Henry Wilson's Rayphases Fantasy

Since 2007, Henri Wilson has claimed that he has found a solution to the problem of the Sagnac Effect being totally incompatible with Ballistic Theory, which he illustrated with a Visual Basic program. (The usual warnings about running EXE files apply. Make sure your virus checker is up to date.)

In this model, Henri asserts as invalid essentially everything learned about the wave nature of light over the last two centuries. He traces the path of a pair of photons traveling about the Sagnac ring in opposite directions from their point of origin in space (illustrated by a red dot), traveling at c with respect to the source so that their speeds measured in our frame are c+v and c-v, and maintaining constant wavelength as measured in our frame. Oscillations occur at the leading edge of the two beams.

Starting with the above assumptions, Wilson finds that the photons are out of phase when they meet again at their common point of origin on the moving platform. In this way, proclaims Henri, he has proven that the Sagnac Effect is consistent with Ballistic Theory. 

When, at the time, I objected that the frequencies of the leading and trailing photons were different measured in the rotating frame, Wilson asserted to the contrary. In the lower left corner of his simulation, he writes, "Note, to an observer moving around the ring at the speed of the source, the number of wavecrests intercepted per second is the same for both rays."

Click here to see a summary of my earlier talks with Henri.

Wilson's Fallacy

The wavecrests drawn by Wilson's program represent only the HISTORY of the two counter-rotating photons. They represent nothing that is detectable.

In my first display, "Wilson's Fantasy", I have added large dots to the leading edge of the squiggles representing the two and only two photons that Henri models in his animation.

In reality, the light source necessarily emits a continuous stream of photons. In my second display, "The Ugly Consequences", I briefly illustrate the behavior of a continuous stream of photons. Note the amazing consequences of Wilson's model. The leading and trailing beams have differing wavelength and frequency even when viewed in the source frame. (Simultanously animating many dozens of photons is computationally intensive, so I terminate the animation after a few seconds.)

 My third display overlays the first and second displays to demonstrate how they relate to each other.

An Absolute Motion Detector?

The effect that Henri predicts does not depend on curvature of the light path. Straighten out the path, and the effect should still exist.

In other words, Henri Wilson has predicted the possibility of detecting one's motion in absolute space. Simply measure the frequency or wavelength of light emanating from a source in your locale, and you should be able to tell in what direction and how fast you are moving in the h-aether... 

When approaching the speed of light...

Androcles made a most interesting suggestion: "You don't understand c+v, you don't understand phase,  you are forever frame jumping, you are too gutless to run that program with speed v = 0.010."
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.relativity/msg/a0c37de5525f31ef

Well, v = 0.010 represents the speed of light. Not very meaningful, but fun! Also try out v=0.011, which is 10% greater than the speed of light!

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