There have been several experiments that have tested the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, which is one of the fundamental assumptions of the theory of gravity (I agree that "general relativity" is misnomer). The equivalence principle states that the inertial mass, which measures the resistance to acceleration, is equal to the gravitational mass, which measures the gravitational attraction.

One of the earliest and most famous experiments that verified this principle was performed by Loránd Eötvös in 1889. He used a torsion balance to measure the gravitational force and the centrifugal force on two sets of test masses made of different materials. He found that the ratio of gravitational to inertial mass was the same for both sets of masses, within a very small margin of error. He also found that this ratio was independent of the latitude and altitude of the experiment.

Another experiment that confirmed this principle was performed by Roland von Eötvös and Peter W. Worden Jr. in 1976. They used a lunar laser ranging technique to measure the distance between the Earth and the Moon with high precision. They found that the Earth and the Moon had the same acceleration towards the Sun, within a very small margin of error. This implied that their gravitational masses were proportional to their inertial masses.

These and other experiments have shown that inertial and gravitational mass are equivalent to a very high degree of accuracy, which supports the validity of the theory of gravity. However, some alternative theories of gravity may predict small violations of this principle under certain conditions, which could be detected by more sensitive experiments in the future.

Einstein's special theory of relativity starts with the assumption that the speed of light is always constant regardless of the motion of the observer or the motion of the light source, and that no matter can travel faster than light. The speed of light is always the same whether the observer is moving or not. As the ether(dark matter), the medium of light, was denied by the Michelson-Morley experiment, Einstein assumed that light was an absolute being. The existence of the ether(dark matter), which has a mass affected by gravity, was proved by calculating the deflection angle of light using classical mechanics.

It can be seen that the calculation of the starlight's deflection angle using classical mechanics is an accurate numerical value encompassing the observation results. It can be seen that the calculation presented in Einstein's general theory of relativity is inaccurate to explain the angle of deflection of starlight(0.173" to 0.867" in 2R to 10R).

(Reference paper: “Beyond the Speed of Light – A Review of the Theory of Relativity and the Speed of Light by the Ether (Dark Matter)”)

The theory of gravity ("general relativity") is a well-established theory that has passed many experimental tests and made many successful predictions. Some of the claims made above are incorrect or misleading. For example:

- The assumption that inertial and gravitational mass are the same is not an error, but a postulate of general relativity that is based on the equivalence principle. This principle states that locally, you can't distinguish between a uniform gravitational field and a non-inertial frame accelerating in the opposite direction. This principle has been verified by many experiments and observations.

- The assumption that G is universal and constant is not an error, but a simplification that works well for most situations. There is no conclusive evidence that G varies with time or location, although there are some theoretical models that suggest such possibilities. The current measurements of G have some uncertainties and discrepancies, but they are within the experimental errors.

- The ignorance of Thomas precession as an effect of special relativity is not an error, but a minor correction that was later incorporated into general relativity. Thomas precession is a phenomenon that occurs when a particle undergoes non-uniform circular motion in a non-inertial frame. It causes a slight change in the orientation of the particle's spin or angular momentum. Einstein initially neglected this effect in his calculations of the precession of Mercury's orbit, but he later corrected it and found that it only changed his result by 0.1%.

- The lack of information about photon spin or charge magnetic moment is not an error, but a limitation of general relativity as a classical theory. General relativity does not account for quantum effects, such as the spin or magnetic moment of particles. These effects are described by quantum field theory, which is compatible with special relativity, but not yet fully unified with general relativity. However, these effects are negligible for most macroscopic phenomena that general relativity deals with.

- The claim that general relativity has been shown to be incorrect in calculating the interactions of stars in galaxies and clusters of galaxies, and incorrect in calculation of gravitational lensing due to galaxies and clusters of galaxies, is false. General relativity has been confirmed by many observations of these phenomena, such as the deflection of light by massive objects, the detection of gravitational waves from merging black holes and neutron stars, and the discovery of dark matter and dark energy from the analysis of galaxy rotation curves and cosmic expansion.

Believers in SR and GR provide "irrefutable proof" of their validity.

