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

reply to post by ImaFungi


EM field is a medium, speed of light depends on medium, most of the media transmit slower than vacuum but if you read the article dragonridr posted above, it looks like cesium vapor is one medium that transmits faster then vacuum.

Warp Engine is possible IMO.

reply to post by dragonridr


According to that article they say; They sent a laser pulse of light into a glass chamber full of a vapor of cesium atoms, and the light contacts the atoms, and sends a chain reaction (domino affect I suppose) resulting in the signature of light which first contacted to be relayed out the other end. And they are suggesting that the light covered the distance from start to finish, interacting with the vapor, faster then it would have if the chamber was vacuum and light was just sent in. I dont see any explanation as to why this should be able to occur, or how the atoms of the vapor interacted with one another faster then light. I really dont get what this is trying to say or prove, do you get it? Either I am interpreting this wrong or they are dumber then me; They are suggesting that light exits out from the end of the vapor before the light that initially contacted the vapor exists out itself? If so they are dumb, because light is not suggested to travel through a vapor as fast as vacuum, so they are measuring an affect of light existing the vapor from reactions and saying its faster comparatively to the light the is actually still traveling between the atoms and such, and that this proves that the light that interacted with the vapor and exited first is obviously traveling faster then ligh speed because the light that causes that to exist and occur is still traveling between the atoms.

reply to post by ImaFungi


Ok enough fun things can move faster than the speed of light however they can't carry information.We've known about things for example a shadow can move faster than light. but its caused by the absence of information. Or if i shine a laser at the moon and move it i can cover the entire distance of the moon but again no information transferred. In this case i dont believe thats what occurred however and trust me there has been much debate on this. My take on it is we just witnessed time travel. The cesium boosted the light pulses speed i think this interaction stretches and compresses parts of the wave function, so that the pulse is extended forward in time. But ill say thats my take on it by no means does that mean I'm right..

ImaFungi
reply to post by dragonridr

 

According to that article they say; They sent a laser pulse of light into a glass chamber full of a vapor of cesium atoms, and the light contacts the atoms, and sends a chain reaction (domino affect I suppose) resulting in the signature of light which first contacted to be relayed out the other end. And they are suggesting that the light covered the distance from start to finish, interacting with the vapor, faster then it would have if the chamber was vacuum and light was just sent in. I dont see any explanation as to why this should be able to occur, or how the atoms of the vapor interacted with one another faster then light. I really dont get what this is trying to say or prove, do you get it? Either I am interpreting this wrong or they are dumber then me; They are suggesting that light exits out from the end of the vapor before the light that initially contacted the vapor exists out itself? If so they are dumb, because light is not suggested to travel through a vapor as fast as vacuum, so they are measuring an affect of light existing the vapor from reactions and saying its faster comparatively to the light the is actually still traveling between the atoms and such, and that this proves that the light that interacted with the vapor and exited first is obviously traveling faster then ligh speed because the light that causes that to exist and occur is still traveling between the atoms.

edit on 4-2-2014 by ImaFungi because: (no reason given)

I think it makes all sense.
Look at light as a shock wave, like sound wave. Sound travels in dense materials faster than air.
Cesium is the least electronegative element with a stable isotope, every single atom needs an electron to fill the last shell.
Cesium does not build molecules in vapour, it stays ionised.
This is a lot of potential energy in some place. The overall charge is 0 though, the net charge is minus ( missing electron in every single atoms last shell )

has anybody of the scientists ever measured the speed of electric field ? Not EM just E ??

reply to post by dragonridr


I dont think the shadow example or light on the moon example are faster then light.

Yea I dont think your explanation makes much sense, the cesium vapor still takes up vacuum space (if you want to say composed of planck lengths using them as the smallest unit of measure) , you can say it boosts the light...hey maybe it does... I really have no clue, maybe there is some gravity like, magnetic repulsion like, energy potential that can cause the vapor to slingshot light through space faster then light travels through space...maybe.

reply to post by KrzYma


I suppose it can make sense, especially if you claim that all material has a very intimate energetic relationship to what the vacuum is, and may perhaps be compressed or denser forms of vacuum. Or without that even, if there was a way to compress vacuum, would light then travel faster through similar volumes of vacuum, one with more vacuum energy per area and is this the case with the cesium vapor. It is the analogous more solid material, that can send the light signal faster through itself, then the vacuum can.

ImaFungi
reply to post by dragonridr

 

I dont think the shadow example or light on the moon example are faster then light.

