Science Criticism
by Curt Renshaw
Ref: Vol 2, no. 4, An Essay in Science Criticism, Thomas E. Phipps, Jr.
Thomas Phipps, Jr. hits the nail on the head in his An Essay in Science Criticism (Vol 2, no. 4) when he states: "There is in any field theory only one central object of operational significance and this is the detector of the 'field.' The detector 'creates' the field ... a completion that never happens without a localizing absorber to make it happen." He then goes on to postulate in this, and in his previous Galilean Electrodynamics paper [1], as to the nature of Hertz' term vd, and states that this term "ought rightly refer to field-detector (sink) velocity relative to the observer..." This statement contradicts the earlier one. The third-party "observer" plays no role here. It is clearly only the relative velocity between the source and the detector, or sink, which plays any role in this analysis. The observer, in fact, has no knowledge of the release of (say) a photon from the source and its absorption by the sink except as reported or recorded by the source and sink themselves. The only time the so-called observer is free to make any independent statement about the nature of this transaction is when the observer is himself either the source or the sink. To clarify, if a source releases one photon, ultimately absorbed by a sink, a third observer never witnesses anything. The only way one can observe the trajectory of a photon is for that photon to impinge on the eye (or co-located detector) of the observer. Even if the source releases two photons, one to be absorbed by a "detector" and one by the observer, the observer still cannot say anything about the photon absorbed by the detector, except, of course, as reported to him by that detector. This is the fundamental mistake Einstein made in his simultaneity "experiment" involving two flashes of light on a railroad embankment.
If one interprets the parameter vd as the relative velocity between source and sink, the desired invariant form of Maxwell's equations may be obtained. To obtain such invariance, one other interpretation must be made. The parameter c becomes the velocity c as measured with respect to the sink. Thus, instead of time- and space-dilation due to motion of the sink with respect to the source, we have simply that a photon "field" leaves its source at all velocities from 0 to some undefined upper limit, which may, in fact, be infinite. Then, the "only central object of operational significance" becomes the ultimate sink for that photon. At the instant of absorption, the detector "creates the field, a completion that never happens without a localizing absorber to make it happen." Due to the measured values of eo and mo, the nature of the absorber ensures that only that component of the photon field which passes it at a relative velocity of c will cause this completion. Thus, any detector is assured of collapsing the photon at a time after its emission given by the distance from the source (at the time of emission) divided by the velocity c. Conversely, after performing suitable measurements (measuring the distance from the source and the time since its emission), all absorbers will conclude that the photon traveled from its point of emission at the velocity c with respect to the absorber, independent of any relative motion of the source itself.
This discussion is explained more rigorously in terms of the development of a Galilean invariant form of Maxwell's equations in the January 1996 issue of Galilean Electrodynamics. [2]
[1] Phipps, T.E. Jr., Neo-Hertzian Wave Equation and Aberration, Galilean Electrodynamics, Vol. 5, pg. 46, 1995
[2] Renshaw, C.E., The Radiation Continuum Model of Light and the Galilean Invariance of Maxwell's Equations, Galielan Electrodynamics, Vol. 7, no. 1, 1996
crenshaw@teleinc.com 