D. Turanyanin found the following quote:
1. Scientific American August 22, 2007 Hints of a breakdown of relativity theory?
"The MAGIC gamma-ray telescope team has just released an eye-popping preprint (following up earlier work) describing what might be the first observational hint of quantum gravity. What they've seen is that higher-energy gamma rays appear to travel through space a little bit slower than lower-energy ones, contrary to one of the postulates underlying Einstein's special theory of relativity -- namely, that radiation travels through the vacuum at the same speed no matter what....The team ruled out the most obvious conventional effect, but will have to do more to prove that new physics is at work -- this is one of those "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" situations. But if the high-energy gammas really did lose the cosmic race, we're talking Big Discovery."

Since radiation energy is dependent on frequency according to Planck, this is in conflict with an earlier quote:

"The speed of light is independent of frequency to within a factor of 6x10^-21. Bradley Schaefer of Yale (203-432-3806, schaefer@grb2.physics.yale.edu) bases this estimate on the observed arrival of gamma rays from distant explosive events in the cosmos, such as gamma-ray bursters. If the speed of light (c) were slightly different for the different frequency ranges, then some light waves would show up before the others, but this is not the case. The best previous effort to locate a frequency dependency for c, deduced from light coming from the Crab pulsar, was at the 5x10^-17 level."

The former is consistent with the passage of light through glass, etc. where the lower energy infrared moves faster than the higher energy UV, which would suggest either the medium (empty space) or radiation has mass. The latter would agree with the Michelson Morley type experiments. Any comments?

Frequency and speed of light are related through the equation:

Frequency = (Speed of light)/(Wavelength)

That is a textbook equation so Einsteinians would not claim it is wrong but at the same time it is so dangerous for Einstein criminal cult that practically Einsteinians never mention it. So it is EXPERIMENTALLY found that Frequency varies with the gravitational potential in the following way:

F' = F(1+V/c^2)

where F is Frequency and V is the gravitational potential. This, together with the textbook equation, immediately leads to Einstein's 1911 equation:

c' = c(1+V/c^2)

showing how the speed of light varies with the gravitational potential. Then one can apply Einstein's equivalence principle and Einstein's 1911 equation is converted into:

c' = c + v

where v is the relative speed of the light source and the observer in the absence of a gravitational field. In other words, the equation experimentally confirmed by Pound and Rebka:

F' = F(1+V/c^2)

is consistent with c'=c+v given by Newton's emission theory of light and inconsistent with c'=c, Einstein's 1905 light postulate.

As for the Michelson-Morley experiment, it essentially confirms c'=c+v and refutes c'=c. Even some (clever) Einsteinians admit this:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001743/02/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "Einstein regarded the Michelson-Morley experiment as evidence for the principle of relativity, whereas later writers almost universally use it as support for the light postulate of special relativity......THE MICHELSON-MORLEY EXPERIMENT IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH AN EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT THAT CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT POSTULATE."

http://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Its-Roots-Banesh-Hoffmann/dp/0486406768
"Relativity and Its Roots" by Banesh Hoffmann, Chapter 5.
(I do not have the text in English so I am giving it in French)
Banesh Hoffmann, "La relativite, histoire d'une grande idee", Pour la Science, Paris, 1999, p. 112:
"De plus, si l'on admet que la lumiere est constituee de particules, comme Einstein l'avait suggere dans son premier article, 13 semaines plus tot, le second principe parait absurde: une pierre jetee d'un train qui roule tres vite fait bien plus de degats que si on la jette d'un train a l'arret. Or, d'apres Einstein, la vitesse d'une certaine particule ne serait pas independante du mouvement du corps qui l'emet! Si nous considerons que la lumiere est composee de particules qui obeissent aux lois de Newton, ces particules se conformeront a la relativite newtonienne. Dans ce cas, il n'est pas necessaire de recourir a la contraction des longueurs, au temps local ou a la transformation de Lorentz pour expliquer l'echec de l'experience de Michelson-Morley. Einstein, comme nous l'avons vu, resista cependant a la tentation d'expliquer ces echecs a l'aide des idees newtoniennes, simples et familieres. Il introduisit son second postulat, plus ou moins evident lorsqu'on pensait en termes d'ondes dans l'ether."

Translation from French:

"Moreover, if one admits that light consists of particles, as Einstein had suggested in his first paper, 13 weeks earlier, the second principle seems absurd: a stone thrown from a fast-moving train causes much more damage than one thrown from a train at rest. Now, according to Einstein, the speed of a particle would not be independent of the state of motion of the emitting body! If we consider light as composed of particles that obey Newton's laws, those particles would conform to Newtonian relativity. In this case, it is not necessary to resort to length contration, local time and Lorentz transformations in explaining the negative result of the Michelson-Morley experiment. Einstein however, as we have seen, resisted the temptation to explain the negative result in terms of Newton's ideas, simple and familiar. He introduced his second postulate, more or less evident as one thinks in terms of waves in aether."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com

Unfortunately the distances and times aren't recoreded in the first article. It may be that the difference they are observing is less than the margin's of error quoted in the other sources. Do you have access to the data?

