Is the brightness of light invariant?

[Quantum Quack]

You obviously don't even understand the difference between an object accelerating in an inertial frame and an accelerating frame.

-Dale

Dale, possibly this is true, in fact there is no doubt about it. But what you fail to understand is that I am not argueing SRT I am simply wanting to know why an observer would ignore his acceleration when deciding whether he has velocity or not.

I don't care what theory you want to use or quote from.

The simple reality I see is that the rocket has accelerated to acheive the doppler effect it's captain desires. It seems obvious that it is his acquisition of velocity that has generated the doppler effect. It is also obvious that he could not consider himself at rest after such an effort has been applied.

It isn't that complex really.

So if you think I am wrong tell me why this is so. And just quoting the SRT POV isn't the answer.

 

[DaleSpam]

Forgive me if I am mistaken but I was under the impression that an inertial frame is not able to accellerate. Possibly he may accelerate from an inertial position of frame but certainly an accellerating frame is no longer inertial yes?

Hooray! You got it! An inertial frame is not able to accelerate. Therefore in every single inertial frame possible it is the rocket that accelerates, not the star.

Now, let's examine the implications of that realization. How much energy was required to accelerate the rocket? The same amount of energy that the rocket engines provided. How much energy was required to accelerate the star? None, the star didn't accelerate. These statements are correct in any inertial frame.

You may think I am being deliberately awkward on this question. And in some ways I am. But you insist on talking about a physical impossibility, certainly impossible given our current understanding of the force needed to accelerate a star.

No, you are claiming that this is what I am saying, but it is not. That is why I have been trying for pages now to engage you in a dialog. Let me be clear, I do not claim the star accelerated and SR does not claim the star accelerated.

-Dale

 

[DaleSpam]

And now I know we are unable to communicate. How does using brakes imply acceleration?

A you may have guessed I am using plain english and common usage of these words, like acceleration etc...in common use braking would normally suggest de-acceleration would it not?

Common usage is not physics usage. In physics deceleration is an acceleration in the reverse direction. The job of brakes is to accelerate you to rest (relative to the road).

-Dale

 

[Quantum Quack]

so what is responsible for the doppler shift recorded?

Is it because the ship has acquired a velocity or is it because the star has aquired a velocity.

 

[Quantum Quack]

Common usage is not physics usage. In physics deceleration is an acceleration in the reverse direction. The job of brakes is to accelerate you to rest (relative to the road).

-Dale

appropriate if one wants to use the frame usage of SRT. When it is that frame usage that is in question.

any way shouldn't it be accelerate the road and not the car?

 

[DaleSpam]

Dale, possibly this is true, in fact there is no doubt about it. But what you fail to understand is that I am not argueing SRT I am simply wanting to know why an observer would ignore his acceleration when deciding whether he has velocity or not.

Because it is irrelevant. In other words at any moment he can determine wether or not he has a relative velocity to the star regardless of historical considerations.

The simple reality I see is that the rocket has accelerated to acheive the doppler effect it's captain desires. It seems obvious that it is his acquisition of velocity that has generated the doppler effect. It is also obvious that he could not consider himself at rest after such an effort has been applied.

Why can't he consider himself at rest after such an effort has been applied? What experiment could he do to prove that he was moving after the acceleration and not the star? What experiment could he do to prove that he and the star were not moving prior to the acceleration? Obviously, if he were to consider himself to be at rest after the acceleration then he must have considered himself and the star to have been moving prior to the acceleration. He accelerated to rest and the star kept on moving giving them a relative velocity.

It isn't that complex really.

So if you think I am wrong tell me why this is so. And just quoting the SRT POV isn't the answer.

No it isn't that complex. I do think you are wrong because there is no way to make the distinction you want to make.

However, if you are really interested in the Doppler effect only, then all of this is inconsequential. The only important thing is relative motion, not some hypothetical state of rest. Historical acceleration is unimportant, only the relative velocity matters which can be determined without respect to prior conditions. If the distance between the star and the rocket is decreasing in one inertial frame then it is decreasing in all frames (regardless of wether or not any object is at rest in that frame) and there will be a Doppler blue-shift predicted in all frames. If the distance between the star and the rocket is constant in one inertial frame then it is constant in all frames (regardless of wether or not any object is at rest in that frame) and there will be no Doppler shift predicted in any frame.

-Dale

 

[DaleSpam]

so what is responsible for the doppler shift recorded?

Is it because the ship has acquired a velocity or is it because the star has aquired a velocity.