Yea I dont think your explanation makes much sense, the cesium vapor still takes up vacuum space (if you want to say composed of planck lengths using them as the smallest unit of measure) , you can say it boosts the light...hey maybe it does... I really have no clue, maybe there is some gravity like, magnetic repulsion like, energy potential that can cause the vapor to slingshot light through space faster then light travels through space...maybe.

Not really sure what you're not agreeing with exactly? Is it something can move faster than light? Ok picture a laser pointer and we I point my laser pointer to mars Will say its at the further end of its orbit from us at 2.5 au. Light travels one AU in 8.317 minutes. This means my laser pointer shows up on mars in just short of 21 min then i move my laser pointer to mercury and will say its at the closest part of its orbit to us. Meaning its .61 au from us and would take my pointer 5 min to move to there. But heres the problem my laser pointer just moved a dot from my laser pointer almost 2 AU in 5 min. And if there was a wall between the two you could have followed the dot along its path. And it moved faster than light. If you're talking about how light in the chamber moved faster than light in the experiment ? Light can't move faster through anything than it can in empty space. If we want to slow light down we send it through a medium. But thats not what happened here this is why i think a wave function can be compressed there fore sending the light forward in time. This is the only way i can account for the light exiting before it fully enters the chamber.As i said thats my theory and i could explain why but i think id bore alot of people.

dragonridr

GargIndia
reply to post by dragonridr

 

Do you yourself understand what you write? Goodluck to you and bad luck to humanity if this is the way PHDs are granted these days.

As i said easier with the math involved trying to make it easy to understand was never one of Einsteins strong points nor mine im afraid you almost have to have some background to relate. By the time students get to tackle these questions they have a background to draw on.

You can fit Maths into an observation; but you cannot fit an observation in Maths. This is the fundamental way scientific principles must be discovered.

In short, Maths comes later. You first observe and measure. Science is based on observations and measurements.

I am not asking you for Mathematical equations. I am just asking you for clarity.

Arbitrageur

GargIndia
When you run this kind of experiment, you have to be very careful. You must eliminate all external factors that can affect the clock. For me, your statement is very hard to believe, as it runs counter to the purported accuracy of atomic clocks.

I just said "clocks"...I never said they were atomic clocks...you made that assumption. To see the clock speed difference at just one meter of elevation difference, they used a type of clock called an "optical clock". And the difference is pretty small so the accuracy of the clocks is still intact, it's just something you'd never notice with a less accurate atomic clock as it would fall into an error bar. Even the more accurate optical clock has its own error bars, but they are really tiny.

www.scientificamerican.com...

Newly developed optical clocks are so precise that they register the passage of time differently at elevations of just a few dozen centimeters or velocities of a few meters per second...

the effects are minuscule: It would take the elevated clock hundreds of millions of years to log one more second than its counterpart, and a clock moving a few meters per second would need to run about as long to lag one second behind its stationary counterpart. But the development of optical clocks based on aluminum ions, which can keep time to within one second in roughly 3.7 billion years, allows researchers to expose those diminutive relativistic effects. "People usually think of it as negligible, but for us it is not," says lead study author James Chin-wen Chou, a postdoctoral research associate at NIST. "We can definitely see it."

They published their research so you can review it to see if they were careful or not.

Optical Clocks and Relativity

Observers in relative motion or at different gravitational potentials measure disparate clock rates. These predictions of relativity have previously been observed with atomic clocks at high velocities and with large changes in elevation. We observed time dilation from relative speeds of less than 10 meters per second by comparing two optical atomic clocks connected by a 75-meter length of optical fiber. We can now also detect time dilation due to a change in height near Earth’s surface of less than 1 meter. This technique may be extended to the field of geodesy, with applications in geophysics and hydrology as well as in space-based tests of fundamental physics.

So you might want to review that and then see if you can explain it without relativity. That would be interesting.

edit on 3-2-2014 by Arbitrageur because: clarification

I need to give you a two part answer.

Part 1 - Accuracy of measurements
--------------------------------------------

How do you say a measurement is accurate to a certain degree (or your measurement has a certain precision)?

The answer is - taking the same measurement several times in exactly the same circumstances (external factors) and then finding standard deviation of your measurements. The standard deviation is your precision for that method of measurement.

The problem with time is that you cannot catch time - it elapses. You cannot measure it again.

So when you say that your clock "can keep time to within one second in roughly 3.7 billion years", the question is how did you calculate this.

