Talk:Emission theory (relativity)

I deleted the line about incompatibility witn modern shift experiments
I deleted the line about incompatibility with modern shift experiments,


 * "4 The results of high speed reenactments of the Ives-Stilwell experiment disagree with the emission theory"

Because, AFAIK, these experiments don't tend to claim to be run and analysed in such a way to make them useful for comparing the shift predictions of emission theory against those of current theory.

Researchers may well fully expect these results to be incompatible with emission theory, but that's not the same thing as actually having demonstrated it.

If anybody can find supporting arguments or evidence for #4, it can go back in. ErkDemon (talk) 18:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

more background info

 * My understanding of the experimental literature is that while the specific Ives-Stilwell results are in conflict with emission theory, later experimenters have questioned whether the claimed accuracy of that test could have been as good as claimed, given the equipment used. The aspect of I-S that has been repeatedly verified with more accurate equipment since ... that real-world Doppler shifts are "redder" than those that we'd predict by saying that the speed of light is simply fixed in the lab frame ... isn't necessarily in disagreement with emission theory, because emission-theory makes similar prediction. Emission theory has a physical counterpart of SR's "transverse redshift" component, and under emission theory, this component is expected to be stronger than it is under SR.


 * What the more recent shift experiments usually set out to test was the existence of a redshift deviation from the constant-c predictions of "classical theory" that has "Lorentzlike" characteristics, and that is at least as strong as special relativity. The test theory used doesn't typically doesn't tend to tell experimenters to look for redshifts stronger than those of SR (in the emission-theory range), or to take those stronger redshifts seriously if they do find them, because it's assumed that DeSitter 's results have already ruled out that possibility. According to default test theory, stronger redshifts aren't part of the "analysis window", and we only need to test SR by comparing the predictions of "classical theory" against the redder predictions of SR. Our analysis is typically of the range "CT<-->SR", not "CT<-->SR<-->ET".


 * When these experiments do find stronger redshifts than SR predicts, they tend to be written off as the side-effects of complicating hardware issues that produce an asymmetrical shift, towards the red (e.g. mirror recoil). In the one test in the literature that actually tried to measure the transverse redshift directly, (Hasselkamp et al, 1979), the experimenters found twice as much redshift as SR predicted, in line with emission theory's predictions ... but reasoned that since this result was obviously wrong, their detector must have been misaligned, and that when one reanalysed the data allowing for a larger angular error in the detector, it was possible to show statistically that SR made a far better match to the data than the idea of a simple fixed speed of light in the lab frame.


 * So, thanks to the Hasselkamp experiment, we know that analysis for compatibility with the "emission theory" results is not a standard part of the analysis of these more modern experiments, to the extent that it's quite possible to get a result that seems to agree better with emission theory than than SR, and still get it published it in a peer-reviewed journal as supporting SR.


 * I don't think that we want to discuss any of this in the article.
 * Points 1-3 seem to provide sufficient arguments against the validity of simple historical emission theory, and seem to be the arguments that the more informed researchers actually use, so I think we should probably stick with those.
 * Point 4 seems to be valid specifically for Ives-Stilwell, but not so much valid for later experiments, which tended to assume that emission theory was already known to be wrong, and therefore didn't have to be tested for. If we mention Ives-Stilwell in this article as a significant result for emission theory, it opens up the debate as to whether the I-S results were "over-optimistic", which is again getting a bit off-topic.


 * If we want to mention a more modern experimental result that does legitimately seem to rule out historical emission theory, I think the correct thing to do is to instead quote the 1977 paper by Kenneth Brecher that replicates DeSitter's result for the lack of any obvious distance-dependent signal flight-time offsets in light from double-star systems. ErkDemon (talk) 18:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Important issues to be found at discussion start - why not in main article?
Concerning de Sitter critique: 'This can be expressed in terms of the "extinction effect", and it arguably undermines the cogency of deSitter type evidence based on optical stars.'

the next reference to tests in the x-ray spectrum still looks to me subject potentially to the photon re-emission/ extinction effect. In the atmosphere for example light is reemitted about every millimetre, and this would not exclude x-rays as far as I am aware. This sort of issue for binary stars was raised by - as referred to in.

From the discussion:

'it's quite possible to get a result that seems to agree better with emission theory than than SR, and still get it published it in a peer-reviewed journal as supporting SR.'

'(Hasselkamp et al, 1979), the experimenters found twice as much redshift as SR predicted, in line with emission theory's predictions ... but reasoned that since this result was obviously wrong, their detector must have been misaligned,'

'If we mention Ives-Stilwell in this article as a significant result for emission theory, it opens up the debate as to whether the I-S results were "over-optimistic", which is again getting a bit off-topic.'

