Einstein's Predicament: A New Approach to the Speed of Light
by Francis Pym and Clifford Denton
Chapter One—Concepts
Assumptions and their Consequences
A hundred years ago Einstein published a foundational paper on the subject of light that has largely been accepted as a working document in the scientific world until now, even though it has been found incompatible with other theories. Most people do not have the scientific background either to understand or to challenge Einstein's papers and have had to put their trust in scientists. Yet, with some simple maths we plan in this book to demonstrate that Einstein may have made some serious errors. These errors are not so much within the development of his papers, as in the foundational assumptions that were made. Therefore, we are seeking to look at the logical implications of bypassing Einstein's theory of relativity which, if we are honest, no one completely understands.
Many people are not trained as scientists so might assume that eminent scientists discover truth. However, the truth of scientific discovery is only as valid as the truth of the founding principles and assumptions. Science such as physics is concerned with observation, experimentation, measurements, framing of theories and predictions, but these things are not examined in isolation. Every scientific conclusion depends on basic assumptions in just the same way that each branch of philosophy depends on foundational assumptions. Scientific and philosophical logic is of the kind; 'if A is true and B is true then we can conclude that C is true'. Science has experimental or mathematical logic to support it so that it can deal with the real world rather than just ideas, as is done in philosophy, though the two disciplines are converging in our day. For Einstein, the assumptions of Relativity Theory were based on the speed of light.
An informed layman with school level maths should be able to follow our reasoning in the rest of the book. However, we would point out that though the mathematics is straightforward the concepts could be quite difficult, so that the book will need to be read and thought through very carefully. This explanatory chapter therefore sets out the main ideas in a more popular manner without the use of mathematics, as a help to the less confident readers, though the remaining chapters may broadly be understood by skipping the maths.
History
Prior to Einstein there had been the idea that the universe was filled with a motionless substance or background medium that was called the Ether. Its characteristics in the universe were found hard to assess and its presence hard to detect. However, in this book we introduce a new term for this background medium. We will use the term Fixed Frame of Reference (or FFR) rather than Ether for technical reasons, but for simplicity in this chapter we will retain the term Ether for the background medium.
When serious consideration was being given to the existence of the Ether it was thought that light travelled through it in waves. However, detection of these waves was not easy. With sound waves, we can detect them as they travel through the air, but it has not been possible to either detect the Ether or monitor the travel of light waves through it in the same way. This is largely because light travels faster than anything else and this makes experiments difficult.
If the Ether exists, then it is the substance within and between the physical elements of the universe that interests us, but we do not have instruments to measure it or vessels to contain it. If it exists, atoms of the universe will interact with the Ether as they move through it. Since these are the smallest constituents of matter, we cannot have instruments small enough to make observations or measurements at that level. Thus, we have to make assumptions.
The problem that scientists such as Einstein faced was that there seemed to be a very strange result when attempts were made to measure not only the speed of the earth through the Ether but also the speed of light itself. This was not like measuring the speed of sound.
Suppose a vehicle transmits sound waves as it moves. To an observer travelling with the vehicle, the sound transmitted in front will be measured as being slower than when measured by someone who is stationary on the ground. For example, an aeroplane can go at such a rate through the air that it can sometimes exceed the speed of its own sound. Usually a person on the ground will hear the sound of a plane as it passes by, and for a fast plane, its sound appears to come from behind.
For a straightforward situation in a moving vehicle, a person measuring his own sound subtracts the velocity of the vehicle from that of its sound to obtain its apparent velocity.
This did not seem the same for light waves. Whether a body was moving or not, it seemed from the experiments that had been carried out that no subtraction was necessary. Whether moving or not, everyone seemed to get the same answer for the speed of light. This result naturally cast doubt on the existence of the Ether as well as establishing a philosophical problem for scientists. When Einstein began to think about this problem, he proposed that it was possible to avoid it and set out to get round it, in a sense by ignoring it.
To him it was not necessary to refer to a universe that was at absolute rest. If the Ether could be detected it was thought that it would define the state of absolute rest. Since the Ether could not be detected, Einstein assumed that by using a new system of relative measurements he could ignore it, so he abandoned the absolute measurements that would have been related to the Ether. Secondly, since the speed of light always seemed to be measured as constant whatever the motion of an object through the universe, Einstein established this as the other foundational assumption of his Relativity Theory.
While Einstein was able to make great and convincing strides forward, the consequences were that physical quantities then needed redefinition. For example, time became a relative concept, with time changing as a body moved, no longer relying on absolute measurements. Scientists are at liberty to make new definitions that are consistent with the theories, but they also have to bear the consequences. One major consequence of Einstein's theory is the loss of absolute measurements.
That said, there is not only the spread of relativity theory into other areas of philosophy but also into the conscience of mankind and the whole area of relative morals. Moreover, there can also be errors in having wrong assumptions that are then carried forward into other major areas of science.
Passage of Light Through Space
We propose that one major error lies in the assumption that light travels at the same constant speed to every observer. As we have said, measurement of the speed of light is not as straightforward as the measurement of the speed of sound. This is because of its immense rapidity and because nothing is known to travel at a greater speed. This means that when we send out a light ray it is impossible physically to keep up with it to see how fast it travels.
One might be tempted to think that the way to overcome this would be to set up an experiment. Suppose a light signal were sent out from a source at point A to be received at point B at a known distance. One could then determine the time of travel in the same way that one would calculate the speed of sound in air leading to a calculation of the speed of light.
However, herein lies a fallacy. One needs to be able to synchronise clocks at A and B first. How can one do this? Either one puts the clocks together and synchronises them before moving them apart, or one sends a signal from A to B so that the clock at B is set to the time at A. We cannot be sure that either of these methods works.