Part 2 - Is this an "optical" clock?
-----------------------------------------

From whatever I can understand from the article, the clock is based on atomic vibration (in this case Al ion). How is this an "optical" clock?

dragonridr

ImaFungi
reply to post by dragonridr

 

I dont think the shadow example or light on the moon example are faster then light.

Yea I dont think your explanation makes much sense, the cesium vapor still takes up vacuum space (if you want to say composed of planck lengths using them as the smallest unit of measure) , you can say it boosts the light...hey maybe it does... I really have no clue, maybe there is some gravity like, magnetic repulsion like, energy potential that can cause the vapor to slingshot light through space faster then light travels through space...maybe.

Not really sure what you're not agreeing with exactly? Is it something can move faster than light? Ok picture a laser pointer and we I point my laser pointer to mars Will say its at the further end of its orbit from us at 2.5 au. Light travels one AU in 8.317 minutes. This means my laser pointer shows up on mars in just short of 21 min then i move my laser pointer to mercury and will say its at the closest part of its orbit to us. Meaning its .61 au from us and would take my pointer 5 min to move to there. But heres the problem my laser pointer just moved a dot from my laser pointer almost 2 AU in 5 min. And if there was a wall between the two you could have followed the dot along its path. And it moved faster than light. If you're talking about how light in the chamber moved faster than light in the experiment ? Light can't move faster through anything than it can in empty space. If we want to slow light down we send it through a medium. But thats not what happened here this is why i think a wave function can be compressed there fore sending the light forward in time. This is the only way i can account for the light exiting before it fully enters the chamber.As i said thats my theory and i could explain why but i think id bore alot of people.

edit on 2/4/14 by dragonridr because: (no reason given)

The light, once it leaves the source, is moving through space. It is no longer affected by the movement of the source.

The problem with current science is that it has very little understanding of a fundamental entity - "space".

When light is emitted by a receding object, it is absolutely clear that the distance between that object and observer will increase by the time light reaches the observer. Does it mean light is travelling faster because of this increase in distance? The answer is "No".

Why?

We must go back to the basics. We make a fundamental mistake in measurement when "external factors" change. Accuracy comes from repeated measurements in a situation when external factors are constant. In this case the problem is our measurement, not the speed of light.

reply to post by GargIndia

From whatever I can understand from the article, the clock is based on atomic vibration (in this case Al ion). How is this an "optical" clock?

It is not based on atomic "vibration" and the article does not say that it does.

I don't really know what you mean by that term but the operation of atomic clocks is based on the wavelength of the radiation emitted when electrons change energy states. It's based on the amount of time the change in energy states takes. That's where the spectroscopy (optical) comes into the picture. Earlier atomic clocks relied on microwave frequencies. Optical clocks use optical frequencies. Optical frequencies are much higher than microwave frequencies and thus allow much higher precision.

Unless fundamental physics changes (not much reason to think they do), the clocks are accurate. Very, very accurate.

Accuracy comes from repeated measurements in a situation when external factors are constant. In this case the problem is our measurement, not the speed of light.

Except that the observations fit the predictions made by relativity. The GPS clocks are adjusted prior to launch based on the predictions of relativity. How else do you think those adjustments could be made? Do you think it's just a lucky guess? We are talking about very, very fine adjustments.

I think the problem might be more with your understanding of the subject matter than our measurements of time. Gravity gradients (and relative velocity) do indeed affect the rate at which time flows. Just as Einstein said they do. Exactly as he said they do.

GargIndia

dragonridr

ImaFungi
reply to post by dragonridr

 

I dont think the shadow example or light on the moon example are faster then light.

Yea I dont think your explanation makes much sense, the cesium vapor still takes up vacuum space (if you want to say composed of planck lengths using them as the smallest unit of measure) , you can say it boosts the light...hey maybe it does... I really have no clue, maybe there is some gravity like, magnetic repulsion like, energy potential that can cause the vapor to slingshot light through space faster then light travels through space...maybe.

