The Aether

The AETHER © 2020 Jeremy Fiennes ([email protected]) (rev: 07/05/2020) Abstract The existence of the electromagnetic aether is argued from two standpoints. Conceptual, based on the nature of physical waves. And practical: the various experiments that demonstrate it. Possible reasons for the strange nullification of the positive 1887 Michelson-Morley aether-wind result are discussed. CONTENTS Preamble INTRODUCTION Aether Light Einstein CONCEPTUAL Waves 'Vacuum', etc. Characteristic speeds EXPERIMENTAL (1) Albert Michelson Michelson 1881 Michelson-Morley 1887 Nullification (1) Sagnac Dayton Miller Shankland Doppler effect EXPERIMENTAL (2) Length contraction Cahill p.2 p.2 p.3 p.5 p.5 p.8 p.9 p.10 p.10 p.13 p.15 p.16 p.17 p.21 p.22 p.23 p.24 Other General GENERAL CMB Aether turbulence Gravitational waves LIGO Aether:gravity Vortices Continuous universe NULLIFICATION (2) General Michelson´s retraction Absolutism Agenda APPENDIX Celestial coordinates Gravitational potential Gravitational waves Interferometer calibration p.29 p.29 p.30 p.31 p.33 p.34 p.35 p.37 p.38 p.40 p.43 p.44 p.46 p.48 p.49 p.50 p.50 2 deWitte Torr and Kolen Wallace Marinov Spacecraft flyby p.25 p.26 p.27 p.27 p.28 Miller Sidereal, solar times Bibliography Index Endnotes p.53 p.54 p.54 p.56 p.58 Preamble To leave the main body of the text as uncluttered as possible, cross-references and 'asides' are placed in footnotes. The end-notes contain source references only. In the Internet case they comprise the main site name, with the year and month of access in brackets. Contrary to custom, quotations in general are not de rigeur with all the (...)s and [...]s in the right places. They may be abridged or combined with others from the same source. But their meaning is never consciously distorted. Whenever possible the original source reference is given. Italics in general are 'ours'. The English language in its wisdom not having provided us with non-gender-specific pronouns, for "he", etc. in general read "he/she" etc. Due to the common ground between this and the companion 'Einstein' article1, there may be some overlap. Thanks are due principally to Barry Cavell and Stan Heshka who read the original text and made many useful comments, most of which got incorporated. Also to Arthur Mather and Nick Landell-Mills, who also gave valuable feedback. INTRODUCTION 'Aether ' The "aether" is today a scientific verbal obscenity, the "unspeakable ae-word" that no professional physicist shall be heard to utter on pain of being branded a deranged crackpot, and saying goodbye to his hopes of a successful scientific career: "The concept of an aether was long ago discarded as a relic of 19th century a voodoo science." 2 b Robert Laughlin : "The word 'aether' has extremely negative connotations in theoretical physics due to its opposition to Relativity. This is ironic, because it nicely captures the way most physicists think about a vacuum."3 a b This would have to include the likes of James Clerk Maxwell and Albert Michelson. Robert Laughlin (1950-) of Stanford University, physics Nobel Laureate. 3 the term nevertheless has a long distinguished pedigree. It derives from the Sanskrit akasha, which can also simply mean 'space'. References to it are common in Greek, Egyptian and Indian philosophy from the 5th century b.c. onwards. It was conceived as the material filling the 'aethereal' region above the terrestrial sphere, being described as: "The most subtle substance in creation, the mother of all other phenomena."4 Homer5 uses it in the sense of "fresh air" or "clear sky", the pure essence breathed a by the gods6. in the medieval cosmos, the innermost terrestrial sphere was made of the four classical elements: fire, earth, air and water. While the outer celestial sphere, containing the heavenly bodies, was 'quintessence'– the "5th essence" – effectively the aether. Light In the early scientific era of the 17th century there were two conflicting theories of b light. Based on its properties of reflection and travelling in straight lines, Isaac Newton held it to be a stream of particles. But this did not explain optical dispersion, where a beam of white light is split up by a glass prism into a rainbow of colours. Nor diffraction, where light passing a small hole or narrow slit causes fringes on a screen. Both of these phenomena are consistent with the wave model proposed by Christian c Huygens . That light has a characteristic speed c and a frequency f are also wave properties. Because waves require a physical medium, Huygens propounded a luminiferous aether which was conceived at the time as essentially homogenous and stationary in space. Mainly due to his greater prestige, Newton’s corpuscular theory held sway for more d than 100 years. Max Planck spoke of Huygens as: "Having dared to contest the mighty emission theory of Sir Isaac Newton"7. In fact the corpuscular theory wasn't even "Sir Isaac's". It was first formulated in the e 10th century by the Arab polymath Ibn al-Haytham , who wrote in his Book of Optics: "Light rays are streams of minute particles, lacking all sensible qualities except energy."8 This is essentially the modern concept of a photon. a But then in 1803 the English physician Thomas Young performed his famous b double-slit experiment demonstrating the interference property of light . This being a b c d e Conceived as made. Isaac Newton (1642-1727), English physicist. Christian Huygens (1629-1695), Dutch physicist. Max Planck (1858–1947), German physicist. Ibn al-Haytham (965–1040), Arab mathematician and astronomer. . 4 explicable in wave, but not in particle terms, after that the corpuscular theory started to go out of fashion, and by the mid 1800s had been generally abandoned in favour of a wave model. c And when in 1865 James Maxwell calculated from the electric and magnetic d properties of a 'vacuum' (the aether ) that electromagnetic waves should travel through it at the known speed of light of 300k km/s, the ondulatory nature of light was generally accepted. As was then also the existence its medium, the luminiferous aether. For practical purposes we can just define the aether as "the medium light is conceived as a disturbance propagating through": aether = the medium light is conceived as a disturbance propagating through It is interesting that Newton at one points of view cogitated the possibility of an aether, writing in his 1704 Opticks: "Is not the heat of a warm room convey'd through a vacuum by the vibrations of a much subtiler medium than air, which remained after the air was drawn out? And is not this medium the same as that by which light is refracted and reflected?"9 But he then apparently had second thoughts, arguing that: "Such a medium would have to extend everywhere in space, and would disturb and retard the motions of the planets and comets. So there is no evidence for its existence, and it ought to be rejected."10 Newton seems to have conceived the aether in mechanical terms. In fact it is purely e electromagnetic, with electric and magnetic but no mechanical properties . That light travels at a finite speed was first proposed by the Greek philosopher f Empedocles . He held that the Sun's rays take time to reach the Earth. The earliest g quantitative measurement was made in 1676 by the Danish astronomer Ole Römer , h based on the eclipses of Jupiter's moons. His value of 200k km/s was however too low, due his having taken the time light takes to cross the Earth’s orbit as 22 min, rather than the true 16 min. Correcting for this gives 275k km/s, close to the actual 300k km/s. a b c d e f g h Thomas Young (1773–1829), English physician and polymath. Appendix p.51. James Maxwell (1831–1879), Scottish physicist. p.2, note. Viscosity, density, etc. (below). Empedocles (490-430 b.c.), pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Ole Römer (1644–1710), Danish astronomer. 'k' = thousand. 5 Einstein a Contrary to what is often believed, Einstein was a strong supporter of the aether. He somewhat half-heartedly rejected it in his 1905 Special Relativity paper: "The introduction of a 'luminiferous aether' will prove to be superfluous."11 b But in 1919 he had second thoughts, writing in a letter to Lorentz : "It would have been more correct if I had limited myself to emphasizing only the nonexistence of an aether velocity, instead of arguing its total nonexistence. To deny the existence of the aether means in the last analysis denying all physical properties to empty space."12 And then in his 1920 Leiden address he resoundingly brought it back again: "Recapitulating, we may say that according to the General Theory of Relativity space is endowed with physical qualities. In this sense there exists an aether. Space without an aether is unthinkable. Not only would there be no propagation of light, but also no standards of space and time."13 Evidently contradicting his the earlier statement. But then, Albert was no stranger to c contradiction 14 CONCEPTUAL Waves Experimentally, light shows both wave and particle behaviour – the so-called waveparticle duality. For present purposes the former is of most interest. d A wave is not itself a material object. It is an event, a time-dependent disturbance propagating through a physical medium at a characteristic speed c determined by the properties of that medium: wave = a disturbance propagating through a medium When one throws a pebble into a pond, the disturbance spreads out as ripples propagating over its surface at a characteristic speed determined by the properties of e the water medium. The same holds for sea waves, Fig. 1a , the disturbance here being caused by the wind. a b c d e Albert Einstein (1879–1955), German theoretical physicist. Hendrik Lorentz (1853-1928), Dutch physicist. Relativity article. Here always a physical wave, as opposed to the mathematical variety. 'Absolute' here is 'with respect to the Earth's surface'. 6 Fig. 1. Sea waves. For a boat sailing upwind at speed v though the water, Fig. 1b, the velocity of the waves relative to the boat is the sum of the two velocities c+v. When the boat sails downwind, Fig. 1c, the waves overtake it at the difference of the two speeds c–v. The same applies to sound waves, which are pressure disturbances propagating through the air medium at a characteristic speed c=1240 km/h determined by its a properties , Fig. 2a. Fig. 2. Sound waves (1). For a cyclist pedalling at speed v=40 km/h in the opposite direction to the sound b waves, Fig. 2b , their speed relative to him is the sum of the two speeds c+v=1280 km/h. And he experiences them as 'bunched up', with a higher frequency than if he were c d stationary . this is the the Doppler effect , which we discuss further in the next section. Conversely, when pedalling in the same direction as the sound waves, Fig. 2c, they overtake him at the difference of the two speeds c–v=1200 km/h. He here experiences e them as 'spread out', with a lower frequency than if he was at rest . If one takes a length of rope and shakes one end up and down, Fig. 3, rope waves travel down it at a speed determined by the properties of the rope medium; and so on. a b c d e Its density and compressibility (below). Assuming no wind. Fig. 1b. Named after the Austrian mathematician and physicist Christian Doppler (1803-1853). Fig. 1c. 7 Fig. 3. Rope waves. The idea of waves without a medium – pond or sea waves without water, sound waves without air, rope waves without a rope, light waves without a corresponding a b aether – is nonsensical : waves without a medium is nonsensical A wave is a disturbance, and for there to be a disturbance, something (some physical thing) has to be disturbed. One cannot have a disturbance of nothing. In the humdrum everyday world we live in, there can't be a smile on the face of a Cheshire cat without a Cheshire cat. James Maxwell: "Whenever energy is transmitted from one body to another, there must be a medium, or substance, in which the energy exists after it leaves one body and before it reaches the other".15 c Albert Michelson : "The undulatory theory of light assumes the existence of a medium, the aether, whose vibrations produce heat and light and which is supposed to fill all space."16 and: "It appears practically certain that there must be a medium whose proper function it is to transmit light waves. Although reasoning leads to the conclusion that it is not an ordinary form of matter " 17 Acccording to Thomas See, Michelson openly rejected Einstein's Relativity on the d grounds that : "It does not account for the transmission of light, but holds that the aether should be thrown overboard"18 a Defined for present purposes as "that which light is conceived as a disturbance propagating through". b 'Non-' + 'sense' = doesn't make sense. c d Albert Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. Thomas See (1866-1962), American astronomer. 