That's what they tell us. Light can travel through a vacuum with nothing in it. And maybe so but what is the evidence?
So I looked up the best vacuum on planet Earth. It contains 2.5 million molecules of air per cubic cm. This is said to replicate conditions between stars. So how then can we say we've ever tested light waves going through "nothing". We haven't.
To test the validity of my suspicions I've asked the science guys on reddit if they have an answer for this. The first few responses have already been hostile and that usually indicates this is one of those issues they simply don't have a good answer for. I was very polite in my question btw, so no I didn't provoke anybody, this is all on them.
We'll see how it goes. I'm open to a good explanation of why this is a valid test, but this light has 2 million molecules to interact with ever cubic cm it propagates, so you didn't rule out matter.
Exactly, if the air is "stationary" in the local reference frame it is moving along with a rotating Earth. So detecting any effects of rotation would not be possible with mmx if Sagnac is invoked.
You're missing what I'm saying. It is motion either way, but in one case the motion is the exact same as the rotating Earth. So of course there can not be a fringe if the air is moving the wave over.
But it turns out it has nothing to do with being circular. That's already been shown in better experiments.
I have no reason to think that. The detector is hit after the beams have recombined. So any changes in the velocity was done before reaching it.
Not so. I suppose it's more than* an issue of perpendicular vs not. With MMX the beam travels half the journey one way then half the other, so all the effects in the direction of movement are cancelled out. MMX just assumed the perpendicular effects are not cancelled out, but in fact they also are (at least in air).
The only way to see the effects is with a device that only pushes the light in one direction before it recombines with the split portion of itself. See this aparatus which did just that... https://media.scored.co/post/3fvtgZNPCd1F.png
But that is precisely what the gale-pearson (and every rlg, routinely) detected!
Very possibly.
I don't think i understand what you mean by this. How do you think air is causing a fringe pattern in a stationary rlg (in a room with no wind)?
But this is the core difference between mmx (detected no cosmic linear motion) and gale pearson (detected local/earthbound rotational motion)
But even if the mmx was "perpendicular blind", in a right angle configuration - one of the legs would be parallel with the motion and one perpendicular - creating the fringe pattern...
That is certainly an interesting apparatus. However if that loop is intended to spin on the spindles that is certainly going to introduce vibration (and hence fringe) in and of itself... What is the device intended to observe?
I mean the air is moving the wave over at the same speed of Earth's rotation then. So how could there be a noticably difference between a rotating Earth with rotating lower atmosphere and no rotation measured with this? There can't be.
I don't know gale pearson yet. But from what I understand MMX was designed to look at earthbound rotational motion as well.
Yes it is intended to be mover on those wheels or spindles. Not sure how much vabration was in the system, ask Mr Wang who made it.
The device is intended to observe Sagnac and look at how much linear motion contributes to the effect over a standard rotational only setup.
Just to clarify - you think the interference pattern found in stationary rlgs and the gale pearson are due to wind far above the detector? If so, would you not expect the interference pattern to vary when the wind speed (inevitably) does?
If you are saying that no interference pattern is detected with the wacky spinning spindle rlg - then that is certainly interesting. I wonder if the pattern returns as you slow down the rotation of the spindles - since without that rotation, this seems to be a standard rlg setup.
Perhaps, but it failed to find it in any case - presumably due to its configuration (straight legs, right angles)
Perhaps it cancels out / affects both paths equally - but it would certainly affect the fringes.
And what was the result?