragonridr can probably show you more sophisticated stuff, but you probably have to have some understanding of physics to even use the equipment and interpret the results, which if you had I don't think you'd say the experiment I showed you had nothing to do with velocity.

dragonridr
Yes they can thats why you need extremely accurate clocks and thats what we use i have one in my lab well actually 3.

You can have a very accurate clock and still there will be large errors when measuring velocity of a particle.

This fact can only be discussed well when we analyze a real device that does this job.

This is why I am asking you to provide a reference.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


"I thought you wanted to just throw relativity out the window and start all over. Now it seems you want to throw out virtually all science and all scientific experiments done ever and start all over?"

No. That is not my intention.

"I can prove the experiment has something to do with velocity. I can vary the voltage used to accelerate the electron and show that with more voltage the accelerated electron has a higher velocity because it is deflected less in the same magnetic field. How can you say this has nothing to do with velocity?"

Because you are not measuring the velocity (in this case, of an electron beam).
You can make the electrons travel on a shorter or longer path but you are neither measuring the length of that path, nor you are measuring the time it takes for an electron in the electron beam to traverse that path.

"the voltage used to accelerate the electron is not changing the electron's velocity?"

That does not change the fact that you are not measuring velocity.
Understand it this way. You wanted to apply +20000 volt to your electric field, but your voltage regulator was faulty and it could provide only 15000 volts while giving a reading of 20000 volts. So while your calculation will be according to 20000 volts but the speed of the electron will be according to the actual 15000 volt. You will never know the difference because you are not measuring it.

"If we have to go through every experiment ever made on the electron to determine its charge, mass, charge to mass ratio and other properties we know about the electron, this could take a long time, but I can assure you those properties such as charge to mass ratio have been measured much more accurately by researchers than the crude experiment I showed you which is provided to high school seniors and college freshmen so they can measure some properties of the electron somewhat crudely just so they can understand and see fundamental physics for themselves."

I understand that. None of it changes what I am saying to you.

GargIndia

dragonridr
Yes they can thats why you need extremely accurate clocks and thats what we use i have one in my lab well actually 3.

You can have a very accurate clock and still there will be large errors when measuring velocity of a particle.

This fact can only be discussed well when we analyze a real device that does this job.

This is why I am asking you to provide a reference.

I think you have this backwards see you want to show me we cant measure velocity and that all the science done in the last 200 years is wrong.So you would need to be the one to present your case not me do it for you.See i know we can measure velocity of particles i have dont it. So i tell you what pick any one of the hundreds done and we can discuss it i dont do homework for other people have enough grad students to deal with.

reply to post by GargIndia


Actually it does measure velocity the speed of the electron doesnt change say in a normal copper gauge wire electrons actually move slow about 1/250 of a mile per hour. But what this experiment does is show that electrons have a velocity and indeed you can use this experiment to measure it. In his example thats not what there doing exactly but yes we can measure the time they take to respond to voltage increase and energy of the electrons. But we arent talking about electrons because short of a particle accelerator you never have an electron go anywhere near the speed of light. See electricity is just a propagating wave form the electrons technically dont travel down the wire they simply impart energy to the next the electrons are already there. I thought we were going to talk about particles actually moving most of the easiest is light experiments but as i said pick one and tell us how it violates relativity.

GargIndia
That does not change the fact that you are not measuring velocity.
Understand it this way. You wanted to apply +20000 volt to your electric field, but your voltage regulator was faulty and it could provide only 15000 volts while giving a reading of 20000 volts. So while your calculation will be according to 20000 volts but the speed of the electron will be according to the actual 15000 volt. You will never know the difference because you are not measuring it.

If this is where your argument leads that no experiment can be trusted because the equipment is out of calibration, I can assure you the accuracy of the measuring equipment in all the labs I have managed is traceable to national or international calibration standards, and re-checked or re-calibrated at periodic intervals. We even keep records of the adjustments made if any so we get an idea of the stability of various measuring devices used.