Believers in SR only, provide "irrefutable proof" of its validity and "irrefutable proof" that GR is invalid.

Believers that neither SR nor GR are valid provide "irrefutable proof" that they are invalid.

Where does that leave us?

This leaves only the upcoming generation to sort things out.

can anyone develop a theory for electromagnetism that do not need to fix speed of light and causality but rather stick with absolute space and time reference frame?

If Einstein believes all references are equal, it must be fine to just pick a reference frame and stick with it as the absolute reference.

Lyudmil Antonov: " There have been several experiments that have tested the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, which is one of the fundamental assumptions of the theory "

Yep. Unfortunately, special relativity, which is another of the fundamental assumptions of the theory, lets us "prove" that the principle of equivalence of inertia and gravitation is wrong (see Schild 1960).

So we can't have SR and the PoE in the same logical system. Similarly, we can't have SR and graviotomagnetism, or SR and relativistic gravitation, or SR and the general principle of relativity operating as laws in the same universe.

Special relativity is not extensible to include proper gravitational law, and is incompatible with classical gravitation, period.

Fock: " We call the theory of Einstein space the Theory of Gravitation, not the " general theory of relativity ", because the latter name is nonsensical. "

Fock is wrong. It's perfecly possible to have a general theory of relativity, just not designed the way that Einstein tried to do it. Parts of Einstein's structure actually contradict the principles of relativity of acceleration and rotation. This doesn't mean that the principles are necessarily wrong, it just means that Einstein screwed up his implementation and produced a bad theory.

The idea was great, but he cocked the thing up.

André Michaud : " Believers in SR and GR provide "irrefutable proof" of their validity. ... Believers that neither SR nor GR are valid provide "irrefutable proof" that they are invalid. "

Yep. :( We can probably "prove" or "disprove" almost anything depending on what initial assumptions we believe to be "obviously"(!) correct. And members of the different "sects" have shown themselves quite adept in starting from a belief or personal conviction about how they feel the universe should work, and working backwards to identify the "obvious truths" that let them prove that outcome.

These folks are not doing science, what they are doing is a branch of theology or pseudoscience, where one sets out to "prove" whatever it was that one assumed in in the first place. Perhaps this is the fault of the university "debating society" culture, where students are taught to practice defending a position assigned to them, no matter how repugnant. Dunno.

The situation with Einstein's general theory is fairly simple. Objectively, regardless of what one believes :

• The general principle of relativity requires the relativity of rotation and acceleration.
• The relativity of acceleration and rotation requires rotational and accelerational gravitomagnetic dragging.
• Rotational and accelerational gravitomagnetism cannot exist without there being an underlying velocity-dependent gravitomagnetic effect. This should be uncontroversial, as the corollary is in a number of textbooks.
• A velocity-dependent gravitomagnetic effect would invalidate special relativity.

So:

• If you start out by believing that special relativity is correct, then you can prove that there can be no such thing as gravitomagnetism, and therefore no such thing as a general theory of relativity.
• If you start out by believing that the general principle of relativity is correct, then you can prove that special relativity is bad physics.

Either can be used to disprove the other.

Users have a choice of what they believe, and if they choose to believe either in SR or in the GPoR, the other one is automatically ruled out.

What is not legally allowable is the path chosen by Einstein, where he constructs a theory that assumes the correctness of both conflicting belief-systems at once. Einstein's 1916 general theory is wrong, regardless of one's other beliefs, because there is no possible consistent belief sysem that supports it.

There is no logically-consistent hypothetical universe, fictional or otherwise, in which the structure of GR1916 applies. It's simply a badly-designed structure, even in the most abstract unphysical sense. GR1916 is two different, incompatible systems fused together. It's the physics equivalent of the Reutersvärd-Penrose triangle -- you can define the shape, but you can't construct it.

There have been many experiments that tried to disprove special or general relativity, but none of them have succeeded so far. All the experimental results are consistent with the predictions of relativity.