8 a Henri Poincaré : "We know whence comes our belief in the aether. If light takes several years to arrive to us from a removed star, it must be sustained somewhere and supported by something material."19 b Hendrik Lorentz : "I cannot but regard the aether as endowed with a certain degree of substantiality, however different it may be from ordinary matter."20 c Nicola Tesla : "All attempts to explain the workings of the universe without recognizing the existence of the aether, and the indispensable function it plays, are futile and d destined to oblivion." 21 e Paul Dirac : f "It is natural to regard light as the velocity of some real physical thing . So we are forced to have an aether".22 g John Bell : "The aether was wrongly rejected on the purely philosophical grounds that h what is unobservable does not exist" 23. 'Vacuum', etc. i Physical objects have physical properties . If something didn't have physical j properties, we wouldn't discriminate or recognize it, and it wouldn't be anything for us. Because a 'vacuum' has measurable physical properties, specifically its magnetic permeability 0 and electrical permittivity  0: a b c d e f g h i j In 1900. In 1906, a year after Einstein's Special Relativity paper. Nicola Tesla (1856-1943) Serbian electrical engineer and inventor. In a prepared statement on his 81st birthday in 1937. Paul Dirac (1902-1984), English theoretical physicist. p.2. John Bell (1928–1990), Irish quantum physicist, in a 1951 interview. A logical positivist thesis (below) Defining a 'physical object' as "something with measurable physical properties". Any physical thing. 9 –7 0 = 4 x 10 ;  0 = 8.85 x 10–12 (eq.1) a it is by definition something physical and exists . b Because the terms 'vacuum' , 'free space', etc. all imply 'nothing', they are inappropriate here. This is why we prefer the traditional "aether". Characteristic speeds The characteristic speed cs of sound through the air is given by: (eq.2) where ,  are the density and elasticity respectively of the air medium. Similarly, the characteristic speed c of light through the aether is: c (eq.3) d where ,  are its magnetic permeability and electrical permittivity . Magnetic permeability  being associated with electrical inductance, it is effectively e 'electric inertia' . Electrical permittivity  being associated with electrical capacitance, it f is effectively 'electric elasticity' . g The mathematical expressions for the characteristic speeds of light and sound are thus exactly analogous. Strongly suggesting that both refer to essentially the same phenomenon, namely the propagation of a physical disturbance through a physical medium. And if as mainstream Relativity maintains light is a 'mediumless wonder', a disturbance of nothing propagating through nothing, the questions it has to answer are then: – 1) what determines light's characteristic speed c=300k km/s? – 2) is it simply a coincidence that this is exactly what one would expect for an electromagnetic disturbance propagating though a medium with the electric and h magnetic properties of a 'vacuum' (the aether )24 a b c d e Strictly: wll be said to exist. Synonyms: "void", "nothingness", "vacuity", etc. Or 'compressibility', the inverse of its bulk modulus Ks. Eq.1. Applying a force to a mass, the motion takes time to build up. Applying a voltage (electrical force) to an inductor, the current (electrical motion) takes time to build up. f Applying a force to a spring, it at first cedes, and then builds up an opposing force. Applying a voltage (electrical force) to a capacitor, it at first cedes, and then builds up an opposing voltage. g Eqs.1,2. h p.2, note. 10 Both these are excellent questions, to which Relativitists to date have provided no coherent answers. EXPERIMENTAL (1) Albert Michelson A good starting point for experimental evidence for the aether is the famous (some might say "infamous") 1887 aether-wind measurement carried out by Albert Michelson a and Edward Morley at the Case School of Physics in Cleveland, USA. Albert Michelson was born in Strelno, Prussia. When he was two, his family emigrated to the USA where he grew up, firstly in small mining towns where his father was a merchant. And then for his high school years in San Francisco where he lived with an aunt. Fig. 4. Albert Michelson. As an academically outstanding but financially impoverished student, in 1869 Michelson was awarded a special appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy by the US president Ulysses Grant, where he excelled excelled in optics, heat, climatology and drawing. After graduation, and a further two years at sea, in 1875 he returned to the Naval Academy to become an instructor in physics and chemistry. Having decided to pursue a career in physics, in 1880 he obtained leave of absence from the Navy to study in Europe. He spent time at universities in Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris. In 1881 he resigned from the Navy. And in the following year returned to the USA to take up an appointment as Professor of Physics at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio25. Michelson 1881 Based on the electric and magnetic properties of the aether, in 1864 Maxwell predicted electromagnetic waves propagating though it at a speed c = 300 km/s, whose existence was first demonstrated experimentally by Heinrich Hertz in 1887. a Edward Morley (1838–1923), American physicist. 11 Since light was known to travel at this same speed, it was correctly deduced that light must be an electromagnetic wave. Experiments to determine the aether's properties then had high priority in 19th century physics. There were two main theories. The first was formulated in 1818 by Augustin-Jean a Fresnel , based on measurements of stellar aberration. He held that the aether does not partake in the Earth's orbital motion. And so is either stationary, or has only a small velocity through in space, Fig. 0-5. In which case there should be a measurable aether wind of ~30 km/s – the Earth's orbital speed – at its surface. Fig. 0-5. Aether wind. Michelson was also of the opinion that: "The phenomenon of the aberration of the fixed stars can be accounted for on the hypothesis that the aether does not participate in the Earth's motion around the Sun."26 b However, in 1844 George Stokes put foreward the aether entrainment theory: that the aether is 'dragged along' by Earth27. in which case there should be little or no detectable aether wind at the Earth's surface. Michelson's experiments were designed to test for these two hypotheses. And not for the aether itself, given that its existence was virtually universally accepted by the physicists of his day. He wrote in the introduction to his 1887 report: "The experimental trial of the [Fresnel stationary aether] hypothesis forms the subject of the present paper". Maxwell had also suggested that: "If one made two measurements of the velocity of light, one in the direction of the Earth's travel and another at right angles to it, the time light takes to travel over the same length of path would greater in the first case."28 The interferometer Michelson used is shown schematically in Fig. 6a. A beam of light is split into 'main' and 'perpendicular' paths. These are then recombined to form an interference pattern on a screen. An aether headwind on the main axis would make the a b Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788-1827), French civil engineer and physicist. George Stokes (1819-1903), Irish mathematician and physicist. 12 average speed of light along it slower than on the perpendicular axis, resulting in a 'fringe shift', a displacement of the interference pattern from which the aether speed can be calculated. Fig. 6. Michelson-Morley (1). An analogy is two twins swimming in a river, Fig. 6b. One, the 'crosses' twin, swims across the river and back again. Due to the river's flow he has to head upstream somewhat, and takes longer than if the river were stationary. His 'up-down' brother swims the same distance, but first upstream and then back again. Since the time he loses on his upstream leg is not compensated by what he gains on his downstream leg, he ends up taking longer than his 'crosses' brother. In interferometer terms, a slower light travel time on the main axis would imply the existence of an aether wind. Michelson's first interferometer, designed and built in 1881 during his stay at a Hermann von Helmholtz's laboratory in Berlin, is shown in Fig. 7. Fig. 7. Michelson's 1881 interferometer29. In spite of being mounted on a solid stone pier, however, due to the instrument's extreme sensitivity to vibrations it soon became apparent that it couldn't be used in a city like Berlin. It was accordingly moved to the quieter grounds of the Astrophysicalisches Observatorium in Potsdam. But even there, although under ordinary circumstances the fringe shifts were measurable, Michelson noted that: "Stamping on the pavement 100 meters from the observatory could make the fringes disappear entirely!"30 a Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894), German physician and physicist. 13 Apart from a number of further practical problems due to temperature variations, mechanical distortion of the arms during rotation, etc. Since the aether speeds Michelson obtained with this instrument were considerably a less than the 30 km/s he was expecting on the Fresnel stationary aether hypothesis , and in view of the considerable experimental uncertainties, he concluded that Fresnel's theory could not be substantiated, reporting that: "The interpretation of the results is that there is no displacement of the interference bands. The hypothesis of a stationary aether is thus shown to be incorrect."31 Stokes' theory of complete aether dragging was then implicitly confirmed. Michelson-Morley 1887 b In 1885 Lord Rayleigh wrote to Michelson urging him to repeat his 1881 experiment with greater accuracy32. Michelson was by now Professor of Physics at the Case School. He accordingly began a collaboration with Edward Morley, who was Professor of Chemistry at the Western Reserve University, situated on the same campus. The improved interferometer they created together is shown in Fig. 8. To minimize the thermal and vibrational effects that had dogged Michelson's previous experiment, the instrument was assembled in the closed heavy stone basement of a Case school dormitory. The effects of vibration were further reduced by mounting it on a large sandstone block floating in a circular trough containing 275 kg of mercury. The sensitivity was improved by increasing the light paths to ten times their previous value by repeated reflection. Fig. 8. Michelson's 1887 interferometer33. The mercury trough allowed the instrument to turn with close to zero friction. Given an initial push, it would rotate slowly for several minutes while the fringes were observed through a telescope. But even so, they could at times disappear completely due to a b Fig. 0-5. Lord Rayleigh (John William Strutt) (1842-1919), English scientist. 14 distant thunderstorms, passing horse traffic, etc. The observer could easily "get lost" when they returned34. a b A total of 36 sets observations were made over four days in July 1887 , during an 35 hour at noon and an hour at six o'clock in the evening . The readings Michelson reported are shown in Fig. 0-9. Fig. 0-9. Michelson-Morley results (1). c In 1998 Héctor Múnera reanalyzed them using modern statistical methods. He found that they gave at a 95% confidence level aether speeds of: d – midday readings: ve = 6.22+/-1.86 km/s – evening readings: ve = 6.8+/-4.98 km/s36 They are plotted in Fig. 0-10. The somewhat higher value of the evening readings, and their greater spread, are explicable and discussed below. Fig. 0-10. Michelson-Morley results (2). a b c d Rotations of the interferometer. July 8,9,11,12. Héctor Múnera (??), Columbian physicist. Using the subscripts 'e' for 'Earth' and '' for 'aether'. 