If I have a voltage supply and a meter that reads 2000 volts, it could be off by an amount defined in manufacturer's specifications, or in the calibration procedure. For example this voltmeter has a specified accuracy of 0.1% full scale, which is 2000 volts, so that means when it's reading 2000 volts, the actual voltage could be somewhere between 1998 and 2002 volts

trekinc.com...

It would typically not be 25% off as in your example, in fact I've never seen anything like that. More typically such a device fails entirely.

I won't say it's impossible for a voltmeter to read 25% off, but even if that happens in an isolated instance, such an occurence does nothing to invalidate the thousands of experiments done with electrons which are repeated in different labs, and the results between labs are compared. If there were calibration issues some labs might err on the high side, some on the low side. Scientists try to quantify measurement uncertainties, and there is a science to doing this which I'm not sure you appreciate.

So for example, when Wikipedia says the mass of an electron is

9.10938291(40)E-31 kg, the expression in parentheses indicates standard uncertainty. The values not in parentheses are the result of a fairly high confidence level when measurement error estimates are made. This value is not based on one measurement, which would have to be the case for your claim that a piece of equipment was out of calibration to have any plausibility.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


You forgot to mention if the reading is to far off red lights go off and you know to recheck your equipment. Any experiment you get a 25 percent difference from others will immediately have you checking over everything when replicating an experiment already done. Though with that kind of error it probably won't work at all. Oh and by the way we can check voltage as well so no matter how we break this down you cant come out wrong on the experiment because you would need to pieces of equipment to break at the same time in the same manner. Ok why are we even arguing this at this point the odds would be astronomical.

dragonridr
You forgot to mention if the reading is to far off red lights go off and you know to recheck your equipment. Any experiment you get a 25 percent difference from others will immediately have you checking over everything when replicating an experiment already done .

Exactly correct.

Most measuring equipment I've dealt with along the lines of the voltmeter that gargindia questioned has been remarkably reliable and often requires little or no adjustment in the periodic calibration checks, provided it's not knocked off the lab bench onto a concrete floor or something.

The most trouble I've had with measurement accuracy and calibration is in difficult environments, like oven temperature sensors, and other industrial equipment that requires high operating temperatures. Partly for this reason we rarely use just one temperature gauge. Many industrial heaters and ovens I've dealt with have multiple gauges and that does make it easier to tell if one malfunctions by a large amount, along the lines of what you're saying.

Small inaccuracies like the one resulting from the loose connecter at the CERN neutrino experiment are much harder to spot, but you don't need that kind of accuracy to measure relativistic effects of accelerated particles at the LHC. If relativity is wrong, the particles will not burn a hole through a copper plate. If relativity is right, the particles can burn a hole through a metal plate and they have actually done this as described near the end of this video (there are pictures of the holes burned in copper plates in the link I posted earlier):

reply to post by Arbitrageur


The example I gave you was to explain how errors can creep up in your measurements.

I never said that you actually had that kind of error.

"If I have a voltage supply and a meter that reads 2000 volts, it could be off by an amount defined in manufacturer's specifications, or in the calibration procedure. For example this voltmeter has a specified accuracy of 0.1% full scale, which is 2000 volts"

So you at least agree that there is some uncertainty in measurement. When you have to measure several parameters, the errors in each measurement will be compounded in the computed result.

The above statement is the normal situation, when the measured quantity is much greater than the resolution (or the minimum quantity that can be measured) of an instrument. In this case the error in each measurement will be less than a percentage point, as is the case with your voltage measurement.

However when the quantity measured is too small and the resolution of instrument is close to the measured quantity, the error could be quite large.

We can appreciate this only when we talk about an actual device that measures the velocity of an incoming charged particle. The instrument I used is classified so I cannot share the detail of that.

You can take an instrument that you have used in the lab and then I shall talk about sources of errors that you know and sources of errors that you do not know.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


"If relativity is wrong, the particles will not burn a hole through a copper plate. If relativity is right, the particles can burn a hole through a metal plate and they have actually done this as described near the end of this video"

I am completely lost on your above statement. I mean how?

Please note that I DO NOT watch videos. You can link a document, a research paper, even a news item. But no videos please.

