Einstein-Lorentz Horse Race, Who is in the lead?


On Feb 5, 2005, at 12:23 PM, Jack Sarfatti wrote:


On Feb 5, 2005, at 11:22 AM, iksnileiz@earthlink.net wrote:

Jack Sarfatti wrote:

bcc

Paul

The data do, at this moment in the stream of the collective WEB consciousness, SEEM to point to a preferred frame.

Yes, it does seem so.

But you have to lift the "Einsteinian" taboos.

I will read JS Bell on How to Teach Special Relativity more closely.

To really know would be very difficult.

If it were easy, the matter would have been settled already.

However, I think Cahill has a point that the MM experiment, and related experiments, need to be revisited
in the light of more detailed theoretic analysis, and repeated with the benefit of modern technology.

Yes, of course. Remember I have an explanation of ALL "preferred frame" effects in terms of battle-tested "More is different" which leaves the dynamics intact.

Also, I have now solved your original problem of clearly separating frame (appearances) from intrinsic effects (Platonic realities). It becomes trivial in the Cartan tetrad formulation of GR and in the equivalent gauge force picture of GR made crystal clear in the Brazilian paper.

Cahill seems to have a good argument that the small residual fringe shifts in the classic MM experiments are not
noise or simple error, but can be interpreted as reflecting the motion of the earth through space.

What I found most convincing is

=> the residual fringe shifts track the Earth's orbital motion in time (which is known independently); and

=> independent experiments working on similar principles (e.g., the Belgian coax cable tests) yield closely
comparable results for the earth's motion.

Yeah.

Basically, we have to trust the competence & honesty of these experimental authors.

It's not just a matter of competence & honesty. Commitment to a paradigm exercises powerful control over the
interpretation of empirical data, where members of the community of experimental physicist are not necessarily
aware of the influences and subtle institutional pressures that are acting on them and guiding them in their work.

A paradigm sets up powerful taboos in the scientific community, and as we have been hearing, there are even
hidden mechanisms for suppressing publication of contrarian results in preprint archives.

Lorentzian absolute speed v(Earth) ~ 204 +- 36 km/sec, rather than Einsteinian relative speed is definitely in the running in terms of the actual evidence.

But as I said. you are up against powerful relativistic taboos.

To me this is all like a metastable supersaturated solution that is about to crystallize.

As soon as people realize that all "preferred frames" are simply another way to look at spontaneous broken symmetry leaving the dynamics pristine, all opposition will fall away. I am using exactly the same principles used by Frank Wilczek but applying them to space-time symmetries. Frank applies them to internal symmetries. The key idea is the same in both cases! This is all pretty standard "soft-condensed matter physics" and "Higgs field". BTW, latest Nature confirms Josephson AC effect in superfluid He from chemical potential difference as predicted by PW Anderson years ago using the same ideas I am using here!

There are only two important ideas in theoretical physics

1. Local gauge invariance with compensating connection fields.

2. Spontaneous breaking of the symmetry of the vacuum leaving the dynamics intact.

That's Sarfatti's Theory of Everything.

Every known anomaly in precision cosmology and high energy physics can be explained by proper application of only those two battle-tested ideas.

Notice however, that even accepting that will not make much of a quantitative difference in terms of classic tests of both special and general relativity.

But it would radically change the interpretation of relativity physics, and suggest very different avenues of future development.

No, you are wrong there. Again it's simply:

There are only two important ideas in theoretical physics today

1. Local gauge invariance with compensating connection fields.

2. Spontaneous breaking of the symmetry of the vacuum leaving the dynamics intact.

That's Sarfatti's Theory of Everything combining quantum field theory with general relativity.

Capishe?

More with less.

The Question is: What is The Question? (J.A. Wheeler)


Also, as I have shown, the way to understand the preferred frame is as spontaneous breakdown of O(1,3) symmetry in the physical vacuum in finite "domains" analogous to those in a ferromagnet.

Yes, this looks like an interesting model for the vacuum. However, I see no reason why the vacuum, even in its quiescent state, cannot define a preferred frame of reference, even with respect to uniform motion, once you go to a Lorentzian model. It is only in the 1905 Einstein paradigm (based on a now thoroughly outdated Machian epistemology) that such an idea is *verboten*.

I guess you are agreeing with me here. The point is that all this is experiment-driven. If Cahill is correct on the empirics I have a mainstream way to interpret it. There is no threat to mainstream physics here. My position is ultra-conservative - shall I say neo-conservative? :-)

From my POV, it really all comes down to empirics. Shorn of its inflated Machian pretensions, the relativity "principle" is really just a physical *hypothesis* much like any other.

Yes.

...

The preferred orientation of the ferromagnetism in the ground state violation of O(3) is formally isomorphic to the preferred "rapidity" (i.e. the Wick-rotated orientation from Euclidean metric to hyperbolic metric) in the breakdown of O(1,3) in the physical vacuum. In ALL cases there is no violation of the dynamical symmetries. The action and the equations of motion are still tensor/spinor covariant under ALL the symmetries both spacetime and internal. This distinction between dynamical symmetry breakdown and spontaneous ground state breakdown was a struggle as P.W. Anderson chronicles in "A Career in Theoretical Physics" - even the great Eugene Wigner made his greatest blunder there back in the 60's I think on "electric charge superselection rules" violated in the BCS superconductor that is a macro-quantum coherent superposition of different numbers of bound electron pairs. This breaking of U(1) gauge symmetry is a "preferred frame" in the internal space, just as Cahill's et-al's absolute velocities give a "preferred frame" in ordinary space. The covariance of the fundamental laws of nature under all symmetry groups are NOT affected by this!

It is not clear to me how this relates to the effects discussed by Cahill, which depend on the optical properties of the moving medium though which the MM light beam travels.

You are not understanding the key idea that you must see mathematically. You still do not get the analogy to the ferromagnet. What Cahill reports is exactly like a ferromagnet only the group G has changed from O(3) for the ferromagnet to O(1,3) for Cahill's reporting of the Michelson-Morley data, and also the Catania, Sicily group, they get a smaller number than Cahill.

You do not yet understand P.W. Anderson's "More is different", which is 2 in:

There are only two important ideas in theoretical physics

1. Local gauge invariance with compensating connection fields.

2. Spontaneous breaking of the symmetry of the vacuum leaving the dynamics intact.

That's Sarfatti's Theory of Everything.

Cliff Will must discuss these ether drift allegations?

I doubt it.

"If we cannot refute him, then we must ... agree to ignore him." (quoted by Tony Smith).

Z.


On Feb 4, 2005, at 5:53 PM, iksnileiz@earthlink.net wrote:

Already have.

Interesting paper.

Jack Sarfatti wrote:

look