IF JOHN MICHELL HAD KNOWN SPECIAL RELATIVITY

[Pentcho Valev]

http://admin.wadsworth.com/resource_uploads/static_resources/0534493394/4891/Ch01-Essay.pdf
Clifford Will: "The first glimmerings of the black hole idea date to
the 18th century, in the writings of a British amateur astronomer, the
Reverend John Michell. Reasoning on the basis of the corpuscular
theory that light would be attracted by gravity, he noted that the
speed of light emitted from the surface of a massive body would be
reduced [that is, light would be redshifted] by the time the light was
very far from the source. (Michell of course did not know special
relativity.)"

http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/research/gr/members/gibbons/partiipublic-2006.pdf
Gary W. Gibbons FRS: "It is interesting to analyze the problem using
the Ballistic Theory according to which energy is also conserved. The
speed of the 'light particles' which have to climb up the
gravitational potential well is reduced. Thus according to the
Ballistic Theory, light coming from different sources will have
different speeds. In fact in 1784 John Michell predicted precisely
this would happen and suggested an experiment with a prism to check
it. But his prediction contradicts the observed fact (which we use
when setting up Special Relativity) that the speed of light received
here on earth is universal and independent of its source."

http://www.hawking.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=64&Itemid=66
Stephen Hawking: "Interestingly enough, Laplace himself wrote a paper
in 1799 on how some stars could have a gravitational field so strong
that light could not escape, but would be dragged back onto the star.
He even calculated that a star of the same density as the Sun, but two
hundred and fifty times the size, would have this property. But
although Laplace may not have realised it, the same idea had been put
forward 16 years earlier by a Cambridge man, John Mitchell, in a paper
in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Both Mitchell
and Laplace thought of light as consisting of particles, rather like
cannon balls, that could be slowed down by gravity, and made to fall
back on the star. But a famous experiment, carried out by two
Americans, Michelson and Morley in 1887, showed that light always
travelled at a speed of one hundred and eighty six thousand miles a
second, no matter where it came from. How then could gravity slow down
light, and make it fall back."

Stephen Hawking's idea that special relativity and the Michelson-
Morley experiment somehow refute the variability of the speed of light
in a gravitational field established by Newton's emission theory of
light is perhaps the silliest idea ever advanced in Einsteiniana. In
Einstein's general relativity the speed of light has always been
variable in a gravitational field. Initially this variability
coincided with the one predicted by the emission theory, then in 1915,
in the final version of general relativity, Einstein made the speed of
light even more variable:

http://www.relativitybook.com/resources/Einstein_gravity.html
Albert Einstein 1911: "If we call the velocity of light at the origin
of co-ordinates c0, then the velocity of light c at a place with the
gravitation potential phi will be given by the relation c=c0(1+phi/
c^2)."

http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s6-01/6-01.htm
"Around 1911 Einstein proposed to incorporate gravitation into a
modified version of special relativity by allowing the speed of light
to vary as a scalar from place to place in Euclidean space as a
function of the gravitational potential. This "scalar c field" is
remarkably similar to a simple refractive medium, in which the speed
of light varies as a function of the density. Fermat's principle of
least time can then be applied to define the paths of light rays as
geodesics in the spacetime manifold (as discussed in Section 8.4).
Specifically, Einstein wrote in 1911 that the speed of light at a
place with the gravitational potential phi would be c(1+phi/c^2),
where c is the nominal speed of light in the absence of gravity. In
geometrical units we define c=1, so Einstein's 1911 formula can be
written simply as c'=1+phi."

http://www.speed-light.info/speed_of_light_variable.htm
"Einstein wrote this paper in 1911 in German. It predated the full
formal development of general relativity by about four years. You can
find an English translation of this paper in the Dover book 'The
Principle of Relativity' beginning on page 99; you will find in
section 3 of that paper Einstein's derivation of the variable speed of
light in a gravitational potential, eqn (3). The result is:
c'=c0(1+phi/c^2) where phi is the gravitational potential relative to
the point where the speed of light co is measured......You can find a
more sophisticated derivation later by Einstein (1955) from the full
theory of general relativity in the weak field approximation....For
the 1955 results but not in coordinates see page 93, eqn (6.28):
c(r)=[1+2phi(r)/c^2]c. Namely the 1955 approximation shows a variation
in km/sec twice as much as first predicted in 1911."

