Stephen,
Thank you for the explanation, I wasn't aware of anything called Lorentz
ether theory existed but will be investigating it shortly. At least
I am not crazy - someone with chops came to similar conclusion and now I can
just reference LET instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.
I am aware that my speculation is only just that without predictions and
confirmation but as must be obvious from my lack of familiarity with LET I am
still gathering my arguments.
Can I take it then that Gamma proves the extra dimension is there and the
controversey regarding "LET" is only whether it is occupied by ether or a true
vacuum? I just peeked at Wikipedia and Lorentz was promoting a stationary
ether, I can see him saying no spatial motion but stationary? this doesn't seem
to agree with V^2/C^2
My thoughts aside on LET, I approached this from relativistic interpretation of
Casimir effect based on "Cavity QED"
and a new book "advances in Casimire effect" 2009 from Oxford press, The book
makes a case for Casimir plates being
treated as a field source (big sail with a little hole creates a vortex). I
combined this with the relativistic interpretation of the Casimir effect and
suddenly had a new perspective on catalytic action- Am I way out on a limb
describing catalytic action as time dilation ?
Again there is no ether to measure but we appear to have reactants exhibiting
time dilation. What if we found a way to "resist" the acceleration such that
the casimir effect did useful work in place of time dilation? could that be
considered proff of a LET or LET like theory?
Best Regards
Fran
The 'ether' has no properties which can be measured, or so it appears at
this time. Gamma is considered proof that the length and time
contraction which is described the Lorentz transforms is 'legitimate' or
'real' or anyway 'measurable'. However, the assertion that "the
geometry of space is pseudo-Riemannian with metric signature [-1,1,1,1]"
is just as useful for describing the conclusion as the assertion that
there is an ether, and it requires fewer assumptions.
In short, the geometric interpretation of gamma, absent any detectable
ether dragging, reduces the existence of the ether to an unproved and
(theoretically) unprovable assumption. Consequently, Lorentz ether
theory, as an alternative to special relativity, is neither testable nor
falsifiable and can consequently be said to be not a valid theory.
The ether can't be proved not to exist, of course. But it apparently
can't be proved *to* exist, either, unless someone comes up with solid
evidence of ether dragging (which is *not* predicted by LET, Lorentz's
most mature version of ether theory).
> My point
> is that the ether may be moving at C perpindicular to space
If you can come up with a way to test that assertion, great. If you
can't test it or measure it, however, then it doesn't rise above the
level of 'speculation'.
If you can't make testable predictions from a set of assumptions, then
they don't form a valid theory.
