A Revaluation of Ether comparing
the views of Tesla and Einstein
including analysis of Airy's water-filled telescope,
the Sagnac Effect, and the Hammar experiment
| Please note that this paper is a simplification by me of a paper or papers written and copyrighted by Miles Mathis on his site. I have replaced "I" and "my" with "MM" to show that he is talking. All links within the papers, not yet simplified, are linked directly to the Miles Mathis site and will appear in another tab. (It will be clear which of these are Miles Mathis originals because they will be still contain "I" and "my".) The original papers on his site are the ultimate and correct source. All contributions to his papers and ordering of his books should be made on his site. (This paper incorporates Miles Mathis' ether paper, tesla paper, lc paperand the last part of the aberr paper.) |
Tesla Einstein
In An Algebraic Correction to Special Relativity
and Refutation of Gamma Miles Mathis has shown that Special Relativity, understood mainly as the Doppler Effect upon all physical data, is true. Time dilation and length contraction are operational facts, the necessary outcome of measurement using light or any electromagnetic radiation. Although MM has proved the necessity of certain mathematical and axiomatic updates to SR and GR (see Problems with General Relativity: Curved Space is Unnecessary and the Inertial System is Ignored), MM has, for the most part, confirmed Einstein's theories. This has led many readers to assume that MM has no use for the ether.
But in the same papers MM maintains that Relativity is a theory of measurement, not of existence, claiming that Relativity does not apply locally. This makes dilation and contraction only appearances caused by distance or speed, and not existential facts for the particles or objects themselves. In addition, MM has shown in the paper on GR above that it is possible to construct a rectilinear mathematical field underlying the curved field equations, giving us simplified calculations. Both these things suggest that an ether is still possible in some form.
Likewise, the M/M Interferometer has been taken as confirmation that an ether does not exist, even though in The Error of the M/M Interferometer MM shows that this and all the historical experiments have been poorly prepared. Since they were built on faulty logic, they could only achieve a null set, a null set that neither proved nor disproved an ether.
The first part of this paper is to clear up the MM's comments on the ether have appeared to be contradictory, mainly because they have been incomplete up to this time. This paper attempts to collect MM's various findings and to put them into a more satisfactory form, for those interested in the historical fate of the ether.
The fate of the ether has not been one of MM's top priorities, which is the reason for now discussing it. MM has stated that you can get the right answer with or without an ether, with a curved field or a rectilinear field, so that it is almost arbitrary mathematically whether you choose to work with an ether or not. However, after re-reading various biographies of Einstein and other historical texts, MM decided that his lackadaisical attitude could not be maintained. MM does, after all, have some very firm opinions on the ether, and it is best to share them here.
It is commonly believed now that Einstein showed there was no absolute time. But this is false. Einstein proved no such thing. What Einstein showed is that clocks will disagree across co-ordinate systems. He proved time dilation, which is the apparent non-equivalence of the periods of clocks. This much MM agrees with. Einstein's equations are nearly correct; my corrections have made them even more nearly correct, as well as greatly extending them. But Einstein was wrong to claim that Newton's idea of absolute time had been overthrown. The reason he was wrong is that his thought problems concerning simultaneity were incomplete. He stated that you could not give a logical definition of simultaneity, given the postulate that light was measured as c from all locations. This is false because he did not include the wavelength of light in his thought problem. The Doppler Effect states that although light is emitted from all objects at c, and received by all objects at c, its wavelength is affected by the motion of either the emitter or receiver. Relative motion away will create a red shift, relative motion toward will create a blue shift. This falsifies his claim that there is no method for determining simultaneity, since shifts would do precisely that. A measurer between two events can indeed know the relative motion of those events, by looking at shifts; therefore simultaneity can theoretically be determined.
For example, if lightning strikes some train tracks in two different places, as Einstein imagines, and a device on a moving train on those tracks sees both, it can easily determine whether they were simultaneous or not, provided the device can also measure Doppler shifts accurately enough. Einstein states that the speed of the train will make simultaneous lightning strikes look non-simultaneous, and that the train cannot correct for this without knowing its own speed. But this is false. The shifts will automatically tell him relative speeds, allowing him to make all corrections. This is just the first suggestion that a sort of ether does exist, and that it is determined by c. The speed of light is itself a time setter, and in a sense an absolute time setter.
What this means in practice is that if we can measure shifts accurately (which we can, for the most part) and if we know the normal emission spectra of the objects we are looking at (which we do completely for many objects like stars, lightning, etc.) we can then calculate our own speed relative to light. This falsifies Einstein's postulate that any object can claim it is at rest. An object that is seeing shifted light is not at rest relative to that light, and that object cannot claim it is at rest. A device measuring lightning strikes cannot claim it is at rest unless it is receiving unshifted light from both strikes. This means that there is a privileged system, regarding measurement of those two strikes. A device that is measuring unshifted light is privileged over other devices in motion that are measuring shifted light. That privileged device can certainly claim that its finding of simultaneity is valid, and it can show the perfect physical evidence for that claim.
The other thing that leads us back to the possibility of simultaneity is the interferometer experiment. MM has shown that the null set of the interferometer was caused by a badly composed experiment, and by nothing else. This would leave open the possibility that Einstein's first postulate—of the equivalence of c from all inertial frames—is mistaken. However, MM has stated that Einstein is certainly correct, despite the faulty interpretation of the interferometer. The interferometer did not prove that the speed of light is constant, but it is true nonetheless. MM has shown that all measurers must measure the speed of light as c, and this is neither a postulate nor an axiom nor an assumption nor a theory nor a principle. It is a necessary operational outcome, caused by the very simple fact that you cannot see or measure light from a distance.
Light, when seen or measured, is always local: meaning, it is always right in your eye or your instrument. Furthermore, it is always moving right at you when you see it or measure it. You cannot measure tangent light or light at any angle or light at any distance. You cannot measure light moving parallel to you, perpendicular to you, or moving away from you. Any attempt to measure the speed of light will be the attempt to measure light that is already impinging on the eye or instrument. For the same reason that light is always emitted at c, it is always received at c. That reason being that the emission and reception are both relatively instantaneous. Light is so small and moving so fast, that any motion of the emitter or receiver becomes negligible. Over the interval of emission or reception, the emitter or receiver is as good as stopped. Mathematically, we say the interval of reception approaches zero, which means that the motion of the receiver approaches zero. This is the reason all receivers measure the speed of light to be c, and for no other reason.
So Einstein was correct. He was not right to call c a postulate, but he was correct that c is constant for all measurers.
But this leaves out one measurer: the light itself. In my SR papers, MM reminded the reader that velocity can always be measured by the moving object itself. Since Einstein was talking about quantum particles, he overlooked this. We always measure quantum particles from a distance, but when you are speaking of the velocity of a car, for example, the car can measure its own velocity. The standard model now assumes that you cannot talk about local velocity, and it brushes off the question by stating that a thing has no velocity relative to itself. But a thing does have a velocity relative to a given background, and that velocity is not equivalent to its velocity relative to that background as measured by a second thing. To be more specific, the velocity of a car relative to the road measured by the car is not the same as the velocity of the car relative to the road measured by a parked policeman. This skews all of Einstein’s math as shown in exhaustive detail in An Algebraic Correction to Special Relativity and Refutation of Gamma; but the thing that needs to be considered is the possibility that light can measure its own speed. Einstein is famous for "riding his ray of light," but he did not really do it. He did not ask himself how things would be measured from the light itself. Or, if he did, he didn’t tell us anything interesting about it.
What Einstein did is solve the riddle of how light can go c relative to everything. He did it by doing all the math from the point of view of outside measurers. He showed that all their measurements would be thrown off by the idea, and that this would cause time dilation and length contraction and mass increase and so on. Well, he was right. It does throw off all our measurements. But the question remains, what is really happening beneath our measurements? The standard model now takes this question to have no meaning. It is considered to be a metaphysical question. But it is not a metaphysical question. It is a valid mechanical question, and it still has an answer. Because the value for c is constant, we can answer this question, just as we were able to answer the question about simultaneity. And in both cases we must disagree with Einstein.
From the point of view of all measurers, light goes c relative to each of them, no matter how fast they are going. But from the point of view of the light, this cannot be true. The light cannot be going c relative to a car that is stopped and c relative to a car that is going c/2 away from it. It can do so from the point of view of the two cars, since they will see each other in strange ways, making the math work out. But from the point of view of the light, no math or logic can resolve the problem. The light can have only one velocity. If it had the same velocity relative to both cars, it would catch them both at the same time, which would negate the whole idea of distance. The distance that the second car went while the light was catching the first car would be negated, and we would have to find the second car right next to the first one. This is not what we would find, experimentally, so from the point of view of the light, c is not a constant. The light is going slower relative to the second car than the first, if measured from the light.
