Fresnel's Laws, Ceteris Paribus
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JAMES Maccullagh (1809-1847)
Hidden gems and Forgotten People ULSTER HISTORY CIRCLE JAMES MacCULLAGH (1809-1847) James MacCullagh, the eldest of twelve children, was born in the townland of Landahussy in the parish of Upper Badoney, Co. Tyrone in 1809. He was to become one of Ireland and Europe's most significant mathematicians and physicists. He entered Trinity College, Dublin aged just 15 years and became a fellow in 1832. He was accepted as a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1833 before attaining the position of Professor of Mathematics in 1834. He was an inspiring teacher who influenced a generation of students, some of whom were to make their own contributions to the subjects. He held the position of Chair of Mathematics from 1835 to 1843 and later Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy from 1843 to 1847. In 1838 James MacCullagh was awarded the Royal Irish Academy's Cunningham Medal for his work 'On the laws of crystalline reflexion'. In 1842, a year prior to his becoming a fellow of the Royal Society, London, he was awarded their Copley Medal for his work 'On surfaces of the second order'. He devoted much of the remainder of his life to the work of the Royal Irish Academy. James MacCullagh's interests went beyond mathematical physics. He played a key role in building up the Academy's collection of Irish antiquities, now housed in the National Museum of Ireland. Although not a wealthy man, he purchased the early 12th century Cross of Cong, using what was at that time, his life savings. In August 1847 he stood unsuccessfully as a parliamentary candidate for one of the Dublin University seats. -
Einstein's Simple Mathematical Trick –And the Illusion of a Constant
Applied Physics Research; Vol. 5, No. 4; 2013 ISSN 1916-9639 E-ISSN 1916-9647 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education Einstein’s Simple Mathematical Trick –and the Illusion of a Constant Speed of Light Conrad Ranzan1 1 DSSU Research, Niagara Falls, Canada Correspondence: Conrad Ranzan, Director, DSSU Research, 5145 Second Avenue, Niagara Falls, ON. L2E 4J8, Canada. Tel: 1-905-357-0788. E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] Received: May 24, 2013 Accepted: June 25, 2013 Online Published: July 15, 2013 doi:10.5539/apr.v5n4p85 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/apr.v5n4p85 Abstract It is shown how Einstein achieves the illusion of lightspeed invariance by employing a simple mathematical trick—and magically abolishing the aether. As if part of a "conspiracy" against man's efforts to obtain knowledge of the physical world, Nature has a “trick” of its own in providing the illusion of lightspeed invariance. The illusion works remarkably well, thanks to length contraction and clock slowing both of which are induced by absolute motion with respect to aether. Einstein’s illusion and Nature’s illusion, however, conceal the physical reality that the one-way speed of light, contrary to a strict interpretation of Einstein’s 2nd postulate, is NOT constant. Keywords: Albert Einstein, DSSU aether theory, special relativity, speed of light, 2nd postulate, absolute motion, absolute space, aether, length contraction, clock retardation As Einstein regarded the situation, the [aether] experiments, seemed to indicate a "conspiracy" on the part of nature against man's efforts to obtain knowledge of the physical world. -
James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell JAMES CLERK MAXWELL Perspectives on his Life and Work Edited by raymond flood mark mccartney and andrew whitaker 3 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries c Oxford University Press 2014 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2014 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2013942195 ISBN 978–0–19–966437–5 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. -
The Cambridge Mathematical Journal and Its Descendants: the Linchpin of a Research Community in the Early and Mid-Victorian Age ✩
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Elsevier - Publisher Connector Historia Mathematica 31 (2004) 455–497 www.elsevier.com/locate/hm The Cambridge Mathematical Journal and its descendants: the linchpin of a research community in the early and mid-Victorian Age ✩ Tony Crilly ∗ Middlesex University Business School, Hendon, London NW4 4BT, UK Received 29 October 2002; revised 12 November 2003; accepted 8 March 2004 Abstract The Cambridge Mathematical Journal and its successors, the Cambridge and Dublin Mathematical Journal,and the Quarterly Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, were a vital link in the establishment of a research ethos in British mathematics in the period 1837–1870. From the beginning, the tension between academic objectives and economic viability shaped the often precarious existence of this line of communication between practitioners. Utilizing archival material, this paper presents episodes in the setting up and maintenance of these journals during their formative years. 