http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s6-01/6-01.htm
"In geometrical units we define c_0 = 1, so Einstein's 1911 formula
can be written simply as c=1+phi. However, this formula for the speed
of light (not to mention this whole approach to gravity) turned out to
be incorrect, as Einstein realized during the years leading up to 1915
and the completion of the general theory. In fact, the general theory
of relativity doesn't give any equation for the speed of light at a
particular location, because the effect of gravity cannot be
represented by a simple scalar field of c values. Instead, the "speed
of light" at a each point depends on the direction of the light ray
through that point, as well as on the choice of coordinate systems, so
we can't generally talk about the value of c at a given point in a non-
vanishing gravitational field. However, if we consider just radial
light rays near a spherically symmetrical (and non- rotating) mass,
and if we agree to use a specific set of coordinates, namely those in
which the metric coefficients are independent of t, then we can read a
formula analogous to Einstein's 1911 formula directly from the
Schwarzschild metric. (...) In the Newtonian limit the classical
gravitational potential at a distance r from mass m is phi=-m/r, so if
we let c_r = dr/dt denote the radial speed of light in Schwarzschild
coordinates, we have c_r =1+2phi, which corresponds to Einstein's 1911
equation, except that we have a factor of 2 instead of 1 on the
potential term."

Can the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment be used against
Newton's emission theory of light? There can be nothing sillier than
that:

http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/companion.doc
John Norton: "These efforts were long misled by an exaggeration of the
importance of one experiment, the Michelson-Morley experiment, even
though Einstein later had trouble recalling if he even knew of the
experiment prior to his 1905 paper. This one experiment, in isolation,
has little force. Its null result happened to be fully compatible with
Newton's own emission theory of light. Located in the context of late
19th century electrodynamics when ether-based, wave theories of light
predominated, however, it presented a serious problem that exercised
the greatest theoretician of the day."

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/1743/2/Norton.pdf
John Norton: "In addition to his work as editor of the Einstein papers
in finding source material, Stachel assembled the many small clues
that reveal Einstein's serious consideration of an emission theory of
light; and he gave us the crucial insight that Einstein regarded the
Michelson-Morley experiment as evidence for the principle of
relativity, whereas later writers almost universally use it as support
for the light postulate of special relativity. Even today, this point
needs emphasis. The Michelson-Morley experiment is fully compatible
with an emission theory of light that CONTRADICTS THE LIGHT
POSTULATE."

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[Pentcho Valev]

If the speed of light is variable as predicted by Newton's emission
theory of light, why did experiments fail to refute Einstein's 1905
false constant-speed-of-light postulate? Imre Lakatos has given the
answer:

http://bertie.ccsu.edu/naturesci/PhilSci/Lakatos.html
"Lakatos distinguished between two parts of a scientific theory: its
"hard core" which contains its basic assumptions (or axioms, when set
out formally and explicitly), and its "protective belt", a surrounding
defensive set of "ad hoc" (produced for the occasion) hypotheses.
(...) In Lakatos' model, we have to explicitly take into account the
"ad hoc hypotheses" which serve as the protective belt. The protective
belt serves to deflect "refuting" propositions from the core
assumptions..."

In the absence of any protective belt, the null result of the
Michelson-Morley experiment UNEQUIVOCALLY refutes the assumption that
the speed of light is independent of the speed of the light source
(Einstein's 1905 light postulate) and confirms the antithesis, c'=c+v,
one of the fundamental equations of Newton's emission theory of light.
Already the first element of the protective belt - the ad hoc length-
contraction hypothesis advanced by Fitzgerald and Lorentz - reversed
the situation: the Michelson-Morley experiment started to support the
assumption that the speed of light is independent of the speed of the
light source.

In the presence of a gravitational field, the protective belt is
called "gravitational time dilation". However in this case the
VARIABLE speed of light predicted by Newton's emission theory of light
cannot be camouflaged so efficiently as in the field-free situation:

A light source on top of a tower of height h emits light with
frequency f and speed c (relative to the source). The light reaches an
observer on the ground with frequency f' and speed c' (relative to the
observer).