Skeptics will say this may or may not be true logically, but experimentally it is a non-statement. We cannot know what the light sees or measures, so talking about it is just a waste of time.
It is not a waste of time, though, since it leads us to some very important conclusions—conclusions that are true experimentally and physically as well as logically. If you found it difficult to imagine measuring velocity from the point of view of light, let me give you other examples that show the same thing. Physicists and astronomers talk about light-years all the time. They also talk about seeing into the past: they say that because light took a certain amount of time to reach us from a distant galaxy, we are seeing that galaxy millions of years in the past, for example. Well, they can calculate both things only by assuming a sort of absolute time, and that time is determined by c. When an astronomer uses a light-year, whose year is he or she using? If all time is relative, is that the galaxy’s year or ours? You will say it must be ours, since a year is determined by the earth going around the sun. Galaxies don’t have years. So let me ask it another way. Astronomers also talk of light-seconds. Whose seconds are those? We define the second using the cesium atom now, and they have cesium atoms all over the universe. The truth is, the second in the light-second belongs to the light. That second is definitional, and therefore it belongs to the light itself. Remember that c is a postulate, according to Einstein and the standard model, and that c is a velocity. So we are assuming both the distance and the time. Velocity is d/t, so if you assume v, you assume both d and t. That is the t we are talking about here, and it belongs to the light, not to you or me or the distant galaxy.
That is what makes it possible to calculate simultaneity. If an astronomer says that we are looking at a galaxy ten million years in the past, then that by itself implies that some time ten million years in our own past was simultaneous with the event we are currently viewing. If our instruments and equations were precise enough, we could calculate the dates almost exactly. If we cannot do it, it is because our instruments and equations are not precise enough; it is not because time is relative.
The same is true of much simpler calculations. Physicists now claim there is no absolute time, but they disprove it every time they make a long distance phone call. It may not be 5pm in China, but it is "now" in China, otherwise you would not be able to talk to anyone over there. We are absolutely linked to China, as a matter of time, and the only time differential is the time it takes for light to travel over there through cables or the atmosphere. We know the speed of light, and the distance it travels, and the conductivity of the cables or air. So we can calculate the differential exactly. Therefore we can determine exactly whether events are simultaneous or not. That is how we know if things are "live" or not. We know if they are "live" plus five seconds or live plus ten seconds. That is a measurement of simultaneity. If someone sneezes, then you will see a feed from China of a guy sneezing five seconds later, and if one knows the feed delay—caused by the speed of light—is five seconds, then one can know if two sneezes were simultaneous. This falsifies Einstein's claim.
Most will say that my example above does not work, since both sneezers are at rest on the earth's surface. This makes them at rest relative to each other, in which case relativity does not pertain, but MM disagrees. Look at another example. Let us start with any case in which relativity does pertain, and look at the transform. The transform tells us how one system measures the other, but it also tells us the light-time separation between systems. If we work the equations backwards in this way, the light-time separation will tell us the absolute time separation between the events in question. This is our delay, and simultaneity will be plus or minus this delay. It is breathtakingly simple, and the fact that it is overlooked is astonishing. Logically, you cannot build "relative" time transforms without an underlying system of absolute time. This absolute time is just hidden in the variable c, and the 20th century has preferred to ignore it.
Lorentz once said that simultaneity would require an infinite speed for light, and this is still believed by many standard model folks. But this is false. Einstein's problem with the lightning wasn't to show that everything seen at the same time was or was not simultaneous. Einstein's problem was (or should have been) whether it is possible to calculate whether two seen events were simultaneous or not. Einstein said the reason it was not possible to prove simultaneity was that the train seeing the lightning could not know its absolute speed relative to the ether. Without knowing its own absolute speed, the train could not prove simultaneity. Events that looked simultaneous might not be, and events that did not look simultaneous might be. Einstein said that the normal thing to do was for the train to define itself as at rest, since according to relativity it was free to do so. But this is disingenuous of Einstein, since, as MM has shown, it is not a matter of what the train is free to do, or what is normal for it to do. The question is, what is it logical to do? It is logical for the train to spend a bit more effort discovering its own velocity relative to the events it is witnessing. If it does that, it can in fact discover that velocity, and solve the problem of simultaneity. The calculation of simultaneity does not require an infinite speed for light (although that of course would make the calculation very easy). The calculation of simultaneity only requires an absolute connection between the measuring object and the events measured, and c is that absolute connection.
This falsifies Einstein's simultaneity arguments because the reverse transform can be applied to any distances, no matter how large. All places in the universe that we can see, we see with light, and where light goes, the absolute system it creates goes. The time gap, measured with light, is not relative, it is absolute. According to Einstein and the standard model, it is absolute because c is absolute, as a postulate. According to me, it is absolute because it is an experimental fact. But in either case, the gap is absolute. This makes simultaneity calculable in all cases, not just terrestrial cases. If the gap were not absolute, we would have no way of measuring any cosmic distances. The light-year would be relative to the second of whoever was measuring the distance, and the year in space would not be equivalent to our own year. A year in space and a year here are the same because they are both set by light. This makes the year absolute, as long as it is applied to light.
In the same way, we can achieve absolute distance. Since c is absolute, and since c = d/t, both d and t are absolute, as long as they are being traversed by light. This gives us a sort of ether. The speed of light, by itself, gives us an absolute frame of reference. If this is what you mean by an ether, then you have an ether, thus MM has proved the existence of this ether, here and in my other papers.
Historically, according to Maxwell, ether was supposed to be a physical medium, one that mediated the transmission of electromagnetic waves. The ether was assumed to have characteristics, which often included oscillating motion, mass, inertia, or resistance. Contemporary theories which have claimed to have done away with Maxwell’s ether still claim that free space or the void have some of these characteristics. In the newest theories, space is said to have pressure, for instance, or to be composed of virtual particle pairs, or to have other physical characteristics. MM does not think there is any experimental evidence for an ether or void or free space of this sort. All these abstractions are born of bad math and theory, just as Maxwell’s ad hoc assumption was. In The Unification of the Proton and Electron, MM has shown how the wave motion of light and matter is caused by multiple spins, not by the motion of a medium. Because y and z spins must be physically external to the x spin, the wave motion may be explained with motions of the particle itself—no medium is required. This removes the primary historical reason for the ether, and again puts me in line with Einstein.
The secondary historical reason for the ether was to give a framework to absolute time and distance, but light gives us this framework without the ether. Absolute time and distance are given us by the light itself, not by the ether. This makes the ether just a mathematical abstraction. It does not exist, in the physical sense. It has no characteristics. It is simply a conceptual framework that is created by the speed of light. It is more like a Cartesian graph than a physical ether. But, having said this, MM definitely does diverge from Einstein, since Einstein did not see, or preferred not to see, that c, by itself, provided us with a universal system of time and distance in which relative time and distance of measured objects could be calculated.
Many will be surprised to hear that Einstein agreed with the first part of this, and said so. In 1920, at his inaugural lecture in Leyden titled The Ether and the Relativity Theory, he said, "the ether concept has once more acquired a clear content. The ether in the general theory of relativity is a medium which itself is bereft of all mechanical and kinetic properties, but which has a share in determining mechanical and electromechanical occurrences." Clearly this is the same use MM gives to it in this paper. Einstein does not tie the ether explicitly to the speed of light, as MM has, or call the "medium" absolute; but once you realize that GR uses bent light to define the field, you arrive at precisely my definition of the ether or the absolute system. The only difference is that my field is Einstein's field inside out. Einstein curves the field so that he can continue to have the central gravitational vector point in. This curves the path of light. MM reverses the central gravitational vector, which allows the light to move in straight lines, as well as allowing us to do field equations in 1/10 the time.
This lecture in Leyden opened Einstein up to more attacks from the anti-relativists like Weyland and Lenard, so he dropped all talk of an ether after that. But this was a political move, not a scientific one. Relativity unquestionably changed the definition of the ether, but it did not--contrary to standard model claims--forbid all talk of an ether. In fact, the refusal to countenance the existence of a mathematical background for gravitational and electromagnetic motion has set the standard model up for a host of theoretical and axiomatic problems and contradictions.
Having shown the existence of an absolute system, MM does not like the term ether, since the term implies a space composed of particles. It implies a sort of background mist. The concept of the ether gives space a materiality, even if it is not a quantum material. Space certainly contains particles, but space is not composed of particles. Space contains material, but it is not material itself. The particles or material are one thing and the space is another. The particles are the material, and the space is an empty abstraction—a mathematical construct. Material moves through space, but it needs no medium to do so. Logically, a medium would impede motion, not facilitate it.
