Professor Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics for explaining the Photoelectric Effect (and other contributions to physics). I think it was a great work, his explanation of the Photoelectric Effect. Einstein’s brilliant works, however, do not mean that everything he has written is true. (I can feel safe in saying that because Professor Einstein published more words on philosophy than on physics. It’s hard to prove the truths of philosophy.) It has been about 100 years from the publication of some of his works, and it would be surprising if the newer scientists could not add to his theories, or perhaps alter his theories. Certainly, as we learn, we learn. Consider, for example, Gregor Mendel. He discovered many facets of inheritance, yet today we find caveats, limitations and whatever about genetic transmission. Too, Professor Einstein explained the transmission of light, yet today we should not be surprised to find caveats, limitations, and whatever about light transmission. We build upon what we know.
For simplicity, I will refer to electromagnetic waves as light. Light travels quickly, at about 3(10^10) cm/s (written out that would be a 3 followed by 10 zeros). We say that a car traveling at 1000 cm/s is traveling at that speed relative to the Earth. In general, for things that move, we have to specify that they are moving relative to something. For a crude example, consider this. Slipping and falling in a train car that is moving 60MPH (5280 ft/s) does not damage one as much as slipping and falling off a train car that is moving at 60MPH. In the former, the speed of the train is irrelevant, whereas, in the latter it is relevant. That is why we should indentify relative speed. Yes, I haven’t identified relative speed for light. The year-2000 answer is everything and anything, according to Professor Einstein’s followers. Why not? There is strong evidence for this.
Physicists report that matter travels in a straight line, until something influences it to behave otherwise. Thus, matter is either not moving or moving in a straight line, until something happens. Light behaves as matter – it is either still (in which case it doesn’t exist as light) or it moves in a straight line, until something changes its direction.
The physics of sound in air (stationary air of the same pressure, e.g., STP) is well known. If the source of the sound is emitted towards the ear, three possibilities exist, under these conditions: (1) source, movements, and ear are all on the same straight line segment; and (2) movement of source relative to ear is much less than the speed of sound in the air.
1. When the source and ear are not moving relative to one another, the sound is reproduced at the ear at the same frequency (tone) emitted.
2. When the source and ear are moving towards each other, the sound in reproduced at the ear with a greater frequency.
3. When the source and ear are moving away from each other, the sound is reproduced at the ear with a lesser frequency.
We may ask, why doesn’t light act this way? Or does it? It does (mostly)! The speed of light is fixed and the frequency changes just as sound changes (more or less).
The apparent answer for light came from two observations. First, light doesn’t need air to be transmitted (although at one time it was thought to need aether). Second, light travels at “c” relative to the source no matter what. OK, second, part B, light travels at “c” relative to the ear (i.e., the eye) no matter what, too. Einstein’s physics is that light travels at c (relative to anything).
It is well known that light doesn’t need air for transmission, as the void of outer space shows. OK, if light doesn’t need air to be transmitted, what does it need? The ancient (before and around 1900’s CE) physicists guessed aether! That is, just as sound moves through air, the physicists invented aether so that light travels through aether. Therefore, it’s both a model and, therefore, a challenge to identify the aether.
Please recall what I said about sound in air (above). We could have had sound moving through wind (a moving air), but we chose to make things easy. That is, we could always add velocity to air later to explain differences in how sound is transmitted. Maybe sound travels faster with the wind. In a similar approach, scientists decided to use a stationary aether to explain the speed of light. They could always add velocity of the aether later to explain differences in how light is transmitted – or at least this is how they acted.
We should take a little digression here. I should point out that the typical meaning of vacuum may not hold. As I mean the term, a vacuum is a volume without anything. But is the volume yet a vacuum if it contains fields, such as gravity? Others have meant a mass vacuum, a volume simply devoid of mass. But I think that vacuum should include nothing. Vacuums don’t exist around here (considering gravity fields and the like).