15 Compared to the 1881 experiment, the results this time were definitely positive. But since they were still well below the 30 km/s expected on the Fresnel stationary aether a hypothesis , Michelson reported that: "The relative velocity of the Earth and the luminiferous aether was certainly not one fourth, and probably not one sixth, of the Earth’s orbital velocity [of 30 km/s]."37 In August 1887 he wrote to Lord Rayleigh saying: "The result is decidedly negative [for the Fresnel theory]. The deviation of the interference fringes from zero was not the expected. It follows that if the aether does slip past, the relative velocity is less than one sixth of the b Earth’s ."38 Michelson never questioned the aether's existence, but only the extent to which it is entrained by the Earth's motion. This is evident from the title of his two papers: "The Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Aether". Had he doubted the aether, he would hardly have given his papers this title. Michelson firmly believed in the aether c to his dying day 39.. Obviously, since his own experiment had demonstrated it. Nullification (1) In spite of Michelson-Morley's clearly positive aether-wind result, however, well outside his experimental error, it later: "Came to be said to be within the range of an experimental error that would allow it to be actually zero."40 This is the famous "null result" quoted in most physics textbooks. It made Michelson's "the most famous failed experiment in history"41. And gained for him a d physics Nobel prize , the first American ever to receive one42. After this the idea of the aether went out of fashion. As just seen, however, the M&M result was very definitely not zero. And they themselves did not report it as such. Their measured of 6.22 km/s is 22'400 km/h. Imagine being stopped the police at this speed. And attempting to convince the officer that it was "within the range that would allow it to be actually zero"! So how could Michelson's result have "come to be said" to be null within experimene tal error? Dayton Miller commented in 1933: a b c d e Fig. 0-5. Below. In spite of being a religious agnostic! In 1907. Dayton Miller (18661941), American physicist and astronomer. 16 "The indicated effect was not zero. The conclusions published in 1887 stated that the observed relative motion of the Earth and aether did not exceed one fourth of the earth's orbital velocity. This is quite different from the null effect now so frequently imputed to this experiment."43 Just because something is less than expected, doesn't make it null. And since when have 'experimenters' expectations' been a valid criterion for judging a scientific experiment? To the contrary, Science purports to be open-minded and objective. And to proceed from experimental results to explanatory theories, and not vice-versa. And since when has "coming to be said" been accepted scientific methodology? In his final report Michelson made the further important qualification that: "In what precedes the motion of the solar system is not considered. The experiment will therefore be repeated at intervals of three months, and all uncertainty will be avoided. "44 This, however, he unfortunately never did. Had he done so, the course of modern physics could well have been very different. Even if Michelson had obtained a null result, as he himself recognized, that would not have established the aether's non-existence. But simply that it had zero speed at that particular point in the Earth's orbit. Sagnac a In 1913 Georges Sagnac mounted an interferometer on a circular platform rotating with a vertical axis. Split light beams were sent around the platform in opposite directions, Fig. 0-11a. And then recombined to form an interference pattern that was recorded photographically, Fig. 0-11b. The physical set up is shown schematically in Fig. 0-11c. Fig. 0-11. The Sagnac experiment.45 b Assuming an aether essentially stationary with respect to the Earth's surface , for a counter-clockwise rotating platform, the counter-clockwise light beam 'a' has further to a b Georges Sagnac (1869–1928), French physicist. The small aether drift of ~0.1% of the speed of light is here negligible. 17 travel than the clockwise beam 'b'. This should result in a fringe shift with respect to the stationary condition, with a magnitude varying with the rotational speed. The results conformed to the prediction, confirming the aether's existence. Sagnac reported his results in two papers: "The existence of the luminiferous aether demonstrated by means of the effect of a relative aether wind in a uniformly rotating interferometer" and: "On the proof of the reality of the luminiferous aether with the experiment of the rotating interferometer."46 Their titles summarize his conclusion. Sagnac considered his experiment to be conceptually similar Michelson-Morley's. It is in the sense that it demonstrates the aether's existence. But unlike the M&M experiment, it didn't provide a value for the aether wind. a In 1925 Michelson and Gale repeated the Sagnac experiment . But with a large fixed interferometer 650m x 360m in size, using the Earth's surface as the platform and its rotation as the angular velocity. Sagnac himself had suggested such an experiment. Assuming an aether essentially stationary in space, independent of the Earth's b rotation , a fringe shift of 0.236 was predicted. The measured value of 0.2300.005 confirmed this47. Sagnac's, Michelson-Gale's, and a number of other similar experiments using rotating frames also confirmed the aether's existence, thereby refuting Einstein's second c 'speed of light' postulate and hence Relativity itself . In spite of which, physicists of the time showed little interest in these experiments, as if they posed no challenge to Relativity. Einstein never mentioned them in his writings48 d (he wouldn't, would he! ). Dayton Miller In 1900 Morley was joined at the Case School by Dayton Miller. Together they e increased the interferometer's sensitivity by extending the lengths of its arms to three times the original values, and made various other improvements. a b c d e In Clearing-IL. Fig. 0-5. Of a constant speed of light for all inertial observers. What people don't say sometimes says more than what they do say. The parallel and perpendicular light paths, Fig. 6a 18 Fig. 12. Dayton Miller in 192149. Measurements in 1905-6 in Cleveland gave a lower, but nevertheless still positive a b value of ~3.5 km/s 50. Remembering that since very small '2nd order' differences 51 of c around one part in a million were being measured, a certain variation was to be expected. From 1906 onwards Miller continued experimenting alone. His most important work was done during 1925-6 on top of Mt Wilson in California, at 1750 m above sea level. The idea was again to reduce the effect of any possible aether entrainment, the aether d being dragged along by the Earth . Fig. 0-13. Miller's Mt Wilson interferometer52. e Miller made ~12'000 sets of observations as opposed to Michelson-Morley's 36. f And making them over the course of a year , he was able to eliminate the effects of the g Earth's orbit. And so could calculate the solar system's velocity through the aether, h obtaining a value : a b But still definitely positive in terms of their experimental error. Due to the (v/c)2 term in the Lorentz factor (eq.4, p.23). The Earth's true aether speed is around 0.1% of that of light (below). c A difference of 10 cm in a journey of 100 km. d e f g h p.11. Rotations of the interferometer. What M&M recognized needed doing, but never did (p.16). Magnitude and direction. At a 95% confidence level. 19 a o b vs = 8.221.39 km/s @ (5.2h, –67 ) in the direction of the Dorado (Swordfish) constellation in the Great Magellanic Cloud53. Michelson, who only measured the projection of the aether wind onto his c interferometer plane at a single point in the Earth's orbit , correspondingly obtained a lower aether speed. d Fig. 14a shows specimen Miller readings , and Fig. 14b,c his averaged overall 54 results . Fig. 14. Miller's results55. Miller had however by now realized that the aether speeds he was obtaining were far too low. Still assuming that this was due to aether entrainment, and using the Earth's orbital speed as a reference, he calculated that his measured speed of 8.22 km/s corresponded to a true value of ~208 km/s56. We discuss it further later. In 1927 Piccard and Stahel carried out two sets of air interferometer measurements, in Brussels and on the top of Mt Rigi in Switzerland, obtaining aether speeds of: ve = 5.4 +1.4/-1.8 km/s ve = 5.9 +1.3/-1.6 km/s57 e respectively, compatible with the Michelson-Morley results And in 1929 Michelson, now together with Pease and Pearson, repeated his original f 1887 experiment, also on top of Mt Wilson, and with a larger interferometer whose sensitivity approached that of Miller's. He reported: a b c d e f Solar system ('s') with respect to the aether (''). (α=5.2 hrs, =–67o). Using the symbol '@' to mean "in an astronomical direction" (p.49). Fig. 0-10. Plotted against sidereal time (appendix p.54). p.18. Now with a 52-meter round-trip light path. 20 "The results gave no displacement as great as one fifteenth of that to be expected on the supposition of an effect due to a motion of the solar system of three hundred kilometres per second."58 a In other words – in the roundabout 'Michelson speak' we are by now used to – something less than 20 km/sec. But in spite of this being more than three times his original 1887 value, it was again attributed to experimental error. And when in 1932 Kennedy and Thorndike obtained the even higher value of 24 km/sec, they too dismissed it: "In view of relative velocities amounting to thousands of kilometers per second existing among the nebulae, this can scarcely be regarded as other than a clear null result"59 This amazing statement is as if to say: "I may weigh 180 kg. But in view of weights amounting to seven tons existing among elephants, this can scarcely be regarded as other than clearly featherweight." So when in 1933 Miller published his final results, they got little attention, since they fatally undermined Einsteinian Relativity, by then almost universally adopted by the b mainstream Physics establishment : "Miller's findings remained uncomfortably in the scientific background, impossible to refute and equally impossible to accept."60 Miller, however, was no scientific lightweight. A Princeton physics graduate with a doctorate in astronomy, he headed the Case School physics department from 1893 until his retirement in 1936. He served as secretary, vice president and president of the American Physical Society; was elected to the National Academy of Science; and was a member of the US National Research Council, becoming chairman of its Physical Sciences Division61. c Apart from this he was an exceptionally careful and rigorous experimenter who during his lifetime successfully defended his results against all skeptics. Maurizio d Consoli : "Miller's experiments represented the most refined version of the 'interferometric art' initiated by Michelson-Morley." 62 a b c d Cf p.15. Below. Cf the exerpt from his1925 report (appendix p.53). Maurizio Consoli (??), Italian nuclear physicist. 21 a In 1925 Miller was awarded $1000 by the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science for his detection of the aether63 – something the scientific establishment subsequently declared not to exist! If anyone deserved a fair hearing it was Miller. He didn't get it. Largely ignored and isolated in his later years, shortly before his death he gave all his data – more than 300 pages of interferometer readings – to his research associate Robert Shankland with the somewhat bitter comment to "Analyze them or burn them"64. Shankland After Miller died in 1941, Shankland became chairman of the Case School Physics Department. He did indeed "analyze" Miller's data. But the department having in the meantime 'converted' to fundamentalist Einsteinism, his "analysis" had the express intention of discrediting his former boss's work. After extensive consultation with Einstein, and in what has been called "One of the most perverse scientific papers ever published"65, in 1955 Shankland et al. pronounced Miller's results to be worthless, attributing them to seasonal temperature effects66. The allegation was fatuous. Firstly because Miller had already exhaustively investigb ated and discarded this same possibility in a long series of control experiments – something that Shankland as Miller's assistant at the time obviously knew well. Secondly: if temperature was the cause, daily variations should produce analogous effects, which they didn't. Thirdly, temperature variations are Sun-dependent, varying with solar time. But c Miller's results were functions of sidereal time . And so on. The so-called "analysis" wasn't even done by the paper's authors, but by a Case School graduate student, Robert Stearns, who got only a footnote credit67. Shankland sent a pre-publication draft of his paper to Einstein, who wrote him a personal letter of appreciation: "I thank you very much for sending me your careful study of the Miller experiments, showing convincingly that the observed effect has nothing to do with an 'aether wind', but is due to differences of temperature."68 There by now being no-one left alive prepared to defend Miller, his pioneering work was interred along with his body, while fundamentalist Einsteinism grew in popularity and dominance. Having thus betrayed his master, Shankland received his thirty pieces of silver in the form of a series of widely published interviews with Einstein. After which his academic career soared. He ended his days as a bureaucrat within the emerging governmental atomic energy infrastructure69. a b c Worth a lot more then! Appendix, p.53. Based on a direction in space with respect to the fixed stars rather than the Sun (Fig. 14, appendix p.54). 