Some will say that air facilitates the motion of sound, but this is imprecise as well. The air does not facilitate the motion of sound, the air is in motion itself. Sound is the motion of the air, so nothing is facilitated. There is no medium. There is only the motion of the air. The waveform is only a shape made by the field of air molecules, and sound is this waveform. Talking of a medium implies that the sound is a material thing on its own, without the air, and that the air is a facilitator or medium. But that is not the case. There is not a primary particle with a primary motion and a secondary field of particles with a facilitating motion; there is only one field of particles and one field of motion, so that all talk of a medium is imprecise.
This is why Maxwell's ether has been disproved, and remains disproved. He and the other theorists of the time assumed that light, as an electromagnetic wave, required a medium for transmission. They assumed that light was an analogue to sound. But light is not an analogue to sound. The wave motion physically belongs to the photon. To put it another way, the waveform is created by the motion of a single particle, not by a field of particles. Light is made up of many photons, but each photon moves as a wave. This is not true of air or water waves, where each molecule moves up and down: only the field of molecules creates a waveform.
One final question and answer. MM has admitted to a limited sort of ether, if we want to call the absolute time and distance system created by c an ether. Is this ether at rest?
Yes, it is at rest. It is at rest because we freely define it that way. This absolute system is not a physical entity. It does not exist physically. But it does exist conceptually and mathematically, since all motion requires a background that is at rest. The speed of light is the primary defining motion of the universe, for either Einstein or myself, and this motion requires a background just like any other. The speed of light must be relative to something, for the simple reason that all motion is relative—and that includes the speed of light. The speed of light, 3 x 108 m/s, is relative to this absolute system at rest. We could just as freely define this system as not at rest—as having some velocity. But that would change the value of c, so it wouldn’t be a good choice to make. In fact, we aren’t that free to choose, since light chooses for us. Any other choice but "at rest" just creates needless mathematical problems.
MM stresses that the speed of light comes first, and then the absolute system. The first determines the second. This is just the opposite of classical theory, in which space or the ether or the absolute system came first, and then the objects it contained came later. This was a creational sort of theory, and it doesn’t apply in the context of this paper. This paper addresses the logical and operational way that we came to our current knowledge of kinematics and electrodynamics, and that theory begins with the experimental fact that all measurers measure light to go c. That experimental fact leads logically and inexorably to both Einstein’s theory of relativity and to an absolute space and time created by c. Only light moves in this absolute space and time, without transforms, but because light must move in this space, this space can be proved to exist. It does not exist as a mediating ether, or as a material entity of any kind. But it certainly may be said to exist as much as any coordinate system exists. And arguably more so, since it acts as a conceptual and mathematical foundation for every other coordinate system.
This paper was an overview, in which MM was able to just touch on a number of important issues. MM does not pretend or claim that it is exhaustive. Much more can be said on all these issues, and MM has said more about some of them in other places. This paper does, however, contain some information that will be new to my readers, including the idea that the emission and reception of light are analogous, in that they are both nearly instantaneous. The theory that this explains why light is always measured at c by every receiver may be unique. Also possibly unique is the idea that Doppler shifts may be used to calculate simultaneity. This was mentioned this in MM's SR papers, but here there is more detail. This paper offers a view of the ether that has not been put forward by either side. As you now understand, MM has not accepted the position of Einstein, but he has also not accepted the classical position. Nor does MM move toward the position of new superluminal theories, string theories, or other complex avant garde physical theories. Instead, MM shows that Einstein and Newton are both correct. There is both relative time and absolute time, and each requires the other. Relative time would not be calculable without the absolute time implied by c. Einstein’s first postulate gives us this absolute framework, although he did not realize it or chose to bury it. This takes some of the magic or mystery out of relativity, but in the long run it puts it on a firmer foundation. In the same way MM hopes to de-mystify and re-foundationalize all of physics.
Although Tesla and Einstein had different opinions on Ether, they were both right
At their times, Tesla and Einstein appeared to be on opposite ends of the question, in irreconcilable positions. The standard model interprets Einstein as being against all types of ethers, and they use the Michelson/Morley experiment to prove that. The alternative theorists, sometimes dubbed classicists, agree. They think that Einstein was against any and all possible ethers, since his theory has been sold as a mathematical abstraction.
But Einstein was only against the ether as a transmitter of light. Einstein did not believe that light required a medium for transmission, and he did not believe that light moved relative to the medium. Instead, light itself was the medium. The motion of light set the background. The speed of light was primary and the measurement of any other body was determined by that speed.
In fact, in 1920, at his inaugural lecture in Leyden titled “The Ether and the Relativity Theory,” Einstein said, "the ether concept has once more acquired a clear content. The ether in the general theory of relativity is a medium which itself is bereft of all mechanical and kinetic properties, but which has a share in determining mechanical and electromechanical occurrences." Now, what does that mean? Well, notice that he uses the word “electromechanical”. He is telling us that the ether must now be considered a background for the E/M field; but that the ether is not a field itself.
Einstein calls his GR ether a “medium” here, but that is not really accurate, either. That is one of the reasons he later distanced himself from this quote. If the ether is bereft of all mechanical and kinetic properties, it cannot be a medium, by the normal definition of medium. A medium that is bereft of all mechanical and kinetic properties is a background, not a medium. But how could a background that had no mechanical or kinetic properties have a “share” in determining occurrences? In GR, it could do so only through its curvature. [Notice that Einstein thinks that curvature is not a mechanical or kinetic property of space. We will return to that in a moment.]
Tesla was usually not too concerned with theoretical questions like this, but as far as the question interested him, he agreed with Einstein. Tesla was not a supporter of Maxwell’s ether. Tesla found Maxwell to be ham-handed in many ways, and said so. The ether that Tesla believed in was an ether created by the E/M field. In fact, Tesla’s ether has much in common with my foundational E/M field, a real bombarding field emitted by all quanta and all objects. He stated that this field diminished with the square of the distance from Earth (or any spherical object), and my foundational E/M field does this (minus time differentials). He stated that this field combined with the gravitational field, and was often more powerful than it. In on MM's site, MM has shown this in his Cavendish paper and many other papers.
Einstein was a theorist, not an experimenter like Tesla. He did not know of the foundational E/M field. Almost no one except Tesla has known of it, even among other specialists in electricity. The field MM is talking about has concerned only quantum physicists up to now (since it is the field mediated by their ridiculous “messenger photons”). So Einstein could not be expected to have included this field in his theories of the macro-world. But he never denied the existence or importance of the electromagnetic field, and he would never have denied the possibility that other unknown fields existed, even ubiquitous and powerful fields. He would only have denied, based on his theory, that they would be considered the “background of space.” As he showed, space has no background except the motion of light.
He is correct about this, and it is one of two major reasons MM refuses to call his foundational E/M field an ether. The other reason is also historical. Tesla called his field an ether, since it was ubiquitous and powerful. It allowed many things to happen, and caused many things to happen. It was fundamental, as fundamental as gravity, or more so. While admitting all that, MM refrains from referring to my foundational E/M field as an ether because it does not fit the even older and more famous definition of ether as the mediator and facilitator of all motion. According to the 19th definitions, the ether was invented to explain the motion of light. It seemed to physicists at that time that light needed a medium through which to propagate, just as sound needed air through which to propagate. Especially as regards the wave motion, it was not understood how light could show this wave without a medium.
Using stacked spins, MM has shown how light moves in a wave pattern without the need of any medium. The wave is internal to each photon, and the analogy to sound waves in air completely breaks down. The wave motion of light is not a pattern in a medium, it is real motion of each quantum. You will say, “Motion relative to what?” Motion relative to the previous position, or relative to the void, or relative to a graph you superimpose over the moving quantum. Motion does not require a medium, it only requires a background. That background is automatically created relative to previous positions. You don’t need a medium to describe the motion of quanta. You only need a mathematical or diagrammed background, and previous positions give you that.
In fact, requiring a physical medium for all motion is a reductio ad absurdum. Say that we do define Tesla’s “ether” as the medium. Say that we do define my foundational E/M field as the medium against which the speed of light is calculated. We obviously run into an immediate problem, since my field or Tesla’s is made up of some kind of photon or other emission, fluid or particulate. At that point, you are defining the motion of light against a background of invisible E/M photons. But that brings up many questions: 1) Which photon is more fundamental? The light photon or the photon that transmits the E/M field? 2) How can you measure one against the other? Aren’t they both going c? Or, if they are not going exactly c in all situations, won’t they both vary in the same way for the same reasons? 3) If the light photon is moving relative to the E/M or ether photon, what is the ether photon moving relative to? Don’t we require a sub-ether as a background to the ether photon? 4) It seems we need something that is not moving to be our medium, but Tesla’s ether field, like my foundational E/M field, is made up of moving particles.
