SR and one-way speed of light tests

[paultrr]

Even as a supporter of VSL it never ceases to amaze me how often someone tries to redo something done multiple times just to prove SR in some way wrong. Let's see, besides multiple tests over the years along the same lines as the now famious experiment that tried to detect an Aether drift,(By the way, it was originally spelled AETHER, not ETHER, we have tests with atomic clocks showing time dilation to be correct(Another aspect of SR), we have observations generally showing no strong variation from C, even those that are used to supply a time variable C, and the actually challanged aspect of Lorentz was originally proposed by him while he upheld the notion of the Aether.

Now, if you want to follow the same logic you are using why not run the test in say a moving rocket? If the Earth's movement through this Aether is supposed to generate a drift I would think it would be safe to say that a faster moving object should be able to produce even a stronger drift, perhaps this time one measurable, since in all repeatable experiments to the present the Earth never produced a measurable one.

You say if this one-way test of SR was conducted and it got a Null reading that would silence the Aether side? I'd say wrong. The concept of this aether is very popular amongst a lot of folks and actually has its own scientific publications and groups. I've even noticed on rare occasions some articles in LANL outlining what amounts to classical Aether ideas. The little terrible infant, as Einstein called it is as much alive in some minds as it was before Einstein and all the tests since then. People tend to believe what they will no matter the evidence presented to them. Scientists themselves are not beyond this as Kip Thorne rather aptly pointed out in his book on Einstein's legacy with the example of many early on and modern great minds who have refused at times to accept an idea, later proven to be correct.

Personally, I'd suggest running the experiment would be a waste of time, except perhaps to convince you, however, if that would convince you I'd suggest trying to simply duplicate some of the original experiments in a bit more modern fasion with more modern equiptment. I've seen a lot of quotes over the years on supposed experiments that showed non-null readings. Most all of these tended in the end run due to errors of one form or another and general could never be repeated. Even if that experiment you quoted was correct I'd still find it odd that all the tests down through the years have never reported the same before this. Some of those tests were conducted by people who supported the Aether concept at the time.

Newton's absolute space and absolute time Aether is dead in the water. But, doing a modern version of the test might be an interesting exercize in general. There is an aether of sorts well known in quantum theory commonly called the zero point field. But it has no absolute time quality. Also, we do have a certain motion against a background known as our motion in relation to the CMB.

 

[wisp]

Paultrr

SR is still a very successful theory that fits in well with modern science, and no one would challenge it unless they had good reason.
Wisp theory developed form a very simple (but different) idea. The focus of the theory is to explain how force and matter interact, and not to challenge SR.
When I realized that a simple one-way test would give a positive result, I thought that was the end of wisp theory. If I find clear evidence that a simple one-way test would give a null result, then I would accept it, but the evidence is not there.
My bet is that SR will fail because the speed of light is not constant. However, other aspects of SR - time dilation equation, relativistic mass increase, etc - will still stand.

 

[paultrr]

David Waite runs an interesting group on MSN about relativity and he pointed out something in there that is very true from the original papers of Einstein. Relativity only shows C is constant in the vacuum and that vacuum state has given conditions that qualify it. If, in the history of this universe those vacuum conditions have altered then C would have altered itself. Some recent observational data suggests that C varies with time. There have been some articles on this published over the last few years. Part of this is considered connected to the accelerated expansion issue. So part of the problem is what does one mean by constant?

 

[Nereid]

Paul:

Some recent observational data suggests that C varies with time

Do you have some links to papers reporting these observations?

 

[FZ+]

I haven't really read through this, but:

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9808291
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0012539

Detailing variations in the fine structure constant, alpha. Alpha is related to c, and so this can been seen as evidence for past differences in c. Or maybe their observations were inaccurate.

Varying c don't destroy SR per se, but would require some sort of variation in the behaviour of the universe. Some other developments on relativity also imply the existence of Varying C.

See also http://physicsweb.org/article/world/16/4/9/4

 

[Nereid]

Thanks FZ+.

