lalbatros
Aug26-07, 07:37 AM
I quickly read the followoing IEEE paper:
Absence of the Relativistic Transverse Doppler Shift at Microwave Frequencies (http://www.atomicprecision.com/blog/wp-filez/Thim%20-%20Absence%20of%20the%20relativistic%20Doppler%20e ffect%20...%20.pdf)
The author claims he proved that he invalidated experimentally the SR prediction of a transverse Doppler effect for microwaves.
Its experimental setup is shown in figure 1.
Basically, an homodyne frequency-shift detection is used.
It involves a fixed source and a fixed detector.
The setup involves two paths: a "reference path" and an "active path".
In the active path, the microwave beam passes trough a rotating emission-reception system.
Because of the rotation of the beam within the "active path", the author claims a transverse Doppler effect should be observed.
The author did not detect any shift and concluded this invalidates SR.
I think this paper is totally wrong in its analysis and its conclusion. Experimental results are right but useless.
The source and the detector have no relative motion and therefore I would not expect ant Doppler shift.
In addition, if one considers a even simpler version of this experiment, the conclusion of "no Doppler shift expected" is even more obvious to me. This simplified version would be based on a cylindrical cavity in the "active path" whose walls would be rotating. It is clear that rotating walls would make any difference compared with fixed wall: reflexion on perfect conducting walls does not depend on the transverse motion.
I would like to elaborate on my first impression.
I am interrested by your own ideas and comments on this experiement as well as in the basic theory to analyse such experiments in general.
Thanks
Absence of the Relativistic Transverse Doppler Shift at Microwave Frequencies (http://www.atomicprecision.com/blog/wp-filez/Thim%20-%20Absence%20of%20the%20relativistic%20Doppler%20e ffect%20...%20.pdf)
The author claims he proved that he invalidated experimentally the SR prediction of a transverse Doppler effect for microwaves.
Its experimental setup is shown in figure 1.
Basically, an homodyne frequency-shift detection is used.
It involves a fixed source and a fixed detector.
The setup involves two paths: a "reference path" and an "active path".
In the active path, the microwave beam passes trough a rotating emission-reception system.
Because of the rotation of the beam within the "active path", the author claims a transverse Doppler effect should be observed.
The author did not detect any shift and concluded this invalidates SR.
I think this paper is totally wrong in its analysis and its conclusion. Experimental results are right but useless.
The source and the detector have no relative motion and therefore I would not expect ant Doppler shift.
In addition, if one considers a even simpler version of this experiment, the conclusion of "no Doppler shift expected" is even more obvious to me. This simplified version would be based on a cylindrical cavity in the "active path" whose walls would be rotating. It is clear that rotating walls would make any difference compared with fixed wall: reflexion on perfect conducting walls does not depend on the transverse motion.
I would like to elaborate on my first impression.
I am interrested by your own ideas and comments on this experiement as well as in the basic theory to analyse such experiments in general.
Thanks