It doesn't matter. The Doppler shift will be the same regardless of which object accelerated. In your example the rocket is unambiguously the one that accelerated. That fact is irrelevant to the Doppler shift. Only the relative velocity matters.

-Dale

 

[DaleSpam]

appropriate if one wants to use the frame usage of SRT. When it is that frame usage that is in question.

any way shouldn't it be accelerate the road and not the car?

This isn't just SR, this is high-school level classical physics. I think it was in the first few weeks of high-school physics.

You really need some serious work on your classical physics background before you should even consider looking at modern physics.

-Dale

 

[Quantum Quack]

Dale,
I have already come to the conclusion that SRT is the only possible solution to the accommodation of the postulate about the invariance of light. All the issues such as simultaneity, rest frames and so on have to exist simply because we consider that light is invariant.

I know how incredibly tight this theory is and also how solidly it is supported.

I also know that to consider my captain and his rocket as not at rest when recording the doppler shift confronts this invariance issue directly. I do not expect to be successful in this debate. So the question as to why am I being so persistent comes up.

I am being persistent because it is the answers given that shows me where the key problem is in the reasoning that is being applied, and that which appears to be used to justify a position that seems to me to be untenable.

To ignore historical data of how a ship moves in space from one co-ordinate to another and how it does this fails to pass the reality test as far as I can see.

If we can not consider the past in working out the present because of some arbitary need to support something else to me is not good reasoning.
To neutralise the ships need to accelerate by considering it as at rest later is I feel an incorrect assessment, so is ignoring issues of inertia and what inertia means to the space time picture.
The reason this is important is that as you say it is the relative velocity that determines doppler effects, however what is at the heart of this discussion is why the light source must always be considered as moving and the ship is always at rest when recording that doppler shift [ even when considering that the light is ancient and can no longer be effected by what our ship does].

This can only be achieved by ignoring what has been accelerated and issues of inertia [ both historically significant factors] etc.

There appears to be two key areas that have not been addressed.
1] That the light involved is old liight in fact many thousands of years old is possible when the ship changes it's relative velocity after accelerating.
2] That light is considered as independent of it's source once it is emitted and thus it is only the relationship between the ship and the "old" ray of light that impacts on that ship that is relevant to the discussion.

So even if we agree that the frame is inertial and the ship is at rest when taking it's recordings how does this effect what the ship records as the speed of light given that even if the source of lights relative v to the ship is responsible it would take possible many thousands of years for that shift in the sources v to effect the doppler reading yet the ship has experineced a shift imnediately upon chang it's relative velocity [ acceleration ]

Now if I am not mistaken that means that the ship would record a light speed v that is variant, or relative to it's own velocity aquired by acceleration even if only for a short period as changed light travels from a remote star to accomodate the issue of invariance.


So if we draw a space time diagram we will see that the "old" light hits the ship at the ships new velocity, thus the "old" light speed is relative to that ships velocity thus variant.

I am not sure how this can be reconciled adequately and personally I don't think it can be.

 

[Pete]

Oh, please, QQ!

Your pretence at knowing what you're talking about is transparent. Pick up a book.

 

[Quantum Quack]

Doesn't matter Pete, I am out of here. till next time...hey...

 

[Physics Monkey]

Galilean Relativity and Special Relativity (not General Relativity) both require the observer to consider himself stationary in his 'rest' frame. Does this co-ordinate point move within the universe?

It is a trivial fact, and not some deep principle, that an observer is at rest with respect to the coordinates he carries with him. Now you keep asking, "does it move?" I don't understand why. In some inertial frames, the observer moves, and in other frames, he doesn't. Things don't just move, they move with respect to other things.

Correct, light has a wavelength, a physical property that doesn't change once the light is emitted from its source, barring gravitational effects or the accelerating expansion of the universe. Frequency is just a method for an observer to record the rate at which these wavelengths are recieved, whether his frame is an inertial frame OR a non-inertial frame. Yes, one CAN move relative to the wavelength of the emitted lightbeam. If one could not, he would never see a change in the frequency due to his motion.

You seem to have misread my post. Let me expound further. Light does not just have wavelength, it only has a wavelength relative to an inertial frame. By choosing different inertial frames, I can observe the wavelength of a light pulse to be anything. Furthermore, one cannot move relative to the wavelength of light, whatever that even means. Light doesn't have a reference frame. Finally, you see a change in the frequency and wavelength of a light beam when you change your motion relative to the source or when the source changes its motion relative to you.