Detailing variations in the fine structure constant, alpha. Alpha is related to c, and so this can been seen as evidence for past differences in c.

Leaving aside whether a time-varying alpha implies a variable c or not, the observations of possible variations in alpha over cosmological time (such as those in your links) got folk excited for a while. Then came Bahcall, Steinhardt and Schlegel's paper:
http://www.sns.ias.edu/~jnb/
(click on "Quasar Adsorption and Emission Lines", then on "emission lines")

Great work, restrained commentary on the other works.

Or maybe their observations were inaccurate.

Their observations were probably OK; their analysis pushed too far IMHO.

 

[paultrr]

That was a good one. Might I suggest all the following:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/791205.asp?cp1=1
http://www.discover.com/apr_03/featspeed.html
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/0112/0112011.pdf
Webb et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87 (2001) 091301, preprint
astro-ph/0012539
http://pvanhove.home.cern.ch/pvanhove/PopularScience/NewScientist/isnothings.html

There are other quotes of these observations and other references out there. Answer this onme question. Under SR and GR the speed of light is constant in a specific vacuum state. Even Einstein knew Light slowed down when it say enters the atmosphere or a different medium. Was the vacuum state during inflation the same vacuum state we have now? If, and current obeservations back this up there is some form of exotic energy that causes the expansion to accelerate that same exotic energy must be altering our vacuum state with time. If the vacuum state changes then the medium has changed and so has the speed of light. If the vacuum state during inflation was different from that state discussed by SR and our present vacuum state is slowly changing then it is fully logic to conclude that C has altered over the course of the history of cosmic evolution.

 

[paultrr]

I agree by the way those observations need polished up as well as the conclusions, but what I mentioned above is known fact so the logic that C changes with time is sound. Has anyone found it interesting that the main proponent of VSL happens to be a friend of none other than Smolin himself? Here's Smolin telling us with his Loop Quantum Field Theory that space-time breaks down into discrete units past a certain scale. He tells us that time ceases to have meaning at this scale. Without Time there is no keeper of C, so to speak. If the background vanishes at a certain scale, which is what that theory implies then so does the restraint of the vacuum which actually is that background. Now you know why they are strong friends and what their common link is. They both, in different ways see Nature as telling us something about being too narrow in our views at times. Most of this modern thought came about by observation and through quantum mechanics.

 

[Nereid]

Paultrr,

The observations quoted in the links you gave are a subset of those referred to in the Bahcall et al paper (see section 8.1, "The Many-Multiplet method").

For those who've not read all the papers, the key difference between the two observational approaches is:
->the "Many-Multiplet" method involves many potential systematic errors, and extensive theoretical calculations, all of which the authors of the papers have gone to great lengths to try to identify and account for.

-> the Bahcall approach involves the ratios of two emission lines from the same ion, many sources of systematic error cancel each other, and no theoretical calculations need be done.

The two sets of observations produce conflicting results; the Many-Multiplet ones show alpha has changed over cosmological time; the Bahcall one that it didn't. As they are all measuring essentially the same thing, at least one set will be shown to be wrong.

You said:

but what I mentioned above is known fact so the logic that C changes with time is sound

All I would point out here is that there is no observational consensus that alpha has changed over cosmological time.

 

[Nereid]

wisp: to my knowledge no such one-way speed of light test has been done!

Have you considered doing this experiment yourself?

There was also some discussion of your idea on the superstringtheory forum:
http://superstringtheory.com/forum/eluboard/messages6/23.html

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by wisp
I found some data on optical tracking of low orbiting satellites. See http://www.celestrak.com/columns/v03n02/
The optical tracking of GPS, if done, cannot be better than +/- 0.05 degrees accuracy. This equates to satellites being +/- 23km out of position without being optically detected. I doubt that GPS satellites are even checked to this resolution.

The other errors in your post are repeats of past errors and we've already addressed them. This error is new. If it wasn't possible to precisely locate a GPS satellite to within 1m, then it wouldn't be possible for the satellites to precisely locate objects on the ground to within 1m.