Not really sure what you're not agreeing with exactly? Is it something can move faster than light? Ok picture a laser pointer and we I point my laser pointer to mars Will say its at the further end of its orbit from us at 2.5 au. Light travels one AU in 8.317 minutes. This means my laser pointer shows up on mars in just short of 21 min then i move my laser pointer to mercury and will say its at the closest part of its orbit to us. Meaning its .61 au from us and would take my pointer 5 min to move to there. But heres the problem my laser pointer just moved a dot from my laser pointer almost 2 AU in 5 min. And if there was a wall between the two you could have followed the dot along its path. And it moved faster than light. If you're talking about how light in the chamber moved faster than light in the experiment ? Light can't move faster through anything than it can in empty space. If we want to slow light down we send it through a medium. But thats not what happened here this is why i think a wave function can be compressed there fore sending the light forward in time. This is the only way i can account for the light exiting before it fully enters the chamber.As i said thats my theory and i could explain why but i think id bore alot of people.

edit on 2/4/14 by dragonridr because: (no reason given)

The light, once it leaves the source, is moving through space. It is no longer affected by the movement of the source.

The problem with current science is that it has very little understanding of a fundamental entity - "space".

When light is emitted by a receding object, it is absolutely clear that the distance between that object and observer will increase by the time light reaches the observer. Does it mean light is travelling faster because of this increase in distance? The answer is "No".

Why?

We must go back to the basics. We make a fundamental mistake in measurement when "external factors" change. Accuracy comes from repeated measurements in a situation when external factors are constant. In this case the problem is our measurement, not the speed of light.

No the laser pointer dot indeed moves faster than light it just doesnt violate any laws in relativity because no useful information can be transferred.Please we use this example in 1st year physics.

reply to post by Phage


OK finally we are getting to the bottom of the matter.

I am really thankful to you for posting this. It has made my job much easier.

I shall read up more and wait from reply from Arbitrageur as well.

The problem is not my understanding. Your science suffers from "pied piper" syndrome which is called "Bhed chaal" in our language.

It happens due to improper understanding of basic entities that make up our reality.

Your science is not good enough to free you up from confines of this planet. This is all I can say at this time.

reply to post by GargIndia

The problem is not my understanding.

I disagree.

Your science is not good enough to free you up from confines of this planet. This is all I can say at this time.

I think that's you've been saying all along. It's also been stated as "scientists don't know everything." But guess what? I've never heard a scientist claim that they know everything. In fact, all the scientists I have met are always looking to learn more about our world (Universe). That is the reason they are scientists.

They don't know everything but that does not mean they don't know anything.

They, for example, do know how to adjust their clocks to allow for time dilation. They do know how to send spacecraft on intricate journeys. But maybe it's just a lucky guess. Right?

No the laser pointer dot indeed moves faster than light it just doesnt violate any laws in relativity because no useful information can be transferred.Please we use this example in 1st year physics.

My friend, is your example based on "observation and measurement" or is it a theoretical example?

Phage
reply to post by GargIndia

 

Your science is not good enough to free you up from confines of this planet. This is all I can say at this time.

I think that's you've been saying all along. It's also been stated as "scientists don't know everything." But guess what? I've never heard a scientist claim that they know everything.

But they do know how to adjust their clocks to allow for time dilation. They do know how to send spacecraft on intricate journeys. But maybe it's just a lucky guess. Right?

edit on 2/4/2014 by Phage because: (no reason given)

I dislike when somebody tries to speak for me. Please quote my exact words.

Did I misquote you anytime you talked to me?

I support scientific methods and scientific discovery. Please quote my words verbatim where I said otherwise.

I said very clearly many times that honesty and truth are necessary in scientific work. That is all.

We shall see how this discussion goes further. I am not finished yet.

reply to post by GargIndia


Actually, it's a demonstration of trigonometry. Calculating the length of the side of a triangle.

Do you think trigonometry is wrong too?

reply to post by GargIndia

I dislike when somebody tries to speak for me. Please quote my exact words.

I did quote your exact words. I then interpreted them. My apologies if my interpretation was inaccurate.

Let me do it again:

Your science is not good enough to free you up from confines of this planet. This is all I can say at this time.

Do I need to point out that we have left this planet? Humans have walked on the Moon. Our emissaries have left the Solar System.

I support scientific methods and scientific discovery.

That's good. But when you reject what science has discovered, based on your personal biases and lack of understanding...that's not so good.

reply to post by Phage


Yes, you misunderstood me.

Humans may have walked on moon, but moon is not very far.

You need much better science to walk on a livable planet in another solar system. This is what I meant.

Phage
reply to post by GargIndia

 

Actually, it's a demonstration of trigonometry. Calculating the length of the side of a triangle.

Do you think trigonometry is wrong too?

Is it the way you teach trigonometry where every node of triangle is moving? You take example of three planets, all of which are moving through space and have relative motion.