the speed of light, is it infinite

[madman]

(nb: semi? thread hijacking......apologies again)

RussT

...the experiment was actually testing against the speed of light (?)

unfortunately the experiment does not "test against the speed of light".

only objects that move relatively to the earth will show a result that is detectable using light motion as the tool....those that remain at rest (like the components of the interferometer) will not return a positive result.

this effect is detailed by the range of velocity values vs doppler shift that is obtained via the science of doppler radar.

doppler shift reduces as relative velocity (to the earth) reduces...until finally we have no doppler shift when the components are held completely at rest with respect to the earth.

[Bob Angstrom]

[The M-M apparatus tried to measure the addition and subtraction of the Earth’s motion to the speed of light and discovered that the motions can not be added.]

Anyone can correct me if I am wrong here, but it does not seem to me that this statement is correctly depicting what was being measured (or attempting to be measured) here.

AFAIK, the M&M experiment was using light to attempt to determine if there was/is a 'background field', in addition to our proper motion, that the earth, our solar system, or galaxy, could be seen moving against.

I agree that yours is a better statement of what they were trying to do at the time.

[madman]

the important thing is that they still didn't get a positive result...regardless of whatever assumptions are correct.

(the last point mentioned by Bob may be important for historical accuracy....but it makes no real difference in determining whether there is or isn't (for example) an "ether" in space....since no data means no proof of what is physically occuring in space.)

the "no proof" result left us with the need to (at the very least) explain what happened to the proper motion of the earth.

[hijacking begins]*********************

SR supplied an answer...but is it really the correct one?


in my thread "inertial field theory"...i've pointed out the fact that the science of doppler radar actually answers for the effects of objects moving relative to the earth.

this situation cannot be (and is not) overidden by the effects of SR....since not only do we see that objects have relative velocites to light that are directly related to their relative velocity to the earth.....but we also see that the root basis for the SR answer to the mmx negative result is not related to the root basis of doppler radar...which, as i have pointed out, already speaks for relative motion upon the earth...regardless of any opinion SR might have on the subject.

http://www.bautforum.com/showpost.ph...2&postcount=14

*********************************[/hijacking ends]

********************************
edited to note instance of hijacking

[Nereid]

... that the speed of light is infinite (or, very much greater than c).

If no such (ATM) proposal is put on the table, then what is the point of this thread?

[Setumadhava]

hello.
according to me the speed of light is infinite.what ever we assume it as 3x10^8 m/s is just relative to us and earth and not to the whole universe.this means that we can cross the mark of 3x10^8 m/s with no tensions.this can be justified.well,when a person is standing,to him the speed of light is 3x10^8(c).ok.lets assume a man in a spaceship going at 2/3c.to him also the speed of light is 3x10^8m/s and not 1x10^8m/s.this means that no matter at what speed you are going at,the speed of light is 3x10^8m/s more than your speed.so if you travel at infinite speed,the speed of light seems to be 3x10^8m/s times your speed.this means that 3x10^8m/s is not the actual speed of light.like a photon of zero mass,light is a quantity os infinite velocity.this does not mean that velocity of light can be reached.it cannot be.but the speed which we assume as 3x10^8m/s is not right.

[R.A.F.]

...according to me the speed of light is infinite.

Although wrong, I can('t) help but admire the confidence demonstrated in that statement.

[SMEaton]

Although wrong, I can help but admire the confidence demonstrated in that statement.

(emphasis mine) I'm not sure if that was a typo or a sardonic twist, but either way it's hilarious.

[R.A.F.]

DOH!!...I've fixed it...

[Fortis]

hello.
according to me the speed of light is infinite.

How do you explain all of the measurements of it that result in finite velocities?

[RussT]

Setumadhava
Junior Member

And north.

And this includes explaining these.

http://www.bautforum.com/report.php?p=815794

http://www.bautforum.com/report.php?p=815797

[TheThorn]

One working GPS is enough to prove that the speed of light is finite.

Does your GPS work? Mine does. Case closed.

[Bob Angstrom]

... that the speed of light is infinite (or, very much greater than c).

If no such (ATM) proposal is put on the table, then what is the point of this thread?