Also, check your math: low Earth orbit is about 250 km. .05 degrees at that distance is about 230 m, not 23 km.

 

[Michael F. Dmitriyev]

Speed of light was, is, and there will be a constant, because it is the unique speed existing in a reality. The space is an illusion created by light and light the generator of this illusion. The absoluteness is irrespective. Also it is not achievable.

 

[Nereid]

wisp: to my knowledge no such one-way speed of light test has been done!

This may not be exactly the one-way test you want, but it's an interesting test of GR*, and the data may also be re-analysed to test your idea (and much else besides).
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/gr-qc/pdf/0308/0308010.pdf

BTW, note the tracking accuracy, +/- 7 m.

*no deviation from GR, to ~5 x 10^-5

 

[wisp]

Nereid

I've spent a lot of time and money developing wisp theory, which suggests SR will fail this simple test.
I posted ideas about a one-way test on several forums including the superstringtheory forum. I got a little bit of feedback from that forum - they gave me a link to the work of Roland De Witte, who did do a one-way electrical experiment and got a positive result. I expect any amateur working on similar one-way light experiments will get dismissed by mainstream science, as Roland's work was.
Universities have been teaching Einstein's theories for nearly one hundred years and there is a very real possibility that those theories are wrong. So they have a duty to do one-way tests to back their claims and prove to all that what they teach is correct.
A professional body carrying out this experiment will be taken seriously, amateurs doing this work will not.
I also posted ideas on wisp big bang on superstringtheory forum to get some feedback. But I'm not a cosmologist and I posted ideas just to see what happened.

 

[Nereid]

Cassini results a one-way test?

What I hadn't appreciated, until I read the paper, was that the Cassini experiment (and the Mars/Viking one much earlier) is two back-to-back one-way tests! Because the return signal is not a reflection, but a retransmission using a transponder, it overcomes your objections to the MM experiment, as far as I can see.

Further, the positional accuracy of Cassini (and maybe Mars/Viking) far exceeds the GPS values (per your earlier post), so the objection you had to using GPS data is overcome.

There may be other problems with Cassini, as a test of wisp, but I do think it would be a good idea for you to take a hard look at the results.

 

[wisp]

Nereid

Quote: Cassini results a one-way test /Unquote

Dayton Miller’s experiment reveals that the ether flow past the Earth is perpendicular to the ecliptic plane at 208km/s, and so signals sent along the plane to satellites do not travel with or against the ether flow. The speed of light will be c-72 m/s in both directions. But as the Earth moves through the ether time dilation affects it, and measurements of light speed on its surface are (c-72+72 = c).

The +/- 0.05 degree optical tracking error for low orbit satellites would extrapolate to +/- 23km for GPS satellites.

GR is a complicated subject and it is better at predicting gravitational effects than Newton’s simple law of gravitation. Wisp gravitation is a combination of both Newton’s and Einstein’s ideas. There is curvature in space, but it is due to variation in ether density (as described by Newton), and it causes light to bend near massive bodies (as predicted by Einstein). I notice that the report you reference refers to a discrepancy in the pioneers’ orbits; this is explained by wisp’s gravitation theory.

 

[paultrr]

There has been the slight shift pointing, if memory serves me, towards SOL which has resulted in a slowdown of about 8 meters all in all over the distance thus travled. However, at the present time there have been many theories proposed to explain this and I do believe that NASA still suspects this is due to mechanical/thermo issues.

 

[Nereid]

GRACE - if it works properly wisp is dead?

Data from the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) - a pair of satellites in polar Earth orbit - may be adequate to overcome all the wisp objections to current data from GPS. In fact, it may be that the experiment would fail, in respect of its stated goals, if the wisp idea were correct.

Salient aspects:
- two identical satellites ~200 km apart in polar orbit
- distance between them determined to an accuracy of ~1 micron
- up to 200 GPS occultation measurements per day (these are one-way observations)
- laser satellite altimetry.