What's about you? Are you still worse or getting far worse with age?

For your admirers, however, your presence is still inspiring and electrifying!
I, personally, enjoy very much your humbug of "impressionable young people are out there; relativity is a good theory; the folks at Fermilab are very helpful; blab… blab… blah…".

Hi A,

Why the little diatribe? Could it be that I made a rational suggestion and you're afraid rationality might actually catch on here?

Oh, and thanks for the humbug reminder. The next time I meet someone who wants some humbug, I'll tell him where to find you.

I hope your day is turns out better than your science.

Revelations of a wing nut: My dogmatic unchangeable belief is that photons are an artifact. Pulses of radiation can be timed over distance. Timing photons cannot be done unless you tag each one with its own distinct label. Experimenters trick themselves into believing they have done this with polarization and such, however controlling all extraneous effects is very hard especially when one does not compensate for the unknown.

I believe radiation travels in a “straight line.” “Gravitational lensing” would be impossible if the object “lensed” were in front of the gravitational object doing the “lensing.” [Quasars are observed to come in pairs around the parent galaxy] This is probably the case, since high redshift is apparently intrinsic to quasars, and not an indication of distance.

Acceleration is known to increase or reduce the received energy of radiation, depending on whether the observer of the radiation is ahead or behind the source. In the case of gravitational acceleration, the observer is essentially behind the radiation, since from this vantage point, the “acceleration” is a deceleration. I picture acceleration as two types: gravity and delta. Delta is where distance is increasing or decreasing at an increasing rate. Under gravity acceleration, there is no distance change involved unless the emitting body is in free fall [in which case, the free falling object, emitting the radiation, has delta acceleration of its own due to the gravity it is experiencing]. Under delta acceleration I can see a need to apply second order Doppler shift to the radiation. Under gravity redshift I would assume the same calculation would apply, No?

Radiation passing through a field of gravity acceleration normal to its path would compress the usual dissipation of its amplitude over distance,[Actually, the increasing area the wave fills as it propagates] creating increased intensity for the beam as it passes close to the source of the gravity, if gravity had an affect on radiation. Well, bending a brass rod seems to “compress” the inside of the bend, and expand the outside. The inner circumference is less than the outside, right?

The essences of my thoughts are that gravity acting normal (transverse) to rays of light increases the local density of space and therefore “bends” the rays by refraction. This would be caused by the increase in the pressure of transparent molecules and atoms of gasses near the massive object, or the compression of space itself, which I suppose would be the geometry of space. (Curvature requires the “fabric” of space to expand and contract.)

Convex lensing concentrates the amplitude of radiation, with no change in frequency. I understand that the differences in speed of various frequencies of light are the cause of the “rainbow” spectrum of light through a prism. If light travels at different speeds per frequency in transparent solids; why the wonder that the same is true for space?
Regards, Dogmatic Curt

The Michelson Morely data were not "Null." The readings were sorted and some discarded. Miller collaborated with Morely, and with a better, larger apparatus, did find the interference that the earlier experiments were trying to produce.
http://www.orgonelab.org/miller.htm
Seems like research is covered up if it does not fit "somebody's" agenda. No?
Maybe the interference does not mean that an ether is present, but it cannot be said that Michelson Morley's work was entirely negative. Why was Dayton Miller's work basically black balled?
Regards, Curt

Space does not exist in three dimensions. This is a major confusion of Einstein's thoughts. Space is a dimension, time is a dimension. Thus; two dimensions. Positions in space can be designated by a coordinate system. Positions in the latency of signal reception can also be designated by a coordinate system. There are tons of coordinate systems. The Cartesian system is only one of them. To insist that "Time" belongs on a fourth axis of a Cartesian coordinate system, normal to the three conventional axis is a total conflation of the coordinate system. This is an impossibility. Only twisted minds can give it credence.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=hints-of-a-breakdown-of-relativity

http://arxiv.org/abs/0708.2889

Just as a country needs a border to exist on a map,
a theory needs a domain of applicability to be fully understood.

This was at least so till today, and this will be so for long very probably.

The "borders" of the (Special) theory of relativity have been guessed at since the very beginning.
The mismatch with gravity and the quantum empire were obvious natural borders.
The General Theory of Relativity and the relativistic field theories have extended the domain of relativity further.

It is quite impressing that a deduction based on current theories could have indicated new lands for physics.
Clearly exploration is never back to the haven, as many here would believe.

But let's cool down and analyze the paper.
I usually read the conclusion first, and this could easiky answer the initial questio by WB.

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0708/0708.2889v3.pdf