 

[2inquisitive]

It is a trivial fact, and not some deep principle, that an observer is at rest with respect to the coordinates he carries with him. Now you keep asking, "does it move?" I don't understand why. In some inertial frames, the observer moves, and in other frames, he doesn't. Things don't just move, they move with respect to other things.

What do you mean 'with respect to the coordinates he carries with him'? How does the observer 'carry' his rest frame and what other things does observer move with respect to IN HIS OWN REST FRAME?

You seem to have misread my post. Let me expound further. Light does not just have wavelength, it only has a wavelength relative to an inertial frame. By choosing different inertial frames, I can observe the wavelength of a light pulse to be anything. Furthermore, one cannot move relative to the wavelength of light, whatever that even means. Light doesn't have a reference frame. Finally, you see a change in the frequency and wavelength of a light beam when you change your motion relative to the source or when the source changes its motion relative to you.

You seem to be disagreeing with my statement that light has a wavelength relative to a non-inertial frame also, because I stated light has a wavelength in both inertial and non-inertial frames. Counting the interval at which those waves are recieved determines the frequency. Are you stating that the emitted wavelength for iron, for example, CHANGES, or does it just move in the spectrum of light emitted from a star, a move evidenced by a Doppler shift of the frequency in the emitted spectrum?

 

[Chatha]

not sure, but didn't plank have something to do with solving the light variation delimmer? Why light changes color instead of intensity.

 

[DaleSpam]

I have already come to the conclusion that SRT is the only possible solution to the accommodation of the postulate about the invariance of light. All the issues such as simultaneity, rest frames and so on have to exist simply because we consider that light is invariant.

Absolutely right, it hinges on that postulate. If c is invariant then SR follows inevitably, if c is not invariant then SR is simply wrong.

I know how incredibly tight this theory is and also how solidly it is supported.

Right again, the experimental support for SR is incredibly solid, perhaps only exceeded by the experimental support for QM.

I also know that to consider my captain and his rocket as not at rest when recording the doppler shift confronts this invariance issue directly. I do not expect to be successful in this debate. So the question as to why am I being so persistent comes up.

I am being persistent because it is the answers given that shows me where the key problem is in the reasoning that is being applied, and that which appears to be used to justify a position that seems to me to be untenable.

QQ, I sincerely appreciate both your persistence and your interest in physics. However, if you wish to actually understand the universe we are in and how it operates you need a much stronger foundation in classical physics than the one you currently have. Your many problems in this thread stem more from your misunderstanding of classical physics concepts than SR concepts. Persistence is admirable when coupled with a willingness to learn and adapt, otherwise it is just stubbornness. I understand that an internet forum is not the best place to learn and I just hope that your persistence can help you progress in a better environment. I would urge you to continue your learning and study even if (especially if) you have discovered a key problem in modern physical thought.

To ignore historical data of how a ship moves in space from one co-ordinate to another and how it does this fails to pass the reality test as far as I can see.

If a person wants to know how long a particular steel bar is does he need to consider the history of wether it came to have that length through being cast or cut or extruded or welded? No. All he needs to do is measure what it is now. Similarly, if someone wants to determine a relative velocity he has but to measure it now. He does not need to collect an acceleration history in order to determine which of the infinitely many possible accelerations led to the relative velocity.

If we can not consider the past in working out the present because of some arbitary need to support something else to me is not good reasoning.

It isn't that you cannot consider the past, only that the past is irrelevant to this particular situation.

To neutralise the ships need to accelerate by considering it as at rest later is I feel an incorrect assessment, so is ignoring issues of inertia and what inertia means to the space time picture.

I know you feel it is an incorrect assessment, but it is not. You are simply dragging irrelevant factors (e.g. inertia and acceleration history) into the scenario because you don't yet have even the classical physics background to determine which factors are relevant.

The reason this is important is that as you say it is the relative velocity that determines doppler effects, however what is at the heart of this discussion is why the light source must always be considered as moving and the ship is always at rest when recording that doppler shift [ even when considering that the light is ancient and can no longer be effected by what our ship does].

Yes, relative velocity determines Doppler shifts, but why must the light source always be considered as moving and the ship at rest? I don't agree with that at all. What justification do you have for asserting that some other frame is not equally valid?

This can only be achieved by ignoring what has been accelerated and issues of inertia [ both historically significant factors] etc.