Equivalently, a light source at the front end of an accelerating
rocket of length h and accelaration g emits light with frequency f and
speed c (relative to the source). The light reaches an observer at the
back end with frequency f' and speed c' (relative to the observer).

Consider equations (13.2) on p. 3 in David Morin's text:

http://student.fizika.org/~jsisko/Knjige/Klasicna%20Mehanika/David%20Morin/CH13.PDF
f' = f(1 + v/c) = f(1 + gh/c^2) (13.2)

where v is the relative speed of the light source (at the moment of
emission) and the observer (at the moment of reception) in the rocket
scenario. By combining these equations with:

(frequency) = (speed of light)/(wavelength)

we obtain THE FUNDAMENTAL EQUATIONS OF NEWTON'S EMISSION THEORY OF
LIGHT:

c' = c + v = c(1 + gh/c^2)

which CONTRADICT EINSTEIN'S 1905 FALSE CONSTANT-SPEED-OF-LIGHT
POSTULATE. The fundamental equations of the emission theory can also
be obtained from Paul Fendley's text:

http://rockpile.phys.virginia.edu/mod04/mod34.pdf
Paul Fendley: "An experiment to test this idea was done in the early
'60s by Pound and Rebka in a tower 20 feet from where my office was as
a graduate student. First consider light shined downward in a freely
falling elevator of height h. Inside the elevator, we're a happy
inertial frame. We say it takes time t=h/c to hit the bottom. We also
say that there's no Doppler shift of the frequency of the light. But
how does this look from the ground? Say the light beam was emitted
just as the elevator was released into free fall (i.e. at zero
velocity). By the time the light hits the bottom of the elevator, it
is accelerated to some velocity v. Since light travels so fast, the
elevator isn't traveling very fast when the light hits the bottom, so
v is pretty small, and we can use non-relativistic formulas for this
(but not the light!). We thus simply have v=gt=gh/c. Now let's see
what this does to the frequency of the light. We know that even
without special relativity, observers moving at different velocities
measure different frequencies. (This is the reason the pitch of an
ambulance changes as it passes you it doesn't change if you're on the
ambulance). This is called the Doppler shift, and for small relative
velocity v it is easy to show that the frequency shifts from f to f(1
+ v/c) (it goes up heading toward you, down away from you). There are
relativistic corrections, but these are negligible here. Now back to
our experiment. In the freely-falling elevator, we're inertial and
measure the same frequency f at top and bottom. Now to the earth
frame. When the light beam is emitted, the elevator is at rest, so
earth and elevator agree the frequency is f. But when it hits the
bottom, the elevator is moving at velocity v=gh/c with respect to the
earth, so earth and elevator must measure different frequencies. In
the elevator, we know that the frequency is still f, so on the ground
the frequency
f' = f(1 + v/c) = f(1 + gh/c^2)
On the earth, we interpret this as meaning that not only does gravity
bend light, but changes its frequency as well."

By combining the above equations with the formula:

(frequency) = (speed of light)/(wavelength)

one obtains, again, THE FUNDAMENTAL EQUATIONS OF NEWTON'S EMISSION
THEORY OF LIGHT:

c' = c + v = c(1 + gh/c^2)

which CONTRADICT EINSTEIN'S 1905 FALSE CONSTANT-SPEED-OF-LIGHT
POSTULATE.

The Pound-Rebka experiment, just like the Michelson-Morley experiment
in the absence of a protective belt, UNEQUIVOCALLY confirms THE
FUNDAMENTAL EQUATIONS OF NEWTON'S EMISSION THEORY OF LIGHT and refutes
EINSTEIN'S 1905 FALSE CONSTANT-SPEED-OF-LIGHT POSTULATE:

http://student.fizika.org/~jsisko/Knjige/Klasicna%20Mehanika/David%20Morin/CH13.PDF
David Morin (p. 4): "This GR time-dilation effect was first measured
at Harvard by Pound and Rebka in 1960. They sent gamma rays up a 20m
tower and measured the redshift (that is, the decrease in frequency)
at the top. This was a notable feat indeed, considering that they were
able to measure a frequency shift of gh/c^2 (which is only a few parts
in 10^15) to within 1% accuracy."

