Have just listened to a very interesting red ice interview with William Lyne , his work deals with the Aether, I'll have to check out Aether forum.....
Sain84
Re: Relativity
CharlesChandler wrote: What is the deflection of a photon arriving at Earth along a tangent to the Earth's rotation (i.e., perpendicular to a line from the Earth to the Sun), such that the photon never got nearer to the Sun than the Earth?
By my calculation it's 4 milliarcseconds, the paper includes this value too. Small but doable with fine measurements. Hipparcos' final measurements were of precision 1 mas. GAIA's precision will be about 0.02 mas for brighter stars
If so, what is your calculation of the expected deflection due to the mirage effect?
No idea. Refracton in such small densities won't follow the same rules as in the atmosphere, the properties of the plasma will dominate. Calculating that's much beyond be. But observations say it isn't the case. If this were a refractive process we would see differences across the spectrum, that isn't observed because measurements of gamma in radio and optical agree.
CharlesChandler
Re: Relativity
Can you show evidence that the sort of refraction in question (i.e., a density gradient in an homogenous gas, not a boundary between two substances) affects different wavelengths differently? The reddening of sunlight near the horizon isn't refraction — it's scattering. So it isn't that the atmosphere is acting like a prism — it's just that tangential light has to pass through more atmosphere, and thus is subjected to more blue absorption. I wasn't able to find any info on density gradient prismatic effects, so I'm questioning this.
For example, there are several degrees of deflection in this mirage, but no noticeable color shift:
CharlesChandler wrote: Can you show evidence that the sort of refraction in question (i.e., a density gradient in an homogenous gas, not a boundary between two substances) affects different wavelengths differently? The reddening of sunlight near the horizon isn't refraction — it's scattering. So it isn't that the atmosphere is acting like a prism — it's just that tangential light has to pass through more atmosphere, and thus is subjected to more blue absorption. I wasn't able to find any info on density gradient prismatic effects, so I'm questioning this.
For example, there are several degrees of deflection in this mirage, but no noticeable color shift:
Refraction in the heliosphere is wavelength dependent. There are lot's of papers which discuss the effect of refraction but i can't find any that I have access to that deal specifically with frequency dependence rather than just removing it. Ionospheric refraction is a related topic, again plasma refraction, which is important in communications and wavelength dependent. Again I struggle to find a paper which deals explicitly with frequency dependent effects but this is the best I can do. I apologise it isn't open access.
I'm aware Rayleigh scattering causes sunsets. You're image is visible light so dispersion would need to be significant to be noticeable over such a small range in frequencies. If we look over longer distances we can see something.
If you want to see a real life example of this you should look at atmospheric dispersion and atmospheric dispersion corrector. It's a real problem in astronomy for professional astronomers and amateur observers that the atmosphere acts like a prism.
You can even see the effect with the naked eye sometimes if you look at a very bright star low in the sky. If the atmosphere is turbulent enough you can sometimes see not only that the star scintillates (seems to flash) but the colour seems to change quickly.
CharlesChandler
Re: Relativity
Sain84 wrote: You're image is visible light so dispersion would need to be significant to be noticeable over such a small range in frequencies. If we look over longer distances we can see something.
What are you talking about? If a mirage was a prismatic refraction, everything in the mirage would be in rainbow colors.
Sain84
Re: Relativity
CharlesChandler wrote: What are you talking about? If a mirage was a prismatic refraction, everything in the mirage would be in rainbow colors.
No, not necessarily. It's entirely dependent on the amount of dispersion. Not all prisms are equal, you can make one which disperses the light much more than another. And remember the defection in a prism is huge compared to a mirage, so the difference is amplified much greater. Refraction happens in lenses but you can look though a low dispersion lens and see no obvious dispersion.
A green flash is an example of a mirage that is being dispersed. The red is refracted to appear lower than the blue but the blue is strongly scattered leaving green around the top of the solar disk.
CharlesChandler
Re: Relativity
Sain84 wrote: It's entirely dependent on the amount of dispersion. Not all prisms are equal, you can make one which disperses the light much more than another.
Of course, but you're evading the issue. Show me a picture where a prism deflects light several degrees, such that you can see a primary and an inverted secondary image, and the colors in the secondary image match the primary image. If you do, it isn't a prism — it's a lens. Of course, according to you, if you detect a milli-arc-second deflection, and if it operates on long and short wavelengths the same way, it can only be due to gravitational lensing. But here I'm showing you several degrees of deflection, and we see no change in color in the secondary image, and you insist that it isn't a lens — it's a prism. The reason is that if it's a lens, you have to answer for why density gradients in space can't fully account for the so-called "gravitational lensing" effect. And you continue to cite near-horizon effects on sunlight (such as green flashes) as evidence of the supposed prismatic effects of a density gradient, which are actually due to scattering. The example that I provided of a mirage displays more deflection than we see in the Sun near the horizon, even in extreme cases where atmospheric layering also produces mirages. The effects on near-horizon sunlight are obvious in photography, but we see no such effects in mirages. And you say that it's a function of distance, not angle of deflection? The only thing that is a function of distance is scattering, which fully accounts for the blue sky and the red Sun at the horizon. To float arguments like that, you need an audience that gives you the benefit of the doubt, and if it sounds good, it is good. But among people who know how to think critically, you have to do better than that. Sorry.
