Talk:Tests of special relativity

Recommendation for article move

I recommend moving this article to Tests of special relativity. This move would make it correspond exactly to General relativity / Tests of general relativity. I have documented this issue at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics/Taskforces/Relativity#Inconsistencies_in_special_relativity_articles_and_categories.Jarhed (talk) 16:15, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I think the article in its current shape serves no purpose. Does anyone care, when I remove the useless "compatibility" sections and instead of it expand the experimental passages? After that, the article can be moved to Tests of special relativity. --D.H (talk) 18:26, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I rewrote the article based on the German version, and moved it to Tests of special relativity. --D.H (talk) 15:38, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Don't understand this illustration

Bucherer's experiment

This illustration has a very strange appearance. The circle-plus looks like it may have been intended to represent a vector perpendicular to the plane of the illustration, but it appears to have positioning problems due to librsvg getting confused... this is the sort of thing that often happens if librsvg is confronted with a font that isn't available on the server and which it therefore does not understand. This illustration does not appear to come directly from the Bucherer article, but seems to represent somebody's interpretation of Bucherer's written description. Can you help explain it to me? Thanks! Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 21:02, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I made some corrections to the image. The arrow-heads were tilted 90 degrees from the direction that they were intended to display. I replaced the arrowheads with my own do-it-yourself arrowheads. The circle-plus was indeed intended to represent a vector perpendicular to the plane of the illustration, and the problem originated, as I guessed, from a text rendering issue. Converting all of the text to paths corrected the centering issues. However, I am still unhappy with the image, since I still don't know for sure what is going on. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 02:56, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm still very unhappy about the image. The image seems to imply that the electron is being accelerated in a parabolic arc, when its path through a uniform magnetic field ought to be circular. I need to study the paper. Stigmatella aurantiaca (talk) 04:15, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Historically interesting, but inconclusive experimental results

Many/most of the experiments referenced in this article in support of special relativity were shown by Fox in the 1960's to be flawed, mostly on the basis of the effects of dispersion, and of the Extinction Theorem. In particular, any double-star experiment (including Michelson-Morley, and de Sittar), and any experiment in air, were shown to be equally supportive of emission theory as of special relativity. Those experiments should all be described as historically interesting, but unsupportive, in this article. Filippas and Fox, and also the Alvagar experiment, were the first experiments, using gamma rays from moving sources, to fully support special relativity. See Martinez for a full historical perspective. Pgf 08:58, 9 July 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pgf (talk • contribs)

The experiments "paving the way to relativity" are connected with the development and experimental refutation of certain aether theories, which were the predominant models in the 19th century. In this context, the experiments are clear and conclusive, and led to the development of the Lorentz transformation. Now, emission (corpuscular) theories were already abandoned in the second part of the 19th century, and the attempts of its revival by Ritz and others in the early 20th century found only little support. That Fox (in the 1960ies) showed that extinction can make emission theories consistent with historical experiments, is certainly an interesting development, but it doesn't change the main point: the refutation of the classical aether theories. (Of course, also emission theories incorporating extinction effects were refuted in the 1960ies). PS: We already have a section on dependence on source velocity in this article. Any clarification should be made in that section. --D.H (talk) 10:38, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't know enough about the aether theories to comment in that context. My point is that a number of famous experiments done prior to the 60s were historically taken to support the theory of special relativity when, in fact, they only did so coincidentally. It would seem appropriate to note those cases. Pgf 23:09, 10 July 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pgf (talk • contribs)

I've updated the "No dependence on source velocity" section, as suggested. Pgf 14:36, 12 July 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pgf (talk • contribs)

Thanks. Note that de Sitter's experiment was repeated using x-rays by Brecher under consideration of the extinction theorem, therefore I've re-inserted it into the section. --D.H (talk) 08:16, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Good. It's a nice little diagram -- I'm glad it could be saved. I've added one more minor clarification I realized was missing. I think I'm done now. Pgf 13:55, 13 July 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pgf (talk • contribs)

References in relation to isotropy and anisotropy of one-way speed of light

My edit to this page got deleted by Dvdm, not at all unexpected. Dvdm left the following message on my talk page: "We welcome and appreciate your contributions, including your edits to Tests of special relativity, but we cannot accept original research. Original research refers to material—such as facts, allegations, ideas, and personal experiences—for which no reliable, published sources exist; it also encompasses combining published sources in a way to imply something that none of them explicitly say. Please be prepared to cite a reliable source for all of your contributions. Thank you. - DVdm (talk) 18:15, 18 December 2016 (UTC)"

"which no reliable, published sources exist; " This claim is just false, that Dvdm not have good access to scientific journals and older publications is more likely the case here.