David Morin's text referred to above reappears as Chapter 14 in:

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~djmorin/book.html
Introduction to Classical Mechanics With Problems and Solutions, David
Morin, Cambridge University Press

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[Pentcho Valev]

Brian Cox: "Light falls at the same rate in a gravitational field as
everything else."

A javelin graduated in centimeters is thrown downwards from the top of
a tower of height h. Initially the centimeter marks pass an observer
at the top of the tower with frequency f, speed s and "wavelength" L
(1cm):

f = s/L

What are the frequency f', speed s' and "wavelength" L' as measured by
an observer on the ground? Newton's theory gives a straightforward
answer (it is assumed that s'>>s'-s):

f' = f(1+gh/s^2) = (s+v)/L
s' = s(1+gh/s^2) = s+v
L' = L

where v=s'-s is the increase in speed.

Then the observer at the top of the tower emits light towards the
ground. Relative to this observer, the light has frequency f, speed c
and wavelength L:

f = c/L

What are the frequency f', speed c' and wavelength L' as measured by
an observer on the ground? Newton's emission theory of light gives a
straightforward answer again:

f' = f(1+gh/c^2) = (c+v)/L
c' = c(1+gh/c^2) = c+v
L' = L

where v=c'-c is the increase in speed. The Pound-Rebka experiment
confirms the predictions of Newton's emission theory of light:

http://student.fizika.org/~jsisko/Knjige/Klasicna%20Mehanika/David%20Morin/CH13.PDF
David Morin (p. 4): "This GR time-dilation effect was first measured
at Harvard by Pound and Rebka in 1960. They sent gamma rays up a 20m
tower and measured the redshift (that is, the decrease in frequency)
at the top. This was a notable feat indeed, considering that they were
able to measure a frequency shift of gh/c^2 (which is only a few parts
in 10^15) to within 1% accuracy."

David Morin's text referred to above reappears as Chapter 14 in:

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~djmorin/book.html
Introduction to Classical Mechanics With Problems and Solutions, David
Morin, Cambridge University Press

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[Pentcho Valev]

http://www.phys.uconn.edu/~gibson/Notes/Section6_3/Sec6_3.htm
Professor George N. Gibson, University of Connecticut: "However, if
either the source or the observer is moving, things change. This is
called the Doppler effect. (...) To understand the moving observer,
imagine you are in a motorboat on the ocean. If you are not moving,
the boat will bob up and down with a certain frequency determined by
the ocean waves coming in. However, imagine that you are moving into
the waves fairly quickly. You will find that you bob up and down more
rapidly, because you hit the crests of the waves sooner than if you
were not moving. So, the frequency of the waves appears to be higher
to you than if you were not moving. Notice, THE WAVES THEMSELVES HAVE
NOT CHANGED, only your experience of them. Nevertheless, you would say
that the frequency has increased. Now imagine that you are returning
to shore, and so you are traveling in the same direction as the waves.
In this case, the waves may still overtake you, but AT A MUCH SLOWER
RATE - you will bob up and down more slowly. In fact, if you travel
with exactly the same speed as the waves, you will not bob up and down
at all. The same thing is true for sound waves, or ANY OTHER WAVES. If
you are moving into a wave, its frequency will appear to you to be
higher, while if you are traveling in the same direction as the waves,
their frequency will appear to be lower. The formula for the frequency
that the observer will detect depends on the speed of the observer -
the larger the speed the greater the effect. If we call the speed of
the observer, Vo, the frequency the observer detects will be:
f'=f(1+Vo/Vwave). Here, f is the original frequency and Vwave is the
speed of the wave."

Clearly the speed of the waves relative to the observer VARIES with
the speed of the observer in accordance with the equation:

V' = Vwave + Vo

which is in fact the fundamental equation of Newton's emission theory
of light:

c' = c + v

The moving observer scenario refutes Einstein's special relativity but
does not discriminate between Newton's emission theory of light and
some ether-based theories:

http://www.eng.uwi.tt/depts/elec/staff/sgift/special_relativity.pdf
The Invalidation of a Sacred Principle of Modern Physics
Stephan J.G. Gift
"For a stationary observer O, the stationary light source S emits
light at speed c, wavelength Lo, and frequency Fo given by Fo=c/Lo. If
the observer moves toward S at speed v, then again based on classical
analysis, the speed of light relative to the moving observer is (c +
v) and not c as required by Einstein's law of light propagation. Hence
the observer intercepts wave-fronts of light at a frequency fA, which
is higher than Fo, as is observed, and is given by fA = (c+v)/Lo > Fo.
(...) In light of this elementary result invalidating STR, it is
difficult to understand why this invalid theory has been (and
continues to be) accepted for the past 100 years."