The passing points mentioned - regrettably not in the article itself - here are enough to cause outrage about such scientists to someone like me who suspects that these points questions the validity of Special relativity over emission theory/ or other doppler theory light applications. Rarely have I seen such unscientific attitudes as referred. There was also Shankland et al's, misrepensentation of the various interferometry data as indicating insignificant fringe shift levels; just because they were all lower than for a 30km/s relatively moving ether (re. orbiting earth). That 'only' interferometerist Dayton Miller, seemed to take any notice of the still significant fringe shifts often found, shouldn't be the sort of attitude used justify the S - R view when partial ether entrainment can be positted for this.

We are then, amidst a dominant view where the rest of us are generally treated as children who need to read another introductory text book on the subject and so forth. This would miss the much more central issues that surround the details of the referred to experiments themselves, along with addressing the counterarguments concerning supposed validation evidence for special relativity. Recently, work in the microwave range questions the applicability of special relativity: See also.

To conclude, was much more interested in those extraordinary revelations from the discussion page, than the pat on the back of dominant physics to be found in the main article - would be brilliant to see these points put into article itself..

Many thanks. 82.69.31.176 (talk) 00:12, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

[1] J G Fox in Am. J. Phys. 30, 297 (1962)

[2] 'Special Relativity' by A P French (1968)

[3] 'Absence of the relativistic transverse Doppler shift at microwave frequencies' H W Thim, Instrumentation and Measurement, IEEE Transactions on; Oct 2003, Vol 52, Issue 5, pp 1660-1664

[4] E Baird 'Relativity in Curved Spacetime: Life without Special Relativity.'

82.69.31.176 (talk) 00:19, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Direction of chart recorder?
Uploaded a new animation of de Sitter's argument against emission theory. I animated the chart recording of the variable star light curve moving to the right, but should it be going to the left? Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 11:46, 20 July 2012 (UTC)


 * It's fine this way - thanks once again ;-) btw: Is it possible for you to create an image for Kennedy–Thorndike experiment? It could use one... --D.H (talk) 14:43, 20 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I've been trying to think of how to do it, what to emphasize. Should I simply do a bare schematic of the optics, or should I put emphasis on the water jacket, fused quartz mountings, to emphasize the extreme care taken to ensure stability of the apparatus? Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 14:50, 20 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm sure that a schematic of the optics is sufficient, but do as you wish. --D.H (talk) 15:01, 20 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I have to accommodate your needs as well. I presume that you want a diagram that makes it easy to perform a mathematical demonstration. That would mean a minimal schematic with the arms at right angles to each other and labeled L1, L2 etc. But the reality was that the beam splitter and compensating mirrors were set to the Brewster angle, since back when the experiment was performed, vacuum deposition technology was in its infancy and anti-reflective coatings were mostly a theoretical fantasy. So I envision two diagrams, one to present the engineering details, the other to make it easier for you to perform whatever mathematical demonstrations you wish to make. What I'll probably do is upload sample drawings to my Google Documents account and you can suggest improvements to meet your needs. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 04:41, 21 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Really, a simple schematic of the original experiment is more than enough. But if you want to make a more complex graph, maybe you should also create an image based on the cavity experiment of Braxmaier et al. --D.H (talk) 08:33, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm having some difficulty understanding Braxmaier's image so that I know what to leave out in providing a simplified view for the typical Wikipedia reader. A good deal of the technology is unfamiliar to me. Fortunately I located this article. You'll need to give me a few days. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 05:35, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The luminosity curve that has never been seen was seen in 1999
The luminosity curve that has never been seen (according to Stigmatella aurantiacacan) be found from the British Astronomical Association, http://www.britastro.org/vss/gifc/00918-ck.gif Lord Androcles —Preceding undated comment added 18:12, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

More arguments against traditional refutations of emission
While Fox's arguments (and experiment) vis a vis extinction are noted in the Astronomical and Terrestrial Sources sections, his other arguments against the refutations of Tomashek, Michelson, Fizeau, and Sagnac seem to be ignored in the Interferometry section. The conclusion to his 1965 "Evidence Against Emission Theories" paper is that none of the refutations of emission theory (up to that time, of course) bore full weight except for Babcock and Bergman, Filippas and Fox, and Alvager et al. Other experiments could all be either explained or questioned in some way another. The Martinez paper goes into that in some detail. Fox's arguments are all the more interesting because he was never anything but fully convinced in the correctness of special relativity. Pgf (talk) 14:52, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Back to front discovery
When I first came across special relativity, with its weirdness about changing fundamental things like space and time, it seemed that the Emission theory was an obviously simpler explanation (although I only discovered that term quite recently). Yet the binary star refutation was provide long *after* Einstein's special relativity, and Fox's refutation of that much later again. So Einstein's comment about light being "all mixed up" did not refer to that, in which case what did it refer to?

Some elaboration on that, particularly in the special relativity section would be helpful.Tuntable (talk) 00:43, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 23 August 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover)  ❯❯❯  Raydann  (Talk)   20:47, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Emission theory → Emission theory (relativity) – No clear primary topic. Emission theory (vision) gets over three times as many |Emission_theory_(vision) page views. Schierbecker (talk) 20:24, 23 August 2023 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support per nom.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 16:10, 24 August 2023 (UTC)