The only thing that is not moving is the void. But calling the void an ether is pretty much admitting defeat. If the void is the ether, then Einstein was basically correct. Einstein’s only real crime was desiring to put a finer point on a thing than most people care to put on it. Most people today who want an ether simply mean they want the standard model to quit ignoring the E/M field in all its contexts, and to quit interpreting Einstein in narrow, abstract mathematical ways. To this extent MM agrees with them. To this extent, Einstein would have agreed with them, too.
Now, it is true that Tesla disagreed with Einstein on many things while they were both alive. This For instance, he said,
MM has a firm belief that space cannot be curved, for the simple reason that it can have no properties. . . . Of properties we can only speak when dealing with matter filling the space. To say that in the presence of large bodies space becomes curved is equivalent to stating that something can act upon nothing. I, for one, refuse to subscribe to such a view.1
However, if we study that quote a bit more carefully, we find something very interesting. Tesla tells us that space can have no properties, since it is a “nothing”. Only matter can have properties, not space. MM agrees with him completely. And, although MM accepts the numerical findings of General Relativity, he does not accept curved space any more than Tesla. But, if space has no properties, that must also rule out the classical ether. The pre-Einstein, pre-Tesla ether was the giving of properties to space. According to this idea, space had or might have qualities such as permittivity, resistance, pressure, and so on. At the very least space must have structure, since it was this structure that explained the wave motion.
Curiously, current theories of space also give space many qualities. Physicists who claim to have no time for classical ether arguments end up giving space pressure and materiality and so on, consisting of virtual particle pairs or bosons or a host of other theoretical particles or properties. Perhaps most importantly, the current cosmological constant Λ gives space an expansion, as MM has reminded my readers in other papers.
Tesla would have disagreed with classical ether theory just as strongly as he would now disagree with current standard model theory, since both theories give properties to space. Maxwell’s ether was both ether and medium, but Tesla’s ether was neither. Tesla’s ether was in fact a field--a field inhabiting empty space. And empty space is neither ether nor medium. For Tesla, space was not a medium or an ether, it was a background. And although Tesla disagreed with Einstein here as well, Einstein was less wrong than the others. Einstein agreed that space was neither medium nor ether--if either word included the idea of mechanical or kinetic properties. For Einstein, space was a background.
Of course, Einstein gave this background the property of curvature, but MM has shown that GR can ditch curved space with no lasting theoretical effects. If you turn the field inside out like MM has, you rid yourself of curved space, the tensor calculus, and all the needless additions to relativity, while keeping the time differentials and other transforms that have been shown to work. This means that Einstein and Tesla were in agreement at the most fundamental level, since in their field theories both were reacting against the physicality of the classical ether. Neither of them believed in it. Einstein’s only problem was keeping a residue of that ether in his curved field, with a curvature he didn’t even require. As Tesla pointed out, this curvature gave Einstein’s space a property, and that gave Einstein’s theory an inconsistency. Einstein created his field equations in order to bypass the classical ether, and he wanted to bypass the ether because it wasn't logical. But then he gave space a curvature, which wasn't logical either. He thought curvature was mathematical only, but in GR a curve acts as structure, and structure is a property. In fact, it is a mechanical property. It is both mechanical and kinetic, since it is the ultimate explanation for motion. In Einstein’s field equations, curvature is the ultimate cause of both motion and (apparent) force, therefore it must be both mechanical and kinetic, by the definitions of those two words. If curvature in GR is not mechanical, nothing in the universe is mechanical. The standard model can claim that GR is only geometric, but the geometry is the ultimate cause of motion and force. This must make it mechanical and kinematic and kinetic, all three.
This fact contains a great deal of irony, since it means that Einstein actually had more of an ether than Tesla. Tesla called his E/M field an ether, but it was a field, not an ether. Einstein called his field a field, but it was an ether, not a field. Curvature gave his field a mechanical property, and a fundamental field that has a mechanical property is not a field, it is an ether.
So, Einstein was wrong about curvature, but right about the ether. He agreed with Tesla that the ether, as a quality of space, was illogical and non-mechanical. He stated that the motion of light required no ether, and he was correct.
And Tesla agreed with him. Tesla’s light, electricity, or other forms of radiated matter required no ether of the classical sort. He might call his particles or fluid an ether, but the motion of this ether did not require a medium. It couldn’t, since Tesla said that space was nothing. If the “nothing” exists, then the classical ether does not exist. If there is a void, there is no ether. If the void exists anywhere, in any way, then light must travel through it. If light can travel through it, then light requires no ether for propagation. That is simple logic. If light can travel as a wave without an ether, then the entire classical argument for the ether collapses. Once that is understood, then all modern ethers should no longer be called ethers. They should be called fields. Fields made up of radiated sub-particles or fluids are not ethers, they are fields. MM thinks this is a very important distinction. It clears up a lot of fake and manufactured and unimportant differences between people like Einstein and Tesla.
Another reason MM cannot sign on fully to the ether is that contemporary ether proponents often use this misunderstanding of Einstein, by both the standard model and the classical model, to dismiss him in toto. MM has shown that this is a mistake. The standard model’s interpretation of Einstein is wrong, and Einstein made some pretty spectacular errors himself. But Relativity is not wrong. Time differentials do exist; and transforms, when they are in the correct form, do work. Curved space is a poor explanation of General Relativity, but time differentials in fields created by spherical objects do work in much the way that Einstein said. His equations are way too complex, and they are inside out, but they are basically correct. Nor were all his equations stolen from Poincare or Lorentz or Mileva or anyone else. He borrowed from all over the place, sometimes with less finesse than might have been wished. But if we erased him from history, we would not know all we now know. We cannot add up Lorentz and Poincare and all the rest and get the same final result. If nothing else, Einstein pushed all these others to conclusions they were not making at the time, and not guaranteed to make, ever. Even if we demote him to only a synthesizer, the importance of synthesis is extreme, especially in the history of physics. Those who force old ideas together, and force those synthesized ideas into the papers and journals, deserve the credit and attention they get, in my opinion.
So, to sum up, Tesla and the proponents of the ether were and are correct insofar as they are demanding that a powerful, mostly unknown field exists, linked to E/M--a ubiquitous and fundamental field mostly ignored and mis-defined by the standard model. They are correct that it exists at all levels, quantum and terrestrial and cosmic. They are correct that it may be dubbed “creational”, since any fundamental emission field would have to be admitted to be “creational” in one sense: it causes everything and its cause is unknown. They are only incorrect when they assume that Einstein’s theory forbids this field, or when they assume that Einstein would have any serious qualms about integrating this field into his UFT, given what we now know. MM is quite certain that Einstein both would do it, and could do it. This “ether” can easily be incorporated into Relativity, as MM knows since he has done it. We take Tesla’s field and slip it right into Newton’s old equation. Then we do transforms on it (when necessary). This is precisely what MM has done in his unified field.
All the theoretical roadblocks are only in people’s heads. They are only political. We have many parties squabbling over secondary matters, squabbling over misunderstandings and manufactured differences. The truth is that Einstein and Tesla are both correct about almost everything, and that we can stir them into a new pot without much trouble at all.
1 New York Herald Tribune, Sept. 11, 1932
Analysis of the Light Clock
This short paper summarizes this concept with a close analysis of the most current visualization of time dilation, which is the "light clock". This visualization is now included in most up-to-date explanations, since it appears to give the shortest road to the time transform. The diagram below of the light clock is the same in most respects to a diagram MM used in An Algebraic Correction to Special Relativity and Refutation of Gamma, which was a diagram of a spaceship passing the earth. In both diagrams we have the Pythagorean theorem used to find the third leg of a right triangle, and this equation yields the dilated time.
But like the spaceship diagram, this diagram creates a false visualization. A light clock works by emitting a light ray. This ray reflects from a mirror opposite the clock and returns. One round-trip of the light is a tick of the clock. The diagram is meant to be a visualization of what a distant observer would see. This distant observer sees the clock moving at velocity v. The diagram must be from the point of view of a distant observer, since a local observer would not see the clock moving. The clock itself could not possibly see itself moving, since it has no velocity relative to itself. But the creator of the diagram assumes the distant observer would see light moving as it is diagrammed. In fact, he would see nothing of the sort. A distant observer would not see the light at all. The light is moving perpendicular to his line of sight, and is invisible by definition. The vector ct/2 is imaginary. It cannot be anyone’s data. It is an assumption, and it is a false assumption. The light does not travel in that way, as MM has shown and will show again below.
