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397 lines
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(word processor parameters LM=8, RM=75, TM=2, BM=2)
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Taken from KeelyNet BBS (214) 324-3501
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October 6, 1991
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RELAT1.ASC
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This file shared with KeelyNet courtesy of Tom Albion.
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Tom runs the THC Online System in CANADA at 604-361-4549.
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Title-> A challenge to Einstein. (challenges to Albert
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Einstein's special theory of relativity) (special issue:
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35th Anniversary 1955-1990)
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Authors-> Bethell, Tom
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HOWARD HAYDEN, a professor of physics at the University of
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Connecticut since 1967, is in the final stages of an experiment that
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may undermine a basic assumption of Einstein's special theory of
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relativity: that the speed of light is a constant, irrespective of
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the observer's motion.
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Hayden claims that the invariant velocity of light has never been
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demonstrated experimentally, and to dramatize this startling claim,
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he and Petr Beckmann, Professor Emeritus of electrical engineering
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at the University of Colorado, are jointly offering a reward of
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$2,000 to anyone who can cite a valid optical experiment
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demonstrating that the speed of light east to west on the Earth's
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surface is the same as it is west to east (to an accuracy of fifty
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meters per second). The experiment does not have to be performed,
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merely cited.
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A longtime skeptic about relativity, Beckmann a few years ago
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proposed a rival theory of physics which, he claims, fits the known
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facts and explains them much more simply than Einstein's. Before
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publishing his theory in a book (Einstein Plus Two, 1987) he sent
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the manuscript to Howard Hayden at Storrs, Connecticut. Hayden's
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initial reaction was near-disbelief that the velocity of light had
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not already been demonstrated to be invariant. But eventually he
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became convinced that Beckmann was right.
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In 1988, he devised an experimental test of Beckmann's theory. His
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preliminary results support Beckmann, raising the question whether
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there are any experimental observations which require relativity
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theory to explain them.
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Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the evidence that light
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travels in a wave became overwhelming. Just as sound waves need air
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to travel in, so light would need a medium, if it traveled in waves.
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This hypothetical medium was called the ether, and a famous
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experiment by Michelson and Morley, performed in Cleveland in 1887,
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Page 1
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was expected to demonstrate its existence. Since the Earth must be
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passing through this ether on its journey around the sun, everyone
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assumed it would be possible to detect the ether wind" with a
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suitable apparatus, just as it is possible to detect the air from a
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moving car by putting your hand out into the breeze. In the 1880s
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Michelson devised an experiment sensitive enough, in theory, to
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produce a measurable effect.
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But no matter how many times they tried, Michelson and Morley could
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detect no ethereal breeze. (In their experiment, this had been
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expected to take the form of a shift in the interference pattern
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visible where criss-crossing light rays came together.)
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Various explanations for the null result were suggested. Michelson
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himself supposed that the ether was "entrained," which is to say
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carried along with the Earth. As we shall see, this may have been a
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close approximation to the truth. But the entrained-ether theory was
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rejected by most scientists.
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The physicists G. F. FitzGerald and H. A. Lorentz suggested another
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possibility: that moving objects contract slightly in the direction
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of motion-the contraction being just sufficient to account for the
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null result. This was ingenious, but unsatisfactory.
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It had the ad-hoc look of an unfalsifiable assumption, rather like
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the suggestion that everything in the universe is getting bigger at
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the same time.
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Then in 1905, in his special theory of relativity, Einstein
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suggested a third way of looking at the matter. He proposed
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a) that the speed of light is the same in all directions,
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irrespective of the motion of any apparatus set up to
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measure it; and
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b) that observers traveling with different velocities would
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see the same things with different lengths and
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durations.
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This eliminated the need for an ether altogether.
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Einstein's famous paper showed that everything could be worked out
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mathematically if these peculiar assumptions about the universe were
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made.
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This was a very odd procedure. Einstein bent" space and time so
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that a velocity could be preserved as a constant. But velocity
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itself is merely distance divided by time.
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Discarding space and time as "absolutes" so that a velocity can be
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retained as an absolute is as strange as it would be for a man to go
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on living undisturbed on the second floor of his house while the
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basement and ground floor were completely remodeled.