They may be historically significant for other questions, but they are completely irrelevant for determining Doppler shifts. I challenge you to derive the Doppler effect (it is not hard to do) and show me where acceleration or inertia is part of the resulting equations.

There appears to be two key areas that have not been addressed.
1] That the light involved is old liight in fact many thousands of years old is possible when the ship changes it's relative velocity after accelerating.
2] That light is considered as independent of it's source once it is emitted and thus it is only the relationship between the ship and the "old" ray of light that impacts on that ship that is relevant to the discussion.

Bull. I have addressed both of these points myself on pages 5 and 6 of this thread (I believe that others also addressed point 2). Nobody challenged me on my assertions, so I thought everyone agreed. But even if you disagree that is completely different than the issue not being addressed.

So even if we agree that the frame is inertial and the ship is at rest when taking it's recordings how does this effect what the ship records as the speed of light given that even if the source of lights relative v to the ship is responsible it would take possible many thousands of years for that shift in the sources v to effect the doppler reading yet the ship has experineced a shift imnediately upon chang it's relative velocity [ acceleration ]

Now if I am not mistaken that means that the ship would record a light speed v that is variant, or relative to it's own velocity aquired by acceleration even if only for a short period as changed light travels from a remote star to accomodate the issue of invariance.

I don't understand what you are saying here. Could you re-phrase?

So if we draw a space time diagram we will see that the "old" light hits the ship at the ships new velocity, thus the "old" light speed is relative to that ships velocity thus variant.

I am not sure how this can be reconciled adequately and personally I don't think it can be.

I would definitely encourage you to go ahead and draw a space time diagram for the Doppler shift. That is a very powerful learning tool, one that I have done myself and which I found very instructive. You will quickly find that everything is reconciled quite naturally and that the Doppler equations match the results, even if you never refer to them in the course of drawing the diagram. The Doppler shift is a purely geometrical relationship and can easily and clearly be seen in spacetime diagrams.

-Dale

 

[2inquisitive]

DaleSpam:

Bull. I have addressed both of these points myself on pages 5 and 6 of this thread (I believe that others also addressed point 2). Nobody challenged me on my assertions, so I thought everyone agreed. But even if you disagree that is completely different than the issue not being addressed.

page 5

Let's look at it in the observer's frame. The emitter is emitting radiation at a particular frequency which would have a particular wavelength if it were stationary. However, in the time between two successive wavecrests the emitter has moved, thereby changing the wavelength from the stationary value. These altered wavelengths hit the observer who therefore observes an altered frequency.

This is the point of this thread that you try to obsfucate. The emitter can only 'move' if it DOES move. You, I and QQ, all in our rockets with different relative velocities wrt the star will all 'see' different frequencies in the Doppler readings. You claim the star is 'moving' at different relative velocities wrt us, therefore it is emitting in different wavelengths according to each of us. No, the star has not moved with respect to any of us. It is emitting the same wavelengths toward each of us. We are moving with respect to the emitted wavelength, each at different relative velocities.

page 6

The speed of sound is constant (given constant temperature pressure etc.) just like the speed of light. The main difference between sound and light is that sound has an "absolute reference frame" and the analysis must be done in that frame (the frame where the air is at rest).

I'll let Physics Monkey answer this one:

Please stop using the word absolute, with or without quotation marks, when talking about motion. The concept of absolute rest is meaningless, and relativity certainly doesn't require any such notion.

Dale again:

In fact, Doppler of any wave (sound or light) requires a constant wave-propagation velocity. In other words, because the product of the wavelength and frequency is constant (constant wave velocity) when one goes up the other must go down. If that product were not constant then there would be no Doppler effect at all. E.g. the wavelength could decrease, the propagation velocity could decrease, and the frequency could remain unchanged.

Amazing! After all my claims that the WAVELENGTH does not change, but the FREQUENCY instead, you claim this as an unrefuted arguement. If the speed of light were not a constant wrt THE MOVING OBSERVER, the wavelength would remain the same, the frequency would increase, and the relative velocity between the moving observer and the emitted beam of light would increase. This measured increase in frequency IS the Doppler effect.

 

[Quantum Quack]

Dale even the abilty to consider the relative velocity of inertial relationship requires historical data. What is velocity after all, but a statement of changes in the distance relationship over a given amount of time. Change can not be determined with out historical data. [ ie. change from what to what]

You cannot ignore historical data because if you did the term velocity is meaningless.