GRACE's first gravity model was issued earlier this year.

The GRACE homepage:
http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace/

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Nereid
GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment)

Very cool, I hadn't heard of that one before.

 

[wisp]

I'm still looking for evidence that proves special relativity is false, and have found two more sources that make good reading.

1. The Sagnac Effect
An article that explains this clearly, but from relativity's viewpoint is given at http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s2-07/2-07.htm
The first few paragraphs explain the Sagnac effect (you can ignore the section showing loop and area calculations). The argument in support of relativity's explanation is summed up on the basis that the device centres around one particular system of inertial coordinates (centre of circle), and all other inertial coordinate systems are related to it by Lorentz transformations.

But the flaw in this argument is simply this: What happens to the measuring clock when the radius of the circle becomes very large and the clock's velocity small (limit process)?
The Sagnac effect still applies and the clock's motion becomes more linear. In this limit process it is not unreasonable to treat the moving clock as an inertial reference frame in its own right (the Sagnac effect has been tested to great accuracy and so it perfectly reasonable to use a limit process to make the moving clock's frame inertial). Now according to relativity, since this is an inertial frame, light must travel at speed c in both directions. But the Sagnac effect requires that the speed of light must be c+v and c-v respectively, and not c! This limit process shows that relativity contradicts itself, as the real measurements are made in the moving clock frame and not at the centre of the circle. An argument that focuses on one inertial frame that is the centre of the circle is the only way relativity can explain this effect, and so the case for relativity is very weak.



2. GPS experiments that show the speed of light is not constant

A paper written by Ruyong Wang clearly shows that by using GPS you can prove that the velocity of a receiver relative to the Earth Centred Inertial (ECI) frame affects the speed of light, and so special relativity is false.
Go to link http://www.aliceinphysics.com/introduce/ion.pdf
Wisp theory proposes that the speed of light is constant only with respect to absolute wisp space and not to an ECI frame. It's only the way GPS satellite clocks synchronize that appears to make the Earth a special reference frame, either way, the results predicted will show special relativity to be false.

The evidence against relativity is overwhelming and clearly the speed of light varies depending on the motion of the receiver. The only question that needs resolving is: Is the speed of light fixed relative to the ECI frame, or an absolute ether frame.
Wisp theory supports an absolute frame, but I know a majority favour the ECI frame.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by wisp
The evidence against relativity is overwhelming and clearly the speed of light varies depending on the motion of the receiver.

Nope.

I'm still looking for evidence that proves special relativity is false...

Life would be a lot easier for you if instead you learned how the universe actually works.

 

[Nereid]

wisp wrote: I'm still looking for evidence that proves special relativity is false, and have found two more sources that make good reading.

For the interested reader, this site has an extensive compilation of experimental validation of SR (and a few experiments which produced contrary results):
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html#7. Other experiments

The Sagnac effect seems simple, but (IMHO) is very easily misunderstood. A couple of references for the interested reader:
http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s2-07/2-07.htm
http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2003-1/node2.html

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by wisp
I'm still looking for evidence that proves special relativity is false...

I let this go before, but this is a great big red flag, wisp. It implies that you are ONLY looking for evidence that disproves relativity, ie. you are not interested in looking at anything that doesn't support your opinion. That is directly contrary to the way science works. If you are really interested in "doing" science, you'll look at both.

Nereid, interesting looking link. I'll have to read it when I get a chance (just skimmed it).

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by wisp
Nereid

I've spent a lot of time and money developing wisp theory, which suggests SR will fail this simple test.
I posted ideas about a one-way test on several forums including the superstringtheory forum. I got a little bit of feedback from that forum - they gave me a link to the work of Roland De Witte, who did do a one-way electrical experiment and got a positive result. I expect any amateur working on similar one-way light experiments will get dismissed by mainstream science, as Roland's work was.
Universities have been teaching Einstein's theories for nearly one hundred years and there is a very real possibility that those theories are wrong. So they have a duty to do one-way tests to back their claims and prove to all that what they teach is correct.
A professional body carrying out this experiment will be taken seriously, amateurs doing this work will not.
I also posted ideas on wisp big bang on superstringtheory forum to get some feedback. But I'm not a cosmologist and I posted ideas just to see what happened.

