Einstein, Albert, et al, The Principle of Relativity (New York: Dover Publications) page 40 in my motheaten edition - on the reference you demand. Are we to take it you have taken up reading?
One experiment, amongst many on these 'dilettante' lines was this: (J. G, Small and R. E. Phelps) - a 'new' version of the Michelson-Morley experiment (1970s). Instead of comparing round-trip speeds, as the original experiment did, the new experiment compares one-way speeds of light emitted from two lasers mounted in diametrically opposed positions on a round table which can be rotated. This experiment, which was not feasible at the time of the original Michelson-Morley experiment, can now be conducted because of the exceedingly stable frequencies of light emitted by modern lasers. Leaving aside certain experimental niceties, the experiment consists of observing the interference pattern that results when the two laser beams are combined at the center of the table. The table is then rotated. If the interference fringes shift as the two lasers exchange their positions, that can be taken as evidence of differences between the two opposed one-way velocities. While a positive result of this experiment would have great theoretical significance, a null result cannot be taken as evidence which-independently of all synchrony conventions- establishes the equality of the two one-way speeds. The laser oscillators which produce the light of stable frequency can be regarded as clocks which "tick off" a certain number of oscillations per second. As the table on which they are mounted is rotated, so as to interchange the positions of the two lasers, these clocks are being transported. To conclude from the absence of changes in the interference patterns as the rotation occurs that the speed of light in the two directions is equal depends upon the assumption that the frequencies are not altered during the motion. The rotation occurs very slowly, so the clock transport involved is slow clock transport. Nevertheless,slow clock transport synchrony is conventional in exactly the same fashion as Einstein's standard signal synchrony. Details of the Michelson-Morley experiment can be found in many sources including Jenkins, Francis A., and Harvey E. White, Fundamentals of Optics, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1957): 399-401. Incidentally, it is incorrect to suppose, as people often do that the Michelson-Morley experiment shows even that the round-trip speed of light has the same value in all inertial systems; see Philosophical Problems of Space and Time (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963: 394-5. Of course, if I was a physicist, my textbooks would be more up to date than the few acquired as a chemist. On 'which argument' Georges, why the very one you can't see, part of which is the basic question of conventionality in philosophy. Lord knows what the physicists are doing now - I only keep up from what's free. I must say the former colleagues who spent so much time questioning light in this and other ways consider themselves rather boring fellows until after the third or fourth pub on our treks, would be delighted to be raised to the heights of 'dilettante'. Try getting into the argument, maybe consider reading some of a vast literature (my old citation is entirely on purpose), or grab your coat and I'll buy the first round. Silencing others was the argument of a very old school we have both fought in different places. On 2 Jan, 19:29, Georges Metanomski <[email protected]> wrote: > --- On Sat, 1/2/10, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > > > From: archytas <[email protected]> > > Subject: [epistemology 11152] Re: Where is hidden Vacuum? > > To: "Epistemology" <[email protected]> > > Date: Saturday, January 2, 2010, 7:11 PM > > The vacuum in your own head of course > > Georges, is what you overlook, > > when not overseeing in another sense. You just can't > > see the > > argument, for want of being so superior. > > ================= > Which argument? > Georges -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Epistemology" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/epistemology?hl=en.
