Re: Teaching logic is urgent (the only reasonable transformatio

[Stephen Speicher <sjs@COMPBIO.CALTECH.EDU>]

On Fri, 6 Jun 2003, pvalev wrote:
> Let me make a seemingly pompous statement here. Although I have
> not read enough about performed experiments, I am sure the
> principle, in its claim that the speed of light is independent
> of the speed of the observer, has NEVER been tested.

Nonsense. There are many such experiments.  For instance, the
1932 Kennedy-Thorndike interferometer experiment [1] excluded any
velocity dependence of an observer instantaneously at rest in the
lab inertial frame.  More recently, in 1990 Hils and Hall [2]
improved on the Kennedy-Thorndike technique utilizing a laser
locked to a reference line. No variation associated with an
instantaneous observer was found, to 1 part in 2x10^(-13).

[1] R.J. Kennedy and E.M. Thorndike, "Experimental Establishment
of the Relativity of Time," _Physical Review_, 42, pp. 400-418,
1932

[2] D. Hils and J.L. Hall, "Improved Kennedy-Thorndike Experiment
to Test Special Relativity," _Physical Review Letters_, 64, pp.
1697-1700, 1990.

--
Stephen
sjs@compbio.caltech.edu

Ignorance is just a placeholder for knowledge.

Printed using 100% recycled electrons.
-----------------------------------------------------------