It is true that the time will be dilated for the distant observer, but not for the mathematical reason diagrammed here. The time will be dilated due to differences in the data we receive from the clock directly. To know what is going on with this light clock, the light clock must send us information in some way. Most of the time this information will arrive on light rays, whether it is visual or not. It is these light rays that actually come to us that we must do the transforms with.
In the light clock diagram, the creator of the diagram has shown us three separate positions of the clock. If we assume that the third position is farther away from us—as distant observers—than the first position, then it must take light longer to reach us from that third position. This, by itself, will create time dilation, since the period of the clock will be stretched out.
The transforms of Relativity must be done on light rays that are part of our data. We cannot do transforms on imaginary light rays. Special Relativity applies to real data, to real observations, and cannot be applied to non-verifiable assumptions or imaginary vectors.
As further proof of this, let us analyze the diagram with a bit more depth. Notice that the clock in the first position needs to send the light ray off at an angle. How does the clock know which angle to send the light off at? You will say that we are using light that is emitted in all directions, so that some of that light will reach the clock at the third position. But what if we imagined a light clock that did not emit light in all directions. What if we assume a light clock that sends out a laser? Does the creator of this diagram mean to imply that if our clock sends out a laser beam straight across to the far mirror, it will come back and miss the clock, since the clock will have moved on? Unlikely.
You may answer that the laser beam emitted from the clock will act like a ball bounced by a boy on a bicycle. If a boy bounces a ball while riding a moving bicycle, the ball comes back to his hand. This is because the ball has a forward motion as well as a bouncing motion. If you answer this or assume this, you have broken Einstein’s Postulate 2. To paraphrase: “The speed of the light is independent of the motion of the source or the receiver.” The laser is emitted at speed c at one and only one angle. It cannot also have a forward motion. This forward motion would be a forward velocity, which would take its total velocity above c.
You may now answer, “OK, so the diagram has problems. But you yourself admit that the laser beam will end up at the third position. How else can you diagram it?” The answer is, you cannot diagram it properly. It is impossible to diagram three separate events on one piece of paper, especially when one of those events is light traveling in a foreign field. The false light vector is caused by trying to compress three events into one diagram. You end up getting a pretty good idea of how the sequence of events would look to a distant observer, but you get a very skewed idea of the way that light is traveling. This is because the light traveling is not an "event" to the distance observer. It is important to realize that this vector is invisible, it is not a possible part of his data. That vector exists only in a diagram like this, which is a compressed and a false diagram. The real event is not taking place at a distance. The event of light traveling across to the mirror and back is a strictly local event. Light can be seen only where it is. It cannot be seen where it is not. Light cannot be seen at a distance. Therefore you cannot transform the light itself. You can only use the data given you by light to transform other things.
Einstein himself admitted this, and warned us of it. He told us that light is a special case. It is not an object like any other object. When we use light in Relativity, we must take special care not to make false assumptions. This is what Postulate 2 means: "Take care! Light is not just another object. It is emitted at velocity c from all objects, no matter how they are moving themselves. You may not add your velocity to the velocity of light, not if you are travelling in the same line as the light, and not if you are travelling at an angle to the emission."
This last bolded phrase should warn us that we cannot make the assumption the diagram above has made, which is that light can be emitted at different angles relative to different observers. It can't, because if it could this would imply that it had different resultant velocities. Just by drawing light in this way, you have set up a situation that cannot help but produce paradoxes. The bottom line is that you cannot draw or diagram or imagine "light at a distance." There is physically no such thing as light at a distance. Light is a local event and only a local event—this is what Postulate 2 means and must mean.
Therefore, the question, "where is the light right now?" is always a local question. If the light is in your eyes, you can say, "it is here." Otherwise, you can say nothing. You cannot propose to diagram light from a distance, since your diagram is supposed to be a diagram of your data. You cannot diagram light from a distance, since there is no such data. You know only the information that light brings you, and when you receive this information, the light is right in your eyes. Light in other fields is imaginary data, and if you try to diagram it you are sure to get into trouble. As a matter of data or of operation or of experience or of science, there is no such beast as "light in another field." Light is always in the local field. That is what Einstein's Second Postulate means.
Analysis of Airy's water-filled telescope, the Sagnac Effect, and the Hammar experiment
First published July 10, 2014
As a bonus, MM will now unwind the whole historical fracas concerning the supposed falsification of the old classical equations. This happened even before Einstein came along. Remember, Einstein's correction is too small to notice, or was until very recently, so the historical problem with the classical equation had nothing to do with Einstein. It had to do with more mundane “disproofs” of the math and kinematics. In short, several physicists in the 19th century proposed that Bradley's analysis should indicate large variations if c varied, and they saw that c could easily vary in a real experiment if the telescope were filled with a heavy gas, or better, water. So they did just that. Several experimenters— including most famously G. B. Airy—showed that filling the telescope with water did not change the aberration in the amount the equations predicted. In fact, it didn't change them in any detectable amount. That seemed fatal to the classical equations to some people, though it is not clear why.
Knowing Airy's previous mistakes, MM was not prepared to accept that conclusion without further analysis. Airy was caught in several terrible physical meltdowns, including the famous meltdown at the Himalayas, where he proposed reverse mountains as a solution to the plumb-bob failures. See Newton's law is a Unified Field of Gravity and E/M and on MM's site The Sad Theory of Isostasy for more on that. In short, Airy was a good experimenter but a terrible theorist. He couldn't visualize anything beyond his own nose.
Unfortunately, we have the same sort of meltdown here; and again, the meltdown included the whole history of physics since then. No one to this day has seen the missing piece of the puzzle, although it is staring them right in the face.
At first glance, the analysis of Airy may seem airtight: Substances like water are known to have a refractive index that slows the transmission of light measurably. Well, if you lower the value c in the equations above, you should change the angle enough to measure. No change was found, therefore the equations must be wrong. However, that analysis only works if you study the motion of the light from the top of the telescope to the bottom. In that case, filling the telescope with water would seem to change the angle. But study MM's illustration again. The angle isn't measured from the top of the telescope, it is measured from the star. The line labeled c doesn't end at the top of the telescope, does it? No, it runs all the way to the star. The same is found if you study the mainstream's illustrations:
They label their angles differently than MM does, but the lines run all the way to the star. The light has a speed of c from the time it leaves the star, not just from the time it hits the top of the telescope. This means that the angle, and the entire phenomenon of aberration, is being created mainly outside the telescope, not inside it. You tilt the telescope to match the angle required by the relationship, but the relationship pre-exists the tilting of the telescope, and extends far beyond it.
To change the angle we found, you would have to shorten the entire vector c, not just the last meter of it.** Since the length of those vectors diagrammed stand for velocities, you would have to lower the speed of light all along that vector. That would then change the relationship of c to v, which would change the angle. But all Airy has done is change the speed of the light in the last three feet, which wouldn't change the average value of c along that vector at all. To change the value of c and therefore the length of the vector drawn, Airy would have to fill the galaxy with water between here and the star. That is precisely how ridiculous his experiment really was.
You can see once again how a bad illustration can lead to absurd hypotheses and conclusions, and how a good illustration can clear them up with almost no effort. This problem, like most others, was caused by a bad visualization.
One might question if this is true because once the light reaches the water-filled telescope, it should begin moving back toward the rear of the tube. Since the light has slowed, the relationship between c and v has changed, and the angle should change. But that is to miss the entire point of aberration. We tilt the telescope not to keep the light toward the middle of the tube all the way down. The focusing lenses are what does that, anyway. Focusing lenses don't stop working just because you surround them with water. We tilted the telescope to allow the light from the given star to enter as flat as possible to the object glass. Since Airy didn't fill his telescope above the object glass, that was not affected. And once you are below the focusing lens, the direction of the light is no longer determined by the previous relationships of vectors c and v: the direction in the tube below the objective lens is determined by the lens .
You will say, “Maybe, but shouldn't all the focused rays below the lens be affected by v, even so? Shouldn't they continue to be pulled back?” No. Once they interact with the lens, the photons are no longer free entities. They are now part of the Earth and they all now contain its motion with their own. This is why you don't feel the motion of the Earth, although it is moving 30km/s through space. Neither you nor anything in you is washed back against that motion. But before it hit the lens, the light was a free entity relative to the Earth. It had not interacted with anything on the Earth, not even the atmosphere. This is the only reason we could do a vector addition of v with c.
This would be true even without a lens. Say we took the lens out and just let the light hit the water directly. Provided we made the surface of the water flat to the light somehow (with a sheet of clear plastic, maybe, to avoid refraction at the surface), the interaction with the water would integrate c with v, so that v was no longer a free vector. In other words, v could no longer seem to push the light back.