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[Pentcho Valev]

Education in Einsteiniana's schizophrenic world: It is "absolutely
true" that, in a gravitational field, the speed of light is variable,
constant and (Steve Carlip) both variable and constant:

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae13.cfm
"So, it is absolutely true that the speed of light is not constant in
a gravitational field [which, by the equivalence principle, applies as
well to accelerating (non-inertial) frames of reference]. If this were
not so, there would be no bending of light by the gravitational field
of stars....Indeed, this is exactly how Einstein did the calculation
in: 'On the Influence of Gravitation on the Propagation of Light,'
Annalen der Physik, 35, 1911. which predated the full formal
development of general relativity by about four years. This paper is
widely available in English. You can find a copy beginning on page 99
of the Dover book 'The Principle of Relativity.' You will find in
section 3 of that paper, Einstein's derivation of the (variable) speed
of light in a gravitational potential, eqn (3). The result is,
c' = c0 ( 1 + V / c^2 )
where V is the gravitational potential relative to the point where the
speed of light c0 is measured."

http://www.blazelabs.com/f-g-gcont.asp
"So, faced with this evidence most readers must be wondering why we
learn about the importance of the constancy of speed of light. Did
Einstein miss this? Sometimes I find out that what's written in our
textbooks is just a biased version taken from the original work, so
after searching within the original text of the theory of GR by
Einstein, I found this quote: "In the second place our result shows
that, according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the
constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of
the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity
and to which we have already frequently referred, cannot claim any
unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of light can only take place
when the velocity of propagation of light varies with position. Now we
might think that as a consequence of this, the special theory of
relativity and with it the whole theory of relativity would be laid in
the dust. But in reality this is not the case. We can only conclude
that the special theory of relativity cannot claim an unlimited domain
of validity ; its results hold only so long as we are able to
disregard the influences of gravitational fields on the phenomena
(e.g. of light)." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955) - The General Theory
of Relativity: Chapter 22 - A Few Inferences from the General
Principle of Relativity-. Today we find that since the Special Theory
of Relativity unfortunately became part of the so called mainstream
science, it is considered a sacrilege to even suggest that the speed
of light be anything other than a constant. This is somewhat
surprising since even Einstein himself suggested in a paper "On the
Influence of Gravitation on the Propagation of Light," Annalen der
Physik, 35, 1911, that the speed of light might vary with the
gravitational potential. Indeed, the variation of the speed of light
in a vacuum or space is explicitly shown in Einstein's calculation for
the angle at which light should bend upon the influence of gravity.
One can find his calculation in his paper. The result is c'=c(1+V/c^2)
where V is the gravitational potential relative to the point where the
measurement is taken. 1+V/c^2 is also known as the GRAVITATIONAL
REDSHIFT FACTOR."

http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553380168
Stephen Hawking, "A Brief History of Time", Chapter 6:
"Under the theory that light is made up of waves, it was not clear how
it would respond to gravity. But if light is composed of particles,
one might expect them to be affected by gravity in the same way that
cannonballs, rockets, and planets are.....In fact, it is not really
consistent to treat light like cannonballs in Newton's theory of
gravity because the speed of light is fixed. (A cannonball fired
upward from the earth will be slowed down by gravity and will
eventually stop and fall back; a photon, however, must continue upward
at a constant speed...)"