GargIndia
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

"If relativity is wrong, the particles will not burn a hole through a copper plate. If relativity is right, the particles can burn a hole through a metal plate and they have actually done this as described near the end of this video"

I am completely lost on your above statement. I mean how?

Please note that I DO NOT watch videos. You can link a document, a research paper, even a news item. But no videos please.

Has to do with energy Einstein showed us that e=mc2. Where we can convert velocity into force for example the beam of protons though small and slower speeds wouldn't hurt you. However increase their velocity and the hit you with the force of several tons. When the proton hits the metal plate its an instant conversion from velocity to kinetic energy. Thats why i laughed when i watched the video any way realize we're talking a couple of protons and they hit something with the force of a speeding locomotive. If energy didnt convert to mass then this would be impossible.

reply to post by dragonridr

I'm glad somebody knows relativity and has an idea of what I was talking about.

GargIndia
I am completely lost on your above statement. I mean how?

So, you're dismissing relativity when you don't even understand it? I guess that makes sense, but you should learn what it is you are dismissing.

-----------------------
If relativity is false the energy of the protons at the LHC at full power would have an energy of about 7.5163E-11 J

Kinetic energy of rigid bodies
E=1/2 mv² where:

m=1.67262E-27 kg
v=299792455.307 m/s
-----------------------

-----------------------
If relativity is true the energy of the protons at the LHC at full power would be about 1.12137E-06 J

Relativistic kinetic energy of rigid bodies
E=mγc²-mc²=mc²[1/SQRT[1-(v/c)²]-1]

where:

m=1.67262E-27 kg
v=299792455.307 m/s
c=299792458.000 m/s
mc²=1.503275E-10 J
γ=7460.52

mγc²-mc²= 7460.52(1.503275E-10 J)-(1.503275E-10 J) = 1.12137E-06 J
-----------------------


Divide the relativistic energy by the classical energy and you find the relativistic energy is about 14919 times greater, and these 14919 times more energetic protons can burn through a metal sheet which the less energetic protons could not. This is why your talking about calibration sounds kind of silly. We are not talking about an error of 1% or even 25% in a measurement. if you convert 14919 to percent, it's 1,491,920%, so implying this could be some kind of calibration error is beyond belief.

LHC Machine Outreach

For a more detailed discussion see:

math.ucr.edu...

or any basic relativity text.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


relativistic mass confuses alot of people through in the lorentz equation and you have a 40 min argument among grad students.

dragonridr

GargIndia
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

"If relativity is wrong, the particles will not burn a hole through a copper plate. If relativity is right, the particles can burn a hole through a metal plate and they have actually done this as described near the end of this video"

I am completely lost on your above statement. I mean how?

Please note that I DO NOT watch videos. You can link a document, a research paper, even a news item. But no videos please.

Has to do with energy Einstein showed us that e=mc2. Where we can convert velocity into force for example the beam of protons though small and slower speeds wouldn't hurt you. However increase their velocity and the hit you with the force of several tons. When the proton hits the metal plate its an instant conversion from velocity to kinetic energy. Thats why i laughed when i watched the video any way realize we're talking a couple of protons and they hit something with the force of a speeding locomotive. If energy didnt convert to mass then this would be impossible.

You have an observation and there is a possible explanation for it. However it is not necessary that the explanation that you offered is the right explanation.

The issue is not what Newton said or what Einstein said.

The burning question is how much energy was transferred from the electric field to the particle beam pulse.

We need all parameters here.

1. How much "mass" is accelerated through the electric field? I doubt it is just one proton.
2. How much energy is transferred from the source of electrical energy to the particle beam.
3. How much this electrical energy will accelerate these particles (final velocity) if there was no "relativistic effect". Do you have calculation for that?

I hope the answers will get us somewhere.

dragonridr
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

relativistic mass confuses alot of people through in the lorentz equation and you have a 40 min argument among grad students.

The issue is not my understanding.

I hope this thread will improve your understanding as well.

You can always conduct an experiment to prove a certain theory by taking some assumptions and by taking only those measurements that fit your theory.

We shall see that soon.