Meanwhile what happened to the search for aether? Considering a stationary aether and looking for movement through the aether, did not yield results. The aether, should it exist, was found to be always stationary. No matter how the Earth moved relative to the Sun, or the Sun through the Universe, the aether was stationary. There are many possible reactions to such a finding. Most famously, if the aether was always stationary maybe it didn’t exist! After all, who needed a theoretical construct (the aether) that doesn’t have an effect? Aether was hypothesized; no evidence of its existence was found; therefore, why bother with it? Professor Einstein and others took this position – it makes sense. The most famous experiments along these lines were those of Michelson and Morley. Although to be fair, Michelson did not like Einstein’s interpretation that “c” (the speed of light) was a universal constant. Unfortunately, Michelson’s experiment supported Einstein’s (and others’) conclusion. As you can see, the arguments have shifted away from whether the aether is traveling or is stationary, because the aether was found not to exist.
Back to reality, Professor Einstein predicted that light passing by a star would be deflected by gravity. The evidence shows that light is bent by gravity, to about the amount predicted by Professor Einstein. As you recall from simple physics, the gravitational attraction of one mass to another is individually proportional to each of the masses. Professor Einstein’s hypothesis that light reacts to gravity suggests that light is mass. But we should know that, because Professor Einstein, himself, has said that energy and mass are two faces of one coin (E=mc^2). That is, when the mass is converted into energy – photons – the energy retains mass’s gravity. Therefore, we should think that light – a photon – has a gravity field of its own.
Although we see a star with a continuous stream of light, it may be that each photon is affected by its own gravity. This suggests that gravity travels (much) faster than light. Gravity is affecting the path of light as it zips along. No wonder, Professor Einstein thought to reconstruct the Universe with a gravity-defined straight line. In some sense, therefore, Einstein considers the aether to be gravity – remember this. That is, Einstein has light traveling in a “defined straight line” even if he didn’t think the line was straight by Euclidean Geometry. That is, the curved lines of Euclidean space due to gravity become the straight lines in a neo-geometry (from Einstein). So there are two ways of using this gravity event. Einstein incorporates gravity into space. But I suggest that we keep Euclidean space and add gravity into it (very classical). I concur with Einstein that light is affected by gravity (isn’t all mass?), but I further suggest that light travels through gravity, in analogy as sound travels though air. I suggest that the aether is gravity!
Here are some mental wanderings.
1. So if light has gravity, then a laser beam will eventually pull together the photons to an almost point? Points are mathematical things, and physics concerns itself with “real” things. What happens when light pulls together? Maybe the electromagnetic part of the wave keeps it from collapsing in to itself?
2. We can run relative to sound to change the frequency (tone), but the speed of sound remains unchanged through the (aether, I mean) air. We can "run" relative to light to change the frequency (color), but the speed of light remains unchanged through the (air, I mean) aether. The phrases seem to elicit an isomorphism.
3. Light may travels by means of gravity – light is wave through gravity.
4. I would prefer think of gravity as moving faster than light. Remember light curves near a star. Generally, light travels in a straight line. Gravity pulls on light, adds a curve. Gravity pulls on light means that light has a gravity field. So should we think of an electromagnetic wave (light as an EM wave) as a gravitational-electro-magnetic wave (GEM wave)?
5. I have been ignoring quantum mechanics, but perhaps a word is in order. In quantum mechanics, they get all excited by entanglements, but I am thinking something along the lines: Gravity could explain entanglement.
6. We can do all sorts of experiments with light, such as adding two waves and “watching” them disappear. But what disappears? Certainly, the mass-energy does not disappear; who in their right mind would say that? It is the “visibility” of light that disappears. So the “visibility” of light is not a measure of whether the mass-energy exists. Does the nonvisible-by-addition-of-light have a pressure, or can it be detected otherwise? Is this some of the dark matter of the universe?
7. Light seems to slow down with more nearby mass (such as traveling though glass, water, or air), but maybe the slowing down reflects an increase in actual path length – as in the light wiggles around the atoms (molecules)? Does the transmission through, e.g., water separate different frequencies? Do gamma waves slow down to the same extent as radio waves? Look to refraction?