http://www.hawking.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=64&Itemid=66
Stephen Hawking: "Interestingly enough, Laplace himself wrote a paper
in 1799 on how some stars could have a gravitational field so strong
that light could not escape, but would be dragged back onto the star.
He even calculated that a star of the same density as the Sun, but two
hundred and fifty times the size, would have this property. But
although Laplace may not have realised it, the same idea had been put
forward 16 years earlier by a Cambridge man, John Mitchell, in a paper
in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Both Mitchell
and Laplace thought of light as consisting of particles, rather like
cannon balls, that could be slowed down by gravity, and made to fall
back on the star. But a famous experiment, carried out by two
Americans, Michelson and Morley in 1887, showed that light always
travelled at a speed of one hundred and eighty six thousand miles a
second, no matter where it came from. How then could gravity slow down
light, and make it fall back."

http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_sp_gr.html
"Is light affected by gravity? If so, how can the speed of light be
constant? Wouldn't the light coming off of the Sun be slower than the
light we make here? If not, why doesn't light escape a black hole?
Yes, light is affected by gravity, but not in its speed. General
Relativity (our best guess as to how the Universe works) gives two
effects of gravity on light. It can bend light (which includes effects
such as gravitational lensing), and it can change the energy of light.
But it changes the energy by shifting the frequency of the light
(gravitational redshift) not by changing light speed. Gravity bends
light by warping space so that what the light beam sees as "straight"
is not straight to an outside observer. The speed of light is still
constant." Dr. Eric Christian

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/speed_of_light.html
Steve Carlip: "Einstein went on to discover a more general theory of
relativity which explained gravity in terms of curved spacetime, and
he talked about the speed of light changing in this new theory. In the
1920 book "Relativity: the special and general theory" he wrote:
". . . according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the
constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of
the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity
[. . .] cannot claim any unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of
light can only take place when the velocity of propagation of light
varies with position." Since Einstein talks of velocity (a vector
quantity: speed with direction) rather than speed alone, it is not
clear that he meant the speed will change, but the reference to
special relativity suggests that he did mean so. THIS INTERPRETATION
IS PERFECTLY VALID AND MAKES GOOD PHYSICAL SENSE, BUT A MORE MODERN
INTERPRETATION IS THAT THE SPEED OF LIGHT IS CONSTANT in general
relativity."

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[Pentcho Valev]

http://focus.aps.org/story/v16/st1
"Imagine a pulse of light emitted downward from the top of a cliff
just as a diver jumps. By the time the light reaches the ground, the
diver will have gained speed and will regard a detector stationed on
the ground as moving upward. According to the diver, the light source
was stationary when it emitted the pulse, but the detector is racing
upwards toward the light pulse at the moment of detection. So the
detector should see the light's frequency increased by the Doppler
effect."

Should the detector see the light's speed increased as well?
Einsteinians?

http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/1984-17
George Orwell: "Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as
though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It
includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive
logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are
inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of
thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction.
Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity."

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com

[Pentcho Valev]

In Einsteiniana's schizophrenic world, "the higher energy of the
photon after it falls can be equivalently ascribed to the slower
running of clocks deeper in the gravitational potential well":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity
"Experimental verification of gravitational redshift using terrestrial
sources took several decades, because it is difficult to find clocks
(to measure time dilation) or sources of electromagnetic radiation (to
measure redshift) with a frequency that is known well enough that the
effect can be accurately measured. It was confirmed experimentally for
the first time in 1960 using measurements of the change in wavelength
of gamma-ray photons generated with the Mössbauer effect, which
generates radiation with a very narrow line width. The experiment,
performed by Pound and Rebka and later improved by Pound and Snyder,
is called the Pound-Rebka experiment. The accuracy of the gamma-ray
measurements was typically 1%. The blueshift of a falling photon can
be found by assuming it has an equivalent mass based on its frequency
E = hf (where h is Planck's constant) along with E = mc2, a result of
special relativity. Such simple derivations ignore the fact that in
general relativity the experiment compares clock rates, rather than
energies. In other words, the "higher energy" of the photon after it
falls can be equivalently ascribed to the slower running of clocks
deeper in the gravitational potential well."

This ascription of the higher energy of the photon to the slower
running of clocks is extremely exciting for believers. Any time
Einsteiniana's high priests convert energy into clock rate, believers
fiercely sing "Divine Einstein" and "Yes we all believe in relativity,
relativity, relativity". In the end the ecstasy gets uncontrollable:
believers tumble to the floor, start tearing their clothes and go into
convulsions.

Pentcho Valev
***@yahoo.com