Thursday 29 June 2023

Sagnac Experiment and Undulatory emission theory

Abstract

Reference on ring gyro Sagnac instruments show that these gyros measure any rotation and not just those ones where the Center of the instrument is the Center of rotation. By putting the Center of rotation of the mirror setup in the traditional Sagnac experiment underneath the source in the experiment the source will now not move relative to the lab and instead the experimental mirror setup rotates in circles in the lab and around the source.


Current theoretical assumptions on emission theory

According to most if not all current reference is the prediction that; Under emission theory the speed of light in the lab frame of the mirrored sagnac experiment should be at c plus or minus any extra velocity from the motion of the source as it rotates in the lab frame. The calculation made using c+-v is not consistent with the observations of path difference in Sagnac X and thus emission theory can apparently be ruled out and replaced with SR.


Alternative and correct interpretation of observations.

Further scrutiny of this assumption shows that this c+-v calculation is incorrect. Whatever this calculation represents, is doesn’t correctly calculate for any emission theory. Because the one central property of all emission theories is that light always has to be at a constant speed c in the source frame in the Sagnac X. And if this were correctly translated to the lab frame, light should therefore be at a variable speed in the lab frame if indeed the source were rotating in the lab frame.

Not at a constant c+-v in the lab frame as many of those critics of emission theory seem to contend. So it is interesting to note that all these critics avoid making a calculation in the only other frame that counts. The source frame.

The Source Frame. A frame where emission theories predict light must always be at c. The most notable emission theory being Ritz’s undulatory theory of light from the early 20th C in which he very specifically states light must always propagate away from the source at c. Regardless of the  motion of the source relative to anything else. Reflection of the light does not change the speed of the light in the sources frame also in Ritz’s model.

This can be tested empirically using any version of the Sagnac X. The key is to combine the source with the lab frame by putting the axis of rotation of the mirrors exactly at the same point below the source. Which is the where the light path splits into 2 at the Beam splitter. By doing so one makes the source frame the same as the lab frame. Seeing as in the lab frame the source will now not be moving. And now the mirrors rotate around the unmoving source. And in this source/lab frame it is easier to calculate the speed of light for an emission model by measuring distances travelled for each clockwise and counter clockwise beam. As is also currently done for predictions for SR.


At this point predictions from both emission and SR theories are consistent with those observations of light paths where the path is calculated in the source/lab frame.