I thought the proposal was on the table. In any case, I would also like propose that the transmission of light may be an instant and unmediated exchange of energy between an emitter and an absorber. As Gilbert Lewis pointed out in 1926, so far as the ‘photon’ is concerned, its ‘emission’ and ‘absorption’ are one and the same event, its intrinsic or ‘proper’ time of transit being exactly zero according to relativity. From a ‘photon’s eye view’, light has no space or time.
The theories of Bell and the experiments Aspic as well as some of recent experiments involving the quantum teleportation of light suggest an atemporal nature to the transmission of light that conflicts with our notion that light has a speed. Our measurements of the speed of light include the addition of space and time to the mix but space and time, even though essential for our observations, may not be essential to the transmission of light. Viv Pope has suggested that the ‘motion’ of light may be a cinematic illusion like the apparent motion of lights on a moving signboard where there is no actual motion or speed involved and no physical transmission of light through space.
Pope also makes the point that light is the exchange of radial energy from one point to another and we have no theory to explain how radial energy (light) might be packaged and sent from one location to another as either a particle or as a wave.

http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/A...s/6-1/Pope.pdf

[Bob Angstrom]

How do you explain all of the measurements of it that result in finite velocities?

My eyes tell me Shakira is moving all over my TV screen but is her image really moving?

[Setumadhava]

One working GPS is enough to prove that the speed of light is finite.

Does your GPS work? Mine does. Case closed.

can you please tell me how a GPS can be used to measure the velocity of light???well what what do you say about that spaceship part?

[Fortis]

can you please tell me how a GPS can be used to measure the velocity of light???well what what do you say about that spaceship part?

GPS uses the fact that EM waves propagate at a finite velocity in order to determine the receiver's range from each GPS satellite, and hence the position of the receiver on the Earth. If EM waves propagated instantaneously then GPS wouldn't work.

[TheThorn]

can you please tell me how a GPS can be used to measure the velocity of light???well what what do you say about that spaceship part?

What Fortis said. I don't think GPS can be used directly to measure the speed of light, but if the speed of light was infinite, it wouldn't work at all, and if we didn't already know c to a very very very good degree of accuracy, GPS would be inaccurate.

Check out http://www.nasm.si.edu/gps/work.html for a good explanation.

GPS is just one of many everyday technologies that rely on c being finite and known. Radar might be an even better example.

It's so obvious, this thread should have been 2 posts long.

[Bob Angstrom]

GPS uses the fact that EM waves propagate at a finite velocity in order to determine the receiver's range from each GPS satellite, and hence the position of the receiver on the Earth. If EM waves propagated instantaneously then GPS wouldn't work.

A GPS uses highly accurate measurements of distance and time and their relationship to c but these are not necessarily a measurement of the speed of light. (I mentioned earlier that the speed of light can not be measured.) An exception to the possibility that light follows a straight line path from one point to another is Richard Feynman’s "sum over histories" theory which is illustrated in the second drawing in the following article.

http://www.einstein-online.info/en/s...als/index.html

In Feynman’s theory light can take any, and possibly every, possible path between two points with most paths requiring speeds far in excess of c. When a photon strikes the surface of a transparent object it can either be reflected or enter the surface. If the object has opposite surfaces that are perfectly smooth and flat, whether the photon is reflected or not, depends largely on the wavelength of the photon and the distance between the surfaces. An example is a soap bubble or a diamond that reflects light in different colors. Feynman noted in his book QED that this effect has been observed in glass as much as thirty meters thick so how does a photon entering a glass surface ‘know’ that there is another surface thirty meters away that can determine whether or not the photon will be reflected? In Feynman’s theory, the photon entering the glass meets one of its many alternate selves that has just been reflected from the far surface and how they interact determines the path of the photon. There is nothing logical about Feynman’s theory and there may not be any truth to it but it does describe the way light works in the ‘real world’ and the way light works is not consistent with the possibility of light traveling only at the speed of c.

[Nereid]

Jethro explained that our units for time, distance, and c are all dependent since the value of one is used to define the other two so our experimental measurement of the speed of light will always give us the same result. If we measure the speed of light under conditions where we should expect the speed of light to change by Newtonian physics, the same conditions that should cause the speed of light to change will also cause our measurements of length and time to change so the speed of light can not be measured experimentally. The Michaelson- Morley apparatus is an example of this interdependence. The M-M apparatus tried to measure the addition and subtraction of the Earth’s motion to the speed of light and discovered that the motions can not be added. This is one clue that c is not a ‘speed’ in the normal sense of the word. Jethro’s explanation does not apply to measurements under conditions that could be called Newtonian.

(my bold)

There's a subtle aspect to this which I think should be brought out more clearly.

And it may seem like a bit of nitpick, but I feel it's actually quite important (and relevant to my forthcoming comment on another of Bob Angstrom's posts).

Rather than "under conditions that could be called Newtonian", perhaps "if the universe behaved as if it were Newtonian".

A mere philosophical difference? Yes and no.