If one was to take a picture, a snapshot of a ship and star at relative v one could not discern that velocity existed. They would appear to be co-moving or at zero relative velocity. It is only the historical data that gives us any meaning to the term velocity. [ This is a part of the reason for generating this thread I might add...to explore aspects of light that do not require time [ change] in the data collected]

The measure of velocity is very different to a measure of a bars length [ assuming that the bars length is constant and unchanging.]

So with the above in mind I find it facinating that acceleration data is able to be ignored yet velocity data is accepted. As both require historical references to make sense.

BTW I thank you for your patience and yes I will probably do as you suggested regards formal introductions to physcis, classical or other.

 

[Physics Monkey]

What do you mean 'with respect to the coordinates he carries with him'? How does the observer 'carry' his rest frame and what other things does observer move with respect to IN HIS OWN REST FRAME?

Let me try to be clear, I mean an inertial observer can physically carry with him an array of rods and clocks that define an inertial system. Carry is perhaps a misnomer since he doesn't actually exert force on the lattice, but I feel that the vividness of the term is useful and not confusing. That he is at rest in this system of coordinates is a trivial statement. I don't know what you're talking about with that last comment, but the observer doesn't move in his own rest frame by definition. What I said previously is that there are other inertial frames where the observer moves, and still others where the observer doesn't move.

You seem to be disagreeing with my statement that light has a wavelength relative to a non-inertial frame also, because I stated light has a wavelength in both inertial and non-inertial frames. Counting the interval at which those waves are recieved determines the frequency. Are you stating that the emitted wavelength for iron, for example, CHANGES, or does it just move in the spectrum of light emitted from a star, a move evidenced by a Doppler shift of the frequency in the emitted spectrum?

I'm sorry if I confused you. The point I was trying to get across is that one must specify the frame to talk about the frequency or wavelength of light. Clearly light has a frequency in every frame, inertial or not. Now, does the wavelength of light emitted from an iron atom depend on your motion relative to the iron atom? Of course! An nearly monochromatic light beam doesn't carry a tag that says, "I came from iron." We can determine the speed of distant stars because the light they emit has some spectral structure. If it didn't, we couldn't.

 

[Physics Monkey]

2inq,

I would kindly ask you not to take my comments out of context. My request concerning the word absolute clearly had nothing to do with DaleSpam's earlier statement. It is totally obvious that he was talking about a preferred frame for sound. Maybe I would have used a different term, but that is beside the point. My comment was directed toward the repeated attempts by various posters to say that such and such was "really at rest" and so forth.

 

[DaleSpam]

This is the point of this thread that you try to obsfucate.

Right, you found me out. I am really the secret leader of a nefarious conspiracy to lead young and impressionable minds down the path of wickedness, debauchery, and physics

The emitter can only 'move' if it DOES move. You, I and QQ, all in our rockets with different relative velocities wrt the star will all 'see' different frequencies in the Doppler readings. You claim the star is 'moving' at different relative velocities wrt us, therefore it is emitting in different wavelengths according to each of us. No, the star has not moved with respect to any of us. It is emitting the same wavelengths toward each of us. We are moving with respect to the emitted wavelength, each at different relative velocities.

I really wish you guys would stop telling me what I claim and don't claim, you are all so inaccurate. Yes, I claim that in any inertial frame the star is moving at different relative velocities wrt multiple rockets. No, I do not claim that it is emitting multiple wavelengths in any frame (assuming only one direction is relevant, otherwise it does emit multiple wavelengths, but I don't think that was the point of your post).

Would you care to clarify what you mean by "moving wrt the emitted wavelength". Let's say that the emitted wavelength in a particular frame is 1m. How do you "move wrt 1m". It doesn't make any sense to me. I am sure you have something else in mind, but I am not a psychic.

Amazing! After all my claims that the WAVELENGTH does not change, but the FREQUENCY instead, you claim this as an unrefuted arguement. If the speed of light were not a constant wrt THE MOVING OBSERVER, the wavelength would remain the same, the frequency would increase, and the relative velocity between the moving observer and the emitted beam of light would increase. This measured increase in frequency IS the Doppler effect.

Actually, I was claiming this:

If you spend a minute thinking about the Doppler shift for a brief pulse it becomes obvious that the important velocities to consider are the velocity of the emitter at the time of emission relative to the velocity of the detector at the time of detection.

and this:

The two relevant velocities are the emitter at the time of emission and the detector at the time of detection.

as unchallenged. But you definitely did challenge me on the wavelength and frequency bit on those pages. I don't, however, see the relevance to QQ's "old light" concerns.

-Dale