Hi wisp,

I came across the following paragraph which seems to directly address your concern that no one-way tests of SR have been performed:

"Recent advances in atomic spectroscopy and atomic timekeeping have made it possible to test LLI by checking the isotropy of the speed of light using one-way propagation (as opposed to round-trip propagation, as in the Michelson-Morley experiment). In one experiment, for example, the relative phases of two hydrogen maser clocks at two stations of NASA's Deep Space Tracking Network were compared over five rotations of the Earth by propagating a light signal one-way along an ultrastable fiberoptic link connecting them (see Sec. 2.2.3). Although the bounds from these experiments are not as tight as those from mass-anisotropy experiments, they probe directly the fundamental postulates of special relativity, and thereby of LLI [local Lorentz invariance]"[/color]

This is taken from "The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment", section 2.1, at:
http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2001-4/

References to the all experiments are given in the article.

Unless I'm mistaken, these experiments are considerably more precise than the Roland de Witte work you cite, and address a similar (the same?) question.

I'm sure you've reviewed these experiments; why did you find them to be insufficient to disprove wisp?

 

[Michael F. Dmitriyev]

I think, that it is impossible to conceive and execute one-way experiment removing all questions concerning a light until we’ll not know precisely that there is “light”.

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by Michael F. Dmitriyev
I think, that it is impossible to conceive and execute one-way experiment removing all questions concerning a light until we’ll not know precisely that there is “light”.

Would you mind elaborating?

 

[Michael F. Dmitriyev]

Originally posted by Nereid
Would you mind elaborating?

Are you sure what know all about light?

 

[Nereid]

Only fools and horses ...

Originally posted by Michael F. Dmitriyev
Are you sure what know all about light?

I'm sure we - you, me, Tom, Ambitwistor, ... - do NOT know *all* about light! And never will.

What, in particular, concerns you about the one-way tests? [?]

 

[Michael F. Dmitriyev]

Originally posted by Nereid
I'm sure we - you, me, Tom, Ambitwistor, ... - do NOT know *all* about light! And never will.

What, in particular, concerns you about the one-way tests? [?]

May be, I know about this subject a little bit more, than someone in your list (excluding horses). Anyway, I have made such attempt. Look at mine topic, please.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7611

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Michael F. Dmitriyev
May be, I know about this subject a little bit more, than someone in your list (excluding horses). Anyway, I have made such attempt. Look at mine topic, please.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7611

In that thread you displayed that you misunderstand the fundamentals of what IS known about light. No, we do not know everything - but there is a lot that we do know. You'd do well to learn the things that we do know before trying to forulate your own theory or attack existing one.

 

[wisp]

Nereid

Regarding Clifford Will's "Theory and experiment in gravitational physics" 1981 (2nd edition 1993)- The centrifuge, two-photon absorption (TPA) and JPL experiments test the isotropy of light speed using one-way propagation.

What I can say is that wisp theory fully supports Local Lorentz invariance (LLI)(see ch8). Without buying his book I cannot comment about the reasons why his work would suggest that the DeWitte results are false.
Do you know how long the fibre optic cable was?
What were the results and tolerances?

I believe wisp theory will challenge his work and show DeWitte's experiment to be true.

 

[Michael F. Dmitriyev]

Originally posted by russ_watters
In that thread you displayed that you misunderstand the fundamentals of what IS known about light. No, we do not know everything - but there is a lot that we do know. You'd do well to learn the things that we do know before trying to forulate your own theory or attack existing one.

I have learned it many years ago. Similar you, I have had feeling the puppy’s delight before all existing theories and a famous names. With the years it has passed. I can assure that it wait you in future too ( I suspect you are near 18 only).