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Résumé Dans la période 1837–1870, le Cambridge Mathematical Journal et les revues qui lui ont succédé, le Cambridge and Dublin Mathematical Journal et le Quarterly Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, ont joué un rôle essentiel pour promouvoir une culture de recherche dans les mathématiques britanniques. Dès le début, la tension entre les objectifs intellectuels et la rentabilité économique marqua l’existence, souvent précaire, de ce moyen de communication entre professionnels. Sur la base de documents d’archives, cet article présente les épisodes importants dans la création et l’existence de ces revues. 2004 Elsevier Inc. -
General Relativity Requires Absolute Space and Time 1 Space
CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by CERN Document Server General Relativity Requires Amp`ere’s theory of magnetism [10]. Maxwell uni- Absolute Space and Time fied Faraday’s theory with Huyghens’ wave the- ory of light, where in Maxwell’s theory light is Rainer W. K¨uhne considered as an oscillating electromagnetic wave Lechstr. 63, 38120 Braunschweig, Germany which propagates through the luminiferous aether of Huyghens. We all know that the classical kinematics was re- placed by Einstein’s Special Relativity [11]. Less We examine two far-reaching and somewhat known is that Special Relativity is not able to an- heretic consequences of General Relativity. swer several problems that were explained by clas- (i) It requires a cosmology which includes sical mechanics. a preferred rest frame, absolute space and According to the relativity principle of Special time. (ii) A rotating universe and time travel Relativity, all inertial frames are equivalent, there are strict solutions of General Relativity. is no preferred frame. Absolute motion is not re- quired, only the relative motion between the iner- tial frames is needed. The postulated absence of an absolute frame prohibits the existence of an aether [11]. 1 Space and Time Before Gen- According to Special Relativity, each inertial eral Relativity frame has its own relative time. One can infer via the Lorentz transformations [12] on the time of the According to Aristotle, the Earth was resting in the other inertial frames. Absolute space and time do centre of the universe. He considered the terrestrial not exist. Furthermore, space is homogeneous and frame as a preferred frame and all motion relative isotropic, there does not exist any rotational axis of to the Earth as absolute motion. -
The Physics Surrounding the Michelson-Morley Experiment and a New Æther Theory
The physics surrounding the Michelson-Morley experiment and a new æther theory Israel P´erez Department of Applied Physics, CINVESTAV, M´erida, Yucat´an,M´exico Abstract From the customary view the Michelson-Morley experiment is used to expose the failure of the aether theory. The key point in this experiment is the fringe shift of the interference pattern. Regularly, the fringe shift calculations are only presented from the perspective of the inertial frame where the one-way speed of light is anisotropic which gives a partial vision of the problem. In a spirit of revision of these facts we have meticulously analyzed the physics behind them. As a result, an angular effect which is based on Huyghens principle and plays a fundamental role in the reflection of light waves at moving mirrors is incorporated. Moreover, under the assumption of a null result in the experiment, on the one hand, the fringe shift conditions demand actual relativistic effects; on the other, it is confirmed that Maxwell's electrodynamics and Galilean relativity are incompatible formulations. From these two points at least three inertial theories follow: (1) the special theory of relativity (SR), (2) a new aether theory (NET) based on the Tangherlini transformations and (3) emission theories based on Ritz' modification of electrodynamics. A brief review of their physical content is presented and the problem of the aether detection as well as the propagation of light, within the context of SR and the NET, are discussed. Despite the overwhelming amount of evidences that apparently favors SR we claim that there are no strong reasons to refuse the aether which conceived as a continuous material medium, still stands up as a physical reality and could be physically associated with dark matter, the cosmic background radiation and the vacuum condensates of particle physics. -
Ponderable Aethers, Which Arise in fixed Clock Theories