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Einstein's assumption about the invariant velocity of light emerged
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from the turn-of-the-century quandary of physicists trying to
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account for the Michelson-Morley result. But if it turns out that
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there is a simpler way of explaining what really happened, we
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should, out of deference to the simplicity that is preferred by
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Page 2
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science, discard the premise that the speed of light is invariant.
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We should (everything else being equal) prefer the notion that light
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behaves like other wave phenomena (such as sound). This would allow
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us to bring back space and time as absolutes. And it would, to a
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large extent, restore the classical world view of Isaac Newton.
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What, then, is Beckmann's theory, and does it indeed achieve such a
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degree of simplification?
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Beckmann argues that the medium through which light waves travel (or
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more generally, electromagnetic waves) is not a universal, all
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pervasive, uniform substance-the ether-but more simply the local
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gravitational field.
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For us, the local" gravitational field is overwhelmingly that of the
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Earth. And this field moves forward with the Earth on its journey
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around the sun. The null result obtained by Michelson-Morley is
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therefore easily explained because there was no "ether wind" to
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measure.
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Analogously, someone in the bathroom of a Boeing 747 would not
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expect to feel a slipstream if he stuck his head out into the main
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cabin. The air in the main cabin is moving along with him.
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Plot Twist
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AT THIS POINT Beckmann adds a plot twist-almost literally. The Earth
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is also rotating on its axis every 24 hours, and there are good
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reasons for believing that the Earth really does rotate within its
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gravitational field; that is, that this field does not twist around
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with the Earth. Beckmann illustrates this key point with the
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following analogy:
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Imagine a woman wearing a hoop skirt fitting loosely around
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her waist.
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As she moves forward, the skirt moves with her and there is
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no relative motion between her and the skirt. But if she then
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pirouettes, or does the twist, while still moving forward,
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she would rotate" within the skirt.
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At that point relative motion between her body and the skirt
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would be detectable.
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The Earth moves forward around the sun at about sixty thousand miles
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per hour; but it rotates on its axis (in the latitude of New York)
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at only about six hundred mph.
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If Beckmann is right, therefore, the detectable relative motion
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between the rotating Earth and its gravitational field is only about
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one-hundredth of what Michelson and Morley were looking for.
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But the relevant equation requires that this fraction be squared,
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and so the expected "fringe shift" is only one ten-thousandth of
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what they expected to find. This was beyond the technical limits of
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measuring instruments in the 1880s. But today it can be measured.
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Readers at this point may well be imagining that Howard Hayden has
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Page 3
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simply redone Michelson-Morley, looking for this much smaller
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effect. In fact, such an experiment would be very expensive for
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someone without the necessary equipment.
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Instead, Hayden has repeated another old experiment, first performed
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at Cambridge in 1903 by Trouton and Noble; an experiment sometimes
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called the electromagnetic equivalent of Michelson-Morley.
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It cannot easily be explained, but it involves suspending a
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capacitor from a very thin copper wire, the whole apparatus being
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carefully protected in a vacuum and shielded from stray currents and
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magnetic influences.
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If the Earth's surface is, as claimed, moving through the Earth's
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gravitational field west to east at six hundred mph, and if this
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field really is the medium in which electromagnetic waves travel,
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the suspended capacitor should experience a torque, slowly twisting
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in the "ether wind" until the capacitor is aligned north-south.
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If, on the other hand, Einstein is right, and the velocity of
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electromagnetic waves is an absolute regardless of the gravitational
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field, there should be no torque.
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HAYDEN HAS DETECTED A TORQUE, as Beckmann predicted.
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Four additional points should be borne in mind:
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Einstein's famous equation, E = MC.sq.2, expressing the relationship
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between mass and energy, is unaffected by all this. It was derived
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independently of relativity theory (some textbooks and
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popularizations to the contrary notwithstanding) and would be
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unaffected by its demise.
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"The most famous experimental test of Einstein occurred in 1919,
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when an expedition photographed a solar eclipse off West Africa and
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confirmed the truth of a new theory of the universe," according to
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the opening page of Paul Johnson's Modern Times.