Exactly how this integration is achieved is a whole other question, but, having brought it up, MM now glosses it. It also gives an opportunity to present another chance to talk about MM's charge field We will start at the top of the telescope and work our way down. Supposing the telescope is tilted correctly, the light will enter on the correct angle to make it to the bottom. Only when it passed the surface of the water could anything to change the angle occur, correct? What we are led to believe is that light will slow, c becoming too small to offset the sideways motion v. It will “turn” and hit the back of the telescope, failing to make it to the bottom. That doesn't happen, therefore the classical equations are wrong, we are told. But that assumption is just a strawman. It isn't borne out by what we now know about the motion of light through substances. In short, we know the water doesn't slow the velocity of any single photon below c. Yes, light takes longer to travel from top to bottom, but that isn't because c has changed. It is because the path has changed. All the idolators of Feynman should know that, since he spent half his time drumming it into their heads. The speed of light through materials is a path average , not a diminishment of c.
Given that, there is no reason to assume our “slowed” light should be pushed toward the back of the telescope, missing its original path down. That would work only if the velocity c slowed as a vector relative to v. Airy's experiment didn't disprove the classical aberration equations or theory, it only disproved the naïve assumption of a path diversion.
You might say that you MM just admitted the path would be diverted, but MM only admitted the path would be lengthened, but not diverted as a whole. Those are two very different things, and one is in no way an indicator of the other. Physicists like Airy assumed that the first indicated the second, but that was just a bald assumption and a poor one, based on no real mechanics.
The idea of the ether only made this problem worse, so MM does not apologize for those guys, either. Given the naïve theory of the ether prominent at the time, it is no wonder it generated an opposition. As usual, both sides here were pretty spectacularly wrong. MM imagines that a few physicists at the time realized that there was no way to explain this phenomenon without giving the water a thicker ether than the air or vacuum, and seeing no way to do that, they backed down. Given the data at the time, suggesting that would have been professional suicide.† If the opposition was so violently opposed to an unknown ether, it would be even more violently opposed to a varying ether, especially when people like Young and Fresnel were in no position to show what caused that variation.
That said, it is pretty amazing we have made no progress on this question, given what we now know about the charge field. Even before MM came along, the mainstream knew enough to revisit this problem and clarify it with charge.
That's right, it isn't the ether that solves this, it is the charge field. And of course water is now known to have a denser charge field than air or vacuum. We can get that from any number of mainstream parameters for substances, including blackbody radiation, thermal conductivity, electronegativity, capacitance, and on and on. Or we can get it straight from mass. Denser substances like water have more protons and electrons, which are charged particles. More charged particles must have more charge, right? If charge is anything real, then water must have more of it than air or vacuum. Schrodinger defined the amplitude of the wavefunction as an indicator of charge density. (See MM's paper Rewriting the Schrӧdinger Equation.) Since only a real field can have density, this density must by dealt with in any problem such as the one we are now analyzing.
This solves the aberration problem with the flick of a simple switch, because as the light is being “slowed” by the charge field of the water, it is also being pushed forward more efficiently by that same field. It is not just the telescope that is moving forward, it is the charge field inside the water inside the telescope, and the denser that field is the more it prevents the light from drifting back and hitting the rear wall of the telescope.
To say it another way, once we look at the path of the light instead of just its velocity, we realize that They want you to think that the water only slows the path down the tube, while ignoring the fact that it will resist the path back in the same amount and for the same reason. According to their assumption, the path back is completely free, and the slowed light will naturally take it. That is why the light shouldn't make it down, according to them: it gets deflected by collision with the back wall of the telescope. But as you now see, that is completely counterintuitive and counter-physical. The more resistance the material in the telescope has to motion down, the more resistance it will have to motion back. In fact, we would expect the latter resistance to be exactly proportional to the former, which means we should not expect any deflection of the light from its original angle, no matter what the telescope is filled with.
In short, this is what normalizes bodies that come in contact with a field or substance. This is the mechanism by which a formerly free body becomes one with a new body or field it has interacted with. Once it enters the new field or body, it feels charge forces from that new body at all times. You feel charge forces from the Earth and from everything around you, which means you aren't a free body. You were never a free body relative to the Earth, but light once was. You were born with a velocity of 30km/s, but since velocity creates no internal forces (as accelerations do), you feel no washing in the reverse direction. When the photon in the light hits the lens of the telescope, it enters the charge field of the lens. It isn't just one hit that turns it to the focus angle, it is many. In those hits, the light isn't just being focused by the lens, it is being normalized to the new field. The charge field as a whole is moving 30 km/s, like everything else, so it immediately acclimatizes the new light to itself.
You will say, “How does that work? Are you saying the photons are going c plus 30km/s?” No, of course not. That is why MM said “the charge field as a whole.” Just as with the vector addition above, c + v is a field result . It does not apply to any one photon. It may seem to you, measuring from outside the field, that something should be going over c. But your measurement is just your measurement. It is not reality. Reality is not determined by how things seem or look to you, and you know that from other phenomena (think optical illusions). Reality is determined by the local field, where measurements and data have not been skewed. If light can be said to travel in a field, it is this local field. Light always travels in the local field, not in the distant field. Even more rigorously, light does not travel in the local is field; it the local field. Light is the field against which which everything else is measured. Since you can only interact with local light (light that is impinging on your eyes or instruments), we can see why the local field is privileged. You cannot see or measure distant light, by definition, which means any distant field is always an inference. All distant fields must be back-calculated from local light, and is that back-calculation Relativity.
First MM will make a short diversion into politics of science Some will say MM unfairly picks on Airy here, and that may be true. Airy was just providing experimental results, which could then be interpreted in several ways. It is the interpreters who should be picked on. It is all those—including the current Wikipedia page editors—who use Airy's water-filled telescope to promote Relativity I should pick on, since they have been aggressively dishonest. For more than a century, promoters of Relativity (promoters who did not understand it) have been using the failures of previous theory to indicate the superiority of Einstein. But in almost all cases, the failures of previous theory do not indicate the success of Einstein's equations. The failures of previous theory indicate a hole to be filled, but they do not thereby indicate that Einstein has filled it. And yet the promoters of current theory always use that sort of slippery argument. They point out the failures of Fresnel, for instance, and hide the failures of Einstein, then tell you Einstein has been confirmed. But as you have seen, the failures of Einstein are pretty obvious to anyone whose eyes are open. The misuse of the addition-of-velocity equation (above) by Einstein himself should be clear to anyone who has taken first-year algebra, since it is just a problem of variable assignment. They post Einstein's solution prominently all over the web, hoping you don't spot the problem, and pretending that they don't. That by itself is indication that we have all been swallowed by some whale or another.
As we continue,you should notice that MM has solved this problem by taking a third path, as usual. MM has shown that both sides have been wrong all along, and still are. However, MM has also shown that many of the old physicists were partially correct. The proponents of the ether were generally on the right path, but since they couldn't attach their ether to the real charge field, they ended up seeming to be defeated. They were eventually defeated by Einstein, or that is what we are taught. He is said to have destroyed the ether. But that isn't really true, either, as you now see, since Einstein only destroyed the poorly defined ether of the 19th century. He never claimed to have destroyed the charge field, since that would have entailed destroying the entire quantum field. Although he disagreed with Bohr on quantum field theory, Einstein never had any idea of destroying charge or the charge field. How could he when he based his field theory on that of Maxwell, which itself was based on the displacement field D which MM proved is his charge field. (See Maxwell's equations are disguised Unified Field equations.)
And to round out this third path, MM has shown Einstein himself was only partially correct. He was correct in his assumption that Relativity could provide a small correction to the classical equations, but not even close in the equations he offered. The current equations are a gigantic fudge, one that has to be pushed dozens of times just to get it back in the ballpark of the classical equations.* Without those pushes, Einstein's correction would be even worse than the original equations of Bradley.
One of the only people stating this clearly is Thomas Phipps,* but even he hasn't nailed down the central and most fundamental mathematical errors. Einstein's primary error here is using complex and faulty addition-of-velocity equations when a simple transform would suffice. We see him doing the same thing in his mass and energy equations (See MM's paper E ≠ mc2 (Gamma is Kappa) Einstein's famous 1905 paper): there he again uses gamma when the old frequency transform is all that is needed (in the first instance). Therefore, if VLBI (very long baseline interferometry) does eventually give us a number here, MM predicts that it will not be that of Bradley, Einstein, or even Phipps. The correction will have to vary as MM's correction, depending on direction of motion. That is, it won't be at any higher order that Einstein's equations will fail. They will fail at first order, since the equation must vary from moment to moment throughout the year, not only in angle but in absolute magnitude. It is v that will change from moment to moment, and no one's equations but mine can include that variation.
