I am disappointed in you fishfry. Are you spamming this thread also? — Hachem

As you've asked me not to reply to you anymore, I will do what I like here subject only to moderator preferences.

And since you asked, I'll note that I am the only person here who CAREFULLY read your post, CAREFULLY read your supporting link, THOUGHTFULLY replied, and NEVER insulted you. Yet you have totally failed to engage with any of the substantive points I made, and only said that you didn't really mean what you wrote.

I can't remember ever insulting you. Still, respecting threads is fundamental to any forum, wouldn't you say?

Yet you have totally failed to engage with any of the substantive points I made, and only said that you didn't really mean what you wrote. — fishfry

I never went back on what I have said, I only indicated that your interpretation of what I said was not right. The following discussion with @Banno was more productive for both sides. I am not sure I have convinced him, but at least he gave the impression that what I was saying was not total nonsense.

You kept hammering on irrelevant details that had nothing to do with the issue. Why should I feel compelled to go into them?

What?

There is a breakdown in communication here. What I am pointing out is that the GPS is a version of your experiment, and it refutes your argument. If the speed of light is not taken into account, the GPS could not work; the GPS works, therefore radio waves travel a the speed of light.

You answer this by apparently suggesting that light is not a form of electromagnetic radiation.

It was I who took this thread off topic, in my first post.

Consider what would have to be the case for your view to be correct. It's not just GPS that would no longer have a reasonable explanation.

I consider you to be a crackpot; that is, someone who understands a little physics and has decided that the rest of it is wrong. I made this conclusion during our discussion of the eclipses of Io. Firstly it became apparent that you did not understand the way that astronomers and other physicists calculate the error in their measurements in order to ensure their validity. It was also apparent that you did not actually understand how the experiment was conducted. eventually you accepted the tables of eclipses set before you, but maintained that they did not support the conclusions reached by Romer.

One of the things i find philosophically interesting is the way in which crackpots are able to weave around falsifications of their ideas. Generally speaking I have been able to poke at certain writer's opinions, showing them where they do not hold together; and in turn I have had others poke at my own writing, and convince me that my ideas do not quite work. but there are those in the forum who appear to have certain ideas set in concrete, refusing to re-think them despite obvious problems. For me, you provide an extreme version of this phenomena; and this is what I decided to discuss in this thread.

My apologies for upsetting you; however there is a presumption that if you bring your ideas to a forum such as this, you are happy to have them criticised. It has been shown repeatedly that your physics does not hold up, yet you insist on presenting us with additional faulty threads. That has caused some frustration amongst the more scientifically literate, as you are aware. But despite this, you have been allowed to continue posting. The moderators hereabouts have been quite generous to you. Were I a mod, I would have tossed out your first OP. That's why I am not a moderator; I do not have their fairness of mind.

I never write posts this long.

I have obviously not convinced you. I regret the change in tone, but so be it.

Let me just point out that what is taken as the speed of light is considered as the speed of e.m waves in general (I am excepting sound here).

It is therefore absolutely not proven that light is an em wave. It is the general belief that it is.

I do not share this belief, but you already knew that. What you refuse to understand is that it is a belief that has never been proven, only assumed.

However accurate the calculations for the "speed of light" will become, it will never prove that it is indeed light that is traveling, and not the em substrate.

I gave the example of Hertz's experiment, where one spark appears at one coil, and a moment later a second spark appears at the second coil.

That is the paradigm of all calculations of the speed of light. An em wave or beam is sent to the moon, and a little more than a second later, a light effect is registered on earth. Just like with the Hertz experiment.

Scientists choose to believe that they are dealing directly with light. Maybe they are right. Maybe not.

It is therefore absolutely not proven that light is an em wave. It is the general belief that it is. — Hachem

That's just wrong. And a little bit crazy.

Maybe you could ask an expert about it.

There's no need. Maxwell's equations are not difficult. I studied them as an undergraduate. And it works.