22 At Mt. Wilson today there is no record of the exhaustive and ground-breaking work done there by Miller. But only a memorial plaque to Michelson and Einstein (!)70. a Reginald Cahill : "It was an injustice and a tragedy that Miller's contributions to physics were not recognised in his lifetime. Not everyone is as careful and fastidious as he. He was ignored simply because it was believed then, as it is now, that b 'absolute motion' is incompatible with Special Relativity (it is!). It was accepted without evidence that his experiments must be wrong. This shows once again how little physics is evidence based – as Galileo discovered to his cost. Even today Miller's experiments attract a hostile reaction from the physics community."71 Doppler effect c Continuing with the Doppler effect , this applies to both sources and observers. For a moving source the waves are 'bunched up' in the direction of motion. An observer stationary in the sound medium (the air) experiences an approaching source as having a higher frequency than the emitted, Fig. 0-15a. And correspondingly, a receding source as having a lower frequency, Fig. 0-15b. When standing beside a motorway, the apparent sound frequency of approaching cars is higher, and than that of receding cars is lower, than the emitted. Fig. 0-15. Doppler effect (1). d The same applies to a moving observer . When travelling against the sound waves he experiences a higher frequency, Fig. 0-16a. And when moving with them a lower frequency, Fig. 0-16b. a b c d Reginald Cahill (1948-) Australian theoretical physicist. Another of Cahill's creative ways of avoiding the 'unspeakable ae-word'. Cf Fig. 2. Fig. 2. 23 Fig. 0-16. Doppler effect (2). The Doppler effect depends on speeds relative to the medium. No medium; no speed relative to it; no Doppler effect: Doppler effect: depends on speeds relative to a medium That electromagnetic waves do in practice show a Doppler effect – for instance the a redshifts of receding distant galaxies discovered by Edwin Hubble in 1929 – is further experimental evidence for the aether. EXPERIMENTAL (2) Length contraction b In 1889 Oliver Heaviside showed from Maxwell's equations that movement though the aether at speed v alters electric fields by the Lorentz factor : c (eq.4) In the same year George FitzGerald used this and the ad hoc hypothesis that intermolecular forces are electrostatic to derive the length contraction relation, thereby explaining the alleged null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment: "The forces binding the molecules of a solid might be modified by motion through the aether such that the base of the interferometer is shortened, d neutralizing the optical effect ."72 In 1892 Lorentz, independently and more rigorously, arrived at the same conclusion: "There will be a contraction in the direction of motion proportional to the square of the ratio of the velocities of translation and of light, such as to annul the effect of aether drift in the Michelson-Morley interferometer."73 a b c d Edwin Hubble (1889-1953), American astronomer. Oliver Heaviside (1850–1925), English engineer and mathematician. George FitzGerald (1851–1901), Irish physicist. Why this is not exactly so is shown in the next section. 24 Whence its name: 'the FitzGerald-Lorentz length contraction'. a In 1900 Joseph Larmor , considering a system composed of two electrons of b opposite charge rotating in circular orbits round their common centre, again showed that for the system moving through the aether the deformation of its electric fields would cause the FitzGerald-Lorentz contraction74. Cahill In 2002 Reginald Cahill re-examined the Michelson-Morley and Miller interferometer results. He found that both had failed to take into account: c – 1) the FitzGerald-Lorentz length contraction – 2) the refractive index of the medium, in this case air d The Michelson-Morley interferometer set up is repeated in Fig. 17 . For an aether headwind v, the light speed is c-v on the outward leg and c+v on the return leg, which 2e without length contraction would give an average speed of c/ . Taking length contraction into account, the apparent average speed is  times greater, namely c/. o On the perpendicular axis where the photon moves at 90 to the aether wind, the f average light speed is likewise c/ . Fig. 17. Michelson-Morley (2). The same apparent light speed is thus obtained on both axes – as was predicted by a FitzGerald and Lorentz . Meaning that an interferometer will in principle always give a null result, independently of any aether wind. a Joseph Larmor (1857-1942), Irish physicist. Effectively an electron-positron pair. Electrons were known by then. The atomic nucleus was only discovered by Rutherford in 1911. c Known to Miller, but not to M&M, at the time of their experiments. b d e f Cf Fig. 6 Appendix eq.6 (p.51). Appendix eq.7 (p.52). 25 The FitzGerald-Lorentz length contraction, however – and this was Cahill's other crucial insight  refers to conditions in vacuo. But the Michelson-Morley and Miller experiments were performed in air, where the speed of light is somewhat lower. in which b case the two effects don't exactly cancel out. But leave a small residual , which is what c Michelson-Morley, Miller and others were measuring. We noted that Miller had realized that his results were too low, but had attributed it to aether entrainment. d Making the necessary corrections, the Michelson-Morley and Miller's experiments give average aether speeds of: ve = 27077 km/s; vs = 37463 km/s75 e respectively. A detailed calculation is shown in the appendix . In 2006 Cahill made his own aether-wind measurement using two atomic clocks linked by an optic fibre and a coaxial cable respectively. He obtained a solar-system aether speed of: o vs = 40020 km/s @ (5.5h, –70 )76 compatible with Miller's values. In the heat of the Relativity debate of the late 1920s, attempts were made to 'purify' the Michelson-Morley experiment by carrying it out in helium (Illingworth in 192777) and a soft vacuum (Joos in 193078). Because helium has a considerably smaller refractive index than air, both experiments gave lower aether-wind values. Illingworth obtained 3.13+/-1.04 km/s. And Joos the even lower 1.5 km/s79. Ironically these were taken as confirming the Michelson-Morley 'null' result, when in fact all they f do is confirm the FitzGerald-Lorentz length contraction . The dependency of interferometer results on the refractive index of the medium was nicely demonstrated in an experiment carried out by Demjanov. As the air was gradually evacuated from his instrument, the fringe shifts steadily decreased, and finally vanished80. deWitte g Further experimental evidence for the aether was obtained by Roland deWitte . A technician with the Belgium Telephone Company, in 1991 he was given the task of a b c d e f g p.23. ~2% of the actual value. p.19. Midday readings. p.50. p.23. Roland deWitte (??), Belgian telephone technician, 26 synchronizing two caesium atomic clocks separated by 1.5 kilometers of coaxial cable, in a north-south orientation, using radio frequency signals. The tests ran for 178 days. Fig. 0-18 shows specimen transit times measured over a three days. The maximum is in the sidereal direction (α5 hr) , the same as that b obtained by Miller half a century previously . Like most others, however, deWitte seems to have been unaware of Miller's work. Fig. 0-18. deWitte's results. Little of deWitte's original data has survived, but Cahill has shown that his aether speed is likewise compatible with Miller's. DeWitte realized that the effect he was observing was of cosmic origin. But not being an accredited physicist, he was unable to get his results published in any physics journal; and was subsequently dismissed from his research post. With his findings censured or ignored, and without a job, deWitte became deeply depressed and suffered an early death81. Torr and Kolen c In another version of the deWitte set up, in 1981 Torr and Kolen compared two rubidium vapor clocks separated by 500m of coaxial cable. They however unfortunately chose an east-west direction for their cable, almost perpendicular to the approximately d southerly sense of the aether wind obtained by Miller . Since they make no reference to Miller's work, like deWitte they were presumably unaware of it. Otherwise they would surely not have used this cable orientation. The small projection of the aether wind onto their cable nevertheless enabled them to 0 estimate its velocity as 41740 km/s in a direction (5.5h, −65 )82, close to Miller's and e Cahill's values . a b c d e When the projection of the aether wind onto the cable is greatest. p.18. At the University of Utah. p.18. p.25. 27 Wallace a In 1961 Bryan Wallace was making radar distance measurements to the planet Venus, when he noted discrepancies in the speed of light. He submitted his findings to Physical Review Letters, but was refused and had to publish elsewhere83. "How could NASA not have noticed this?" he asked. He claimed that NASA had in fact noticed. But that: "Due to the unfortunate things that tend to happen to physicists rash enough to challenge Einstein's second postulate, they were reluctant to acknowledge it. Getting a physicist to say that the speed of light is not constant is like trying to exsanguinate a turnip."84 Wallace died in 1997 with his findings, like Miller's, neither confirmed nor refuted by the Physics establishment, but simply ignored. Marinov b The colourful Stefan Marinov comes close to many people's idea of a scientific crackpot. A native of Bulgaria and former Assistant Professor of Physics at Sofia University, he was four times forcibly subjected to psychiatric treatment for his political c views . Emigrating later to the West, he became involved in the scheme of an esoteric Swiss religious sect to extract energy from the vacuum of space85. In 1979, now in Brussels, he made a series of measurements of the speed of light using synchronously rotating mirrors. He concluded that the solar system moves though the aether at an average speed of 350 km/s in an astronomical direction (=12 hr, =– o 20 )86. We discuss this value later. Marinov's various submissions to Nature were consistently refused. As were also his letters to the editor and his paid advertisments. The editor wrote to him: " I am sorry to have to tell you that I am not willing to publish your papers, because in my judgement they will not persuade our readers of the validity of your claims. We also do not sell advertising space to people with unorthodox views who have failed our usual tests of acceptability, which would be quite unacceptable. (sgd) Dr. Philip Campbell, Editor."87 In other words "Your submissions are quite unacceptable, because I have deemed them quite unacceptable". Marinov was so incensed with this that he threatened to immolate himself in front of the British Embassy in Vienna88. He later commented: a b c Bryan Wallace (d.1997), American radio astronomer. Stefan Marinov (1931–1997), Bulgarian physicist. Soviet communism's standard way of dealing with such cases. 