Claimed OU circuit of Rosemary Ainslie

[Rosemary Ainslie]

Rosemary:

How come seemingly "nobody" saw this?

MileHigh

because we don't have your IQ. 

But here's my take.  Find out the value of those 'stresses'?  Maybe he accounted for the distortion?  And it doesn't entirely negate the verdict surely.  Just that he possibly needs to check the stability of the equipment at the vertical angle.  And who knows MileHigh - maybe he's done this.  I'm going to write to him in any event and I'll send him your comments.  It'll be interesting to see if he'll answer

I've been looking out for you all night.  A long wait - it's now 3 am here - at the back end of this dark continent.  And I see you're off line again.  How exasperating.

edit.  Actually I may have the answer.  It's in the evident consistency of the overall interference pattern at all angles.  If the apparatus was subject to distortion there would be compelementary distortions rather than variations as it turns through 360 degrees.  It would reflect in some distortion of the actual pattern - surely?

BTW - I referenced your objections and posted my counter on EF.com. 

[tagor]

How come seemingly "nobody" saw this?

MileHigh

Yes !!

in this experiment :
Fundamental Physics: High precision tests of Special and General Relativity


the table is 1 tonne granit !! ( 1000kg )

[Harvey]

Rosemary:

The problem is that he has the support arms for the setup bolted directly to the slab of aluminum that is his mini optical table.  When the setup rotates horizontally, this is a direction that is orthogonal to the gravity field and therefore the setup is stable and the stresses on it due to gravity are constant and unchanging.  When the setup rotates vertically, now the setup is experiencing constantly changing mechanical stresses because the gravity field is in constant motion relative to the device itself.  For example, the two long metal struts will experience alternating longitudinal compression and tension as the device makes one full turn.

All of these stresses are making the mini optical table deform like a piece of rubber as the device rotates vertically.  What's been bolted down to the mini optical table?  An interferometer that can measure distance changes that are a fraction of a wavelength of light.

Feel free to copy/paste this into the thread on EF started by Aaron about this subject.

The "craziness" is this man bolting the metal struts to the optical table itself, instead of bolting the struts to some sort of base, and then mounting the optical table to the base via Styrofoam or something in order to stop any deformation of the base being coupled to the optical table.  On top of that, I still am not sure if that would be perfect.  He may need to use a piece of real optical table material for this sensitive experiment - a honeycombed aluminum structure that is super rigid and very light that would be guaranteed to deform much much less than a single wavelength of light as it rotated through the gravity field.

These kinds of glaring errors freak me out sometimes.  They are so outrageous that they turn the experimenter into a peddler of junk science.  It all goes back to the qualification process.  If this guy could make such a humongous and stupid mistake, then he is either a con artist, or you should discount everything that he states because he has absolutely zero credibility.

How come seemingly "nobody" saw this?

MileHigh

If this had anything to do with the interference propagation then it would maximize when the arms are at 90° increments to the earths surface. But instead the maximum is when the arms are 45° to the earths surface. But at least your thinking 

[hoptoad]

If this had anything to do with the interference propagation then it would maximize when the arms are at 90° increments to the earths surface. But instead the maximum is when the arms are 45° to the earths surface. But at least your thinking 

Yes, the 45 degrees rather than 90 degrees does create an intrigue. Enough for me to wish for another replication of the experiment with utmost importance placed upon material rigidity and thus optical fidelity through all angles of motion.

If the same/similar results were obtained, many far reaching questions will follow.

[MileHigh]

Rosemary,

Thanks for the compliment but I think that my science education and decent analytical abilities helped me arrive at my conclusion more than any other factors.

But here's my take.  Find out the value of those 'stresses'?  Maybe he accounted for the distortion?  And it doesn't entirely negate the verdict surely.  Just that he possibly needs to check the stability of the equipment at the vertical angle.  And who knows MileHigh - maybe he's done this.  I'm going to write to him in any event and I'll send him your comments.  It'll be interesting to see if he'll answer

He can't account for the distortion.  The interferometer itself is recording the distortion of the rectangular piece of aluminum.

This is is pretty useful link:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HBASE/permot3.html

His results are completely negated because his apparatus is incorrectly designed.

Actually I may have the answer.  It's in the evident consistency of the overall interference pattern at all angles.  If the apparatus was subject to distortion there would be compelementary distortions rather than variations as it turns through 360 degrees.  It would reflect in some distortion of the actual pattern - surely?

I am not sure exactly what you mean here but when I looked at the clip the interferometer pattern's movement suggested that the distortion of the block of aluminium roughly followed a sinusoidal pattern, which is a reasonable expectation considering the apparatus is being rotated in a circle.

Harvey suggested that the maximum displacement in the interferometer pattern was at 45 degrees instead of where it "should" be, at 90 degrees.  I am not going to look at the clip again but I did not see any clear indication that the device was at 45 degrees for the maximum displacement.  Was Harvey extrapolating the 45 degrees from looking at the background when the camera was rotating?

On top of that, how do you know the stress will be at a maximum at 90 degrees?  I am not knowledgeable enough to make that call.  The only thing that I know with 100% certainty is that the block of aluminum is deforming while the apparatus turns vertically and that's what the interferometer has to be measuring.  In my opinion it is a huge mistake to assume that the maximum distortion would occur at 90 degrees, I don't think anybody here reading this has enough mechanical engineering knowledge to make that call.

It is easy to measure any warping of the platform at any angle to see if this is the case but I doubt it.

Not to pick on Aaron but that statement is completely wrong.  It's impossible to measure the warping of the platform at the scale we are talking about here unless you use an interferometer.  To me this says that Aaron's understanding of mechanically related issues is limited.  I am qualifying again.

Here is my frustration in a nutshell:  We all know that metal is flexible.  We know that bridges and buildings and airplanes bend and flex in the wind.  We have all seen train track rails flex as a train passes over them.  Therefore we should all intuitively know that a small block of aluminium will also flex under stress, but only a very small amount on a microscopic scale.  It is simple deductive reasoning.

Just for fun, a somewhat related example:  Imagine you have a piece of wire attached to two points that are one meter apart horizontally.  You want the wire to be perfectly straight so you start to pull on one of the attachment points (the other attachment point is fixed) to put tension in the wire to make it perfectly straight and horizontal.

How much tension do you have put in the wire to make it perfectly straight?

The answer is that you simply can't make the wire perfectly straight.  The wire will always break before you can get it perfectly straight.

The only way for the wire to become perfectly straight would be for the wire to be infinitely strong and to put infinite tension on it.

Some people may be consciously or unconsciously competent with respect to the above question and give the correct answer.  Some people may have taken Physics 101 and can give you the correct answer.

MileHigh