 

[Brad_Ad23]

Regardless of what age he has, if he knows the mathematics and the physics behind it, he can deduce the basic theories do work and draw valid conclusions from them. russ is indeed able to perform such feats. You on the other hand have done nothing but exhibit the classic symptoms of a crackpot Posting intractable ideas all over the place with no mathematics or even wrong mathematics to try and support your ideas. It is very clear you have almost zero grasp of what is real physics and yet you attempt to continually demolish it. If and only if you present a real valid argument formulated in real physics will people begin to take any objections you have as valid. But so far, nobody can even guess where to begin to show how wrong your claims have been

As for wisp 'theory' it just isn't supported by an real, reproducible results. Nereid produced a perfect example of wisp falling flat down. In addition, if special relativity were wrong, then general relativity would also be incorrect at some basic level. Yet, it has also been proven to be a very extremely accurate tool for predicting observations to an astonishing degree.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Brad_Ad23
...if he knows the mathematics and the physics behind it, he can deduce the basic theories do work and draw valid conclusions from them. russ is indeed able to perform such feats.

Heck, no need to go even that far (I appreciate it though). I will freely admit to having only a conceptual (ie, not mathematical) understanding of high end concpets in physics such as the nature of light. But that is all that is required to see that some of his statements are directly contradictory to what is actually observed. Heck, the title of his other thread is itself an easy example.

 

[Nereid]

Hard copy only? Physical Review D

Originally posted by wisp
Nereid

Regarding Clifford Will's "Theory and experiment in gravitational physics" 1981 (2nd edition 1993)- The centrifuge, two-photon absorption (TPA) and JPL experiments test the isotropy of light speed using one-way propagation.

What I can say is that wisp theory fully supports Local Lorentz invariance (LLI)(see ch8). Without buying his book I cannot comment about the reasons why his work would suggest that the DeWitte results are false.
Do you know how long the fibre optic cable was?
What were the results and tolerances?

I believe wisp theory will challenge his work and show DeWitte's experiment to be true.

The two key papers are:

Will, C. M., "Clock synchronization and isotropy of the one-way speed of light'', Phys. Rev. D, 45, 403-411, (1992)

Timothy P. Krisher, Lute Maleki, George F. Lutes, Lori E. Primas, Ronald T. Logan, John D. Anderson, and Clifford M. Will, "Test of the Isotropy of the One-Way Speed of Light using Hydrogen Maser Frequency Standards", THE PHYSICAL REVIEW D (RAPID COMMUNICATIONS) 42, 731 (1990)

Unfortunately, these may not be available on the web. Do you have access to a university library? You may also find the Will book in such a library. Alternatively, many city libraries in the UK (AFAIK) can obtain a copy of a book such as Will's through inter-library loan; perhaps you could enquire?

 

[Brad_Ad23]

Originally posted by russ_watters
Heck, no need to go even that far (I appreciate it though). I will freely admit to having only a conceptual (ie, not mathematical) understanding of high end concpets in physics such as the nature of light. But that is all that is required to see that some of his statements are directly contradictory to what is actually observed. Heck, the title of his other thread is itself an easy example.

You got me there Once you learn about curl and divergence vectors and the like and you get to Maxwell's equations, you start to see the picture even brighter

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Brad_Ad23
Once you learn about curl and divergence vectors and the like and you get to Maxwell's equations, you start to see the picture even brighter

You mean bright like the flashes of light you see at the beginning of a migrane? Yeah, been there. Its called differential equations. Thank God for computers.

 

[paultrr]

Reply on those equations

I second that statement.

 

[Brad_Ad23]

Originally posted by russ_watters
You mean bright like the flashes of light you see at the beginning of a migrane? Yeah, been there. Its called differential equations. Thank God for computers.

computers are overrated for that. Give me my own skills to solve it any ol' day. For large numbers and insanely long equations sure, computers. But nothin like actually knowing how it works

 

[paultrr]

Also different programs sometimes yield different outputs as reguards signs + or -, so to speak. One problem a friend of mine encountered while trying to run an output based upon an already published finding in an article.