28 "It is clear that to recognize the failure of Relativity in the third quarter of the twentieth century is a hard nut for the scientific community to crack. But it must be done, and the sooner the better."89 He ended his life by jumping off the top floor of the Graz University library, writing in his suicide note: "Having walked so many years on the thorny way of truth, I became tired. My books and papers are my scientific testament. I hope that soon the absolute space-time concepts which I restored by numerous experiments and simple mathematical theory will be accepted by the scientific community. On leaving this world I can only repeat the eternal words: Feci quod potui ('I did what I could')."90 And if, as it now seems, there is in fact an aether wind, the idea of extracting energy from it is maybe not quite so crackpot after all. Spacecraft flyby Further estimations of the aether speed are obtained from the radio-frequency a signals emitted by spacecraft as they fly past the Earth. Due to the Doppler effect , when a spacecraft approaches the Earth the received signal frequency is greater than the emitted, Fig. 0-19. And is correspondingly lower when the spacecraft recedes. Fig. 0-19. Spacecraft flyby. In the presence of an aether headwind, both frequencies are higher than expected. In mainstream Physics this is known as the 'flyby anomaly': "Unexplained signal Doppler shifts that are not predicted by accepted Science, and not understood by present-day scientists."91 It is however only an 'anomaly' if the aether is not recognized. When it is, they are not only explainable, but provide an independent means of estimating the aether speed. Cahill analyzed a number spacecraft flybys at various points in the Earth's orbit, obtaining an average aether-wind speed vs for the solar-system of: o vs = 420  30 km/s @ (52h, –70 10 )92 a p.6. 29 a compatible with Miller's and also his own previous results . Other b c In 1990 the American university professors Howard Hayden and Petr Beckmann offered a $2,000 reward to anyone who could cite from the literature an experiment showing the invariance of the speed of light in the east-west directions to within 50 m/s. d Although the offer was published in Science magazine in November 199093, to date 94 there have been no takers . Silence sometimes speaks louder than words! In a further reported experiment, electromagnetic signals were found to travel faster from Washington to Los Angeles than vice versa, with a small but consistently replicable difference of 37 nanoseconds95. This again falsifies Einstein's 2nd postulate experimentally. General Resuming the above aether wind results: M&M Piccard&Stahel Miller Torr&Kohlen deWitte Cahill NASA be: year type speed direction 1887 1927 1933 1981 1991 2006 2008 interferometer -"-"coaxial cable -"-"flyby 25877 e 234+/-63 37463 41740 ?? 40020 42030 ?? ?? o (5.2h, –67 ) o (5.2h, −65 ) (5h, ??) o (5.52h, –7010 ) o (52h, –7010 ) Based on these, we will take the average solar-system velocity though the aether to o vs = ~40030 km/s @ (5h, –70 ) Múnera noted that of the six experiments carried out between 1887 and 1932 that he a analyzed , all without exception obtained non-null aether speeds. But with the notable b exception of Dayton Miller , all ended up reporting null results96. a b c p.25. Howard Hayden (??), physics professor at the University of Connecticut. Petr Beckmann (1924-1993), Czechoslovakian professor of electrical engineering at Colorado University. d As of Jan. 2020. e Averaged, with the M&M correction factor (p.53). 30 An Italian proverb runs: "Tra il dire e il fare, c'è di mezzo il mare." ("between the saying and the doing, in the middle is the sea.") In mainstream Physics, it would seem, there can be similar discrepancies between the 'fare' (results) and the 'dire' (reporting of them). Cahill: "It is now belatedly understood that numerous experiments, beginning with Michelson-Morley's, have always shown that the Einstein postulates are c false; that there is a detectable space ; and that motion through it has been repeatedly observed since 1887. In denying such obvious empirical facts Special Relativity is just silly. Michelson died not realising that he had obserd ved absolute motion . Ironically, he received a Nobel prize for reporting he had not observed what he in fact had."97 GENERAL CMB When the cosmic microwave background (CMB) was discovered in 1965, it was e quickly realized that it could provide an 'at rest' reference for speeds . f98 Consider a spaceship out in deep space, shown in 2-d terms in Fig. 20. Due to the g Doppler effect , when moving with respect to the CMB, the pilot experiences a higher CMB frequency in front of him and a lower frequency behind. So when he sees the same CMB frequency all around him, he knows he is at rest with respect to it. Fig. 20. Microwave background. a M&M (1887), Miller (1926), Piccard and Stahel (1926), Illingworth (1927), Joos (1930), Kennedy and Thorndike (1932). b And Michelson originally (below). c d e f g Another of his creative ways of avoiding the unspeakable ae-word. Ditto. Contradicting Einstein's first Special Relativity postulate that there is none. SpaceTime article. p.6. 31 On this basis, the absolute velocity vs of the solar system has been calculated to be: o vs = 370 km/s @ (11.2h, –7.2 ) The direction is towards the constellation Leo99, Fig. 21, i.e. nearly perpendicular to the approximately southerly direction of the solar system's velocity though the aether a determined by interferometer experiments . Fig. 21. Absolute, aether speeds. The difference between the two is then the absolute velocity of the aether in the region of the solar system with respect to the CMB. b We can note in passing that Marinov's rotating-mirror result gave the Earth's velocity c with respect to the CMB , rather than through the aether as would be expected of an interferometer experiment. For as yet unexplained reasons. Aether turbulence Cahill observed something that deWitte had noted, and is also present in the Michelson-Morley and Miller results. Namely that the aether wind is not smooth but gusty. It varies from hour to hour and day to day in both magnitude and direction, at a level of ~20km/s100. d The same variations are seen in spacecraft flyby data 101. Shankland also noticed them in Miller's readings. But used them as evidence of his inaccuracy, without considering that they could be a real effect. e Fig. 0-22 shows the fluctuations in specimen Michelson-Morley and Miller 102 measurements . a b c d e p.25. p.27. p.31. p.28. Fig. 14a. 32 Fig. 0-22. Aether turbulence (1). a103 And Fig. 0-23 those abstracted from the deWitte experiment . Fig. 0-23. Aether turbulence (2). Múnera likewise noted that in the Michelson-Morley results: "There were strong variations. Over the hour of the midday session of July 9, the aether speed changed from 18.1 to 16.8 km/s, and its direction changed from –151.5º to –176.4º. In the evening session the speed changed from 28.4 to 29.6 km/s, and the direction from +96.0º to +86.0º."104 b The greater variability of the M&M evening readings could be explained by c fluctuations in the aether inflow to the Sun , where they contribute to the result, Fig. 0-24b. Whereas at midday the inflow is perpendicular to the interferometer plane, and apart from directional variations has no effect, Fig. 0-24a. Fig. 0-24. Michelson-Morley (3). a b c Fig. 0-18. Fig. 0-10. p.36. 33 a Because in the evenings the Earth's rotation is perpendicular to its orbital motion , b whereas at midday it opposes it , this could explain the somewhat lower midday values. Aether-wind fluctuations also mean that the considerable variability in the M&M and c other results is most likely not entirely due to experimental error – giving even less justification for a 'null' interpretation. These fluctuations are also implied in the M&M and Miller experimental errors. Miller d firstly took far more readings . And secondly, used a considerably more sensitive instrument. And so should have obtained a far lower experimental error than M&M. That he didn't again implies that the variations in both results are not entirely due to error, Fig. 0-25. Fig. 0-25. Michelson-Morley. Miller results. e Returning to the Torr-Kolen experiment , since the sense of their cable was almost perpendicular to that of the approximately southerly aether-wind, fluctuations in its direction should have produced significant effects. They in fact reported considerable day-to-day variations105. Gravitational waves Consider a loudspeaker. Its vibrating diaphragm displaces the air in its vicinity, f causing an air-pressure wave propagating at the speed of sound cs . Individual air molecules in the wave's path oscillate longitudinally, Fig. 0-26a. The net result is a propagating air-speed disturbance with the wind speed as its mean, Fig. 0-26b: sound wave = propagating air-speed disturbance a Fig. 0-24b. Fig. 0-24a. c Fig. 0-10. b d e f ~12'000 sets, as opposed to M&M's 36 (p.18). p.26. 343 m/s (p.9). 34 Fig. 0-26. Sound waves (2) Now imagine the same situation, but with an oscillating source mass M1, and a detector mass M2 at a certain distance from it, Fig. 0-27a. Rather than an air-pressure field, there is here a propagating gravitational field, Fig. 0-27b. Fig. 0-27. Gravitational waves. a Gravitational waves travel at the speed of light c . Analogously to sound waves, we can visualize them as a aether-speed disturbances propagating at the speed of light c, Fig. 0-27c: gravitational wave = a propagating aether-speed disturbance b Aether turbulence , variations in the aether speed, can then be interpreted as gravitational waves. Far from such waves having been 'discovered' by LIGO and the c likes , they have in fact been regularly observed ever since Michelson-Morley's experiment in 1887. The universe is littered with cataclysmic events: supernova explosions, neutron star and black hole mergers, galaxy collisions, etc. Aether turbulence could simply be 'cosmic weather'. LIGO 'LIGO' – the 'Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory' – comprises two d large stationary vacuum interferometers with 4 km arms , situated 3000 km apart in Livingston-LA and Richland-WA in the USA. Designed to detect gravitational waves, they a b c d Appendix p.50. p.31. Next section. Cf Fig. 6a. 35 are exceptionally sensitive, capable of detecting changes in mirror spacing of one part in 21 10 – equivalent to the width of a human hair in the distance between the Earth and a Proxima Centauri ! . Observations are made in 'runs'. As of December 2019 LIGO had made 3 runs and during that time registered 50 detections of gravitational waves106. Or did they? A recent New Scientist article entitled "Grave doubts over LIGO's discovery of gravitational waves" cites a group of physicists who analysed the LIGO data and reported that: "We believe that LIGO has failed to make a convincing case for the detection of any gravitational wave event."107 And if the staunchly mainstream New Scientist reports what is effectively a b 'conspiracy theory' , one imagines they must have good reason. The LIGO interferometers operate in the vacuum mode. And due to length contracc tion are therefore inherently insensitive to aether speed fluctuations . And if as suggested above gravitational waves are essentially longitudinally propagating aether speed fluctuations, then LIGO will be inherently incapable of detecting them: LIGO: could be inherently incapable of detecting gravitational waves A simple way of checking this would be to run LIGO in air, rather than with a vacuum in its tubes. Positive fringe-shifts would substantiate this hypothesis. And would also confirm the FitzGerald-Lorentz length contraction, and finally resolve the perennial Michelson-Morley dispute. But since this would also confirm the Cahill interferometer calibration and demonstrate the aether's existence, refuting Einstein's Relativity, one wonders whether it will ever be done. One also wonders whether the FitzGerald-Lorentz length contraction was in fact taken into account when LIGO was projected (?). Aether:gravity There are strong experimental links between aether speeds on the one hand and gravity on the other. For instance: d – 1) gravitational waves travel at the speed of light c , the characteristic speed of the aether. e – 2) both an aether speed and a gravitational potential cause clock slowing 108. – 3) atomic clocks depend on nuclear processes, and hence on matter which is a b c d e 4×1013 km away. That questions an official version. The Cahill calibration (p.24). p.50. Relativity article. 36 associated with gravity. And they show the time dilations predicted by hypothetical photon clocks that use the speed of light though the aether. a b – 4) the 'ECI' reference frame used by the GPS system takes the Earth's centre, a c d zero gravity point, as its zero aether-speed reference 109 e – 5) Cahill's re-analysis of Miller's data shows the aether speed at the Earth's surface to comprise, Fig. 0-28a: – a) 42030 km/s inflow towards the centre of the galaxy – b) 42 km/s inflow towards the Sun f – c) 11.2 km/s inflow towards the Earth's centre 110 – d) 30 km/s due to the Earth's orbital rotation The first three again suggesting a relation beneath an aether inflow and a g gravitational potential . In general: gravity  aether speed Fig. 0-28. Aether inflows. The relations between an aether inflow and a gravitational potential suggested by item 5) are not, however, borne out by calculation. The ratio between the aether inflows into the Sun and the centre of the galaxy is 1:10. But the ratio of their respective h gravitational potentials is 1:1000 . i A further discrepancy is that whereas the clock slowing and aether speed j component relations suggest a correlation between an aether speed and a gravitational a b c d e f g h i j Earth Centred Inertial. A satelite clock's time correction depends on its speed through the aether (Relativity article). And not, here, zero gravitational potential. Discussed in the Relativity article. p.31. That in principle doesn't show up in horizontal interferometer measurements Cf item 2). Appendix p.49. Item 2). Item 5). 