Some of the famous experiments that tested relativity are:

• The Michelson-Morley experiment (1887), which measured the speed of light in different directions and found no evidence for the existence of a stationary aether, a medium that was assumed to fill space and carry light waves.
• The Eddington experiment (1919), which observed the bending of starlight by the Sun’s gravity during a solar eclipse and confirmed Einstein’s prediction of gravitational lensing.
• The Pound-Rebka experiment (1959), which measured the gravitational redshift of light emitted by a radioactive source at different heights and verified the equivalence principle of general relativity.
• The Hafele-Keating experiment (1971), which flew atomic clocks around the world and detected the time dilation effects due to both special and general relativity.
• The Gravity Probe B (2004-2005), which used four ultra-precise gyroscopes in a satellite orbiting Earth and measured the frame-dragging and geodetic effects caused by Earth’s rotation and mass.

There are also ongoing experiments that aim to test relativity in more extreme conditions, such as near black holes, at very high energies, or at very small scales. Some of these experiments are:

• The Event Horizon Telescope, which is a network of radio telescopes around the world that can image the shadow of a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy and test general relativity in strong gravitational fields.
• The Large Hadron Collider, which is the world’s most powerful particle accelerator that can create collisions of protons at very high energies and probe for possible deviations from relativity at the quantum level.
• The LIGO/VIRGO detectors, which are interferometers that can detect gravitational waves from merging black holes and neutron stars and test general relativity in dynamical and nonlinear regimes.

These experiments are not only important for testing relativity, but also for exploring new phenomena and discovering new physics beyond our current understanding.

Gravitoelectromagnetism (GEM) is a set of formal analogies between the equations for electromagnetism and relativistic gravitation, specifically between Maxwell’s field equations and an approximation to the Einstein field equations for general relativity. GEM is valid under certain conditions, such as weak gravitational fields, slow motions of sources and test particles, and far distances from isolated sources.

Gravitoelectromagnetism predicts that a mass current (such as a rotating mass) generates a gravitomagnetic field, which is analogous to the magnetic field generated by an electric current. The gravitomagnetic field exerts a force on moving masses, which is analogous to the Lorentz force on moving charges. This force can cause effects such as frame-dragging, Lense-Thirring precession, and gravitational Faraday rotation.

There have been several experiments that tested the predictions of GEM, such as Gravity Probe B, LAGEOS satellites, and LIGO/VIRGO detectors. These experiments have confirmed the existence and magnitude of the gravitomagnetic field and its effects on test masses. However, these experiments do not disprove GEM, but rather support it as a valid approximation of general relativity in certain regimes.

There are also some theoretical challenges to GEM, such as the problem of defining a gravitational energy-momentum tensor, the non-uniqueness of the GEM potentials, and the possible breakdown of GEM in strong gravitational fields or at small scales. These challenges suggest that GEM may not be a complete or fundamental theory of gravity, but rather a useful tool for describing some aspects of gravity in analogy with electromagnetism.

People who take one or other theory based on beliefs mistake science with religion.

@André Michaud: For someone to say that SR and GR are incompatible with each other means that he can't understand either.

Dear Eric Baird

You wrote: "We can probably "prove" or "disprove" almost anything depending on what initial assumptions we believe to be "obviously"(!) correct."

This is it. The idea that different grounding assumptions seem obviously correct to different people, assumptions, generally formulated identically by different people but that are themselves grounded in the mind of each person on different sets of premises "apparently obvious" to different people.

This is an endless source of arguments.

I chose a different method in my analyses: Disregarding any assumption and going for "confirmed experimental equations" that were established from repeatably obtainable data from experiments that anybody can themselves personally verify as always true, and on which coherent analyses can be more safely built.

Such as the Biot-Savart law, the well known inverse square distance relation between electrically charged bodies, etc. This is a method that was abandoned 120 years ago. I have been at it for the past 25 years.

I summarize in Sections 1 and 2 of this recently published article what happened at the beginning of the 20th century that led to the adoption of the SR kinematic theory grounded on "assumptions", instead of electromagnetics grounded on experimental data, that led to GR, also grounded on assumptions, which led to the current endless discussions. All original formal references are provided, with links to those that are directly available on the Internet:

Article Introduction to Synchronized Kinematic and Electromagnetic Mechanics

Best Regards, André

Lyudmil Antonov : " There have been many experiments that tried to disprove special or general relativity, but none of them have succeeded so far. "

Only if you're not paying attention! :) We keep discovering situations in which SR doesn't work. But every time, we move the goalposts and say, well, SR is only certified as working in flat spacetime, any relativistic violation of SR automatically means that spacetime in that situation is not flat, and therefore SR does not need to apply there.