In Summary
Light travels at c near Earth because light travels at c through gravity. If you move the gravity, the light moves at the light speed (c) though the gravity plus the movement of the gravity ("c" relative to the mass making the gravity) relative to something else. The frequency of the light tells us how much energy can be extracted from it. Aberration of star light seems consistent with this gravitational aether. The speed of light is measured to be "c" relative to the local gravity field.
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https://sites.google.com/site/lettertodrhowardspivak/
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For simplicity, I will refer to electromagnetic waves as light. Light travels quickly, at about 3(10^10) cm/s (written out that would be a 3 followed by 10 zeros). We say that a car traveling at 1000 cm/s is traveling at that speed relative to the Earth. In general, for things that move, we have to specify that they are moving relative to something. For a crude example, consider this. Slipping and falling in a train car that is moving 60MPH (5280 ft/s) does not damage one as much as slipping and falling off a train car that is moving at 60MPH. In the former, the speed of the train is irrelevant, whereas, in the latter it is relevant. That is why we should indentify relative speed. Yes, I haven’t identified relative speed for light. The year-2000 answer is everything and anything, according to Professor Einstein’s followers. Why not? There is strong evidence for this.
Physicists report that matter travels in a straight line, until something influences it to behave otherwise. Thus, matter is either not moving or moving in a straight line, until something happens. Light behaves as matter – it is either still (in which case it doesn’t exist as light) or it moves in a straight line, until something changes its direction.
The physics of sound in air (stationary air of the same pressure, e.g., STP) is well known. If the source of the sound is emitted towards the ear, three possibilities exist, under these conditions: (1) source, movements, and ear are all on the same straight line segment; and (2) movement of source relative to ear is much less than the speed of sound in the air.
1. When the source and ear are not moving relative to one another, the sound is reproduced at the ear at the same frequency (tone) emitted.
2. When the source and ear are moving towards each other, the sound in reproduced at the ear with a greater frequency.
3. When the source and ear are moving away from each other, the sound is reproduced at the ear with a lesser frequency.
We may ask, why doesn’t light act this way? Or does it? It does (mostly)! The speed of light is fixed and the frequency changes just as sound changes (more or less).
The apparent answer for light came from two observations. First, light doesn’t need air to be transmitted (although at one time it was thought to need aether). Second, light travels at “c” relative to the source no matter what. OK, second, part B, light travels at “c” relative to the ear (i.e., the eye) no matter what, too. Einstein’s physics is that light travels at c (relative to anything).
It is well known that light doesn’t need air for transmission, as the void of outer space shows. OK, if light doesn’t need air to be transmitted, what does it need? The ancient (before and around 1900’s CE) physicists guessed aether! That is, just as sound moves through air, the physicists invented aether so that light travels through aether. Therefore, it’s both a model and, therefore, a challenge to identify the aether.
Please recall what I said about sound in air (above). We could have had sound moving through wind (a moving air), but we chose to make things easy. That is, we could always add velocity to air later to explain differences in how sound is transmitted. Maybe sound travels faster with the wind. In a similar approach, scientists decided to use a stationary aether to explain the speed of light. They could always add velocity of the aether later to explain differences in how light is transmitted – or at least this is how they acted.
We should take a little digression here. I should point out that the typical meaning of vacuum may not hold. As I mean the term, a vacuum is a volume without anything. But is the volume yet a vacuum if it contains fields, such as gravity? Others have meant a mass vacuum, a volume simply devoid of mass. But I think that vacuum should include nothing. Vacuums don’t exist around here (considering gravity fields and the like).
Meanwhile what happened to the search for aether? Considering a stationary aether and looking for movement through the aether, did not yield results. The aether, should it exist, was found to be always stationary. No matter how the Earth moved relative to the Sun, or the Sun through the Universe, the aether was stationary. There are many possible reactions to such a finding. Most famously, if the aether was always stationary maybe it didn’t exist! After all, who needed a theoretical construct (the aether) that doesn’t have an effect? Aether was hypothesized; no evidence of its existence was found; therefore, why bother with it? Professor Einstein and others took this position – it makes sense. The most famous experiments along these lines were those of Michelson and Morley. Although to be fair, Michelson did not like Einstein’s interpretation that “c” (the speed of light) was a universal constant. Unfortunately, Michelson’s experiment supported Einstein’s (and others’) conclusion. As you can see, the arguments have shifted away from whether the aether is traveling or is stationary, because the aether was found not to exist.