37 a potential, the GPS system and the Hafele-Keating experiment indicate one with a gravitational field. C.-C. Su has shown that zero-aether-speed references for local Earth and interplanb etary satelites are provided by geocentric and heliocentric frames respectively111. These likewise associate an aether speed with a gravitational field. c It is interesting that in one of his first published theories , Newton speculated that gravity could be due to a medium flowing continually downward toward the Earth's d surface, where it is partially diffused and partially absorbed 112. Resuming, although there seem to be strong links between aether flows and gravity, their their nature remains unclear. Vortices e113 f In the mid 19th C Lord Kelvin conceived atoms as vortices, or knots, in the aether, writing: g "Helmholtz' admirable discovery of vortices in a perfect liquid inevitably leads to the idea of atoms as Helmholtz rings. In a display of smoke-rings the author recently witnessed, two such rings spectacularly rebounded from one h another." 114 The idea was taken up by Michelson: "With regard to the nature of the ultimate particles of ordinary matter, a promising hypothesis is the 'aether vortex theory', as in smoke rings, which possess some of the properties associated with atoms."115 Nicola Tesla: "The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter. Every ponderable atom is differentiated from a i tenuous fluid, the aether, that fills all of space, merely by spinning motion as a whirl of water in a calm lake."116 a b c d e f g h i Item 4). As for and the GPS system (Relativity article). In his "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" He later abandoned it. This and the next section are repeated in the quantum physics ('Copenhagen Trip') article. Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thomson) (1824-1907), Irish-Scottish physicist and engineer. "Wirbelbewegung" – 'swirls'. Somewhat more 'abridged' than normal. "Fragile, vague" (Tesla's note). 38 And: “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.” Einstein: "We can consider as matter those regions of space when the field is extremely intense."117 Erwin Schroedinger: "What we observe as material bodies are nothing but shapes and variations in the structure of space." a The idea is even implicit the writings of the ancient Greek atomists: Anaxagoras and b Democritus . Molecules comprise integral numbers of atoms. And they in turn consist of integral numbers of fundamental particles: protons, neutrons and electrons. And so on. In spite of which, however, 'integrality' is an essentially wave characteristic. The relation between the masses of an electron and a proton is 1 :1836.15267343...118, a c non-integral number. But a violin string can only vibrate in integral harmonics . The possible path lengths of an orbiting electron are integral multiples of its wavelength119. And so on. Kelvin continues his above quote: " Spectrum analysis suggests that atoms have one or more fundamental d periods of vibration, like a stringed instrument." 120 Continuous universe Define a continuous universe as one where everything comes from something according to the Laws of Nature: continuous universe = everything comes from something according to the Laws of Nature A simple analogy is the ocean, where every water molecule affects its neighbours, and they their neighbours, and so on around the globe. A more sophisticated metaphor is the fast-flowing river of Fig. 29a. a Anaxagoras (~510–428 b.c.), pre-Socratic philosopher. He held the world to be a mixture of primary imperishable ingredients. b Democritus (~460–370 b.c.), pre-Socratic philosopher and the 'father of modern science', remembered primarily for his atomic theory. c 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. d Somewhat more 'abridged' than normal. 39 Fig. 29. River analogy (1). The river surface comprises standing waves (not shown) and swirls, both due to submersed objects – rocks, tree trunks, etc. The swirls being essentially stationary with respect to a river bank observer, we take them to represent concrete matter. This is then a visualized as 'looped', or 'knotted' aether waves : concrete matter: knotted aether waves Now imagine the river stationary, but maintaining its original swirly surface. Disturbances such as a stone thrown in cause travelling waves that propagate across its surface at a characteristic speed c determined by the properties of the water medium. We take these to represent radiation energy: heat, light, gamma rays, etc. Let the swirls reflect travelling waves as in Fig. 29b. Imagine further a hypothetical E.U. (Extra-Universal) whom we will call Euclid. From b his totally objective viewpoint outside our universe, Euclid sees it as an continuum of knotted and freely travelling aether waves, Fig. 30a. Fig. 30. River analogy (2). We ourselves, however, as part of that universe and seeing it from the inside, don't experience it as such, but in terms of discrete objects – trees, dogs, atoms, etc, Fig. 30b. We conceive the universe as an aether continuum. We experience it as discrete objects. We conceive the universe in one way and experience it in another: we conceive the universe as an aether continuum; we experience it as discrete objects a b Standing waves. With relation to our universe, but not necessarily his. 40 All the concrete matter existing today was created in the primordial plasma during the a first twenty minutes of the Big Bang, in the enormously high energy densities that b prevailed then 121. After these had fallen below a certain level, no further matter could be formed. The 'knotting up' of aether into matter required an energy input. Meaning that aether knots store energy as in a coiled spring. And that can then be liberated, in nuclear reactions for instance. If aether knots are accelerated, the additional energy input 'knots them up' further, increasing their energy content and hence mass. If they are then collided, they shatter into a range of smaller 'knotlets', stable and unstable, again with the liberation of energy. And so on. The aether on this approach is conceived as the matrix, or fundamental 'stuff ' of the c universe from which everything else is made. Being 'knottable' into the seemingly limitless variety of forms that concrete matter can adopt, it is evidently enormously complex, having properties that go far beyond being simply the medium that light propagates through envisaged by Maxwell and Lorentz: aether = enormously complex fundamental 'stuff ' of the universe d If everything in the universe, including us, is made of aether , then in trying to understand it we are a part trying to understand the whole of which it is part. This being e irrationally 122, it is questionable whether we will ever 'understand' the aether in the sense of determining all its properties. Its fundamental nature could well inherently elude us: the aether's fundamental nature could well inherently elude us NULLIFICATION (2) General In spite of the massive conceptual and experimental evidence for the aether's existence, mainstream Physics persistently persists in denying it. Already in 1873 Maxwell was complaining that: a b c d e Some say twelve. Determinacy article. Imagined as being. Next section The 'self-incomprehension' principle (QM article). 41 "There appears to be in the minds of some eminent men a prejudice, or priori objection, against the hypothesis of a medium in which the radiation of heat and light take place."123 a Notwithstanding Michelson-Morley and Sagnac's subsequent experimental b confirmation of the aether , the myth of its non-existence continued unscathed. So Einstein, for instance, could write in his 1916 Relativity paper, apparently without fear of contradiction: "Michelson and Morley performed an interference experiment in which an aether speed should have been clearly detectable. But it gave a negative result. The most careful observations have never revealed anisotropic properties. This is very powerful argument in favour of the principle of relativity, contradictory to which no empirical data has ever been found."124 (italics ours) And state in a 1931 speech in honour of Albert Michelson: "You, my honoured Herr Michelson, uncovered a dangerous weakness in the aether theory of light as it then existed, stimulating the thoughts of Lorentz c and FitzGerald 125 from which the Special Theory of Relativity emerged."126 Thomas See wrote in 1920: "A strange tendency has arisen in recent years for abandoning the aether as an unecessary hypothesis."127 The no-aether myth has survived intact to the present day. A recent Internet search by the author for "Michelson-Morley result" gave in order of appearance128: "The result was negative." "There is no aether." "The Michelson-Morley is a perfect example of a null experiment." "There was no fringe shift." "Michelson found no evidence of the aether." ... The en.wikipedia similarly "informs": "The Michelson–Morley experiment compared the speed of light in perpendicular directions in an attempt to detect the relative motion of the stationary a b c p.16. In 1887 and 1913 respectively. Another of Albert's lies. Lorentz never abandoned his belief in the aether (p.8). Neither did Fitzgerald, who wrote: "To suppose the aether is made of tennis balls and rubber bands, is as bad as supposing a sphere described by r2=x2+y2+z2 to be made of paper and ink". 42 a luminiferous aether ('aether wind') . The result was negative. Michelson and Morley found no significant difference between the speed of light in the two directions."129 A modern physics textbook states: "Michelson-Morley expected the aether to produce a shift as large as 0.4 of a fringe. In 1887 they however reported a null result – no effect whatsoever!"130 Going on to say: "Michelson and Morley repeated their experiment during night and day, and for different seasons throughout the year. It is unlikely that at least sometime during these many experiments the Earth would not be moving through the aether. They even took their experiment to a mountaintop to see if the effects of the aether might be different. But there was no change." 131 In fact, however: – 1) Michelson-Morley did measure fringe shifts, the ones reported in their 1887 b paper 2) they didn't take readings throughout a year. But only over four days in July 1887, c as can also be seen from their paper . This is pure fabrication. d e – 3) their mountain-top repetition again gave a positive result . f in the space of two pages the text has presented at least three, what Herbert Dingle would have delicately called: "Conscious departures from rectitude."132 But which in the vernacular could well be denoted "downright lies". And that anyone with g Internet access and a few minutes to spare could readily verify as such Ok. We live in the 'post-truth' era. And have become used to being blatantly lied to by politicians, advertisers, economists and the like in support of their pet ideological lines. But to find the same in Physics, purportedly the most rigorously objective discipline of h all ... ! And from two university professors; in reputable academic institutions ; in a a b c d e f g Not true. They were trying to distinguish between rival theories of aether entrainment (p.11). Fig. 0-9. Michelson realized that this should be done, but never did it (p.16). In 1929, with Pease and Pearson, and not Morley as the text says. Of ~20 km/s, three times their original 1887 value (p.19). Herbert Dingle (18901978), English physicist. Socrates was executed for corrupting the minds of the young. For the sake of future generations, maybe it's time to reintroduce the law. h Stephen Thornton and Andrew Rex at the Universities of Virginia and Puget Sound respectively. 