Prepared for submission to JCAP Ponderable aether Antony J. Speranzaa,b aMaryland Center for Fundamental Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742 bPerimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline Street North, ON N2L 2Y5, Canada E-mail: [email protected] Abstract. We consider a Lorentz-violating theory of gravity where the aether vector is taken to be nondynamical. This “ponderable aether theory” is almost the same as Einstein- aether theory (where the aether vector is dynamical), but involves additional integration constants arising due to the loss of initial value constraints. One of these produces an effective energy density for the aether fluid, similar to the appearance of dark matter in projectable Hoˇrava gravity and the mimetic dark matter theory. Here we investigate the extent to which this energy density can reproduce the phenomenology of dark matter. Although it is indistinguishable from cold dark matter in homogeneous, isotropic cosmology, it encounters phenomenological problems in both spherically symmetric configurations and cosmological perturbations. Furthermore, inflationary considerations lead us to expect a tiny value for the ponderable aether energy density today unless a sourcing effect is added to the theory. The theory then effectively reduces to dynamical Einstein-aether theory, rendering moot the question of whether an aether must be dynamical in order to be consistent. arXiv:1504.03305v1 [gr-qc] 13 Apr 2015 Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Lorentz-violating structures 3 2.1 Dynamics for Lorentz-violation -
Glossary "The Difference Between Genius and Stupidity Is That Genius Has Its Limits" - Albert Einstein ( 1879 - 1955 )
Relativity Science Calculator - Glossary "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits" - Albert Einstein ( 1879 - 1955 ) Aberration [ aberration of (star)light, astronomical aberration, stellar aberration ]: An astronomical phenomenon different from the phenomenon of parallax whereby small apparent motion displacements of all fixed stars on the celestial sphere due to Earth's orbital velocity mandates that terrestrial telescopes must also be adjusted to slightly different directions as the Earth yearly transits the Sun. Stellar aberration is totally independent of a star's distance from Earth but rather depends upon the transverse velocity of an observer on Earth, all of which is unlike the phenomenon of parallax. For example, vertically falling rain upon your umbrella will appear to come from in front of you the faster you walk and hence the more you will adjust the position of the umbrella to deflect the rain. Finally, the fact that Earth does not drag with itself in its immediate vicinity any amount of aether helps dissuade the concept that indeed the aether exists. Star Aberration produces visual distortions of the spatial external ( spacetime ) world, a sort of faux spacetime curvature geometry. See: Celestial Sphere; also Parallax which is a totally different phenomenon. Absolute Motion, Time and Space by Isaac Newton: "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica", by Isaac Newton, published July 5, 1687, translated from the original Latin by Andrew Motte ( 1729 ), as revised by Florian Cajori ( Berkeley, -
A New Cosmology, Based Upon the Hertzian Fundamental Principle of Mechanics by Pascal M
A new cosmology, based upon the Hertzian fundamental principle of mechanics by Pascal M. .Rapier Director Newtonian Science Foundation, 3154 Deseret Dr. Richmond, Calif. PRESENTADO POR EL ACADÉMICO D. JULIO PALACIOS RESUMEN Con el reciente descubrimiento de la explosión de la «estrella neutrónicaj>, y con la invalidación de la teoría de la relatividad de Einstein por el experimento de Kantor, ¡a cosmologia newtoniana adquiere capital importancia. Esta cosmología se basa en el principio fundamental de Mecánica de Hertz : Todo sistema libre, persiste r» su estado de reposo o de movimiento uniforme en el camino más corto. En consecuencia, el corrimiento hacia el rojo de las rayas espectrales resulta ser debido a una degradación de la energía, degradación que es inherente a la propa- gación de la luz, y no a un efecto de Doppler, ad hoc, como se había admitido. Ea relación entre dicho corrimiento y la luminosidad, observada en las galaxias lejanas, se deduce de dicho principio y sirve para confirmarlo. Se demuestra además que la energía que llena todo el espacio y que se atribuye a los neutrinos, es el resultado de reacciones nucleares consistentes en la emisión de partículas beta y del corrimiento hacia el rojo. Esta energía es responsable de las explosiones de las «estrellas neutrónicas». Tales explosiones sirven para recrear hidrógeno virgen a partir de los detritus estelares y para distribuirlo por todo el universo, con lo que hay una creación continua de nuevas estrellas. En consecuen- cia, dunque el universo fuese infinitamente viejo, no tiene porqué «venirse abajo». Además, la cosmología newtoniana exige que el espacio sea estable, que no se ex- panda, y que sea homogéneo, euclideo e infinito. -
Basic Concepts for a Fundamental Aether Theory1