Sain84
Re: Relativity
CharlesChandler wrote: Of course, but you're evading the issue. Show me a picture where a prism deflects light several degrees, such that you can see a primary and an inverted secondary image, and the colors in the secondary image match the primary image. If you do, it isn't a prism — it's a lens. Of course, according to you, if you detect a milli-arc-second deflection, and if it operates on long and short wavelengths the same way, it can only be due to gravitational lensing. But here I'm showing you several degrees of deflection, and we see no change in color in the secondary image, and you insist that it isn't a lens — it's a prism. The reason is that if it's a lens, you have to answer for why density gradients in space can't fully account for the so-called "gravitational lensing" effect. And you continue to cite near-horizon effects on sunlight (such as green flashes) as evidence of the supposed prismatic effects of a density gradient, which are actually due to scattering. The example that I provided of a mirage displays more deflection than we see in the Sun near the horizon, even in extreme cases where atmospheric layering also produces mirages. The effects on near-horizon sunlight are obvious in photography, but we see no such effects in mirages. And you say that it's a function of distance, not angle of deflection? The only thing that is a function of distance is scattering, which fully accounts for the blue sky and the red Sun at the horizon. To float arguments like that, you need an audience that gives you the benefit of the doubt, and if it sounds good, it is good. But among people who know how to think critically, you have to do better than that. Sorry.
Both a lens and a prism work on the same basis, refraction. A lens is proof that a refractive effect does not have to produce significant dispersion. But there is always dispersion in a refractive lens. The reason dispersion isn't significant in lenses is because the angle of incidence is close to normal. In the case of a mirage you have very small deflections in any one air pocket so the chromatic aberration. With light incident at the top of the atmosphere the angle between media can be very large indeed, thus more deflection and more dispersion. I never said dispersion wasn't dependent on the angle of deflection.
The green flash cannot be explained by scattering. Scattering is much stronger for shorter wavelengths, it doesn't explain why green would be at the top. I never suggested the sky nor sunsets had anything to do with refraction. Seeing colour aberration in an image isn't always easy. Camera lenses are almost always imperfect but noticing chromatic aberration isn't always easy, but it can be seen in careful analysis.
I mean honestly, I've shown you examples of dispersion in stars and you can see how small the effect is, do you really expect it to be obvious in any image? Those are high magnification images, very different to the wide field camera shots of mirages you presented. At those wide angles you don't see the dispersion of starlight, it doesn't mean it isn't there. You can't expect to see every effect in any observation.
marengo
Re: Relativity
Charles Chandler. Your concern that effects other than gravity are bending light is misplaced. The propagation velocity of the Aether is the gravitational potential. We know from its effect on mass that the diminished grav. pot caused by the presence of a massive body diminishes with inverse distance from the centre of the body. Thus light slows as it approaches the Sun. It therefore follows that the side of a tangential light ray nearest the Sun moves slower than the opposite side and this causes the bending of the light ray. That effect cannot be argued against.
CharlesChandler
Re: Relativity
Sain84 wrote: I mean honestly, I've shown you examples of dispersion in stars and you can see how small the effect is, do you really expect it to be obvious in any image? Those are high magnification images, very different to the wide field camera shots of mirages you presented. At those wide angles you don't see the dispersion of starlight, it doesn't mean it isn't there. You can't expect to see every effect in any observation.
Oh, OK. So Eddington measures a deflection of a couple arc-seconds, with none of the expected effects of refraction, and calls it proof of GR. Then I show you a photograph where there are several degrees of deflection, and none of the expected effects of refraction, and you don't see that I just caused you a problem?
Sparky
Re: Relativity
velocity of the Aether is the gravitational potential
(gravity) in the presence of a massive body diminishes with inverse distance from the centre of the body.
The velocity would not slow....The "effect" would be less....But why?
Sain84
Re: Relativity
CharlesChandler wrote: Oh, OK. So Eddington measures a deflection of a couple arc-seconds, with none of the expected effects of refraction, and calls it proof of GR. Then I show you a photograph where there are several degrees of deflection, and none of the expected effects of refraction, and you don't see that I just caused you a problem?
You've shown me an image from blue to red (a frequency change of factor 2) showing no obvious dispersion, I say this is not a problem because camera lenses are dispersive and yet it isn't always obvious in images. I've shown you observations from visible to radio, 15 GHz to 600 THz (a frequency change of factor 40,000) which show no dispersion. Nothing known can do that.
I'm not claiming this proves GR, no experiment can ever claim that of any theory. I'm stating it is consistent with GR and as far as I'm aware refraction cannot explain these observations.
CharlesChandler
Re: Relativity
Sain84 wrote: I've shown you observations from visible to radio, 15 GHz to 600 THz (a frequency change of factor 40,000) which show no dispersion. Nothing known can do that.
What is the dispersion over that frequency range for a mirage — say, for example, one that can refract the light 5 degrees?
