Chapter 5 Add'l: Why The Light Compass Works and Fixing the Holes in Special Relativity

In this video, I do an in-depth explanation of the relationship between light and Special Relativity. When I pitched "The Light Compass" in my last video, a lot of people were skeptical because they thought that the rules of SR prohibit the compass from working.

00:00:00 - Introduction
00:00:43 - The Light Compass Rerun
00:03:35 - Misconceptions of Special Relativity and My Challenge
00:05:34 - Objection 1: "This is just the Michelson-Morley Experiment."
00:10:46 - Objection 2: "Special Relativity says light is always measured the same in an inertial frame of reference."
00:23:06 - SPACESHIPS! The math behind an absolute frame of reference.
00:51:49 - Science Summary
00:53:36 - Engineering Problems - How to measure light in one direction.
00:59:10 - Other Engineering Problems
01:04:28 - Why The Light Compass would be an amazing scientific tool for discovery.
01:07:10 - Conclusion and Channel Update

MISTAKES AND ERRORS:
My dyslexic brain made an obvious mistake at the beginning of the whole math segment. The first calculation should be L = ( c - v ) * t NOT L = ( c - v ) / t. Also, again when I computer the rate of return of the photon later, the equation should be V(photon/mirror) = (c + v) *t NOT (c+v) / t. The outcome is the same since t is 1, but wanted to make sure I noted that.

Also, leaving such a dumb mistake in the walkthrough kinda helps me know which critics actually watched the math segment since it is such a glaring point to pick on.

IMPORTANT NOTES: It is critical to acknowledge that the independent reference frame of light I am assuming is a consequence of “c” not light. It is the limit imposed by “c” as a dimension that creates the independent frame. If light is “slowed down” in a medium, that independent frame is changed and has to incorporate the inertial frame of the medium.

This distinction has implications for the conditions by which we have to test this proposal. It can only be confirmed by measuring photons in a vacuum, unimpeded by any medium. I wish I thought of this phrasing before finishing the video, but part of this process is getting feedback and finding out what's unclear.

Finally, the "spaceship" mental experiment assumes a condition of "perfect observation" where a photon is not having to actually travel to Bob for him to observe it. Putting all those caveats in the explanation seemed tedious and ultimately distracting. My assumption is that the majority of viewers can understand the nature of the exercise. "Simultaneity of Events" doesn't change the point, it just kicks the can down the road.

THANK YOU: For all the thinkers and engineers out there recommending ideas to make The Light Compass work, I am excited it has inspired you. The overall feedback is that this is an incredible challenging experiment to run, but certainly possible.

[ChrisTheBrain]

PLEASE READ BEFORE COMMENTING!
As usual, after producing this video I realized a few points that would help clarify things, and (of course) I made a couple silly mistakes. Please read the description to see if your objections are noted, and keep in mind that part of the value of these videos is that, by exposing these ideas to a large audience, it helps refine them. While embarrassing to make errors in a public forum, this is about the love of science. As Einstein said, “The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no new ideas.”

[purplepenguin]

I have a physics background and can help answer questions if desired. The confusion here comes down to the concept of "simultaneous" spatially separated events becomes coordinate system dependent in special relativity. Because of this, if physics has Lorentz symmetry, we can really only measure the round trip speed of light, and not the one-way speed of light. It turns out that an equivalent way of putting this is: we need to decide on a way to synchronize separated clocks. Your "light compass" actually describes the idealized convention for how such synchronization is defined. Many different ideas for synchronizing separated clocks (synchronize them at one place, and then slowly transfer them; if needed do this with multiple clocks at slower and slower transfer speeds and take the limit of infinitely slowly transferring them) turn out to be equivalent.

[khanmaxfield]

The trick with this device that makes it seems like it should work is that it only shows half of the mechanism and leaves the rest up to the viewers imagination. The rest of the the mechanism is important too. The special relativity tells us that the TWO-WAY speed of light is the same in any direction. What you show is a device that ostensibly measures the one-way speed of light in an array of directions. If it were possible to do that then you could measure your absolute speed, but its not. In order to actually measure the DIFFERENCE between the timings for the right side and the left side (left to the viewer to imagine) it is necessary to send the signal from the right and left side to a common point in space for the comparison event to take place. This will inevitably result in at least one of the signals having to travel along the reverse directions to the first half of its journey and this is where the effect you are trying to observe will cancel out.