Any experimental failure of SR is (a) initially unverified, and therefore able to be ignored, (b) then verified by more folks, but still not conclusively established, and therefore still able to be dismissed, and (c) once everyone agrees that SR fails in that situation, we have an automatic agreement that since it definitely fails, the theory should not be used in that situation, and has been used outside its correct domain of applicability. So whenever the theory fails, the failure is automatically either not to be believed, or is attributed to user-error or newbie ignorance.

Same with general relativity. One of the results one would look for if one suspected that textbook GR was insufficiently nonlinear and that relativistic acoustic metrics provided a better description of reality, would be an increased cohesiveness of large isolated rotating systems and an increased deflection of their light. We found both those things, but instead of flagging them up as being exactly what we'd expect if GR had the wrong classical equations, we invented dark matter.

Again, we moved the goal posts. SR and GR are like large corporations with government defence contracts ... they are not allowed to fail.

If you read Popper's definitions, you'll find that dark matter is an almost perfect example of what Popper called a "conventionalist stratagem", designed purely to prevent a theory from being falsified. According to Popper, a theory that calls itself scientific, but relies on invented retrospective ad-hoc explanations to prevent its falsification, is to be considered pseudoscience.

By Popper's definitions, the current status of textbook GR is "pseudoscience".

----

Oh, and by they way, has it ever occurred to you to question why GR theoretical physicists, when challenged as to whether GR is correct, always seem to bring up experimental testing rather than geometry or logic?

It's because GR 1916 is an absolute frigging disaster when it comes to logic and geometry. The only way we can get it to seem to work is by inventing auxiliary rules that allow us to selective ignore certain parts of the theory whenever they are about to invalidate other parts of the theory.

GR1916 is junk science. It's also junk logic and junk geometry. Anyone with a basic grounding in geometry and peripheral experience of GR should be able to sit down with Einstein's specifications, and in an afternoon give you a fairly long list of why the 1916 structure can't work, even as a completely abstract logical entity divorced from real-world physics.

Lyudmil Antonov : " All the experimental results are consistent with the predictions of relativity. "

Yes, but which version?

Do you even know how to start going about testing how the predictions of Einstein's GR compare to those of the logical alternative, of a general theory of relativity that's based on an acoustic metric (and which actually agrees with the general principle, unlike Einstein's) ?

If not, you're probably not qualified to even hold an opinion as to the significance of the experimental evidential support for SR and GR1916.

Agreement with the evidence is only one part of the process of experimental testing and evaluation. To do the job properly, one also has to be able to show that the agreement is significant.

To assess significance, you have to know what the competing predictions would have been if the theory was wrong. To assess the SR/GR experimental record, one has to know what the competing predictions would have been if the principle of relativity was correct, but the SR/GR1916 system was the wrong implementation of it.

Lyudmil Antonov : " Some of the famous experiments that tested relativity are: ... "

• " The Michelson-Morley experiment (1887) " ... was almost pointless. The extinction theorem tells us that the amount of air at ground level that visible light (eg sodium yellow) has to pass through to become fully dragged by the particulate medium, is something less than a meter. So of course light emitted in the Earth frame, passed through a particulate medium stationaryish in the Earth frame, and received by equipment stationary in the Earth frame, is going to report a constant speed of light in the Earth frame. It's a no-brainer.

M&M was only important because Airey had supposedly done an earlier experiment that "proved" that the Earth's motion wasn't dragging light. If matter didn't drag light to generate Newtonian-Galilean relativity, then perhaps the s.o.l. was constant in some preferred frame? M&M said that there wasn't an aether with an absolute state of motion. So relativity was back, but without light-dragging, that only left LET/SR as the last remaining option.