 

[wisp]

Nereid

Thanks for the info. This is a challenge to wisp theory and maybe it will show SR is correct, and wisp theory wrong.
The experiment looks like it has professional credibility, and I hope the results are conclusive.
However, my bet is that the results are inconclusive due to large tolerances, and given doubt the experiment will bias towards SR being correct.
I know the DeWitte experiment used six atomic clock standards and ran over 178 days, and did detect a sidereal variation in frequency difference.
Both can't be right. It is likely that the one with the larger tolerance is wrong.
I will try and find the answer.
If anyone knows of any independent reviews on the JPL results I would welcome your input.

 

[Nereid]

centrifuge and TPA?

wisp, Will also mentions the centrifuge and TPA (two-photon absorbtion) experiments as being one-way tests. Have you looked into these too? Maybe they're not relevant to wisp.

From the same website as my earlier Will quote (Sect 2.2.3); the 'observed limit' refers to the JPL experiment:
"The observed limit on a diurnal variation in the relative phase resulted in the |c^-2 - 1 | < 3 X 10^-4. Tighter bounds were obtained from a ``two-photon absorption'' (TPA) experiment, and a 1960s series of ``Mössbauer-rotor'' experiments, which tested the isotropy of time dilation between a gamma ray emitter on the rim of a rotating disk and an absorber placed at the center"

 

[wisp]

Nereid
I don't think wisp theory has any issues with the centrifuge and TPA (two-photon absorption) experiments. Wisp theory covers the 1963 Kundig rotating turntable experiment and supports the predicted effects (Wisp theory - Section 9.2.3). I think the two-photon absorption relates to Local Lorentz Invariance, and this is also supported.


However, there is an issue with the T.P.Krisher et al “laser optic one way light experiment” 1990

I came across this info on the net written by D.J.Larson.
" 10.3 The Experiment of Krisher et al.
A recent experiment by Krisher et al. has tested for the anisotropy of the oneway speed of light by using two hydrogen maser standards separated by 21 km. The light from each maser is split, with one-half sent to a local detector and the other half used to modulate a laser carrier signal that is sent to a detector at the distant location. The light from the local maser and the distant maser are combined, and their relative frequency difference monitored. Since all light propagation is oneway in this experiment, the node enforcement hypothesis, Postulate DJL-II, is no longer easily motivated by an analogy with a pinned string, and it is possible that the Krisher et al. experiment could yield a non-null result. (There are no longer mirrors enforcing boundary conditions at both ends of a light path, so nodes may no longer be forced to move along with the apparatus in this case.) An analysis of the Krisher et al. result using the theory presented herein shows that experimental noise is too large at present to be able to detect the Earth’s motion through an ether at rest with respect to the 3 K microwave background radiation. However, further refinements in the experiment may detect such motion."

http://www.dipmat.unipg.it/~bartocci/fis/larson3.htm

It seems that the experiment was not accurate enough to detect the motion of the Earth through the ether, and the experiment only ran for 5 days. I believe the DeWitte experiment was more accurate because it ran for much longer and was able to extract the sidereal period variations from the data. Only modern one-way tests will resolve the issue.

 

[outandbeyond2004]

Wisp, the following quotation is from your website:

http://www.kevin.harkess.btinternet.co.uk/wisp_ch_5/wisp_ch_5.html


5.3.9 Bending light
The curvature of wisp space by matter or energy will affect the path of light. Light is a pattern of oscillating transverse wisp waves, which lack zero-state spheres. Because they do not possesses zero-state spheres they are unaffected by gravitational force. But their paths will undoubtedly follow the curvature of wisp space.


Shapiro travel-time delay experiments have been going on for some time now. See section 3.4.2 "The time delay of light" in this webpage: http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2001-4/index.html

Now if jiggle and the curvature of space in the solar system could be neglected as far as the trip time delay effect is concerned, then your theory only predicts a null result for Shapiro-type experiments. I would like to see some detailed calculations from your theory that does predict something like what Shapiro and other experimenters measured (see graphic http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2001-4/fig05.html (the purple lines and arrows))

Until you come up with an explanation, I am sorry to tell you that I will not spend any more time on wisp theory.