If someone is proposing that the speed of light is infinite (in the usual sense of 'speed'), then a legitimate question to ask is "which parts of SR are you seeking to change/throw out?" Why? Because, as far as we call tell, the universe works as if SR rules.

Another legitimate question would be "what are the definitions of unit mass and unit time, in your ATM idea (in which the speed of light is infinite)?"

[Nereid]

A GPS uses highly accurate measurements of distance and time and their relationship to c but these are not necessarily a measurement of the speed of light. (I mentioned earlier that the speed of light can not be measured.) An exception to the possibility that light follows a straight line path from one point to another is Richard Feynman’s "sum over histories" theory which is illustrated in the second drawing in the following article.

http://www.einstein-online.info/en/s...als/index.html

In Feynman’s theory light can take any, and possibly every, possible path between two points with most paths requiring speeds far in excess of c. When a photon strikes the surface of a transparent object it can either be reflected or enter the surface. If the object has opposite surfaces that are perfectly smooth and flat, whether the photon is reflected or not, depends largely on the wavelength of the photon and the distance between the surfaces. An example is a soap bubble or a diamond that reflects light in different colors. Feynman noted in his book QED that this effect has been observed in glass as much as thirty meters thick so how does a photon entering a glass surface ‘know’ that there is another surface thirty meters away that can determine whether or not the photon will be reflected? In Feynman’s theory, the photon entering the glass meets one of its many alternate selves that has just been reflected from the far surface and how they interact determines the path of the photon. There is nothing logical about Feynman’s theory and there may not be any truth to it but it does describe the way light works in the ‘real world’ and the way light works is not consistent with the possibility of light traveling only at the speed of c.

Well, I don't think this is in any way an ATM idea!

Unless it morphs into a discussion of the 'reality' which the highly successful quantum theories describe ... and that takes us right to the EPR paradox.

Is there a radical philosophical interpretation on the table? Is it so radical that it claims observables which are different from any of the standard interpretations?

[Bob Angstrom]

There's a subtle aspect to this which I think should be brought out more clearly.

And it may seem like a bit of nitpick, but I feel it's actually quite important (and relevant to my forthcoming comment on another of Bob Angstrom's posts).

Rather than "under conditions that could be called Newtonian", perhaps "if the universe behaved as if it were Newtonian".

A mere philosophical difference? Yes and no. )

A better phrasing would be to say that Jethro’s observations apply under non-relativistic conditions. I would not limit them to a Newtonian-only universe because they apply to our 'real world' sort of observations. They are not just theoretical.

(If someone is proposing that the speed of light is infinite (in the usual sense of 'speed'), then a legitimate question to ask is "which parts of SR are you seeking to change/throw out?" Why? Because, as far as we call tell, the universe works as if SR rules.

Another legitimate question would be "what are the definitions of unit mass and unit time, in your ATM idea (in which the speed of light is infinite)?"

I would toss out the popular idea that c is the actual speed of light but keep c as a universal constant. I do not consider this to be either a change in SR or ATM.
I am saying the speed of light is inmeasurable…take your pick of units. If it is inmeasurable, we can’t say if it is infinite or not. I just call it atemporal and aspatial or direct and non-local but it isn't necessarily limited by c.

[Bob Angstrom]

Well, I don't think this is in any way an ATM idea!

Unless it morphs into a discussion of the 'reality' which the highly successful quantum theories describe ... and that takes us right to the EPR paradox.

Is there a radical philosophical interpretation on the table? Is it so radical that it claims observables which are different from any of the standard interpretations?

I agree. Feynman’s sum over histories is not ATM.

I think you will find that we have a diverse set of opinions including no decisive view of what is or is not ATM. The Thorn said," One working GPS is enough to prove that the speed of light is finite. Does your GPS work? Mine does. Case closed."
I consider this to be ATM. Do you? Does he?
Viv Pope has some topics in his article that might be considered to be ATM. He describes the transmission of light as direct and non-local and not mediated by either particles or waves. This may be the sort of transmission of light "north" had in mind with his "infinite" speed of light and it does not play by the rules of Copenhagen.

[Thanatos]

Does Pope satisfactorily explain all experimental tests of relativity to date [that insist upon a finite speed of light], or does he cherry pick and snip pieces as needed to force fit them to his pet theory?

[Bob Angstrom]

Does Pope satisfactorily explain all experimental tests of relativity to date [that insist upon a finite speed of light], or does he cherry pick and snip pieces as needed to force fit them to his pet theory?