TLDR;
If you include ALL of the steps in using this device up to the moment when the bias is quantified and consider the effects of relativity on all of these steps you will find the bias inevitably cancels with another bias introduced while aggregating the signals from the various sensors... Think length contraction of the wires connecting the sphere segments to the computer... (and no you can't calibrate for that)

[adamtokay]

"No one is saying that we are both right (about order of events), that is just nonsense". No it's not. It's the concept of the relativity of simultaneity, as Einstein himself derived it from SR. So besides calling your well-meaning critics basically ignorant, you're saying that the vast majority of physicist including Einstein and Penrose is "talking nonsense"?

[larsnystrom]

You don't need a sphere. Just send light in one direction.
Or more practical bounce it back from a mirror.

Unfortunately I think you will find that the speed of light always is the same. So, you won't find that elusive special frame of reference you are looking for.

But do the experiment. If you find what you are looking for, it will certainly rock every physicist to their core.
They belive in the special relativity dogma. Surprice them!

[gvlveyj]

I love the content. I appreciate the way you break everything down so that someone who has ADHD and only a high school education like me can fully understand.

[maxhunter]

1. Thank you much for your continuous chunks of science greatness, keep it up!

2. Light sphere logistics: start with two lasers in opposite directions, calibrate ( or calculate the differences), then add two more laser perpendicular to the 1rst two. Rinse and repeat. Legging into the sphere that way may cut down on complexity & costs. Perhaps we don't need a full spheres worth for the discovery? But precision would need to be that of the JWST or better.

3. PLEASE do a video on what broke you, lol. I am up for the mind challenge!!

4. Silly question: Presuming there are particles like neutrinos, photons, (or spaceships in a "wormhole") going faster than the speed of light, - how would we know?
If we can't measure or in some way know it experimentally, how can we really conclude what the maximum speed (of light) is?

[SeattleShelby]

Thanks for promoting pay for engineers. I quit my career as an engineer after two decades of financial hardship. The guidance counselor never told me I’d have to eat Top Ramen for the rest of my life.

[zdayz]

Michelson-Morley also tested sideways deviation of the light - since if the instrument was moving relative to the ether (which it is), then they thought that the sideways deviation would happen too - that the light would trail on the lateral path (lateral to the velocity) and not hit the splitter in the center, and then not hit the mirror in the same location, and would bounce back at a different position, deviating the resulting distance between the aligned beams; it doesn't because of Light Aberration - which at a velocity, light is 1) detected at an angle forward of what it is and 2) (although not mentioned or stated) when emitted is kicked forward slightly - sort of like giving light an amount of the frames inertial velocity. So sideways, the light emitted is kicked forward in angle slightly, so when the apparatus moves relative to the ether, the light still hits the center of the splitter, which sees the incoming light as slightly forward (instead of lagged from behind like it is), so the light enters the dense splitter medium and goes back to being entirely lateral to the motion; until emitted - then the light is again kicked forward, and the mirror does a similar transformation when it receives that light. But then it bounces back advanced to the splitter, and hits exactly the same place it left from. Light aberration fixes part of the experiment, while length contraction fixes the direction inline with the velocity.
It's too bad 'light compass' already is a term that is used - it can be used to measure the rotation of things, because it's spinning, which is not inertial, but falls under an accelerated frame, the light emitted around a loop can determine the amount of spin....
You also hit on a common misconception about special relativity - namely length contraction - length contraction can only apply to the moving frame, not the whole universe around the frame which remains stationary. A ship passing a thing that is 2 light seconds apart, will always observe the stationary thing as 2 light seconds apart - if there were two clocks on 2 walls 2 light seconds apart, it would always see a difference of 2 seconds in the time; it wouldn't see them at 1.7seconds different.
Photons do experience time dilation - at the speed of light it experiences near 0 time (0 time if it's actually fully the speed of light, which I would bet it's not actually quite the maximum speed). This works in quantum cryptography where a received photon is in exactly the same state as an emitted photon (unless there was a detector in the middle, which would slow it down, and allow it to change orientation). The rest of the universe seems to move infinitely fast, and also it would 'feel' (if photons could feel) like it took 0 time, and that it would arrive as soon as it had been emitted.
Can simplify the experiment though and just do two opposing light paths - measuring pulses of light. Two emitters with just a stable clock (that ticks at the same rate) emitting a pulse of light towards a central point, which has a highly accurate clock (high precision) can measure the progressive shift of light. This experiment does not measure the speed of light - just the difference in the speed of light. Measuring the speed of light needs a synchronized clock, and any clock synchronization turns the problem into a two-way problem, and defeats any purpose - and you'd have to keep the clocks synchronized; not allowing any drift due differences in gravitational gradient for example). we're moving 300, 000km/s (0.1c approx) towards the constellation Virgo according to measurements of the CMBR - which is much faster than the speed around the sun (0.01c) or the rotation of the earth ( 0.001c (I think it's just another factor of 10 less then the orbit around the sun)). This means there would be a difference of +/-12ns over 2 miles.... (which requires an area of 4 miles, which I think the great salt flats would be a good testbed) the problem I have next other than location is that I'm alone, and aligning the lasers to the central target (which I will probably use parabolic light umbrellas to gather and focus the light to a detector) will be a problem, even with a 70inch target (from 2 miles away).
An FPGA can be programmed with a simple ripple counter and a oscillating gate that can get a very high tick rate (synching exactly how long ticks are can be done later...) but it can still mark the two events against the same clock - therefore no signal delay in what the time is recorded...