43 presumably peer-reviewed textbook already in its 4th edition; produced by an apparently a serious publisher with representations in nine different countries – this blows one's mind! The question then is: why does the Physics Establishment need to so consistently and persistently deny the aether's existence, in spite of the overwhelming conceptual and experimental evidence for it? b The problem is of course that the aether refutes Einsteinian Relativity , today a scientific dogma, an 'article of faith' that professional physicists in the area are required to "subscribe to or else!". Modern relativistic physics being little more than an 'EPR' (Einstein Protection Racket). So the no-aether myth has to be endlessly and relentlessly c plugged, presumably based on the eternal Joseph Goebbels principle that: "A lie repeated often enough becomes a truth." d e William S. could well have observed : "The Establishment doth protest too much, methinks." Michelson's retraction The above-cited physics textbook quotes Michelson as saying of his 1887 experiment: "There was no displacement in the interference fringes. So the result of the experiment was negative."133 f g This time correctly! In a series of lectures first given in 1899 Michelson did in fact say this. Adding that: "It would show that there is still a difficulty in the theory."134 We now have another conundrum! In 1887 Michelson measured and reported h positive fringe shifts . Twelve years later retracted and said he hadn't! What's going on? Firstly, when someone makes a statement and later retracts, it is normally because he has come under some kind of pressure. The original version is most likely to be the a b c d e CENGAGE Learning. Contradicting the 2nd Relatively postulate of a constant speed of light for all iel observers. Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945), Nazi propaganda minister. William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English poet, playwright and actor. Cf the famous Hamlet line: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks". (She wasn't protesting her chastity, but could well have been.) f When the facts support their ideological line, they report them correctly. When they don't, they misreport them – or simply make up more suitable "facts". g Published in book form in 1907. h Fig. 0-9. 44 true one. But what was the pressure in this case? Where did it come from, and why? Since this was six years before Einstein's 1905 Relativity paper, this time at least he can't be blamed. We can only conjecture. In the same set of lectures, Michelson however says: "It appears practically certain that there must be a medium whose proper a function it is to transmit light waves, but is not an ordinary form of matter." 135 So he evidently still accepted aether's existence. Even though he was unsure of its properties. There seems to have been considerable conceptual confusion in the early 1900s b regarding relativity . It was the fashionable theory of the day. But was contradicted by the aether, which is effectively an 'electromagnetic absolute'. Ironically, the principal c proponents of relativity were Lorentz and Poincaré – both of whom firmly believed in the aether! We already noted Lorentz': "I cannot but regard the aether as endowed with a certain degree of substand tiality, however different it may be from ordinary matter." Poincaré wrote in 1889: "The essential is that everything happens as if the aether existed."136 So as Michelson truly observed: e "There is still a difficulty in the theory ." (And apparently still is!). Absolutism f The 'eminent men' Maxwell referred to were presumably the diehard Newtonians of his day who stood firmly by the good old established corpuscular theory of light, and wanted no truck with the new-fangled wave theory and its concomitant aether. Those who Max Planck had in mind when he wrote: "A new scientific truth doesn't triumph by convincing its opponents. But rather: they eventually die out, and a new generation familiar with it grows up." 137 a b c d e f p.7. In general written lower case. Upper case Relativity is specifically Einsteinian. Einstein was practically unknown till the 1919 'Eclipse Show' catapulted him to fame. p.8. And to this present day continues to be! p.40. 45 This does not, however, explain the resurgence of the no-aether myth towards the end of the century when the Newtonian diehards were presumably all either retired or dead, and the aether was the conventional wisdom accepted by virtually all professional physicists of the day. And whose existence had in the meantime been confirmed experimentally by Michelson and Morley. Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries was 'absolutist', in the sense that political power was still firmly in the hands of an established landed aristocracy. Newton's rationally ordered universe, with its Master Creator who kept Himself to Himself and didn't stick His nose into things that weren't His business, validated the structure and a suited the times admirably 138. The droits du seigneur – the "rights of the lord" (the little lord down here on planet Earth, not the Big Lord up in the sky) – were graciously delegated by the Big Lord up in the sky to little lords on Earth, without too many awkward questions about how they were exercised. By the second half of the 19th century, however, things were changing radically. Growing industrialization was causing extensive migration from the countryside into the towns. And more crucially: was putting money and hence political power into the hands of a nouveau riche class of non-land-owning industrialists, businessmen, bankers and the like. All of which put a pressure for change onto the socio-political structure. In times of change flexibility and adaptability are the order of the day. The old absolutism had to go; and together with it, anything that symbolized it. We see this in b philosophy. Nietzsche had declared in 1878 that: "There are no eternal facts, just as there are no absolute truths".139 And in 1882 that: "God is dead" c140 God being nothing if not an absolute. The later post-modern movement was similarly characterized by: "A general distrust of grand theories and ideologies; a general skepticism toward the assumptions of Enlightenment rationality."141. We see the same in art. An article on Cubism notes that: "In the four decades from 1870-1910, Western society witnessed more technological progress than in the previous four centuries. Artists a The "Four Pillars of the English Establishment" were the Monarchy, the Church, the Empire and Newton. b Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher. c The idea was not in fact Nietsche's. It was proposed 75 years earlier by Hegel in his 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit. 46 correspondingly developed Cubism where a painting often looks like an image seen in a broken mirror."142 The 'broken mirror' being the old way of seeing things. In Science it was Newton's absolute space and time that evidently had to go. And a with them the aether, which was an 'electromagnetic absolute' . So when Einstein came along "proving scientifically" that everything is relative, and b there are absolutely no absolutes , this was exactly what people wanted to hear. And they turned a blind eye to Relativity's theory's manifest inconsistencies and contradictions, as they had already done to the indisputably positive Michelson-Morley result. And when in the 1920s quantum physics went a step further, and declared that reality is not only inherently relative, but is also inherently indeterminate, and can be any a c way one wants depending only on one's consciousness : well "Wow!". Francis Bacon noted that: "People prefer to believe what they prefer to be true". Another contributing factor to aether denial was Logical Positivism, the fashionable philosophy of the time. It was principally due to the 19th century French philosopher d Auguste Comte , who held that the only valid knowledge is that based on "sense experience" and "positive verification"143. In accordance with which what cannot be seen, cannot be said to exist. e Ernst Mach , for instance, was an excellent professional physicist noted principally f for his work on shock waves . But being a dyed-in-the-blood logical positivist, he resisted to his dying day the existence of atoms on the grounds that they cannot be seen. In spite of the overwhelming experimental evidence for them already in his time144. The same applies to the aether. It cannot be seen. And so according to logical positivism cannot be said to exist. Agenda At each point in its history a society appears to have an explicit or implicit agenda, that can be either 'open/liberal' or 'closed/conservative'. Effectively: politically 'left' or g 'right' : agenda: open/liberal/left or closed/conservative/right a b c d e f g Providing an absolute reference for electromagnetic phenomena. Specifically including the aether. Francis Bacon (1561–1626), English statesman and polymath. Auguste Comte (1798–1857), French philosopher. Ernst Mach (1838-1916), Austrian physicist and philosopher. The ratio of a speed to that of sound is named the "Mach number" in his honor. 'Absolute' being 'not susceptible to change', a conservative agenda is by nature absolutist. 47 In times of change, flexibility and adaptability are at a premium and the agenda is open/liberal. In stable settled periods the opposite holds. The closed/conservative principle dominates, with respect for tradition and the maintainance of status quo as the order of the day. With its emphasis on innovation and change, a liberal agenda tends to undermine the existing power structure, opening it up for further change. Conversely, in conservative times when social mobility is low, the road to individual advancement lies in allying oneself with that power structure, thereby strengthening it. Each agenda is selfreinforcing, leading to abrupt swings between them when they change. th a The late 19 C switch to an open/liberal agenda led to radical innovations in science and art. And continued well into the 1920s. But then came the 1929 Wall St crash, with ensuing economic depression and a swing to the political right, fascism, and ultimately World War II. It was during this period, in the 1930s, that fundamentalist Einsteinism and b anti-aetherism became entrenched in Science 145. c The optimism following the end of World War II in 1945 led to a new swing to an open/liberal agenda, with an accompanying surge in artistic and scientific innovation and creativity. But that was abruptly reversed in the late 1970s with Thatcher/Reaganism and the consequent massive lurch to the political right. That has continued unabated to the time of writing, and with no sign of letting up. So more than a century after Michelson-Morley, anti-aetherism is again rampant. But this time for the opposite reason. Its original rejection derived from a liberal agenda and a desire to break with the conventional wisdom. Today, Einsteinian Relativity having in d the meantime become the conventional "wisdom" , anti-atheism stems from a conservative agenda and a pressure to conform to it. That essentially anti-authoritarian Relativity should have become a touchstone for compliance with authority, is evidently ironic. But history is littered with contradictions. As Einstein once said of himself, with his inimitable humour: "To punish me for my contempt of authority, Fate made me one."146 Science doesn't tell us the way things are. It tells us the way we want to be told they are: Science tells us the way we want to be told things are a b c d Quantum physics, for instance. Discussed in the Einstein article. The end of every major war is heralded as the end to all major wars. "So-called". 48 Or maybe better: we only listen to those scientists who tell us what we want to hear, a ignoring those who don't. As Francis Bacon noted ; and Dayton Miller discovered to his b cost . That would seem to be it. No matter how well founded a scientific thesis, its acceptance or rejection depends little on its actual scientific merits. And principally on c whether it supports or opposes the current political agenda. Adam Becker : "The course of scientific progress is dictated as much by the vagaries of the Zeitgeist, and the forcefulness of personalities, as by the strength of ideas themselves. When trying to understand why certain ideas are accepted as gospel and others are forgotten, dismissed or even actively suppressed, the political context is essential."147 Maxwell in 1877: "Those 'eminent men’, who take upon themselves the task of ignoring anything that contradicts their cherished beliefs, follow 'Scientism', a corruption of Science that is really a pseudo religion. With so many following it, and pretending it to be Science, it is little wonder the scientific world is in such a sorry state of affairs."148 Today's "eminent men" are the fundamentalist Einsteinians who apparently see no d problem in a theory predicting that two clocks can each run slower than the other . And that light is a mediumless wonder, a disturbance of nothing propagating through nothing. As the modern French say: e "Plus ça change ..." . And as the ancient Celts are said to have said: f "Omaigodd!" a b c d e f p.46. p.21. Adam Becker (??), Science writer. Strictly: say they see. French proverb: "The more things change, the more they remain the same". A popular expression, believed to be of Celtic origin. 