From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Fri Jun 09 2000 - 09:07:32 MDT
Don Klemencic <klemencc@sgi.net> Wrote:
>the part you snipped out about a blue shift / red shift in the black body
>background radiation along the axis of 'real' motion is clarifying. [...]
>Does the apparent existence of the privileged subset B have physical
>consequences other than the dipole moment in the black body
>radiation background?
I don't see how it could, although it's true that If the universe is spherically
symmetrical and moving in a non chaotic manner then there is only one frame of
reference that could observe that symmetry. As you point out, we know the Earth is
not in that frame because we observe that the 2.7 K black body background radiation
is not spherically symmetrical, it's slightly blue shifted in one direction and red shifted
180 degrees in the exact opposite direction by the same amount. However that's
not a preferred frame of reference, at least not as Einstein used the term.
If you were in a sealed metal elevator you could not detect the black body radiation
through the metal and no experiment performed inside that elevator could determine
if you were moving in that frame of reference or not.
One the other hand, if 19'th century physicists had been right and the luminiferous
ether actually existed then there really would have been a preferred frame of
reference, you could always tell if you were in that fame, even if you're in a sealed
metal elevator. Forget the outside world, just measure the speed of light in several
directions, if the speed is always the same then you know you're in that special frame
of reference, if the speed depends on direction then you can't be in that frame.
Einstein junked the luminiferous ether and thus a special frame of reference too.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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