This is because the correct answer is actually a combination of the historical answers. You will notice that MM has resurrected Fresnel's and Stokes' ether drag theory, in part . Since MM has shown that Relativity, even if true, can only transform the y component of the motion, the x component—which is the main velocity here—cannot be corrected by Einstein's equations. So while Fresnel's conception and assignment of his ether was faulty, his intuition was mainly correct. It is the charge field that is dragged along by matter. Now that MM has shown the mechanism of charge in recycling by the nucleus in How The Elements Are Built, we have an easy explanation of charge drag. Since photons must pass through the nucleus to create the charge field, they must acquire any relative motion the nucleus has as they move through. The charge field then interacts with all particles in the field, including larger photons of visible light, and the entire field is given the motion of the nuclei.
You would think resurrecting the ether drag theory would totally doom Einstein and Relativity, but it does not. As MM has shown, we do have a correction here due to Relativity, it is just not the one we have have been taught it is. Relative motion does require transforms, and this problem contains relative motion. However, MM's solution does doom the interpretation of Relativity offered by Lorentz and still pushed by many in the mainstream. Lorentz proposed that all bodies contract in the line of motion, and that is still accepted by many. One might say it is the standard interpretation to this day (although Einstein himself waffled on it).
The truth is, bodies will seem to contract in some lines of motion, but the more general interpretation is simply false. Data taken in from a distance may contract, but bodies never do. Relativity was never an existential theory, it was a theory of measurement, and most times Einstein understood that.
MM will be told that his analysis doesn't take into account the Michelson-Morley data, but it does. (See The Error of the Michelson Morley interferometer) where MM addressing that historical confusion. In short, we had another misreading of bad diagrams by physicists who were very poor at visualization. In all the early Michelson experiments they should have expected a null outcome, no matter what the theory. The experiment was not properly devised to show any fringe effects. For a quicker proof of that assertion, see MM's analyses of the similar Sagnac and Hammar experiments below.
It is also worth repeating that many of these early theoretical problems were caused by a faulty “Galilean transform.” MM have exhaustively proven that what has posed as a Galilean transform for more than a century never was one. Since that faulty math and diagram lay under this confusion from the beginning, it has caused untold problems from the start. That same equation [x' = x – vt] was also Einstein's first equation in his proofs, and it doomed them as well. (See An Algebraic Correction to Special Relativity and Refutation of Gamma Part I). Although transforms are necessary, I have had to jettison that equation and start over from the beginning.
Beyond the Michelson experiments, we are told by the mainstream now that partial ether dragging was
overturned because:
It was already known in the 19th century, that partial ether dragging requires the relative velocity of ether and
matter to be different for light of different colors – which is evidently not the case.
MM has shown why that is not true. The wave nature of light has been misunderstood from the
beginning, and that has caused this problem and many others. In short, it was thought that the
wavelength of light was caused by some sort of sine wave configuration of the wavefront or wave
packet (as with a water wave). If that were true, then different wavelengths should be affected
differently by an ether. But since the wavelength is actually the real photon radius scaled up by c2 , that
analysis no longer applies. The wavelength is not a pattern on an ether field, it is the spin of the
individual photon. This is why one photon can carry the wavelength through a detector, and it is why
light of different colors is not affected in the way they thought.
We also have to remember that although MM's charge field becomes a sort of ether in the equations, it isn't strictly equivalent to the historical ether, in concept or math. Historically, the ether was a background through which light and matter moved. But in MM's theory, that is no longer true. Light does not travel through or via an ether. Light is the ether. Light travels through vacuum, and its spin is its wavelength. Everything else is then measured relative to light (as Einstein said). So again, by this interpretation, we would not expect different colors to act differently in a charge field. Only in very specific circumstances would photon radius begin to matter, and the experiments of the 19th century did not include these circumstances.
We see misdirection regarding the ether dragging theories to this day at all mainstream sources, for instance, Wikipedia entry for Ether_drag_hypothesis and tells us that ether dragging is inconsistent with the theory of stellar aberration. But the gif doesn't show that. The gif only shows that with ether dragging, the photon will make it down the telescope with or without an angle. They imply that since the angle is required, ether dragging can't be true. But as we have seen, that is a strawman. Their analysis doesn't work, because it requires we only look at the field inside the telescope, past the objective lens. If we include the objective lens on the telescope, the entire analysis must change. It is then clear why we need the angle, even with ether dragging: we need the lens flat to the incoming light. If the incoming light isn't flat to the lens, it will cause uneven collection, which will cause uneven dragging and focusing.
From MM's diagram of the problem way above, you can see that we need the angle even if we have a charge-field ether. We need the angle because the light is coming from a system of sparse charge to a system of dense charge. Before the light hits the lens, it has been traveling in a sparse ether. It has been able to dodge this ether, which is why it got here in the first place. But when the light hits the lens, the dodging is over. It has been captured and re-directed by the field in the lens. But if all these photons from the star aren't captured at the same angle to the lens-field, we get a staggered ether dragging. So, ironically, we find more confirmation of ether dragging from the mainstream's own diagrams.
This gif confirms ether dragging a second time, and they admit that with the Airy experiment. Water isn't an ether, it is a real substance. Without an ether, the water should have slowed the light, forcing it back to the far wall of the tube. That did not happen, and MM shows it did not happen precisely because the charge-field ether prevents it from happening. But somehow they spin this proof of the ether as disproof. They don't tell you that Airy's experiment can be explained with ether drag; instead they imply that Airy's experiment points to Einstein, which points away from the ether. That's what I mean by extravagantly dishonest. These guys have no shame. They have no problem handing you the proof of ether dragging—putting it right in front of you as gif, drawing, and theory—and then spinning it as disproof.
We see the same thing with the Sagnac Effect, which has been used as a disproof of the ether. However, if we exchange the ether for MM's real charge field, the disproof becomes proof. The Sagnac Effect is created by the Sagnac interferometer:
You have light from the same source going in both directions. If you now place that entire apparatus on a rotating table, spinning it in a circle, it is found that light going one direction reaches the detector late compared to the other light. Using MM's theory, we explain it this way: Since the rotating platform rotates the source, mirrors, and detector, it will also rotate the charge field in and around those bodies. Since the charge field is rotating one direction and not the other, one path of light will be going with that field and one will be going against it. Since the charge field is real, it will cause real photon collisions. The light going against the charge field will have to take a longer path. And so we have the Sagnac effect.
You may ask yourself how they managed to spin that into a disproof of the dragged ether. At Wikipedia it says, The Sagnac effect shows that two rays of light, emanated from the same light source in different directions on a rotating platform, require different times to come back to the light source. However, if the ether is completely dragged by the platform this effect should not occur at all. How did they get there? MM guesses it is by assuming that a dragged ether has zero bias in direction at all points, causing no local resistance. But that would only be true if the ether had no reality, and were only a co-ordinate system of lines. As you see, once we give the ether a real presence, as with my charge field made up of real photons, the disproof of the Sagnac Effect becomes proof.
We see the same misdirection with the Hammar Experiment, in which lead blocks were added to the Sagnac interferometer.
This apparatus was not spun or even moved, it was only aligned parallel (and then perpendicular) to the motion of the Earth. We are told that, given an ether, this experiment should have shown some difference between parallel and perpendicular, but it didn't. The result was negative.
Obviously, this is proof of ether drag, so why are they selling it as disproof? Given MM's charge field as the ether, we would not expect a positive result here. The local charge field is stationary to this experiment no matter how it is aligned to the Earth's motion, so the null result is no mystery.
An ether wind is not the same as a dragged ether: they are opposites . You would only have an ether wind if the ether were not dragged. A dragged ether creates no local wind. Hammar's experiment is disproof of a local ether wind, but it is not disproof of a dragged ether. If this apparatus is dragging the charge field along with it, then any forces from that charge field will be zero. And yet Wikipedia says: Hammar's negative result refuted some specific ether drag models, and confirmed special relativity. What? It doesn't refute any possible ether drag model, except maybe an ether drag model that proposes no drag. And it does not confirm Special Relativity, either. In fact, it tends to disprove it, because it gives SR nothing to explain. What Hammar's result does tend to confirm is the complete ether drag model of Stokes. Although it doesn't confirm all of Stokes' conclusions, the negative result obviously confirms that—if the ether exists in this experiment—it is being dragged along. If it weren't being dragged along, it would cause asymmetry here. The lack of asymmetry indicates complete ether drag, leaving SR with no problem to solve.
How is it that these guys are always upside down to the facts? If it is light they are always telling you it is dark, and if it is dark they are always telling you it is light. Have all these thousands of physicists really been that awful at doing physics, or has history been reversed by a cabal of fabulous liars? After all MM's work over the past decade, MM suspects the answer is “both.” We know we are being lied to about absolutely everything now, but even when we go back to the original 19th century texts, you will find mass confusion.