In the first case, when we move the clocks apart, we are not sure if the movement of the clock from A to B changes its time. In fact, as we explain below, we do believe that this can be so. In the second case, the signal that we would send from A to B to synchronise the clocks would have to be transmitted by an electromagnetic signal at a known speed. This would be at the speed of light—the very thing we are trying to measure.
Thus, every scientific experiment to measure the speed of light has relied on a different approach from this. In these experiments, light is sent from a transmitter at A to a reflector at B and back, while the light is timed over the double journey. The point is that all attempts to measure the speed of light that have produced useable results, give an average speed for this double journey rather than an actual measurement of the speed of light in one direction.
Let us take an analogy from the measurement of the speed of sound in air. Suppose a vehicle is travelling towards a distant wall at a certain speed and sends out a sound wave carried in still air.
The sound travels in the air and the vehicle moves a certain distance before the sound reaches the wall and the echo returns. The speed of sound on the outward journey as measured from the vehicle is the actual speed of sound in still air minus the speed of the vehicle.
On the return journey, since the vehicle is moving towards the echo, the apparent speed of sound will be the speed of sound in still air plus the speed of the vehicle.
If both the vehicle and the reflecting wall moved at the same speed, maintaining the distance between them or if there were a head wind, the effect would be amplified. In this case, we could have calculated the average speed of sound by dividing the 2-way distance by the total time. Again, we would not have taken account of the fact that, measured in the vehicle, the sound travelled at a different speed in each of the two directions, i.e. to the wall and back.
Now, this is a point that has never been refuted even in Einstein's Theory of Relativity. If light travels like sound in the medium (the Ether), as we propose, then light too travels at a different speed in each of the two directions. If the light source and reflector, A and B, are travelling together through the medium there will be different speeds to and from the reflector that are 'averaged out' when a calculation is made of the 2-way journey. The problem here is that in the case of the measurement of the speed of light we cannot make the two separate measurements to and from the reflector and so detect if there is an error in our assumption.
However, we do show a simple calculation later in the following chapters that gives a remarkable result in the case of the measurement of the speed of light for a 2-way journey from source A to reflector B and back. If A and B are moving at any speed through the medium then we always get the same 'average' speed for light for the double journey even though the speeds of light to and from the reflector are themselves different. Thus Einstein's assumption seems correct, but it is only correct for an averaged 2-way passage of light. Moreover, this result cannot be used to infer (as it is in modern science) that light always travels at the same speed whether the instrument is moving through the universe or not.
Such suppositions have important consequences when we consider light from distant stars moving with respect to us, since the stars themselves are moving as well. Later, when we come to consider the age and development of the universe, assumptions about the speed of light have major implications. One such of course is the contribution this has to the theory that the universe began with a 'Big Bang'.
Einstein's assumption about the speed of light allowed him to proceed with the Theory of Relativity which then became a self-contained mathematical system. To proceed with his theory other issues needed reinterpretation, for instance the measurement of length and time in a moving body. In practice, the equations of Special Relativity relate to bodies moving at very high constant speeds requiring that time slows and lengths shorten as a body moves. They start with the assumption that light always travels in any direction at the same speed according to any observer. Conclusions about change of time and length followed afterwards.
Concern
We argue the case differently. We are very concerned about Einstein's relative measurements in his view of the universe and at the loss of absolute measurements. To Einstein, instruments in each body (space ships, planets, the earth, the sun or stars, for example) make all measurements relative to the body in which they are located, with no reference to any absolute measurements. Each body in the universe, to Einstein, is like its own world unto itself with no need to refer to a set of absolutes that must be defined in some way. His theory came about because of the inability of scientists to detect the Ether that would define the position of an absolute rest in the universe from which all absolute measurements could be made. However, in abandoning the concept of absolute rest, one's concept of the universe changes too.
We propose a return to the concept of absolute rest and absolute reference for time and length. This is even though the Ether has not and probably cannot be detected. The issue here is truth. If we cannot detect the Ether, this is no reason to ignore the possibility of its existence. In the end such theories as Relativity Theory introduced confusing paradoxes and mystical ideas about the universe compared with logical alternatives based on the return to absolutes.
There is therefore a reasonable case for leaving the Theory of Relativity and building afresh on absolutes. Of course, we still need to deal with such issues as slowing of time and shortening of lengths. We show later that shortening of lengths can be explained in a different way. We propose that the speed of forces between molecules, that hold matter together, varies in relation to the speed that the matter travels through the ether. It is this variation of the speed of forces that changes lengths. In regard to time, we would simply state that it is not time that changes with motion. It is the rate at which clocks record the passage of time that changes due to the motion of the matter itself.
Simultaneity
The final important point to raise in this chapter is the notion of something called 'Simultaneity'. To proceed with his theories, and knowing the impossibility of synchronising clocks at two different points, A and B, since one has to send a signal from A to B to do this, Einstein cleverly bypassed the problem. He used the word 'Synchronicity' instead of 'Simultaneity' and defined this term for the purposes of his new theory. He could not solve the problem of Simultaneity so defined himself out of the problem! Even if two events in relation to absolute measurements in the universe did not occur at the same time in relation to absolute measurements, Einstein could still define them as 'synchronous' according to his theory.
Remarkably, in spite of redefining certain issues such as time and simultaneity and failing to disprove the existence of a background medium in the universe, Einstein's theory has held ground for a hundred years. We suggest therefore, that it is now timely to challenge this approach through the return to absolutes, and hold out the possibility of returning to this more easily understood basis of measurement in the universe.