Pope cherry picks and snips pieces as needed to fit his pet theory and then he pounds all the square pegs with a large hammer until they fit the round holes. What else can a person do?
Experimental tests of relativity insist on the constancy of c for all observers but they do not insist that c be the finite speed of light or even a speed. It is simply a constant. The universal constant of c and the speed of light have gone separate ways since the Bell and Aspic disproved the EPR effect back in the sixties. Recent experiments with the quantum teleportation of light have shown that we can decide the polarity of a light beam after the light leaves its source. This is not possible in the Einsteinian view and neither is Feynman’s QED.
C as the finite speed of light is square peg that can not be forced into experimental results by anyone’s hammer.
For example, measure the speed of light in this test with your GPS.
http://www.livescience.com/technolog..._backward.html

[Bob Angstrom]

If you consider the views of Viv Pope together with some other recent, and not so recent, views on the subject, this is a concept of light that emerges. Light is the exchange of angular momentum between one quantum accumulator (the emitter) and another (the absorber) in energy units h. The most common accumulator and absorbers of light energy are electrons so light is mainly an energy exchange among electrons and this exchange is neither easy nor random. The exchange takes place only among electrons having the proper orientation and frequency and only when a two way connection of what may be called ‘probability waves’ has been established between two suitable electrons does the exchange of energy (light) take place. The exchange itself is an instantaneous and unmediated exchange of quantum information. This is the same instant and non-local exchange of information described by Bell and Aspic in their tests of the EPR theory. Angular momentum of the electrons is conserved whenever light energy is exchanged because the exchange is instant and there is no time interval between emission and absorption. There are also no particles (photons) involved. This view is quite different from what we observe when we see an obvious time delay between the emission and absorption of light and the way that light appears to travel with a predictable speed. Pope explains that the distance/time relation that experiments measure is not the velocity of anything. It is the distance-time relation itself, in the constant ratio of units c between any one point in space and another. I like to think of this as saying that time is Nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once and space as Nature’s way of keeping everything from in the same place. I don’t know of a better definition for space and time than that. From light’s point of view, which is also the quantum world view where everything is holistic and interconnected, concepts such as distance and speed become meaningless. It is our observation of light related events that places space and time and their relationship to c between the events of emission and absorption and this gives light its time like quality. As Pope explains, light does not pass through space. Instead our observations place space and time between the events of emission and absorption. "From light in space to space in light." In Pope’s view, the apparent motion of light is strictly cinematic like the moving letters on an electric signboard. Electrons exchanging light energy are like the bulbs flashing on and off as they create the illusion of motion but light itself has no speed other than instant and it has no motion through space.

[Nereid]

Does Pope satisfactorily explain all experimental tests of relativity to date [that insist upon a finite speed of light], or does he cherry pick and snip pieces as needed to force fit them to his pet theory?

Pope cherry picks and snips pieces as needed to fit his pet theory and then he pounds all the square pegs with a large hammer until they fit the round holes. What else can a person do?
Experimental tests of relativity insist on the constancy of c for all observers but they do not insist that c be the finite speed of light or even a speed. It is simply a constant. The universal constant of c and the speed of light have gone separate ways since the Bell and Aspic disproved the EPR effect back in the sixties. Recent experiments with the quantum teleportation of light have shown that we can decide the polarity of a light beam after the light leaves its source. This is not possible in the Einsteinian view and neither is Feynman’s QED.
C as the finite speed of light is square peg that can not be forced into experimental results by anyone’s hammer.
For example, measure the speed of light in this test with your GPS.
http://www.livescience.com/technolog..._backward.html

Indeed.

From the Page document that Bob Angstrom gave us a link to (my bold):

This neo-Berkeleyan approach to physics, then, matches point-for-point the purely practical findings of classical physics but is much more conceptually economical.

In fact, only a tiny number of relevant points are matched, and none quantitatively (it's all words, no attempt seems to have been made to show that this philosophically different way of looking at things does match, at the numbers/equations/math level).

There is very little practical difference, then, between the sorts of explanations of optical phenomena that are supplied by our phenomenalist, or information-digital theory and classical wave-theory.

Yep, that's what it says - with no (apparent) attempt made to even hint what sorts of 'practical difference' there might be, let alone whether any such might be testable (even in principle).

Nonetheless, it's refreshing to see an attempt to so radically redefine all (?) of modern physics.