49 APPENDIX Celestial coordinates The celestial coordinates of a heavenly body are its celestial longitude and latitude, the projection of earthly longitude and latitude into outer space, Fig. 0-31. Fig. 0-31. Celestial coordinates149. o a If one stood on the equator at 0 longitude at midday on the March equinox (21/03), the Sun would be immediately overhead at a Right Ascension α=0 hrs and a o o o declination =0 . A star 30 above the northern horizon would have declination =+60 o o and coordinates (α= 0 hr, =60 ). A star 30 above the southern horizon would have o coordinates (α= 0 hr, =–60 ). Longitude and Right Ascension being measured eastwards, a star immediately b o overhead 5 hrs previously to this would have coordinates (α= 5 hrs, =0 ); and so on. Gravitational potential The gravitational potential at a point in space is the negative of the energy required c to move unit mass from the point into outer space. For a point at a distance d from a body of mass M, the component of gravitational potential V(d) due to the body is: V(d) = – GM/d where G = 6.7x10 G being Newton's gravitational constant. a b c The Greenwich meridian. At 07:00 hrs. 1 kg. -11 (eq.5) 50 Fig. 0-32. Gravitational potentials. a The masses M and distances d of Fig. 0-32 give gravitational potentials at the Earth's surface due to the Earth, Sun and Galaxy respectively: 7 8 Vearth = 6.3x10 ; Vsun = 8.9x10 ; Vgalaxy = 8.0x10 Gravitational waves 11 (eq.6) b On August 17, 2017 the LIGO and Virgo detectors registered the gravitational wave event GW170817. It was attributed to a 'kilonova', the in-spiral and merger of two neutron stars 130 million light years away. 1.7 seconds later the international Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope observed the gamma-ray burst GRB 170817A in the same direction150. The near simultaneity of the two means that gravitational waves travel at the speed of light c. The small difference could be due to electromagnetic waves being retarded by dense matter – comic dust, etc. – whereas gravitational waves are not. Interferometer calibration M&M, Miller Both Michelson-Morley and Miller used an essentially classical calibration for their c interferometers, that didn't take length contraction into account . The overall layout is d repeated for convenience in Fig. 33 . a Based on a Milky Way of 1.5 trillion solar masses and centre 8 kiloparsecs away. The solar system is for simplicity assumed to be completely outside it. b In the USA and Italy respectively. c Proposed by FitzGerald in 1889 and Lorentz in 1892 (p.23), and so known to Miller, but not M&M at the time of their experiments. d Cf Fig. 17. 51 Fig. 33. Michelson-Morley (2). a The fringe-shift principle is best illustrated via Thomas Young's 1803 double-slit experiment151. A beam of light shone through two close narrow slits produces an interference pattern of light and dark fringes on a screen, Fig. 34a. Where the peaks of the waves from the two slits coincide there is a point of maximum intensity, shown for the central fringe in Fig. 34b. Where a positive peak from one slit coincides with a negative peak from the other there is a zero intensity point. Fig. 34. Double-slit experiment. A slower speed of light on path B would cause a fringe-shift, Fig. 34c, from which the speed difference between the two paths can be calculated. The same principle applies to an interferometer, except that here the beams derive from the main and perpendicular paths, rather than separate slits. Returning to Fig. 33, for a light path length d and an aether headwind v, the light speeds on the main axis are c–v on the upwind leg and c+v on the downwind leg, giving an out-and-return time t1: (eq.5) And an average light speed c1 on this axis: b where  is the Lorentz factor . a b Thomas Young (1773–1829), English phsician and polymath. eq.4, p.23. (eq.6) 52 On the perpendicular axis, let the photon take time t2 to reach the opposite mirror. During this time it travels a distance ct2 through the aether, and gets blown back a distance vt2 by the aether headwind, Fig. 0-35. This gives an apparent light speed c2 on a this axis : (eq.7) Fig. 0-35. Interferometer, p-axis. b The aether speed v on Earth being much smaller than that of light c , the Lorentz factor  here reduces to: (eq.8) On the 'MMM' (Michelson-Morley and Miller) calibration that doesn't take length contraction into account, for an aether speed vm, the difference v between the light c speeds on the two axes is : (eq.9) Whence: (eq.10) where the speed difference v is that given by the measured fringe shifts. This is the relation 'MMM' used to derive their reported aether speeds of vm6.5 and d vm8.22 km/s respectively Cahill On the Cahill calibration, the speed of light ca in air is: ca = c/ n where n is its refractive index. a b c d Pythagoras. (v/c)2 << 1. Substituting c1, c2 from eqs 6,7 and  from eq.8. pp 14,18. (eq.11) 53 a Without length contraction, the speed difference v between the two axes would be : (eq.12) But since length contraction foreshortens the main axis by , the apparent speed of b light on it increases correspondingly, giving an axis speed difference v : (eq.13) c Equating the two expressions for v , the true aether speeds v in terms of their 'MMM' values vm are: (eq.14) The refractive index 'n' of air depends on its pressure. Cleveland and Mt Wilson d being at 200 m and 1740 m above sea level respectively, their relative pressures are p=0.989 and p=0.821152. The refractive index of air at sea-level is n=1.000293153. Taking the 'n–1' component e to be proportional to pressure ; the respective refractive indexes of air at the two locations are n=1.00029 and n=1.000241. Substituting these into eq.14, then gives correction factors of 41.5 and 45.5 respectively. And applying them to the 'MMM' speeds f vm , gives true aether speeds v: g h M&M: ve = ~27077 km/s ; Miller : vs = 37463 km/s Miller i An exerpt from Dayton Miller's report on his 1925 Mt Wilson control experiments : "An extended series of experiments was made to determine the influence of inequality of temperature in the interferometer room, and of radiant heat falling on the interferometer. Several electric heaters were used, of the type having a heated coil near the focus of a concave reflector. Inequalities in the temperature of the room caused a slow but steady drifting of the fringe a b c d e f g h i Using eqs.8,9. Approximating n1. 'MMM's and Cahill's (eqs 9,13). To that at sea level. n  1 + 0.000293p. pp 14,18. Averaging the M&M midday and evening results gives vm=~6.5. Correction factor 41.5. Correction factor 45.5. Miller 1925. 54 system to one side, but caused no periodic displacement. Even when two of the heaters were placed at a distance of three feet from the interferometer as it rotated, and were turned to throw the heat directly on the uncovered steel frame, there was no measurable periodic effect. When the heaters were turned on to the light-path which had a covering of glass, a periodic effect could be obtained only when the glass was covered with opaque material in a very non-symmetrical manner, as when one arm of the interferometer was completely protected by a covering of corrugated paper-board while the other arms were unprotected. These experiments proved that under the conditions of actual observation, the periodic displacement could not possibly be produced by temperature effects." 154 Reading this, can anyone doubt he was a serious experimenter? Sidereal, solar times o Imagine standing at the equator at 0 longitude on the March equinox (21/03), Fig. 36a. The Sun and some fixed star are immediately overhead. Define this instant as '12:00 hrs' in both solar and sidereal times. Fig. 36. Solar, sidereal times. Six months later, 12:00 sidereal time is when the same fixed star is overhead, Fig. 36b. And 12:00 solar time is 12 hrs later, when the Sun is overhead, Fig. 36c. a A year thus has 365 solar and 366 sidereal days, making a sidereal day ~4 mins shorter than a solar day. BIBLIOGRAPHY (cited works only) Beckman, P. 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INDEX absolute speed, 32 aether entrainment, 19 luminiferous, 3, 5 wind, 12, 32 agenda, 48 akasha, 3 Alhazen, Ibn, 3 atom, Mach and, 48 at-rest, 32 Bacon, Francis, 47 Becker, Adam, 49 Beckmann, Petr, 30 Bell, John, 8 boat, 6 broken mirror, 47 57 Cahill, Reginald, 23, 25, 27 capacitance, 10 Case School, 10 cat, Cheshire, 7 celestial coordinates, 50 characteristic speed, 3, 6, 9, 10 Cheshire cat, 7 CMB, 32 coincidence, 10 coming to be said, 17 Comte, Auguste, 48 Consoli, Maurizio, 21 coordinates, celestial, 50 cosmic microwave background, 32 weather, 36 Cubism, 47 cyclist, 6 declination, 51 density, 9 deWitte, Roland, 27 diffraction, 3 Dingle, Herbert, 44 Dirac, Paul, 8 dispersion, 3 Doppler effect, 7, 29 Dorado constellation, 20 double-slit experiment, 4, 52 downright lies, 44 droits du seigneur, 46 Einstein, Albert, 5 Protection Racket, 44 elasticity, 9 electrical permittivity, 9 electron spin, 35 Empedocles, 4 en.wikipedia, 43 endnotes, 2 energy, radiation, 41 entrainment, aether, 19 Euclid, 41 expectations, experimenters', 17 fast-flowing river, 40 FitzGerald, George, 24 flyby, spacecraft, 29 frequency, 3 Fresnel, Augustin-Jean, 11 fringes, interference, 52 Gale, Michelson and, 18 Goebbels, Joseph, 44 gustiness, 33 Hayden, Howard, 30 Helmholtz, Hermann von, 13 Homer, 3 Huygens, Christian, 3 Illingworth, 26 inductance, 10 interference, 4 interference pattern, fringes, 12, 52 interferometer, 12, 25, 52 Italian proverb, 31 Joos, 26 Jupiter, moon, 5 Kennedy, 21 Kolen, 27 Larmor, Joseph, 25 Laughlin, Robert, 2 Leiden address, 5 length contraction, 25 lies, downright, 44 light mediumless wonder, 10 nature of, 3 speed of, 4, 28 Logical Positivism, 48 Los Angeles, 30 luminiferous aether, 3, 5 Mach, Ernst, 48 magnetic permeability, 9 Marinov, Stefan, 28 Maxwell, James, 4 medium, 6 -less wonder, 10 Michelson, Albert, 7 and Gale, 18 -Morley, 25 58 retraction, 45 microwave background, cosmic, 32 Miller, Dayton, 16, 25 mirror broken, 47 rotating, 28 Morley, Edward, 10 Mount Wilson, 19, 21 Múnera, Héctor, 15 NASA, 28 Nature, 29 Newton, Isaac, 3 Nietzsche Friedrich, 47 null result, 16 nullification, 16, 42 pattern, interference, 52 Pearson, 21, 43 Pease, 21, 43 permeability, magnetic, 9 permittivity, electric, 9 photon, 4 Piccard and Stahel, 20 Planck, Max, 3 pond, 6 positive verification, 48 Positivism, Logical, 48 post-modernism, 47 Potsdam, 13 proverb, Italian, 31 quotations, 2 radiation energy, 41 Rayleigh, Lord, 14 rectitude, departure from, 44 refractive index, 25 retraction, Michelson's, 45 Right Ascension, 50 river fast-flowing, 40 twins, 13 Römer, Ole, 5 rope waves, 7 Sagnac, Georges, 17 effect, 17 Sanskrit, 3 sea waves, 6 Shakespeare, William, 44 solar system, 11, 17 sound waves, 6 spacecraft flyby, 29 speed absolute, 32 characteristic, 3, 6, 9, 10 spin, electron, 35 Stahel, Piccard and, 20 Stearns, Robert, 22 Stokes, George, 12 swirls, 40 textbook, modern, 43 Thorndike, 21 Torr, 27 turbulence, 33 turnip, exsanguinating, 28 twins, river, 13 vacuum, 2, 10 verification, positive, 48 Wallace, Bryan, 28 Washington, 30 wave rope, 7 sea, 6 sound, 6 weather, cosmic, 36 Wilson, Mount, 19, 21 wind aether, 12, 32 sea, 6 wonder, mediumless, 10 Young, Thomas, 4, 52 Zeitgeist, 49 59 1 Fiennes 2020b. cellularuniverse (1811). 3 en.wikipedia/aether (1901). 4 en.wikipedia(1805). 5 Illiad XV.20, XVI.365. 6 Marjanovic (2018). 7 en.wikipedia (1510). 8 en.wikipedia (0910). 9 cs.mcgill (1904). 10 Hughes 2014, p.7. 11 Einstein 1905, p.1. 12 Selleri 2004. 13 Einstein 1920. 14 Fiennes 2020b. 15 Maxwell 1873, p.438. 16 Michelson 1881. 17 Michelson 1907, p.159. 18 See 1920. 19 Poincaré 1900. 20 spaceandmotion.com (1908). 21 teslaresearch.jimdofree (2001). 22 Marjanovic 2018. 23 en.wikipedia (1904). 24 en.wikipedia (1902). 25 en.wikipedia (1901). 26 Michelson 1907, p.164. 27 en.wikipedia (1901). 28 Michelson 1907. 29 en.wikipedia (1901). 30 Michelson 1881. 31 Michelson 1881. 32 hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu (1901). 33 en.wikipedia (1901). 34 en.wikipedia (1901). 35 cellularuniverse (1011). 36 Múnera 1998, p.13; 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