Why Do You Believe in Relativity?
Despite the fact that Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity is accepted with an almost religious fervor by the whole scientific establishment there is little if any experimental evidence that can be used to conclusively verify its validity. Certainly the equations of relativity fit the experimental measurements perfectly. What is not valid is the natural philosophy of relativity’s explanation of what is really going on with reality.
Special Relativity offers a way to interpret experimental results that is consistent with its fundamental assumptions. However, by eliminating the assumptions of relativity the same experimental results can be explained equally as well if not better.
The theory of Special Relativity is derived from four basic fundamental assumptions.
1. Matter originally came from energy within the fundamental entity of spacetime. Einstein discarded aether as unneeded and then realized that he wanted to replace it with a far more complex structure called spacetime.
2. The speed of light is constant in all reference frames.
3. The motion of mass is relative and there is no preferred absolute reference frame for either the atoms of matter or the photons.
4. Photons have momentum, energy, velocity and angular momentum but no mass.
The problem with these four assumptions is that they are all negative in nature. They are metaphysical assumptions of effects that can’t be measured. They are paradoxical and non-intuitive conditions imposed on the interpretation of physical measurements. These negative ideas might properly appear in the final conclusions of a physical theory if they could be born out by experiment but they have no place at a theory’s beginning. All of the experimental evidence that has been offered as proof of relativity is only valid when interpreted through the filter of these assumptions. It is far easier to interpret these same experiments within a more intuitive and non-metaphysical absolute reference frame that can be identified by experiment.
A strict interpretation of the Lorentz transformation allows for the falsification of all four of these relativity assumptions. Einstein accepted the Lorentz transformation as a relative relationship correlated with the relative motion of matter. When the transformation was first developed by Lorentz, he attached it to a universal frame of aether. Einstein detached it from the aether and made it part of his spacetime.
The Lorentz Transformation is the relationship between the absolute momentum of the mass of matter and the speed of light. It is the ratio by which a body’s mass is increased when it is accelerated to high velocities.
Do you know of any experimental evidence that positively confirms the need for the concept of intrinsic relative motion or just experiments that don’t necessarily require an absolute reference frame? All of the experiments that I am aware of, from the Michelson-Morley and Pound-Rebka experiments to the GPS clock calibrations, can be easily used to support the principle of Absolute Motion as opposed to Relativity.
Einstein Invented a Concept of the Photon
Experimental physics is essentially constructed upon the nature of the photon. Likewise, in theoretical physics the fundamental element in the construction of physical theory should be the concept of the photon. Physics begins and ends with the reality of the photon. Everything we know of in the universe, that can be observed and measured, can be explained in terms of the interaction of the appropriate photons. The nature of the photon is an absolute set of parameters and the concept of the photon is an arbitrary set of attributes used to explain its nature.
Einstein’s concept of the massless photon was inserted into his relativity theory almost as an afterthought. It was initially a mere mathematical construct used to explain the photoelectric effect and its attributes were selected to make it compatible with both the classical wave theory of light and the preestablished postulates of special relativity such as the constant speed of light.
If we construct a concept of the photon based solely on the vast amount of experimental data establishing its nature, rather than trying to pour it in a preconceived mold, we find that we have an experimentally based photon that is quite different from the one imagined by Einstein for Special Relativity and then adopted by Quantum Mechanics.
The most general aspect of the photon is that it provides the universe with an absolute inertial reference frame through which all photons move at C. Einstein never believed in a fixed inertial reference frame for all photons but all of the evidence shows that all photons move at exactly C and that their motion is not affected by the motion of their source.
Both supernovas and the 2.7° K Cosmic Blackbody Radiation prove the absolute and constant motion of photons. Unlike the much narrower and very precise photon spectrum of the 2.7° CBR, the intense burst from a supernova contains a very random mixture of photons composed of everything from gamma rays all the way to radio photons. By its very nature, we must assume that the photons received from a supernova explosion were emitted from very rapidly moving atoms and larger chunks of matter all traveling in different directions. Thus, the observation of a supernova provides ample proof that all photons move through space at exactly C, regardless of their wavelength or the motion of their source.
If all these photons didn’t move at exactly the same velocity then the duration of the distant explosions would appear to last much longer than the closer ones. In fact, if photon velocities varied by just a few meters per second, it would make a distant supernova appear to last for many years instead of just a few weeks. The first fastest photons would reach us years before the slowest photons finally arrived.
The ultimate experimental proof that all photons move at exactly C within the same frame is the vast number of photons that make up the 2.7° Cosmic Background Radiation. Both their extremely even directional distribution and their precise blackbody curve would convince anyone that they are all moving at exactly C relative to one another within the same inertial reference frame. If some of these photons moved faster or slower than others, the perfect blackbody distribution curve would be lost.
The fact that the CBR is blue shifted in the direction of Leo and red shifted in the opposite direction seems to be quite conclusive proof that the solar system is moving through this absolute photon reference frame at approximately 375 km/sec.
The Doppler effect allows us to very accurately measure the relative motion between a source and observer but by its very nature it does not allow us to determine the absolute motion of either. However, this fact does not allow us to conclude that absolute motion does not exist. Photons provide the ultimate example of absolute motion since the evidence virtually proves that all photons move at exactly C within the same inertial reference frame that I like to call “photon rest”.
If you believe in Special Relativity then you are forced to conclude that photons have no intrinsic wavelengths as they travel through space and that until they are measured there is no intrinsic difference between a gamma ray photon and a radio wave photon. A green photon can be viewed as either red or blue depending on the motion of the observer.
Perhaps the most convincing experimental evidence that photons move at exactly the same velocity is the observation of binary pulsars. A binary pulsar rapidly emits bursts of x-ray photons at very regular intervals as it revolves around a companion star. When photons from a pulsar are carefully measured, it is found that when the revolving pulsar is moving toward the earth they are blue shifted and when the pulsar is moving away from earth the photons are red shifted. Even though the pulsar may be hundreds of thousands of light years from earth, the photons remain perfectly lined up in their order of emission. They are observed as repeating sequences of first red shifted photons and then blue shifted photons. If the changing motion of the revolving pulsar had any effect on the photons’ velocity, then the photons could never have remained in their sequence of emission for hundreds of thousands of years and would appear as a blurred jumble of red and blue shifted photons.
Another experimental test that confirms the principle of absolute motion and falsifies the theory of Special Relativity is the changing rates in the moving clocks of the GPS satellites.
This so called time dilation effect is caused by the Lorentz transformation in which a body’s mass is increased when it is accelerated to higher and higher velocities. In order to conserve the angular momentum of this increasing mass, the spinning and cyclical motions of everything from clocks to atoms must slow down in proportion to the increase.