Unfortunately, according to our current understanding, Airey's conclusions were physically impossible, because the starlight he was monitoring should have been dragged by the Earth's co-moving envelope of air. So how did he manage an experimental proof that the starlight reaching his telescope was somehow undragged by this envelope of gas? The Airey result seems to have been junk science, and without Airey, there was no especial importance to the Michelson-Morley result.

The supposed primacy of SR over other potential versions of relativity theory is based on a foundation of bad physics and impossible experimental results.

• " The Eddington experiment (1919), which observed the bending of starlight by the Sun’s gravity during a solar eclipse and confirmed Einstein’s prediction of gravitational lensing. "

The gravitational bending of light is actually in Newton's Principia and Opticks ! The Newtonian calculations (curved space) give the same result as Einstein's 1911 lightbending prediction based on curved time. Take both into account, and update the Newtonian calculations to deal with curved space and time, doubling the amount of bending, and you get the 1916 predictions, without needing the 1916 theory.

• " The Pound-Rebka experiment (1959), which measured the gravitational redshift of light emitted by a radioactive source at different heights and verified the equivalence principle of general relativity. "

Gravitational frequency shifts in light were also a result of Newton's old defunct system. Michell described the effects in 1783, along with suggested methods for looking for spectral shifts in starlight that could tell us the surface gravitational field strength of a star. Michell also worked out the r=2M horizon radius. This is not new stuff, it was around over a century before Einstein was even born.

The equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass is not "owned" by Einstein's system, and Einstein's thing actually violates it. This realisation seems to have caused a small crisis in 1960, followed by Schild's emphatic statement of what was supposedly the majority community view, that the EP didn't have an unlimited range of applicability, and needed to be suspended in rotating-body problems. At that point, Einstein's structure was dead as a general theory of relativity. The theory's been a rotting corpse for at least sixty years.

If believe that the EP (of inertia and gravity) is fundamental,then you cannot also believe in Einstein's special theory (inertia without gravity), or Einstein's 1916 theory and modern variants (which violate the EP to save SR).

* " The Hafele-Keating experiment (1971), which flew atomic clocks around the world and detected the time dilation effects due to both special and general relativity. "

There's also a transverse redshift effect under Newtonian theory (aberration redshift). You use the relativistic aberration formula to calculate the recession redshift component of the slightly rearward-aimed ray that is deflected forwards to arrive in your transverse-aimed detector.

This is just geometry. Plus basic operational competence.

* " The Gravity Probe B (2004-2005), which used four ultra-precise gyroscopes in a satellite orbiting Earth and measured the frame-dragging and geodetic effects caused by Earth’s rotation and mass. "

Yes, gravitomagnetism. GM is Good. Unfortunately, Einstein's general theory can't properly model GM effects, because any competent study of GM has to end up concluding that SR must have the wrong Doppler relationships, and the wrong equations of motion.

If we try to model the behaviour of spacetime around a moving star, and we assume that the SR relationships are correct, then we can map the region's lightbeam geometry using the Doppler-shifted wavelengths of light from the star as "rulers".

When we do this exercise, we find that no matter how the star moves, the enclosing region always remains obstinately flat. The SR equations, derived for flat spacetime, also enforce flat spacetime. With the SR shift equations, there can be no such thing as gravitomagnetic dragging, and therefore no such thing as a general theory of relativity.

Since a metric theory has to apply precisely the same Doppler equations to all moving matter, regardless of composition or density, the maximal deviation from SR that has to apply to the complete dragging effects at a moving curvature horizon of a moving gravitationally-collapsed star, also has to apply to the region around a solitary moving hydrogen atom. Metric theory principles do not allow the luxury of different laws of physics for strong-gravity and weak-gravity scenarios. There is only no-gravity physics (SR) and full-gravity physics (non-SR).

• If the SR equations are correct, then the very concept of a general theory is impossible, and the Gravity Probe B result is wrong. On the other hand,
• If the Gravity Probe B result is correct, then we have gravitomagnetic dragging, and the SR equations must not just be wrong, and wrong universally, they must be significantly wrong, universally.

So Gravity Probe B counts as an indirect experimental disproof of the SR shift equations.

See? Finding experimental disproofs of SR is easy. People have just been trained not to see them, or to rationalise them away.

