On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 9:37 PM, John Berry <[email protected]> wrote:
Ok, let's keep it really simple. > Can you explain how a moving 'train' could measure the velocity of the > same photon/s as a stationary observer and measure the same velocity of > those photons despite the trains motion, especially photons moving the > opposite direction of the train? > You need to explain how your train is measuring the velocity of the photon. Until you do that, your thought experiment is under-determined, and little can be reasoned in connection with it. When you have an opportunity to explain the precise manner in which the velocity of the photon is being measured, keep in mind this bit of detail [1]: "The Earth moves around the sun at a speed of about 30 km/s, so if velocities added vectorially as newtonian mechanics requires, the last 5 digits in the value of the speed of light now used in the SI definition of the metre would be meaningless. Today, high energy physicists at CERN in Geneva and Fermilab in Chicago routinely accelerate particles to within a whisper of the speed of light. Any dependence of the speed of light on reference frames would have shown up long ago, unless it is very slight indeed." Basically to understand my argument, I guess you have to have some > understanding of SR in the first place. > I'm hoping you can help me with this one. > > There's probably a misunderstanding about one or more of the claims it's >> making. I get the impression that relativity fits the known facts to >> within a very small error, >> > > No, it does not. > Yes, it does. However it makes many of the same predictions as an entrained aether. > But it being impossible and illogical is a bit of an issue. > We should take a careful look at what it is that is impossible and illogical. Eric [1] http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/speed_of_light.html