Back to reality, Professor Einstein predicted that light passing by a star would be deflected by gravity. The evidence shows that light is bent by gravity, to about the amount predicted by Professor Einstein. As you recall from simple physics, the gravitational attraction of one mass to another is individually proportional to each of the masses. Professor Einstein’s hypothesis that light reacts to gravity suggests that light is mass. But we should know that, because Professor Einstein, himself, has said that energy and mass are two faces of one coin (E=mc^2). That is, when the mass is converted into energy – photons – the energy retains mass’s gravity. Therefore, we should think that light – a photon – has a gravity field of its own.
Although we see a star with a continuous stream of light, it may be that each photon is affected by its own gravity. This suggests that gravity travels (much) faster than light. Gravity is affecting the path of light as it zips along. No wonder, Professor Einstein thought to reconstruct the Universe with a gravity-defined straight line. In some sense, therefore, Einstein considers the aether to be gravity – remember this. That is, Einstein has light traveling in a “defined straight line” even if he didn’t think the line was straight by Euclidean Geometry. That is, the curved lines of Euclidean space due to gravity become the straight lines in a neo-geometry (from Einstein). So there are two ways of using this gravity event. Einstein incorporates gravity into space. But I suggest that we keep Euclidean space and add gravity into it (very classical). I concur with Einstein that light is affected by gravity (isn’t all mass?), but I further suggest that light travels through gravity, in analogy as sound travels though air. I suggest that the aether is gravity!
Here are some mental wanderings.
1. So if light has gravity, then a laser beam will eventually pull together the photons to an almost point? Points are mathematical things, and physics concerns itself with “real” things. What happens when light pulls together? Maybe the electromagnetic part of the wave keeps it from collapsing in to itself?
2. We can run relative to sound to change the frequency (tone), but the speed of sound remains unchanged through the (aether, I mean) air. We can "run" relative to light to change the frequency (color), but the speed of light remains unchanged through the (air, I mean) aether. The phrases seem to elicit an isomorphism.
3. Light may travels by means of gravity – light is wave through gravity.
4. I would prefer think of gravity as moving faster than light. Remember light curves near a star. Generally, light travels in a straight line. Gravity pulls on light, adds a curve. Gravity pulls on light means that light has a gravity field. So should we think of an electromagnetic wave (light as an EM wave) as a gravitational-electro-magnetic wave (GEM wave)?
5. I have been ignoring quantum mechanics, but perhaps a word is in order. In quantum mechanics, they get all excited by entanglements, but I am thinking something along the lines: Gravity could explain entanglement.
6. We can do all sorts of experiments with light, such as adding two waves and “watching” them disappear. But what disappears? Certainly, the mass-energy does not disappear; who in their right mind would say that? It is the “visibility” of light that disappears. So the “visibility” of light is not a measure of whether the mass-energy exists. Does the nonvisible-by-addition-of-light have a pressure, or can it be detected otherwise? Is this some of the dark matter of the universe?
7. Light seems to slow down with more nearby mass (such as traveling though glass, water, or air), but maybe the slowing down reflects an increase in actual path length – as in the light wiggles around the atoms (molecules)? Does the transmission through, e.g., water separate different frequencies? Do gamma waves slow down to the same extent as radio waves? Look to refraction?
In Summary
Light travels at c near Earth because light travels at c through gravity. If you move the gravity, the light moves at the light speed (c) though the gravity plus the movement of the gravity ("c" relative to the mass making the gravity) relative to something else. The frequency of the light tells us how much energy can be extracted from it. Aberration of star light seems consistent with this gravitational aether. The speed of light is measured to be "c" relative to the local gravity field.
See the following:
https://sites.google.com/site/lettertodrhowardspivak/
Don't worry about the following; I don't.
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