[Mr.McPoops]

Wow. Your videos are awesome. Helped me understand things way deeper and clearer. Idk how your channel isnt bigger. I could listen to you all day

[se]

It is SO refreshing to see someone finally point out a lot of the ambiguities and inconsistencies in relativity, the first fifteen minutes of the video were like “thank god somebody rational out there understands that relativity isn’t magic.” I think you are very intelligent and not prone to being duped by group-think, which cannot be said of most modern physicists.

That said, I think you underestimate just how difficult the problem of the one-way speed of light problem truly is. You assert that your light clock will send out signals “at the same time” but to do that the different clocks first have to be synched, and they can only be synched with a two-way information exchange.

If you start them out all at the same location and then move them apart, any discrepancy in the one-way speed of light will produce different time dilations. Therefore the signals cannot be sent out “at the same time” since there is no longer any shared sense of same time. In essence, moving them apart is to accelerate them, and any acceleration whatsoever, no matter how small, will cause the clocks to de-synch. There are some problems unfortunately even engineering may not overcome.

[zdayz]

LIGO's difference isn't because gravitational waves change the speed of light - they change the size of space... that the light has slightly longer/shorter space to cover. And another note LIGO reflects the beam like 40 times - so it's really 40x that the space is stretched/compressed and hence changes the propagation of the light. But you are right - the wave washes over it, but, both the light going in the direction of the wave and going against the wave have their path modified - because it is a continuous beam - it's not independent pulses.

[galvenite]

The speed of light is constant in all inertial reference frames. The difference between an observer A at rest relative to you and observer B moving in a relativistic reference frame are the ticks of their clocks. Both observers will view the others clock as ticking more slowly to account for their relative motion. While each observer will view the order (simultaneity) of events differently. The space time interval between events is always conserved. If the light compass is moving in an inertial frame of reference all internal surfaces will be lit at the same time no matter it’s velocity. The only way to distort the light beam is to change velocity after the light is emitted in which case the frame is no longer inertial.

[dard]

Okay. I've caught up on the required viewing. I can start this video youtube gave me.

Love your science communication. The effort you put into it is clear with how little effort I need to exert in order to understand you.

[The_Real_Grand_Nagus]

Like you, I have thought (for about 2 decades now) that there might be an absolute frame of reference. It's possible that is not the case, and everything can really be explained with acceleration or even change in acceleration. But I'm happy to see someone come up with an idea on how to test this assumption.

[stevenheinrich]

This universal point of reference it truly a special place at the end of the rainbow. Take us there.

[platypusrex]

You were very clear to me.... I approach this from EM RF theory, RF waves are photons of lower frequency....

[davelaverie]

Hi Chris,
I just came across your "Unifying Theory of Dimensional Geometry and Interaction" videos and watched them all. As many have commented, you communicate your thought process well and make it understandable. Although you may not be as polished as some other science explainers, you make it work and work well.
I do like your idea of testing for an absolute frame of reference in our universe and I hope that someone takes you up on it and gets it done. Sounds like a great idea to me.
Kudos to your daughter, editor, titler, animator, dictionary expert, and video resource researcher. Fabulous work. And I love the animations and onscreen comments that she inserts. GIve her a raise.

[joehelland]

The light compass idea is genius. Like all genius ideas, it is super simple once someone thinks of it, and in retrospect is hard to imagine why nobody else thought of it first.

[chengong]

Maybe you don’t need a complicated spherical setup. We can just get a 2-part satellite, they stay together in space, sync the clocks, then the main satellite will just send out a signal every second or something while the other satellite fly out away from the main. It’ll have accelerometers onboard to measure movement and correct for relativistic time dilation the entire time. It will also move to different points that are in different directions relative to the main satellite while receiving its periodic signal, and write down the corrected time for each signal pulse. In the end we will hopefully have a list of times that are different delays from hole seconds, and this will allow us to tell in which direction the main satellite is travelling relative to the absolute frame of reference?