 

[wisp]

Outandbeyond2004

I would like to see some detailed calculations from your theory that does predict something like what Shapiro and other experimenters measured

Wisp theory matches SR predictions completely and produces a model of gravity that is different to the GR model.
I did match inertial and gravitational mass as being the same to an order of 1 part in 10^21 and produced a model that shows how time dilation works from a mechanical perspective. I don't think the theory will have any problems predicting gravitational effects on clock speeds. But I haven't gone into this.
I'm waiting for someone to do one-way light speed tests before I consider taking wisp theory into the GR domain.
Much of the work on wisp theory was spent building its foundations.

 

[outandbeyond2004]

"matches SR predictions completely" - (incredulous chuckle) well, I guess that was rather loose wording or carelessness, I will assume that. However, if SR or GR predicts a null result and wisp theory predicts a non-null result, I will not consider that a match.

Also, if you wind up with a theory that matches everything that GR and QM has predicted, you have not really accomplished anything except to give us another way to make predictions and give us another way to picture how the universe works. Perhaps that will be the ultimate benefit of wisp theory -- no more than that. If the math is much harder to do or it's harder to picture the universe, people will continue to use GR/standard QM or one of these other newfangled theories people are busy hammering out.

Why wait? It seems to show a lack of confidence in your theory -- perhaps justifiably. You should realize that GR has to be used instead of SR, unless the frame is inertial or the experimental arena is sufficiently limited temporally and spatially. You will eventually have to venture into the jungle.

 

[wisp]

Outandbeyond2004

loose wording

Yes, a bit loose. However, wisp theory does produce all the SR doppler equations in terms of an ether model. And it explains the cause of time dilation ...

 

[wisp]

Why wait? It seems to show a lack of confidence in your theory -- perhaps justifiably. You should realize that GR has to be used instead of SR, unless the frame is inertial or the experimental arena is sufficiently limited temporally and spatially. You will eventually have to venture into the jungle.

From the idea of the concept of wisp theory to placing on the web was 10 years. Includes -
1 year draft theory, 6 years doing physics degree, and 1 year off work writing/developing theory/publishing.
The fundamental structure of the theory is as good as any ether theory can get and I hope others find it a useful tool.
I will wait until SR starts cracking up before considering developing it. But when SR fails many physicists will change course and begin to take the ether seriously and the development of an ether theory into the GR domain will happen quickly.

wisp

"particles of nothingness"

 

[Hurkyl]

The problem I have with wisp theory is that nothing is ever derived, and no methods are presented. Not even the simplest toy problem is presented that let's the reader actually work with the fundamental ideas!

I opted to skim through some of the chapters again, and it seems not to have changed: not a single fact is derived from wisps. Instead the MO seems to be to present equations, then give a vague suggestion how this might be consistent with wisps.

Thus, I don't give wisp theory any serious consideration because I can't really see any theory to consider.

 

[Hurkyl]

And another thing: how does one conclude that you can't accelerate something faster than light simply because force carrier particles move at light speed?

(a) an object can accelerate itself by ejecting mass in the direction opposite to travel.

But, and I'm just guessing becuase no explanation is given, it seems that they are implying that this cannot happen because it doesn't work classically... but this is absurd as this simple example shows:


Suppose I have a frictionless environment, and a ball rolling north at 10 MPH. (think of this as your object)

I'm sitting someplace northeast of the ball, and I have a second ball which I roll northwest at 5 MPH. (think of this as your force carrier particle)

If my second ball connects with the first ball, it will accelerate the first ball so it has a greater northernly speed (and some westerly speed as well).


In fact, if I can arragne a similar situation with inelastic collisions, the momentum gained by the object from the force carrier particle is identical whether the object is stationary, going 10 MPH, or going light speed! (remember I'm talking classically)