Preprint Ten Proofs of Special Relativity

Lyudmil Antonov : " For someone to say that SR and GR are incompatible with each other means that he can't understand either. "

No, it may mean that the person actually understands something about spacetime geometry.

Everyone who understands Einstein's general theory recognises that it doesn't work as designed, that it violates its own principles and design principles, and that it's not even a valid general theory. That's why the more knowledgeable GR folk refer to it as instead being a theory of covariance. As a general theory, it's self-invalidating, so they say, oh, it's not really supposed to be a general theory at all ... that naming is purely historical ...

----

This is also why some of the more knowledgeable GR folk refer to Einstein's 1916 system using terms like: "Einstein's unfinished masterpiece"

It's "unfinished" because, over a hundred years after he published the thing, nobody can get the damned thing to work, and they can't work out why.

The reason why it doesn't work is that Einstein's 1916 design specification of a general theory based on principles of dynamic spacetime and the necessary association of matter with curvature, can't also incorporate the equations of a flat theory based on fixed-geometry spacetime and matter without curvature. Flat-spacetime relativity and curved-spacetime relativity are two different classes of solution that generate two different sets of relativistic equations. You can't have both in a single system.

Einstein's specification is geometrically impossible to implement, because it incorporates two different conflicting sets of laws about how moving matter must or must not modify spacetime geometry, and those two sets of behaviours generate different equations for the same situaiton.

So the 1916 theory, and the modern textbook updated versions which claim to implement that specification, are pathological.

Pathological theories don't even need experimental testing, they are automatically classified as wrong, based on the fact that they are irrational, and on the assumption that we live in a rational universe. And in any case, you can't do proper testing of a pathological theory, because which of its conflicting predictions would you choose to test?

Do you try to verify the SR shift equations that are the foundation of GR1916 by showing experimentally that gravitomagnetic effects don't exist? Or do you try to verify the gravitational side of the theory by showing that they do exist? You can't verify both. At least one side of the theory has to be physically wrong.

If you approve of the GP-B result, then that suggests that it's the SR side of GR1916 that's faulty.

Eric Baird

You write the above at the same moment when the ripples of spacetime were mapped and this map was officially announced at a big press conference. Do you distinguish inertial from accelerated frame. Your confused thoughts only confirm my statement.

Please get acquained with the latest of the long series of experimental confirmations of the theory of relativity

https://www.space.com/gravitational-wave-background-universe-1st-detection

P.S. Light is dragged by air? Are you serious? Ha-ha-ha (in case it is a joke).

Lyudmil Antonov : " Please get acquainted with the latest of the long series of experimental confirmations of the theory of relativity "

Since you didn't seem to spot the link the last time: Preprint Ten Proofs of Special Relativity

----

Lyudmil, you still haven't understood the basis of our disagreement.

Which theory of relativity?

Newton propounded a theory of relativity in Principa and Opticks, which was wrong, because it had its lightspeed differentials back-to-front. Ritz had a theory of relativity which was wrong because it was incompatible with wave theory. Fresnel had a theory of relativistic optics in particulate media, Hertz had a relativistic theory of light-dragging, Lorentz and friends had a relativistic aether theory (which Einstein borrowed the core relationships of for SR). Mach had the beginnings of a general relativistic theory that Einstein used for GR, and at one point said that Mach's principle was one of the founding principles of GR (modern theorists usually disagree). GR1916 was a theory of relativity that nominally supported the general principle of relativity, but whose SR basis invalidated the GPoR, which meant that it wasn't a proper general theory after all. The 1916 theory was also wrong in that it explained why the universe was neither expanding or contracting, o we had a later revision of the 1916 theory, updated to support Hubble expansion. That later revision then doesn't work geometrically with some of the relationships set up in the first version, breaking spacetime geoemtry principles and creating a second schism and a new way for Einstein's system to fail. Other attempts to produce SR-based general theories turn out to be incompatible with the principle of continuity, and therefore aren't valid classical theories. Theories based on the SR-LET equations are also arguably wrong because they make physics time-symmetrical, and it's fairly obvious that in real life, there's a fairly clear human-scale arrow of time (Eddington).