[Nereid]

If you consider the views of Viv Pope together with some other recent, and not so recent, views on the subject, this is a concept of light that emerges. Light is the exchange of angular momentum between one quantum accumulator (the emitter) and another (the absorber) in energy units h. The most common accumulator and absorbers of light energy are electrons so light is mainly an energy exchange among electrons and this exchange is neither easy nor random. The exchange takes place only among electrons having the proper orientation and frequency and only when a two way connection of what may be called ‘probability waves’ has been established between two suitable electrons does the exchange of energy (light) take place. The exchange itself is an instantaneous and unmediated exchange of quantum information. This is the same instant and non-local exchange of information described by Bell and Aspic in their tests of the EPR theory. Angular momentum of the electrons is conserved whenever light energy is exchanged because the exchange is instant and there is no time interval between emission and absorption. There are also no particles (photons) involved. This view is quite different from what we observe when we see an obvious time delay between the emission and absorption of light and the way that light appears to travel with a predictable speed. Pope explains that the distance/time relation that experiments measure is not the velocity of anything. It is the distance-time relation itself, in the constant ratio of units c between any one point in space and another. I like to think of this as saying that time is Nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once and space as Nature’s way of keeping everything from in the same place. I don’t know of a better definition for space and time than that. From light’s point of view, which is also the quantum world view where everything is holistic and interconnected, concepts such as distance and speed become meaningless. It is our observation of light related events that places space and time and their relationship to c between the events of emission and absorption and this gives light its time like quality. As Pope explains, light does not pass through space. Instead our observations place space and time between the events of emission and absorption. "From light in space to space in light." In Pope’s view, the apparent motion of light is strictly cinematic like the moving letters on an electric signboard. Electrons exchanging light energy are like the bulbs flashing on and off as they create the illusion of motion but light itself has no speed other than instant and it has no motion through space.

So which of the following have been worked out, in detail, in this new way of looking at things?

* gravitational redshift

* gravitational bending (lensing) of light

* two-slit experiment

* Hubble relationship

* photonic crystals

* Cherenkov radiation

* photon-photon scattering, vacuum birefringence, and other vacuum polarisation effects

* pair production.

How well does the new explanation match the observational results?

[Beards]

But the speed of light is infinite in its own frame of reference.

Not really relevant but just thought I'd throw that in there!

:-P

[Boxes]

But the speed of light is infinite in its own frame of reference.

Not really relevant but just thought I'd throw that in there!

:-P

Also not relevant, I believe, but couldn't you also say that from light's frame of reference there is no space between any matter in the Universe? Could you then say that, in light's frame of reference, the Universe is a singularity?

[RussT]

Everything I am reading in this thread (that deals with the OP) is bringing back to this;

Here is another mind altering (crazy) possibility!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken G
Even a universe of pure dark matter and no light at all should obey the rules of relativity, and the speed of light appears as a key parameter even where light itself does not. Think of it this way. The speed of light is embedded into reality in a very deep way, and that's why light goes that speed-- not the other way around. end quote

Orginally Posted by RussT
This is a very insightful concept!

Understanding our universe has so far been almost entirely based on understanding the light that we can detect at all the different wave lengths and frequencies and we have certainly come a VERY long way. However, it is my contention that it is understanding the Darkness (DM/DE), the true properties of 'space', that will take us another GIANT step forward in that understanding.

So based on your above statement Ken G, I would like to propose a concept that I have recently developed based on numerous other determinations.

This will sound crazy at first (and may be).

[Even a universe of pure dark matter and no light at all should obey the rules of relativity,]

Let's start with your first insight here...if this is indeed the case (and I believe it is), this is made up of Planck size (infitesimal DM), and I am going to suggest that 'all' of it, the entire universe worth of pure dark matter is moving @ the speed of light, and that as we know, it does not interact with
'ordinary' matter. It also has no real interaction with itself, so that there is no attraction of any of the infitesimal bits to each other, so there is no clumping of any kind, so in effect, all the bits are moving at the speed of light, in 'all' directions, so there is no prefered direction of the bits in any given volume of space. So they cannot 'bump' into each other!

Now Einstein showed that the speed of light in a vacuum is C.

So, if that vacuum, is what I described above, and since light has 0 mass and the pure dark matter 'space' bits have an infitesimal mass, that would mean that the light is 'lighter' (mass wise), and would mean that the light itself is not actually 'traveling' of its own velocity, BUT is being 'carried' along with the DM field of space which is traveling at C. Obviously until it bumps into something that it must react with.

So, if this DM field of space bits is traveling at C, that easily explains why space just travels right through the earth, our bodies, and all baryonic matter.

Here is the way I actually came up with part of this and the easiest way for me to think of it. When you turn on a light in a big room, the light is not eminating at the speed of light throughout the room. The light bulb is eminating light right at the bulb, and 'space', moving everywhere/every direction at C is carring that light everywhere/every direction @ C.

Crazy Huh!

[Fortis]

But the speed of light is infinite in its own frame of reference.

Not really relevant but just thought I'd throw that in there!

:-P

The rest frame of a photon is not a valid inertial frame.