Monday, March 21, 2011

 

Something for Physics to chew on

Fizeau's experiment needs to be re-visited, but not in regard to "Aether" theory. Instead it should be considered with relativistic time. That is, the progression of time itself should be considered as non-uniform throughout space.

Think about it this way... Velocity is distance over time. The speed of light is a velocity. Now if the time part itself is not a constant, what does that say about the speed of light? C'mon, do the math.

As an observer in typical instances, you're not going to see the speed of light change one bit because you're only able to measure the speed of light relative to your own frame of reference. Right now, we don't have the technology to go to other star systems where the gravitational field causes time to progress at a different rate, nor the ability to approach relativistic speeds (in regards to an observer here on earth) where time may condense. Variable time progression can also red and blue shift light in the same way movement itself causes Doppler-shift. Think about how a record sounds when you speed it up or slow it down. You're not moving the sound source in space, but compressing or expanding the frame of time in which the sound has been heard.

Gravitational fields can bend light. Since you're not changing the physical density of empty space around a field emitter (there's nothing to change the density of), the next obvious thing to account for the Fresnel effect is to change the progression of time itself.

Thinking of this, I believe the speed of light is not a constant in this universe, but rather a coefficient. There's a subtle difference (at least for most purposes), but it's big enough to be quite important.

I do believe that the math should work out and may prove a little interesting.

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