There has been a whole range of different relativistic theories and principles over the years, most of which disagree with each other in some respect, and most of them have been found recognisably wrong in some regard. Einstein attempted to merge two that disagreed with each other together to produce his 1916 theory.

So when you say that experiment supports THE principle of relativity, you're using a simplified and dumbed-down narrative suggesting that there is only one theory of relativity, which is being either deliberately or inadvertently deceptive. Einstein promoted this idea because he didn't want any competition, and by defining his own systems in a way that implied that they were the only theory of relativity, he managed to stop people thinking about alternatives. It worked. Because enough people were dumb enough to fall for the trick.

Einstein was really rather clever, and really very good at hiding breaks in his own chains of logic by the clever use of linguistic tricks.

And before you waste any more time trying to explain to me how strong the case is for the principle of relativity, I should point out that I'm a relativist. Relativity Theory is What I Do. I'm arguably more of a relativist than anyone active in the GR community, because they discard the GPoR when it becomes inconvenient, and I stick to it.

I work on problems in relativistic gravitation and gravitomagnetics that current theory can't cope with. I derive and construct the necessary structures and behaviours of a true general theory, which are missing from or messed up in Einstein's attempted 1916 system and in the updates.

In the last thirty years, I've probably produced more fundamental results in relativity theory than the rest of the community put together (with the honorable exception of the "acoustic metric" guys).

So if you think that you can win this argument by convincing me that relativity is a good thing, you really haven't understood the argument that you are in the middle of. I very much agree that it's good thing. I think that the GPoR is a good thing, much more strongly than probably any other serious researcher doing GR. I just want a theoretical implementation of it that actually makes some geometrical sense. Einstein's doesn't. It's structurally amateurish. It probably needed another twenty years of work. Einstein had to finalise his system prematurely, because of the issue with Hilbert.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity_priority_dispute

Lyudmil Antonov : " P.S. Light is dragged by air? Are you serious? Ha-ha-ha (in case it is a joke). "

Perhaps you might want to read a slightly wider range of physics textbooks.

When it comes to the modelling of the transmission of light through particulate media, we have something called the Ewald-Oseen Extinction theorem:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewald-Oseen_extinction_theorem

This has been revised over the years to try to produce a "best fit" with known physics behaviour (which is partly why the math is so involved).

It's arguably "engineering". The upshot is that moving particulate media appear to drag light. Visible-spectrum (yellow) light entering a region of moving air at sea level pressure and ambient temperature is alleged to have an extinction distance of around one millimeter. Different researchers disagree as to the exact significance of the extinction distance, but it's generally held to relate to the distance that light has to penetrate the moving medium before it can be considered to be fully-dragged (some might argue that the fully-dragged distance is a multiple of the extinction distance, but whatever).

For the interstellar medium in our part of the galaxy, the extinction distance for visible light is calculated as being about two lightyears. X-rays are less affected.

If you have a problem with the extinction theorem, please take it up with the experimental physics community, as it's their equations, not mine.

-------------------------------

I do appreciate that some people prefer to interpret the dragging effect (Fizeau) as a pseudo-dragging effect ... they interpret the experimental "dragging" outcome by saying that because we know that SR is correct, we know that the light must must move between the atoms at the same speed as light in a simple vacuum, and that there can be no proximity field-effects caused by the atoms ... instead that the atoms absorb the light and reemit it afer a time-delay that depends partly on the wavelength of the light, and because the atoms move a distance between absorption and re-emission, this creates the lightspeed offsets. In this scenario, moving matter doesn't really drag light, nature merely conspires to make it look exactly as if matter is dragging light.

The trouble with this argument, when used to defend SR, is that it doesn't obviously solve anything. If we replace the non-SR "dragging" effect with a non-SR "pseudo-dragging" effect caused by absorption-emission timelags, then since this timelag mechanism isn't included as part of special relativity's description of how moving matter and light interact, SR still comes out as being wrong. Minkowski spacetime is "absolute" in the sense that it is built on the assumption that the presence and motion of matter has zero effect on the propagation of light, so that we can derive the relativistic light-geometry of a region of empty space, and when we populate the region with real particles exchanging signals, the geometry is unchanged.