BASIC CONCEPTS FOR A FUNDAMENTAL AETHER THEORY1 Joseph Levy 4 square Anatole France, 91250 St Germain-lès-Corbeil, France E-mail: [email protected] 55 Pages, 8 figures, Subj-Class General physics ABSTRACT In the light of recent experimental and theoretical data, we go back to the studies tackled in previous publications [1] and develop some of their consequences. Some of their main aspects will be studied in further detail. Yet this text remains self- sufficient. The questions asked following these studies will be answered. The consistency of these developments in addition to the experimental results, enable to strongly support the existence of a preferred aether frame and of the anisotropy of the one-way speed of light in the Earth frame. The theory demonstrates that the apparent invariance of the speed of light results from the systematic measurement distortions entailed by length contraction, clock retardation and the synchronization procedures with light signals or by slow clock transport. Contrary to what is often believed, these two methods have been demonstrated to be equivalent by several authors [1]. The compatibility of the relativity principle with the existence of a preferred aether frame and with mass-energy conservation is discussed and the relation existing between the aether and inertial mass is investigated. The experimental space-time transformations connect co-ordinates altered by the systematic measurement distortions. Once these distortions are corrected, the hidden variables they conceal are disclosed. The theory sheds light on several points of physics which had not found a satisfactory explanation before. (Further important comments will be made in ref [1d]). -
1 Fresnel's (Dragging) Coefficient As a Challenge to 19Th Century Optics
1 Fresnel’s (Dragging) Coefficient as a Challenge to 19th Century Optics of Moving Bodies John Stachel Center for Einstein Studies, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, U.S.A., [email protected] 1.1 Introduction It has been suggested that, during the latter half of the 19th century up to about 1890, the optics of moving bodies was considered to be a more-or-less unproblematic branch of physics. In view of the continuing success of Fresnel’s formula for the dragging coefficient (hereafter called Fresnel’s coefficient) in explaining all new experimental optical data to order v/c, “There were simply no major problems to solve here, or so it was generally thought” (Buchwald 1988, 57). These words are the summation of the following quotation: “In 1851 Armand Fizeau was able to measure the Fresnel “drag” coefficient, and in 1873 Wilhelm Velt- mann demonstrated that no optical experiment with a terrestrial source of light can, to first order, detect motion through the ether if the drag coefficient obtains. Conse- quently, to this degree of accuracy, Fresnel’s original theory which requires a very slight transport of the ether by transparent bodies was quite satisfactory (ibid.)” (Schaffner 1972) includes a similar comment: “...Fresnel was able to formulate a simple and elegant explanation of Arago’s results on the basis of the wave theory of light; an explanation which not only accounted for aberration effects then known but which was subsequently confirmed in a number of ways throughout the nineteenth century (ibid., 24).” As we shall see, both Buchwald and Schaffner conflate the continued empirical success of Fresnel’s formula with the ultimately unsuccessful attempts by Fresnel and others to find a satisfactory theoretical explanation of the formula. -
Back Matter (PDF)
INDEX TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS (10 FOR THE YEAR 1895. A. Abbott (E. C.) (see Gadow and A bbott). B. B lackman (F. F.). Experimental Researches on Vegetable Assimilation and Respiration.—No. I. On a New Method for Investigating the Carbonic Acid Exchanges of Plants, 485. -No. II. On the Paths of Gaseous Exchange between Aerial Leaves and the Atmosphere, 503. B ourne (G. G.). On the Structure and Affinities of P allas. With some Observa tions on the Structure of Xenia and Heteroxenia,455. Boice (K.). A Contribution to the Study of Descending Degenerations in the Brain and Spinal Cord, and on the Seat of Origin and Paths of Conduction of the Fits in Absinthe Epilepsy, 321. C. Catamites, the roots of, 683 (see W illiamson and Scott). CoebeHum, degenerations consequent on experimental lesions of the, 633 (sec R ussell). Coal-measures, further observations on the fossil plants of the, 683, 703 (see Williamson and Scott). C celomic fluid of Lumbricus terrestrisin relation to a protective mechanism, on the, 383 (see Kenu). Cynodontia from the Karroo llocks, on the skeleton in new, 59 (see S eeley). D. D ixon (H. H.) and J oey (J .). On the Ascent of Sap, 563. MDCCCXCV.—B. 5 X 878 INDEX. E. Echinoderm larva}, the effect of environment on the development of, 577 (see V ernon). Evolution of the vertebral column of fishes, on the, 163 (see Gadow and A bbott). F. Fishes, on the evolution of the vertebral column of, 163 (see Gadow and A bbott). Foraminifera,contributions to the life-history of the, 401 (see L ister).