I think it is sad that one not can refer to references even published by established academic journals by Springer like: General Relativity and Gravitation as well as Precision Measurements and Fundamental Constants II published by National Bureau of Standards USA. These where my two reference sources. Is sources one can refere to on wikipedia limited to only what is Easily accessible online, open? If so wikipedia will easily be get quite biased on several pages related to science. There exist a long series of publications, many highly ranked academic journals that not are public available without subscription, but it is public available in good libraries. The idea of Wikipedia is great; unfortunately the aggressive editing of contributors that give some flavors that make the reader think a little outside the main consensus is often deleted, despite many scientists not subscribing to the established consensus on a series of still open questions.

I strongly doubt the deleting done by Dvdm is in the spirit of those who once created wikipedia, but we see this type of deletion quite frequently on wikipedia these days. I hope wikipedia, other editors will stop (change) such attitude. One should expect people deleting other contributions to do a decent attempt to get hold of excellent source material referred to, not everything is on the web these days, well these references are even accessible on the web, and good libraries have them. More and more scientists I know are getting irritated over how many pages on wikipedia is heavily biased towards only the main frame view, and how even well known published papers in good journals and by even National Bureau of Standards USA gets deleted when not falling in taste. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TravelAlone (talk • contribs) 21:59, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I undid ([1]) the edit because it is a typical example of original research by synthesis, as outlined in our policy wp:SYNTH. I think that this speaks entirely for itself, so I can't add much to this, I'm afraid. - DVdm (talk) 22:01, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I undid your deletions, as they make no sense. I recommend you to read the Torr and Kohlen 1984 experiment as well as the 1979 Stefan Marinov experiment, the citations are real, and published in reliable sources, that you should check and study before deleting. If the experiments hold can only be confirmed or disconfirmed by repeating them, not by ignoring them. Also there is naturally a question of how to interpret them. Your editing makes it looks like everyone agree. This is non-scientific.

You simply throuw out wp:SYNTH. Can you point out exactly how my editing is in conflict with this “Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources.”. Did you study the references I listed?

"Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources" You have indicated you not even have read the sources, my comments were very objective. This is what wikipedia says now: " A series of one-way measurements were undertaken, ALL of them confirming the isotropy of the speed of light" I corrected to many and then referred to several papers not agreeing on one-way being isotropic when getting around Einstein-Poincare synchronization. This is an excellent example of how biased wikipedia gets on certain topics when the varied view among scientists are ignored and one only present the main stream view and edit away everything else. People not well studied on the literature get the impression that every experiment and physicists agree, something that is false. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TravelAlone (talk • contribs) 22:21, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Only one view is presented, namely the main stream view. That a series of scientists, several of them with experiments published in high ranked academic publications not agree with the main stream view is edited away (deleted). This is not at all unexpected as some editors (due to lack of reading most of the literature) or for political reasons are deleting any reference to any source not in line with the main frame view. Where there still are open questions this should be reflected in the wikipedia articles, if not wikipedia will loose its credibility over time. This is unfortunate as wikipedia is such a nice platform for information. TravelAlone — Preceding unsigned comment added by TravelAlone (talk • contribs) 22:34, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Please sign all your talk page messages with four tildes (~~~~) and indent the messages as outlined in wp:THREAD and wp:INDENT. Thanks.

I have reverted again ([2]) and put a second level warning on your user talk page—see wp:SYNTH and wp:BURDEN. By the way, also have a careful look at wp:edit warring and wp:BRD. - DVdm (talk) 07:24, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

And again reverted for same reasons ([3]). Continue this, and you will end up blocked. - DVdm (talk) 07:42, 19 December 2016 (UTC)