We see that once more in the section at Wikipedia entitled “Stokes' response to these problems.” Although Stokes' response regarding incompressibility of the ether is false and not really to the point (the charge field is not incompressible), Lorentz' reply to Stokes is even worse: [even] if the ether has the same normal component of velocity as the earth, it would not have the same tangential component of velocity, so all conditions posed by Stokes cannot be fulfilled at the same time. That is also false, since there is no reason the ether would not have the same tangential component of velocity as the Earth. Lorentz' argument held little water then, but it holds none now that we know the ether is really the charge field. Since charge is recycled through matter, the charge field will acquire and maintain all the greater motions of the body it composes. This matches the Stokes/Planck theory of 1899 in many ways, since Planck argued that the ether could be compressed by gravitation. This is close to correct, as you see, since denser matter will then cause a denser ether. But it isn't gravitation that causes it, it is charge recycling through the nucleus. The charge is compressed more as it goes through more nuclei.
The only argument given at Wikipedia against the Stokes/Planck theory is the Michelson-Gale-Pearson experiment, but like the Michelson-Morley experiment, the Sagnac experiment, and the Hammar experiment, it is badly misinterpreted regarding ether dragging. The MGP experiment was basically the Sagnac experiment repeated, but using the Earth as the rotating platform rather than a much smaller platform. Given ether dragging, we would expect a positive outcome, and that is what MGP saw. And yet we are told to this day that MGP disproves ether dragging. As MM showed above with the Sagnac interferometer, it proves ether dragging, so we are just being lied to.
Remember, this is from someone who believes in Relativity, and has corrected it. So in defending the 19th century guys like Stokes, Fresnel, and Planck, MM is not trying to overthrow Einstein. MM is just trying to sort through all this schist to get to the truth. The truth is, all these theories have been distorted by politics and careerism. Most of these professional physicists were pushing experiments and theories to suit themselves, and the fact that they all had the visualization skills of a star-nosed mole didn't help. In the 20th century, this state of affairs only devolved further, and the mistakes and fudges of the 19th century were spun out into a full-fledged scientific meltdown. In closing we will look at one final experiment mentioned at Wikipedia: that of Oliver Lodge. Before we analyze the experiment itself, it is worth noting that Lodge never came around to Relativity, even though he lived until 1940. He was a promoter of the ether until the end, despite the negative result of the experiment we are about to look at. This is worth mentioning for two reasons. One, like Tesla, Lodge was an important experimentalist. He actually got things done. It is now known that Marconi plagiarized (or bought the patents and took credit for) large parts of wireless and radio technology from both Tesla and Lodge. Only in recent decades have the large roles of Tesla and Lodge been admitted. Also like Tesla, Lodge has been slandered by the mainstream all along. His current page at Wikipedia contains its longest section on spiritualism, in which Lodge is implied to be a kook for thinking that some paranormal phenomena might be linked to the ether. In this regard, you should note that Einstein's spiritualism was sold as a plus at the same time Lodge's was being sold as crackpottery. Had Lodge given up the ether and tied his spiritualism to Einstein's coat-tails, he would have been forgiven all.
Of course this once again indicates a very unsavory politicization of physics, in which anyone who does not fall into lock-step with current theory is slandered and memory-holed. It also indicates a dishonest reportage of history, since we are led to assume that all these experiments that supposedly disproved the ether and proved Relativity were done by people who didn't believe in the ether. As we see with Lodge (and many others), that isn't true. Many of the guys running the experiments at the time continued to believe in the ether, and didn't accept the pushed interpretations of the mainstream promoters. In fact, very few physicists brought up in the 19th century were ever convinced by the Fitzgerald/Lorentz contraction, with or without the extensions of Einstein. Even after their own experiments to prove the ether failed, they refused to look seriously at the illogical proposals of the new science. We see now that they were right not to. Although MM has shown that Relativity is true in a limited sense—one that remains logical, physical, and mechanical all along—the way it has been sold in the 20th century could not appeal to any rational person.
Now for Lodge's experiment. Lodge thought that the ether might be proved by showing its viscosity. In order to make that viscosity show, he thought to put a Sagnac interferometer between two quickly spinning disks. The disks were steel circular saw disks, three feet in diameter, spun at 800rpm in the same direction. According to Wikipedia: Oliver Lodge conducted experiments in the 1890s, seeking evidence that the propagation of light is influenced by being in the proximity of large rotating masses, and found no such influence. But if we study the experiment itself , that is not what we find. The wind from the rotating disks was so great it blew his mirrors out of position. That just tells us the experiment wasn't done in vacuum, so there was no way to separate the molecular wind result from the charge wind result (the charge wind is what he was looking for as ether viscosity). Lodge was able to negate most of his wind by later placing clear dividers in the gap, but that caused other problems, including diminution and distortion of the light beam. Besides, since the dividers could not go all the way up and down to the rotating disks, they did not block all the wind.
Even so, Lodge found that the motion of the disks did affect the light. MM is not too impressed by his apparatus, but if we are going to quote it and link to it, let us see what it actually had to say. As his data, Lodge reported the width of a band of yellow light and its displacement to the side. He found both a change in width and a displacement in all runs. For example, in one run the width of the yellow band was 146 divisions with no motion of the disks, and 158 with. It was shifted to the right 8 divisions.
So why did Lodge report a negative result? His negative result was based on running his disks clockwise versus counterclockwise. He found roughly the same change in width and displacement both ways, and thus reported a negative result. But that isn't a negative result. That is only indication he wasn't able to get rid of his molecular wind. It is indication his apparatus was a failure, which is a negative result of a sort. But it isn't a negative result regarding the ether. The mainstream shouldn't be able to use Lodge's failure here as support for their theories, or even as negation of the ether. The experiment was inconclusive regarding the ether, not negative. You could even read Lodge's experiment as confirmation of the ether, since he did find a change in width and a displacement. That may have all been due to a molecular wind, or not .
We can also see by Lodge's report that he was trying to prove an ether wind, not a dragged ether. A dragged ether would be dragged in the same amount clockwise or counter-clockwise. If the ether is charge, as MM believes, then the charge field of the disks would be the same strength either way. So equal numbers would tend to prove charge dragging, not disprove it. But Lodge was trying to prove an ether wind, since he says his reversed spin is “helping the transmitted beam.” This is why he was disappointed by equal numbers forward and back. For him, a positive result would have been unequal numbers forward and back. But since one would expect equal numbers forward and back, a positive result would be any real effect on the light not assignable to molecular wind or to a movement of the mirrors: that is, any effect on the light we had to assign to the charge field. Lodge's apparatus was not capable of that, but MM is certain we have machines now that could make that distinction. Why has his experiment not been rerun? We must assume it is not rerun for the same reason the Schiehallion experiment in MM's site has not been rerun, or any of the other important experiments of the past 200 years: the mainstream wouldn't like the answer.
In fact, we now have experiments that have confirmed this, although they aren't read that way by the mainstream. We have thousands of experiments, old and new, showing the charge field interacting with both light and matter. Just about any experiment indicating the reality of the charge field could be used as proof of the ether, since it was the charge field acting as the ether all along. This would include beta decay asymmetry, the Stark effect, the Zeeman effect, blackbody radiation (See Blackbody Radiation as an Attraction in MM's site , the galactic rotation data, the P-N junction, evanescent waves, and so on. Almost all of MM's published papers in the past five years could stand as proof of the charge field as ether, including all MM's papers on nuclear structure. If we did repeat the Lodge experiment in vacuum, with a tight machine, we would find the charge field affecting the light in the gap in defined ways, all of them confirming a dragged charged field. Since charge is real photons moving through the nuclei in the spinning disks, how could the charge field not be spun as well? Since even in the vacuum between spinning disks, we would find charge, how could that charge not be dragged? Since charge is being emitted from the disks (and mirrors, etc.) at all times, how could it not leak into the gap?
Ironically, the experiment would find less charge interaction with the light in the gap at higher speeds than lower speeds. Why? Because in that case the charge emitted by the disks would be more effectively forced out on the plane of spin. Incoming charge would then be forced more effectively to the poles of spin, leaving less charge in the vicinity of the mirrors. To find a greater effect on the light in this case, we would then use a much smaller Sagnac ring, so that it was closer to this pole. We would then expect a vertical effect rather than a horizontal one.
* Old Physics for New , second edition 2012. See p. 77, for example. **Airy's telescope was filled to a depth of only 35 inches. †Planck did propose that at the end of the 19th century, and it certainly didn't help him politically. In fact, that may be why he was open to Einstein only five years later. He was one of the first to switch sides on this question.