Light and Sound

The idea that not light is traveling, but the em substrate, might be difficult to countenance. Still, this model is what is used to explain sound.

Nobody claims that sound somehow travels through space. Everybody finds it normal to think that the original sound creates vibrations in the air, and that it is these vibrations that finally reach our ears and create sound sensations.

In other words, different listeners hear different copies of the same original sound, even if the sound itself never went anywhere.

That was one of the reasons why the idea of light as a wave was difficult to accept. Where was the medium that transported light?

Huygens thought that it was the ether, but then the ether lost its reputation, and light had to find a new substrate.

That became Faraday's lines of force, and later, Maxwell's field.

But in fact, the idea is the same. Instead of air, a substrate, whatever it is, travels through space, and recreates for us the sensation of light.

But in fact, the idea is the same. Instead of air, a substrate, whatever it is, travels through space, and recreates for us the sensation of light. — Hachem

What do you make of Michelson-Morley? Isn't this one of the most famous physical experiments in history, showing that there is no luminiferous ether?

They dug a grave for the ether?

They dug a grave for the ether? — Hachem

Am I taking you too literally again? Why can't I get a straight answer to a simple question? People used to say, "Water waves travel through water, sound waves travel through air, what do light waves travel through?" A famous experiment was done to show that there is no underlying medium. What is your response to this perfectly sensible question?

You better watch it or I'll start ranting about Dick Cheney again.

what do light waves travel through? — fishfry

The whole point of this thread, and all the others, is that there are no light waves, just like there are no sound waves.

In the case of sound, air vibrations create sound sensations.

In the case of light, I will stick with the idea of em waves. Light is, I think, a local phenomenon created by the passage of em waves.

Please tell me that it is enough and that you won't bring in Cheney again!

The whole point of this thread, and all the others, is that there are no light waves, just like there are no sound waves. — Hachem

Well this is the point where I'm not understanding your posts. I'm no expert on physics, but I know there are sound waves and there are light waves. Sound waves travel in a medium like air or water, and light waves don't require a medium, as shockingly shown by Michelson and Morley.

So I am not understanding your frame of reference or perspective or givens or axioms or assumptions or worldview when you say "there are no light waves just like there are no sound waves." I can parse the syntax but I can't map it to any meaning.

Please tell me that it is enough and that you won't bring in Cheney again! — Hachem

Well Trump just announced he's not going to block the release of the remaining JFK papers on Thursday. That should keep us whacko conspiracy theorists busy for a while.

Or as Gore Vidal said: I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I'm a conspiracy analyst.

I know there are sound waves — fishfry

Sound waves are just a manner of speaking. Nobody believes that the air waves carry sound from one place to the other. It is just air waves that get into our ears, move the hammer.... and we hear sounds.

It is different for light waves, and I am aware of the fact that my conception is very unorthodox and controversial.

Nobody believes that the air waves carry sound from one place to the other. — Hachem

Everybody believes that. The source vibrates the medium which vibrates the little hairs in your eardrum, generating a chemical signal interpreted by your brain as sound. Of course the "sound" is in your head, it's subjective. But that's a fine point of philosophy. It's the vibrations that count.

It is different for light waves — Hachem

Yes this is very mysterious. What exactly is vibrating? I don't know enough physics to really understand what it means to have a wave without a medium.

and I am aware of the fact that my conception is very unorthodox and controversial. — Hachem

Right. There is no problem with that. But in order to have a conversation I'd have to better understand where you're coming from. I have not read your other posts, only your first post in this thread. So I can't really hold up my end of the conversation. I don't know what your rules of physics are.

I am not a physicist and do not pretend to be. I do research my subject as thoroughly as I can. That doesn't mean of course that I may not be wrong and misunderstanding the whole issue. But let me assure you that I take objections very seriously and never stop thinking about what I might have gotten wrong.
That is all I can do.

Further, I did not finish my Phd in Philosophy that I had begun at the start of the 80's the end of the 70's.