I am just starting to learn RS. I really want to understand it. I have been reading the papers but I haven't been able to go past the genesis of photon. I hope you all won't mind some questions from someone who has average college knowledge of physics and who has just started on this path.
Q: How do we see the distant stars that are getting away from us? If photons generated at those stars are affixed to the underlying space-time progression, thus getting away from us as well, how do our retina and the photons from those stars meet, if this is still the mechanism of sight under RS?
Newbie Questions
Re: Newbie Questions
There is a lengthy discussion of that, here:afflow wrote: ↑Wed May 16, 2018 10:33 am Q: How do we see the distant stars that are getting away from us? If photons generated at those stars are affixed to the underlying space-time progression, thus getting away from us as well, how do our retina and the photons from those stars meet, if this is still the mechanism of sight under RS?
Visibility of Stars and Planets
This was one of the questions that got me interested in the RS, years ago. You have to remember that the photon is still, with respect to the progression of the natural reference system, and it is your retina that is moving at the speed of light, running into it.
A simple analogy would be that you and a friend are running down the road, with him behind you. You drop a tennis ball behind you (photon emitted), then your friend gets hit by it (ran into it). The ball just bounced on the same spot of the non-moving road (the progression)--it was still, with respect to the road, and the runners did all the work.
Every dogma has its day...
Re: Newbie Questions
It will take me some time to absorb that long discussion thread.
Just to follow the simplified analogy, suppose A drops a photon and later it's encountered by B.
- B can run into the photon because the inward scalar gravity motion of B more than countering the natural progression within the gravitation limit of B? But what if A is outside of that limit?
- What motion of A allows it to get away from the photon?
I feel I must have some fundamental blockage that's preventing me from constructing a RS world view.
Just to follow the simplified analogy, suppose A drops a photon and later it's encountered by B.
- B can run into the photon because the inward scalar gravity motion of B more than countering the natural progression within the gravitation limit of B? But what if A is outside of that limit?
- What motion of A allows it to get away from the photon?
I feel I must have some fundamental blockage that's preventing me from constructing a RS world view.
Re: Newbie Questions
Everyone has been there... we are taught to think in terms of "things" moving in straight lines (distances) in an amount of clock time. In the RS, there are no "things," only speeds, so you have to think of things like a contour map, but in 3D.
In this case, where the photon is λ, you have this speed relation: A ↔ λ →← B. The photon is progression (moving outward) from A, and gravitating (moving inward) towards B. And notice I used an arrow with two heads... not a vector, but an outward "push" from between A and the photon, and an inward "pull" between B and the photon. There is no translational motion here.
What is important to remember here is that A and B are VASTLY DIFFERENT SIZES. A photon is emitted from an ATOM, which has a gravitational limit of a few angstroms. Once the photon is past that limit, it is progressing away from the atom (A) and on its own. A and B are both within the gravitational limit of a larger object, like the Earth, so the "inward motion" of the Earth becomes the ruling factor, and tries to pull the emitted photon towards itself. Object B adds a bit to the Earth's inward pull, so the photon crashes into it when it gets near enough and you "see" it.
The RS is all about pushes and pulls... scalar motion--changes in scale that we observe as outward (expansive) and inward (contractive). Our minds construct a 3D, coordinate model on those motions, to give the appearance of things moving in straight lines over an amount of clock time. (There is a post in the Models forum where Zuoqian and I discuss how to transform scalar motion to a coordinate system, if you are a programmer).
As I have found over the years, it's not about learning the RS... it is about unlearning what you have been told is the truth, to give your mind the freedom to determine, for itself, what is going on.
Every dogma has its day...
Re: Newbie Questions
This provides a thought experiment that I do not immediately find a solution for.bperet wrote: ↑Fri May 18, 2018 2:00 pm
In this case, where the photon is λ, you have this speed relation: A ↔ λ →← B. The photon is progression (moving outward) from A, and gravitating (moving inward) towards B. And notice I used an arrow with two heads... not a vector, but an outward "push" from between A and the photon, and an inward "pull" between B and the photon. There is no translational motion here.
What is important to remember here is that A and B are VASTLY DIFFERENT SIZES. A photon is emitted from an ATOM, which has a gravitational limit of a few angstroms. Once the photon is past that limit, it is progressing away from the atom (A) and on its own. A and B are both within the gravitational limit of a larger object, like the Earth, so the "inward motion" of the Earth becomes the ruling factor, and tries to pull the emitted photon towards itself. Object B adds a bit to the Earth's inward pull, so the photon crashes into it when it gets near enough and you "see" it.
If you look down toward your feet, toward the center of mass of the earth, you should see nothing, because any photons emitted from a lower altitude should collide with the expanding earth before it has a chance to reach your eye.
However, I believe I can see my feet. This would seem to indicate that I have a greater density than the earth, and I move toward everything else more rapidly than does the planet.
Re: Newbie Questions
I read the "colliding photons" discussion in the old Reciprocity newsletter. It seems clear that two objects not in a gravitationally bound system should never meet, which means we on earth should not see any stars outside of the gravitation boundary, especially the stars retreating from us. Is that right?
Re: Newbie Questions
Correct. There is a huge discussion on the visibility of stars, here: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=301afflow wrote: ↑Sun Jun 03, 2018 8:10 pm I read the "colliding photons" discussion in the old Reciprocity newsletter. It seems clear that two objects not in a gravitationally bound system should never meet, which means we on earth should not see any stars outside of the gravitation boundary, especially the stars retreating from us. Is that right?
Every dogma has its day...