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Light rays from a star bent slightly, as predicted, as they passed
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close by the sun. But according to Beckmann and Hayden, this can
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easily be explained without relativity. Light rays do bend when
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they pass through a medium of varying density; they bend sharply, as
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anyone can see by looking at a pencil in a glass of water, when
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passing from one medium to another.
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Likewise, but to a much smaller extent, light rays passing from the
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rarefied medium of gravity in outer space into the denser
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gravitational field nearer the sun should be expected to bend.
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Classical physics (Fermat's Law) is sufficient to explain it;
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Einsteinian complexity, such as curved space is not needed.
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(Fermat's Law states that light en route from A to B
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follows the path that minimizes the time of transit.)
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Another much-heralded confirmation of Einstein is the small
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discrepancy between the advance of Mercury's perihelion (the orbital
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point closest to the sun) and the result predicted by Newton.
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Page 4
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"Einstein's theory accounted exactly for this residue," Bertrand
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Russell wrote in The ABC of Relativity. Beckmann is astounded by the
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rewriting of history here.
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Einstein's formula explaining Mercury's orbit, published in 1915 and
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derived from general relativity theory, had in fact been published
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17 years earlier by a man named Paul Gerber (Beckmann believes he
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was a high-school teacher in Stargard, Germany).
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Gerber used classical physics, plus the assumption that gravity is
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not instantaneous (as Newton thought) but propagates with the speed
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of light (as is now generally accepted). Gerber derived Einstein's
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equation exactly, without relativity. Einstein arrived at the same
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point using a complex trick-bag of gravitational tensors and
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Riemannian geometry.
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The protocols of science recommend that simpler explanations should
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be preferred to complex ones, but Gerber has been ignored.
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Albert Michelson, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in
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physics, never accepted the theory of relativity. (Nor did H. A.
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Lorentz.) Michelson believed that the ether he failed to detect was
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entrained by the Earth in its orbit, but NOT IN ITS ROTATION.
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In 1925 he checked this theory, so similar to Beckmann's, in an
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elaborate optical experiment at Clearing, Illinois, with a colleague
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at the University of Chicago, H. G. Gale. They did indeed find a
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fringe shift, which Einstein had to explain by a highly complicated
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application of general relativity theory. But by then Einstein was
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well on his way to deification, and today Michelson/Gale is rarely
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mentioned.
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What is now needed is a rerun of the Michelson-Morley experiment,
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with the Beckmann theory put to the test. The famous experiment was
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repeated by physicists at the University of Colorado in 1979, on a
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rotating table and using laser light. Unexpected perturbations were
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detected, but attributed to other causes.
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One of the experimenters, Dr. John L. Hall of the Joint Institute
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for Laboratory Astrophysics, a leading expert on speed-of-light
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experiments, says that Beckmann "has made a serious effort to reduce
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relativity thinking to an objective environment, in which
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measurements can be made and his theory put to the test." He has
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suggested that Michelson-Morley should be repeated on an orbiting
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satellite.
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The experiment would be crucial because, if Beckmann is correct, the
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much greater velocity with which a satellite passes through the
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Earth's gravitational field (a satellite's "day" is ninety minutes)
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would increase by a factor of four hundred the fringe shift that
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Beckmann would expect to find.
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"Such an experiment would not prove that Beckmann is right," Hall
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added, but it sure could prove that he is wrong." By the same token,
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it could also prove that Einstein is wrong. Let's hope that Hall
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gets the opportunity to do the experiment.
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* NB: Those who would like to try to collect the $2,000 reward can
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reach Beckmann at: P.O. Box 251, Boulder, Colo. 80306; and
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Page 5
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Hayden at: Physics Department, Storrs, Conn. 06269.
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Incidentally, Beckmann publishes Galileian Electrodynamics, a
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bi-monthly journal on the topics raised herein.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------
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If you have comments or other information relating to such topics
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as this paper covers, please upload to KeelyNet or send to the
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Vangard Sciences address as listed on the first page.
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Thank you for your consideration, interest and support.
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Jerry W. Decker.........Ron Barker...........Chuck Henderson
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Vangard Sciences/KeelyNet
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If we can be of service, you may contact
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Jerry at (214) 324-8741 or Ron at (214) 242-9346
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Page 6
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