- #1
elegysix
- 406
- 15
Thank you in advance for reading this and hopefully answering my questions.
I've spent about two hours or so now trying to get my questions organized in a clear way, so that they are direct and to the point.
I've drawn an image to help explain what I'm getting at.
I'm not much of an artist though, so don't expect too much.Basically - We're driving a car going nearly the speed of light and turn the headlights on. Do the headlights work like normal?
The standard answer is yes and the reason is Einstein's postulate (assumption) of the invariance of c, giving way to SR.
why was this assumption made and/or necessary?
What is wrong with applying Galilean invariance/relativity/transformation to the speed of light here? Is there a reason aside from violating the postulate?
We have directly observed phase shifting and we know it exists. We have also observed similar phenomena with all other waves. So we have a precedent for this type of behavior. Yet we do not follow it.
What was so convincing that we discredited this 'old standard' approach/model?So are the waves propagating uniformly from the car at c, or are they being phase shifted and undergoing doppler like effects? According to SR it depends on the observer, which is true for observing anything.
However there is a problem - I'm pretty sure (unless I messed up the math) that phase shifted waves from a moving source do not propagate in a spherically symmetric way.
and Therefore they cannot be equivalent wave functions if the other observer's wave propagates at a speed c from the source(observer), independent of the source's velocity. (The bottom two images help show it)
Yet there is only one source, and so there must be only one wave function in space and time, regardless of the frame of observation. When I say one wave function, I mean that transforming between frames by compensating for the difference - i.e. removing the speed of the observer - should yield an equivalent wave function to the other. (Seems like solid logic to me)
They do not form the same geometric shapes - so I can dilate time as much as I like, but it will not help the wave functions to be equivalent. Unless I undo the prior effects of the invariance of c, through a transformation, I cannot equate the two wave functions. But doing and undoing the effects of the invariance of c do not help me determine where the wave function actually exists.So. Guess I've been over thinking this but, why is the invariance of c accepted / justified?
any thoughts / comments ?
thanks again for reading all this, and hopefully answering/rebutting any points or logical problems.
austin
http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/7633/headlights.jpg
I've spent about two hours or so now trying to get my questions organized in a clear way, so that they are direct and to the point.
I've drawn an image to help explain what I'm getting at.
I'm not much of an artist though, so don't expect too much.Basically - We're driving a car going nearly the speed of light and turn the headlights on. Do the headlights work like normal?
The standard answer is yes and the reason is Einstein's postulate (assumption) of the invariance of c, giving way to SR.
why was this assumption made and/or necessary?
What is wrong with applying Galilean invariance/relativity/transformation to the speed of light here? Is there a reason aside from violating the postulate?
We have directly observed phase shifting and we know it exists. We have also observed similar phenomena with all other waves. So we have a precedent for this type of behavior. Yet we do not follow it.
What was so convincing that we discredited this 'old standard' approach/model?So are the waves propagating uniformly from the car at c, or are they being phase shifted and undergoing doppler like effects? According to SR it depends on the observer, which is true for observing anything.
However there is a problem - I'm pretty sure (unless I messed up the math) that phase shifted waves from a moving source do not propagate in a spherically symmetric way.
and Therefore they cannot be equivalent wave functions if the other observer's wave propagates at a speed c from the source(observer), independent of the source's velocity. (The bottom two images help show it)
Yet there is only one source, and so there must be only one wave function in space and time, regardless of the frame of observation. When I say one wave function, I mean that transforming between frames by compensating for the difference - i.e. removing the speed of the observer - should yield an equivalent wave function to the other. (Seems like solid logic to me)
They do not form the same geometric shapes - so I can dilate time as much as I like, but it will not help the wave functions to be equivalent. Unless I undo the prior effects of the invariance of c, through a transformation, I cannot equate the two wave functions. But doing and undoing the effects of the invariance of c do not help me determine where the wave function actually exists.So. Guess I've been over thinking this but, why is the invariance of c accepted / justified?
any thoughts / comments ?
thanks again for reading all this, and hopefully answering/rebutting any points or logical problems.
austin
http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/7633/headlights.jpg
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