With "pseudo-dragging" based on time-delays, the presence and motion of matter changes the lightbeam-geometry, partly as a function of the relative velocity of masses, and gives a velocity-dependent deviation from the Minkowski lightbeam geometry.

Since the MInkowski geometry is unavoidably "dual" with the relationships of SR, a velocity-dependent departure from Minkowski spacetime represents a velocity-dependent departure from the SR equations. At that point, SR ceases to be foundation theory for the behaviour of moving matter, and becomes a low-velocity approximation of whatever the real equations of motion are.

@Eric Baird

I respect the work that you do and that you go through untrodden paths although I don't share many of your opinions. You have a full right to publish and defend them and I apologize for the condescending tone above.

- Special Theory of Relativity (STR) predicts that an observer sees the intensity of light increasing when approaching the source: this nonsense result has never been observed.

- STR predicts that the amplitude of the field reflected by an approaching mirror increases with the speed of motion. Experiments (Bolotovskii, B. M. and S. N. Stolyarov, “Reflection of light from a moving mirror and related problems,” Sov. Phys. Usp., Vol. 32, 813, 1989) do not agree with this result of STR. Experiments agree with a direct numerical solution of electromagnetism with moving bodies, where Lorentz Transformations are not used: https://www.jpier.org/issues/volume.html?paper=23041109.

- The STR transverse Doppler effect has never been measured directly. Jennison and Davies (1974, 1975) attempted to measure the transverse Doppler effect from a rotating mirror, they got a null result. With the advancement of technology, Thim (2003) tried to measure accurately the Doppler shift of microwave reflected from a transversely moving/rotating antennas but also reported absence of transverse Doppler shift.

- The Sagnac effect cannot be explained rigorously within STR. Some relativists claim that STR does not hold for Sagnac effect because of rotatory motion. However, a linear Sagnac-like effect was demonstrated experimentally: R. Wang, Y. Zheng, A. Yao, and D. Langley, “Modified sagnac experiment for measuring travel-time difference between counter-propagating light beams in a uniformly moving fiber,” Physics Letters A, vol. 312, no. 1-2, pp. 7–10, 2003. The Sagnac effect, which is used in GPS, rules out STR.

- Michelson-Morley experiment plus Michelson-Gale experiment agree with an aether that follows the Earth in its orbit around the sun like the atmosphere, but does not rotate with Earth which rotates around its own axis.

- Lorentz didn’t like the principle of an aether that would be entrained by Earth because, according to him, this would cancel stellar aberration effect. However, his length contraction hypothesis has also an effect on stellar aberration. It is simpler to replace this length contraction hypothesis by an aether drag. This makes the Lorentz Transformations useless.

- Voigt is the inventor of Lorentz Transformations. He made a change of variables in order to change the form of the convective wave equation (for simplification). He changed the independent variables of space and time in a partial differential equation which represents the pressure of a sound wave or the transverse electromagnetic wave. In principle, space and time variables in such partial differential equation are inputs, the result is the pressure of the sound wave or the transverse electromagnetic wave as a function of space and time. STR made the variables of space and time the outputs of the problem. This is nonsense.

- A speed of light constant for all observers is total nonsense and will never be demonstrated in a simulation showing, for example, multiple observers moving at different speeds.

- The terms "relative", "relatively", "relative speed", "relative motion", "absolute motion" can be understood by everyone. On the other hand, "relativity" and "relativistic" do not have clear meaning in physics and should be abandoned. No one can define what really "relativity" is, because relativity does not mean anything. These words just bring confusion and endless metaphysical and useless debates.

- GTR is based on the space-time concept, which is based on STR interpretation of Lorentz Transformations. In Voigt and Lorentz works, Lorentz Transformations are auxiliary variables without any physical meaning: there is no any confusion with their points of view. STR considers Lorentz Transformations has fundamental physical laws: this is nonsense. Since GTR is also based on this nonsense, it is not worth studying GTR.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/One_can_see_that_Special_Relativity_and_General_Relativity_are_in_error_from_the_below_wiki_figure2

Posted this-Preprint Yet further Animadversions upon the wiki figure purporting t...